But back to the Canadian thing…
There are two dimensions, the general social one (great examples/thoughts Rex), and the enterprise model (how culture, operations, etc. all get in the way). Across both of those dimensions the ’social’ aspects vary.

It would seem that if we were to come up with a ‘readiness’ model, the social attributes would be the strongest indicator, based on the evidences we’re seeing here…but it needs to be assessed along the two dimension general society (including the influencing operating factors as Jon pulled out, Taxes, which is really an artifact of financial exchange model) and the sub-culture of the enterprise. Social sciences aren’t my field of practice by any means so if anyone wants to jump in to identify something going on and/or a model that might ‘fit’ these observations. Jon, you’d likely have something to recommend we could look at and mull over.

There are, I think, some subtle / nuance differences that grow relatively large and important over time, stemming from the two countries “tag lines” ;-0) … “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” versus “peace, order and good government”.

I think we don’t see the term / concept ’socialist” as quite the big, bad, bogeyman that US citizens tend to, and we understand (I believe) that taxes actually contribute to the infrastructure of a society that then enables cultural and economic competitive capabaility. Not that we’re a socialist country by any stretch of the imagination .. but we haven’t completely lost sight of the common good yet, either, I don’t think.

In other words, we know that our taxes support health care, education, schools, bridges, roads, and a range of other stuff that make the society and country a good place to live and work. I keep hearing that lots of knowledge professionals from other parts of the world often would prefer to go live and work in Canada than in the USA … and that certainly seems to be more and more the case 9as mentioned above).

But hey, i am biased

A couple of items I thought I’d share. I had the opportunity to listen to one of the leads from GM (who is American) in their social media marketing strategy. What I learned was that their foray in to the world of blogs, was a direct result from frustration with traditional media. Chris talked about how the traditional media, and their reporters all wanted to tell the same story… “How the American automobile industry can’t compete in the world market”. So regardless of what GM wanted to speak of, they kept going back to that topic. Finally they said if they won’t publish the entire story, let’s go directly to the people. Give them the opportuity to ask the questions they want to ask, and provide them information that goes beyond what traditional media wanted to publish. It appeared they had a fairly elaborate campaign of utilizing WoM. Although my particular interest is less about marketing and more about collaboration, I still found his case interesting. Like Zia had indicated, I too find searching for applied concepts outside of the “tech” industry of extra insight.

The other thought (and it is just a thought with no real basis) is that perhaps the adoption of social media is a good fit with Canadian beliefs which tend to promote more “social” concepts (i.e. Universal Healthcare) then that of the US.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that the willingness to embrace E2.0 concepts would be any greater in Canada. Although, I would submit that some of the things we’ve been doing at Bell Canada are pretty exciting.

Cheers,
Rex
p.s. I am a Canadian!

So many books…so little time…

And now all those Waterloo presentations and videos (I’ll check out Richard Florida’s video just so I can catch the entusiasm too).

I have been following the FastForward conference blogs and videos with interest. Great stuff.

You say “One has to wonder, are there deeper cultural issues — common attitudes and perspectives –that are now hindering many in the US?”, and you also mention Roger Martin.

As I recently recorded on my blog (I am a hesitatnt and recent blogger) one of the best things I did last year was to hop on a plane from London to Toronto to go to the Workplace 2017 conference at the University of Waterloo. It was a stupendous experience. What a line-up of keynote speakers, addressing fundamental issues of workplace trends.

Roger Martin was inspiring but the person who blew me away was Richard Florida. Outstanding. He was speaking about the migration of the ‘creative classes’ and knowledge work to places where the physical environment and cultural attitudes allowed frredom of thought and action. This, of course, is my interpretation and paraphrasing of what he was saying. I thoroughly recommend listening to his sessions - available here at http://www.2017.uwaterloo.ca/index.htm