Ross Mayfield and Kim Polese push Enterprise 2.0

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Don Tapscott’s presentation at Enterprise 2.0 was followed by rapid fire presentations by Ross Mayfield, CEO of Socialtext, Kim Polese, CEO of SpikeSource along with Joe Schueller, Innovation Manager of Procter & Gamble Global Business Services.

Ross Mayfield:

Complexity is in th social network. Vendors tried to put it in the software. Social Software keeps complexity in the social network, where it belongs, by only encoding simple rules.

Mayfield sees a power law of participation applied to social software: all people may engage in the basic tasks of reading, favoriting, tagging and commenting, but very few will climb the curve of participation to write, refactor, collaborate, moderate or lead.

By opening our systems to participation, people will find their appropriate level of participation.

So, what to Wiki? First, effective collaboration requires a goal.

Apply it to small group communication. Create a living Intranet. See what happens when people have access to the edit button.

A good place to start might be the creation of a global glossary, FAQs, How-tos to capture the language, practices and wisdom of the people who “do” within your organization.

Apply the Wiki approach to Processes. Think about a help desk. Their task is exception handling. A Wiki is a great means to capture both the experience and the wisdom in identifying and handling these exceptions. If the entire company contributes answers, the full expertise of the company will generate solutions.

Kim Polese

Gartner suggests that collaboration technologies will be widely adopted within five years.

Enterprises do not want point solutions. They want integrated or Suite solutions.SpikeSource has developed a product called SuiteTwo, which integrates a stack of social software into one Enterprise 2.0 solution.

Don Tapscott talks about Wikinomics & Enterprise 2.0

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Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics, delivered the afternoon keynote at Enterprise 2.0.

Don TapscottThe idea that there is a New Enterprise has been around for a while. It is based on the notion of an open networked enterprise, not a closed hierarchy. Tapscott wrote about this in his 1992 book, Paradigm Shift. “Nothing like and idea whose time has come.”

Tapscott see four drivers of change:

Web 2.0

The new Web is based on XML, a standard not for presentation, but for computation. The Web is becoming a giant computer and it’s enriched for services.

The Net Generation

Our children are the first generation to grow up digital. They have no fear of technology because to them technology is like the air. It’s all around and it’s just there.

This is the first time in history that children are an authority on something important. And this has led to a situation in which we don’t have a generation gap, but instead have a generation “lap.” And the kids are lapping their parents.

The Social Revolution

This flows from the interaction of Web 2.0 and the Net Generation.

MySpace has eclipsed Mtv. Craig’s List has eclipsed Monster.com. Flickr overwhelmed Webshots.

They are all tapping into people’s instinct to self-organize.

The Economic Revolution

The dot com bubble is being followed by a period in which the real value, the workable solutions and the viable companies are driving an economic revolution. Consider the digital conglomerates: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, amazon.com, ebay… These are a new species of business.

What’s happening? Wikinomics

Collaboration is beginning to change the architecture of the organization.

We have progressed from the industrial age corporation and practices of Ford and Taylor through the Extended Enterprise of the multinationals through the Business Webs of the 90s to Mass Collaboration.

Today people cannot only socially gather, they can socially produce. Peers outside the boundaries of corporations or corporations acting as peers or peers within the boundaries of a hierarchy can collaborate across boundaries.

This yields the four principles of Wikinomics:

  • Peering
  • Being Open
  • Sharing
  • Acting Globally

Consider a company that won by embracing these principles – GoldCorp: A 50 year old mining company peers, opens, shares its proprietary data and acts globally in a bid to transform itself and explore the extent of a rich new find.

New models
Peer Pioneers: Think about Linux. If you can create an operating system through open source, what else can you create in this way?

Ideagoras: Open markets for uniquely qualified minds. Think of P&G, which has opened its problems to solutions from people outside of its corporate walls. Half of P&G’s innovations will come from outside of the company by the end of this year.

Prosumers:  Turn your customers into producers. Consider music mashups and remixes. Look at writing the final chapter of Wikinomics through a Wiki.

The New Alexandrians: The sharing of science. Consider the release of the human genome results.

Open Platforms: Consider the Amazon platform. It has over 200,000 delivers attempting to create value on this platform.

The Global Plant Floor: Consider Boeing’s revolutionary approach to create the 787 in partnership with suppliers who shared risk, benefits and development of this revolutionary plane.

The Wiki Workplace: Developing value in the workplace through the application of Wikis and Wiki principals. Consider Geeksquad labelled products at BestBuy.

Crisis of Leadership

This is a paradigm shift. New paradigms are met with coolness and even hostility. Those with vested interests fight the change. And this challenges our leaders to leave that with which they are comfortable.

The time has come for a new Web and a new generation for whom this is their birthright and a new model of how companies and organizations deal with the world.

A Vision for Presence

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Melanie Turek moderated a panel session at Enterprise 2.0 featuring Alec Saunders from Iotum, Nick Fera, Paul Haverstock from Microsoft, Jabber’s Joe Hildebrand and David Marshak of IBM.

Companies are looking for new ways to take advantage of “presence” – knowing where their employees are, what they are doing… This is closely tied to realizing the potential of the virtual workplace. How do we stay in touch with people with whom we are working but who are working in a remote location?

Of the panelists, fellow Ottawan Iotum‘s Alec Saunders stood out – both for his clarity and his pragmatic, readily available solution.

Saunders pointed out that your chances of speaking to a human being when you make a phone call are only 18% and people have to try 4.15 times on average to reach the party they want. Fixing this would enhance productivity greatly.Right now, presence is indicated in IM by wiggling our mouse (and having our computer come alive). This is a problem (why be interrrupted when we’ve just started working?) We need a people-centric model.

Saunders pointed to his New Presence paper that he published on his blog last year. He suggested that we look at a range of clues relating to our relationship with the people attempting to contact us. Iotum has developed a solution based on managing presence in light of a variety of factors incorporating your relationships with people and the range of activities you might be involved in at any time.

A free trial of Iotum’s Talk Now is available through download. I think I’ll try it.

Corporate Blogging: The Ecology of Participation

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Stowe Boyd moderated a panel at Enterprise 2.0 of Anil Dash, Suw Charman, Sam Weber and Oliver Young that dealt with the challenge of corporations embracing blogging.

Suw Charman suggested that the interested question is not whether enterprises can introduce blogs (the answer is yes) but HOW they should do this. Asking whether blogs can be used in corporations is a bit like asking whether pen and paper can be used in business.

The question is what do you want to use them for. What problem do we have that blogs can solve? The answer will be different from company to company and within different groups and levels within companies. The answer comes down to what people need and want.

Internal blogs can meet the need that employees have to know their fellow workers, identify those with information they need and share information with others.

External blogs can fill the need that customers have to peer behind the curtains of the companies that they deal with. Companies can use this to build relationships with customers and to develop a presence within the community.

Blogs are like a hammer. You can build virtually anything with it. A blog can be anything you want it to be. It can put a human face on the company. Ask for customer input on new products. Provide a place for fans to find out information about the product or service. Distribute essential information to employees as an alternative to email (reducing email spam, hurray!), distributing news and background information.

Culture is the key issue in introducing blogs into a corporation. Both ensuring that the culture of blogging and the expectation of the community is understood and ensuring that the corporate culture is able to embrace these expectations and mores.

Oliver Young suggested that a recent Forrester Research study showed that the business value of blogs is still rated fairly low.

Six Apart‘s Anil Dash responded that this is not surprising given how early we are in the cycle of the development of blogs. To even get 17% is an extraordinary success.

Young suggested that part of the problem may be that too many people have unrealistic or unfocussed expectations of blogs. Consequently, it’s not surprising if they become frustrated.

One of the audience members interjected that the “Discoverability” of blogs raises their risk factor. Many corporations are wary of encouraging employees to post information because of the potential that well-intentioned writings may later cause problems.

Charman pointed out that this makes the case for a blog policy that makes it clear to employees about what is or is not acceptable. She also noted that many banks have implemented Wikis instead of blogs because Wikis have a change history.

Oliver Young noted that firms that don’t introduce corporate blogs are not risk free. It is difficult to imagine that there are any companies that do not have any employees who blog – whether the company knows it or not. So, education about social media and a blogging policy should be undertaken by all companies, even those who are not contemplating introducing corporate blogs.

Social = Me First

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Stowe Boyd focused on social applications in his session at Enterprise 2.0

Social = Me First. It sounds selfish, but there’s an important truth here.

In 1999, Stowe wrote an article in his newsletter, Message, in which he talked about a new set of software which he called “social tools: software intended to shape culture.” At the outset, many people thought the concept was “out there.” Today, it is at the core of social media.

So, what are the underpinnings of social applications?

photo of Stowe Boyd by Brian SolisFirst, the individual is the new group. The reason that we all use these tools is related to our passions, our desire to connect with people or our desire to connect with markets.

The edge dissolves the center. We, the edglings – the people who are living our lives through these technologies – are dissolving the traditional power centres and redistributing it to the community.

The notion of belonging has shifted to bottom up. I define the groups I belong to through the company and friends I choose, not because an organization has accepted me for membership.

Unique markets can be made out of the wants and needs of the community that I assemble. And this provides an opportunity for innovators.

The buddylist is the centre of the universe. I am made greater by the sum of my connections and so are my connections. And I decide who is interesting to me and what I want to share with them. This is the core idea behind all future successful social applications.

The value of the network application is based on the number of connections that it facilitates and sustains.

It’s really about discovery. Discovery is the primary abiding motivator. They are looking to discover things, places (the Third Space), people (who fill the places) and Self (at the still point of the turning world.) So, the final measurement of success in a social application is how well do you help people discover themselves.

Andrew McAfee – Enterprise 2.0: The State of the Meme

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Andrew McAfee followed David Weinberger in the keynote session at Enterprise 2.0.

McAfee coined the term Enterprise 2.0 a little over a year ago. In his presentation, he looked at the changes in the last year.

How are we doing with awareness?

Since the term was coined a little over a year ago, it has spread rapidly, finding it’s way into mainstream media and conferences like this.

The concept of social software is beginning to penetrate into corporations. This is accompanied by an awareness of the benefits of network effects as the usage increases.

Enterprises also are beginning to acknowledge the merits of freeform authoring. Users will create that which is useful to them. So, we must come to grips with the need to “get out the way” and let them do this.

One of the huge leaps forward in Enterprise 2.0 is the realization that the users should also create their own metadata. If we allow this to happen without imposing artificial structures, we will find that the information is organized in ways that reflect the users and their needs.

How about the technologies?

The toolkit is growing and overflowing with freeform, collaborative tools. Massive amounts of new offerings are being offered by both startups and established companies. There will be a winnowing out as users select the best of the set and others fall by the wayside. Messy, but good.

On the other hand, the new applications and platforms are not always as easy to use as they must be. And, the new technologies must take into account existing applications, such as email. Email is ubiquitous and meets a functional need. Enterprise 2.0 applications will be more quickly embraced if they integrate with existing applications like email.
How are we communicating results to decision makers inside organizations? We’re not doing so well with this. Case studies are still relatively rare. To build credibility inside the corporation, it will be necessary to build up a broader set of case studies, benchmarks and stories that describe the success of these tools.

McAfee cautions against attempting to justify the adoption of the tools soley in terms of ROI. Early estimates are likely to be contentious. He instead suggests that the focus should be on telling the story of what they do. This will appeal to decision makers who make their judgments on factors beyond ROI.

He concluded his presentation with a proposal to create a repository of Enterprise 2.0 efforts. This could be generated by the Enterprise 2.0 community through a Wiki. And it will provide a map of the evolution of Enterprise 2.0 that advocates and decision makers can draw on.

David Weinberger – Everything is Miscellaneous

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David Weinberger opened Enterprise 2.0 this morning with a rapid fire overview of the thinking he lays out in his new book, Everything is Miscellaneous.

In the face of the rapid change that we have been experiencing, why aren’t we drowning in the ocean of information. The answer lies in the metadata.

The real world requires that we order things within finite, defined spaces. Think of the front page of the newspaper. Power and authority is conveyed upon the person who commands the ability to determine what goes into these spaces.

We have imported the concept of physical limitations of organization into digitization. But the digital in fact frees us from these limitations.

Key thoughts:

  • Leaf as many branches as you can. Information can be tagged in unlimited ways.
  • Messiness is a virtue. All sorts of connections that make sense to individuals are possible and good. There is no need to force these relationships and connections into a predetermined pattern.
  • There is no difference between clean data and metadata. When you go online, this is not so much the case anymore. With Search that draws connections between data, everything is metadata.
  • Unowned order: Users own the organization of the data that is meaningful and useful to them.
  • Take all of these things together and the user can draw meaning from data to meet their immediate needs and context. Everything is Miscellaneous.

In this new environment, authority is distributed and attributed by the community. Authority embraces fallibility. Contrast the self identification in Wikipedia of entries that require further attention or editing by the community with the self declared indisputable authority of traditional media like the New York Times or the Encyclopedia Britannica. By acknowledging fallibility, by acknowledging mistakes, authority is actually enhanced.

Heading to Boston for Enterprise 2.0

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Enterprise 2.0
I’m heading to Boston for Enterprise 2.0, which bills itself as “The Collaborative Technologies Conference.”

I decided to attend this year because of the interesting mix of traditional proprietary enterprise software with the new breed of social software. I’m interested in seeing how the purveyors of the big ticket systems are being affected and influenced by the emergence of the open source, community driven collaborative platforms.

There’ll be a great lineup of speakers over the next three days. In particular, I’m looking forward to sessions on the first day with Stowe Boyd, Andrew McAfee, Anil Dash, Greg Reinacker, Ross Mayfield and David Weinberger (I packed a copy of Everything is Miscellaneous to read en route.)
I’ll try to blog from the conference or at least daily after the close of business.

I’m also looking forward to meeting Bryan Person while I’m in Boston. If you are reading this and would like to join us for a drink Wednesday evening, send me an email.

Coca Cola Sprite Yard – Social Network or Exploitation?

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Sprite?Is it just me? Or is there something seriously “wrong” with this?

Forget Facebook, Everyone is Meeting in the Yard
Forget Myspace and Facebook. That’s old news. Now, there is Sprite’s exclusive network called the Sprite Yard.As a new way of connecting with customers, Coca-Cola expects the Sprite Yard to set new benchmarks for consumer brand engagement through the use of a mobile platform. Within the Sprite Yard, users can create a tag name, a profile, send “shouts” to friends and even post “scribbles” to a discussion board.

Measurement metrics have been built in so Coca-Cola can track, in real-time, which features consumers are using most to the direct impact on beverage sales. It enables Coca-Cola to react very quickly to what their market wants.

What made them “go mobile” with the Sprite Yard? They saw the opportunity to leverage mobile’s potential for viral distribution and to react to the consumers’ desire for constant connectivity.

With so many people actively online, organizations want to create their own groups and communities to ask their customers directly what they think, feel and want so that companies can make better corporate decisions.

…

Now, I worry here that I’m being mean spirited. And I worry that by pointing out the obvious, I’ll hurt the people behind it. And heck. I live in a glass house, as a public relations practitioner who is exploring social media and whose firm may also make mistakes.

But having said that, this just screams wrong, wrong, wrong!

What jumps out at me?

  • Right off the top, hyperbole. “Forget Facebook?” The fastest growing social networking space that has turned itself into a platform? Come on! Good communication must be based in reality. Why not just tell me to forget Rocket Richard. Forget Hank Aaron. Forget Joe Namath. Cause, heck, Fred Money-to-Burn has come along and promises that he’ll be bigger than them all. That’s just bald hype. Walk the talk before you make the claim.
  • “Coca-Cola expects the Sprite Yard to set new benchmarks for consumer brand engagement through the use of a mobile platform.” Whoah. Those are high, high, high expectations that have just been set. Let’s check back in three months from now and see whether I’ll have to eat my hat (or drink my Coca Cola.) Never ever tell them that you’re going to hit the ball over the fence on your first pitch. (Unless your name is Babe Ruth. And, oops. It didn’t work out too well for him either…)
  • “Measurement metrics have been built in so Coca-Cola can track, in real-time, which features consumers are using most to the direct impact on beverage sales.” Let me get this straight. You’ve compared yourself to social networks that let me connect with my friends. But the great benefit of this network is that Coca Cola will be able to measure, in real time (no overnight delays for us folks) which features sell the most soda. Wow! I want to participate -not (to quote a phrase as hackneyed as this campaign.)

Bottom line. The foundation of social media is the spirit of generosity. Is Coca Cola being generous here? Or has someone been just a little too candid about how we are all just data points in Coca Cola’s marketing analysis machine?

Is this what social media and social software are leading to? is this the new normal? Or is there another way?

The Future of Entertainment – the people formerly known as the audience

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I ended my mesh day with a panel of McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves, Amber MacArthur and Ethan Kaplan moderated by Jian Gomeshi.

Jian Gomeshi: Two Sams come to mind. Sam Sniderman or Sam the Record Man as we know him. It was announced this morning that the flagship store of the once iconic Sam the Record Man store will be closing. The end of an era. Things have changed.

So, what’s the biggest change in the last 12 months that will affect the future of entertainment.

Ethan Kaplan: A new focus on the fact that things will not return to the way things were in the pre Napster era. There’s a renewed effort to create a new avenue for the music industry. Different value propositions must be created that don’t try to undermine the direct relationship between the fans and access to the music.

Amber MacArthur: Last year, she was at this conference as a broadcaster at G4Tech TV. This year as a blogger and podcaster at CITY TV. This is an indicator of the trend of movement from the traditional broadcast media to the new online media.

Jain Gomeshi: How valid is the notion that the audience of today is more actively engaged than the audience of yesterday? Are people investing more or less now in their entertainment?

Amber MacArthur: People are dividing their attention. So the length of video clips is decreasing. They also seem to jump ship between things quickly. Facebook is big today. But will it still be big in six months?

Ethan Kaplan: Passive acceptance and passive consumption was a fiction that was maintained by the major media companies. It was driven by hubris. And the notion has collapsed on itself. What’s really happened is that content has become agnostic to representation. There’s a lack of differentiation between the mode of the content. Now fans are more focused on the agent that is originating the content.

Jian Gomeshi: Does the ease of acquiring art, music devalue it or make it more disposable?

Amber MacArthur: Content is available to a global audience. You should try to get your content in front of as many people as you can around the world and then figure out how to derive revenue from it.

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: The social network that have grown up around artists show that fans really value those artists.

Jian Gomeshi: How do you get people attached to an artist?

Ethan Kaplan: We’re to the point where we have to embrace the notion that the duplicability of the content and the ready availability of the content has made it necessary to think creatively about how to market the content. Taking Michael Buble, for example. You must treat him as a personality and then market the record as an extension of the personality. The campaign began six months beforehand. No flash Websites. Have a blog friendly Website. Then begin to publish creative elements, such as photos, in the lead up to the release of the record. Treat the release of the record as an event.

Jian Gomeshi: How do you differentiate small, new artists?

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: Bloggers have shown that one person with a computer can build an audience. Use the viral tools to assemble an audience anywhere that people gather. Artists can build an audience by using the social networking sites.

Jian Gomeshi: Have the responsiblities of audiences changed?

Amber MacArthur: Artists must now know their audiences likes and anticipate them and respond to them. Tom Green has reinvented himself by actively engaging directly with his audience through his blog and his nightly online program.

Michael Geist: What about Digital Rights Management software?

Ethan Kaplan: DRM is a very small piece of a larger problem, the fact that what you have today is the availablity of both for free and for pay content. The larger issue is how to make sure that artists are compensated along a long value chain that includes any reproduction device.

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: The DRM genie is out of the bottle. What’s going on is a little like the war on drugs.