Archive for June, 2009
by Rob Paterson
June 18, 2009 at 5:22 am · Filed under
FASTforward08, Politics, Politics 2.0, Social Media, Twitter
What is democracy? Is it just a vote every 4 years? Is that all the citizen has?
Who ensures that even that limited moment of choice and opinion is secure and trustworthy. How are the votes counted? Who ensures that the people have even voted? You don’t have to be living in Iran to wonder about that!
How does a candidate get chosen? In the west it depends on a party and immense sums of money. In other places, the regime makes the call. It is all but impossible to become powerful without having made a deal with the in group whether this is in Iran and the Mullahs or anywhere.
What might democracy become in the age of Social Media?
Could President Obama have gathered the financial and voter support in his campaign without it? I think that it would have been unlikely. Are most politicians responding to what happened in that election?
I don’t think so. For I think that they miss the point.
The tools of social media are just that. Tools!
The point is that to engage the people you have to have a cause that strikes to their heart. Obama had that.
What the tools do is to make a real cause too powerful for the status quo to push under the rug.
In Iran, people are risking and losing their lives for change. In the before Social Media times such as at Tianemen Square, the regime can and did utterly squash dissent. I don’t think that this is possible today if the cause is well enough supported. Yes, the regime can set up a massacre that may stop the demonstrations. But the legitimacy of the regime will be ended. Their only chance then will be to become a North Korea or an Burma – a true pariah. The story will not end there.
The tools and the supporting global community are enabling the story to be told. The world is a witness.
There is also another aspect that I see. Our response to the traditional media is usually helplessness and then numbness. We see terrible events but we can do nothing but feel bad. Traditional media is so one way and so passive.
But people outside of Iran not only know what is going on but many are actively engaged in helping or in providing emotional support. This was even true for the Obama campaign. Millions of non Americans became personally engaged in the election in a way not possible by simply reading the paper or watching TV.
The Obama campaign – but regretfully not the Obama administration – and the Iranian push-back – will surely be seen in retrospect as a Tipping Point in the evolution of democracy. What will happen, I cannot know yet.
But the regimes everywhere will have to take note. There is a line of self interest and oppression that cannot be crossed. For if it is, the “Sleeper will awake”.
The voice of the people is no longer restricted to the ballot box. No longer subject to the control of the ballot box. No longer subject to the needs of party affiliation or millions of campaign dollars.
I don’t know how this will play out but it sure sounds more democratic to me.
by Bill Ives
June 17, 2009 at 10:11 pm · Filed under
FASTforward'09
I recently spoke with Eric Rogge of Exalead about how search is playing an expanded role for enterprises inside and outside the firewall. He mentioned that the major players such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are continuing their battle for broad based Web search. Microsoft has now brought Bing into play in this market.
Exalead is not competing here but focusing instead on the other end of the market, operating in the long tail by enabling businesses to create purpose-built search-based applications. I have written about them before (see Exalead’s CloudView Offers Integrated Search Capabilities). CloudView is one way of attacking the question I raised in my post, We Need to Tear Down the Social Media Silos. Exalead is bringing search to new enterprise tasks and expanding its role through these search-based applications. See my post, Tweepz brings Exalead search to Twitter for an example of this. In our most recent conversation, Eric talked about other search tools they’ve built to find and refine all results from the ocean of Web content. These include audio, video, image-based, and even ranking tools.
For example, they and a systems integration partner built a search-based application for GEFCO, a French logistics company than manages the transportation and delivery of new cars from factory to dealer in Europe. They needed to be able to look at inventory and then keep track of delivery status. GEFCO tried to do this in the traditional manner with a SQL relational database but it was too complex. With a structured database you need to set up multiple data entry forms that require specific data types of data (e.g., car model, location, etc.). There needs to be many data entry forms to do the proper inquiry and car dealers and sales people get frustrated with these specific requirements.
Exalead was able to change the approach for GEFCO to a search based application where you typed in information in a single field as in Google and the search engine did natural language processing of the request without the requirements of a structured database. This greatly simplified the task and gave the car guys what they were used to on the Web. However, in this case you do not want thousands or millions of results as in Google but the single correct answer (e.g., where is the car? When will it arrive?). This application won an Europe award for IT innovation.
Eric said there are many applications, such as this tracking system, with very focused requirements. Another example is patient records in a healthcare system. Exalead also implemented a search-based application for the French postal system to track packages and people. They wanted to be able to answer such questions as where is the package or where is the postal worker? It integrated information from several databases to answer these questions through one interface.
He showed me several other examples. There was the Wikifier (see below), a use case example (wikifier.labs.exalead.com). It parses a web page and creates tags that aid in search. It will also recognize a topic and create a link to a relevant page such Wikipedia article or a search results page from Exalead’s web search tool (www.exalead.com/search). It is a connecting tool or information mashup. As you go through the page you can hover over content and see relevant background information. This same concept could be applied to an enterprise application that covers business topics.
In another example, Eric showed me a restaurant locator tool called ‘RestMiner’. Another use-case example, it mashes together a number of information sources to you get reviews from multiple review sites. A buzz score is calculated from data drawn from multiple sites. Here is another way to break down the information silos on the Web. Google Maps is also integrated to give you location information. Like the Wikifier, RestMiner was built as a proof of concept and could be applied to many business applications.
These examples shown some of the possibilities for search-based applications focused on very specific topics where you want more precise answers. Metrics such as the buzz meter can be build into the application to better aggregate and interpret the data. Many companies have data located in a variety of sources and formats. They do not have to rebuild these applications if a search-based application can work across them breaking down the silos. The Exalead concept of search-based applications has been well received. They had 80 percent growth from 2008 over 2007 and are on track to do it again in 2009. You can also read more about this topic on the Exalead blog.
by Jon Husband
June 16, 2009 at 2:09 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Emergent, Interaction, Network Effect, Platforms, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, User Revolution, Wisdom of Crowds
For the most part I have been ambivalent about Twitter for most of the past two years (I’ve used it on and off since November 2006).
I’ve read much of the pros and cons (not all) and understand why some people consider it the best thing since sliced bread, and why others consider it a massive time sink and / or an invitation to get bombarded by unwanted marketing activity.
What seems clear to me is that it can often function as an effective means for searching for pertinent information. To my mind, Twitter replicates the experiences I have often had after blogging for some time … because of my social networks mainly focused on issues, and people who are paying attention to those same issues, there is a regular experience of ”synchronicity”. When something is on my mind and I start searching for information, I mre often than not “stumble upon” it, almost as if by magic (why do you think the web service Stumble Upon came into being ?).
When we use Twitter, we make decisions about who we follow, and so I think we invoke a social-network-of-purpose-driven filter that we apply. Yes, we can follow thousands of people, but by and large we interact most with those concentric rings of trust and connection closest to us. Often, the innermost rings of connection and trust are people that we have already connected with (through blogging or or professional / interest-driven networks), or whom we are learning to trust and to whom we come to pay attention.
This selection of people with whom we interact (the innermost concentric rings of connection) provide context like no algorithm can (I’d love to know what the FAST search experts think of that assertion on my part). The people with whom we interact most frequently on Twitter are paying attention to the same or similar things (and different things) as are we, and we are reciprocating. So, when you push a question out into the twittersphere, those who are paying attention to you or notice your tweeted question may well have something to offer you that may be directly or closely aligned with the search you are carrying out. There is the “ambient intimacy of context” that comes into play.
Now for the “on the other hand” … there’s an awful lot of noise to churn one’s way through to get to the signals. I know that there are various efforts underway to enhance the relevance and pertinence of finding one’s way through the mass of content that’s in the daily twitterstream, but I suspect that there’s a long way to go yet for such efforts to take new Twitter-related capabilities beyond the purview of the early adopters.
I also think that as large masses of people take to the newest socially-connected-streams-of-content to engage in purposeful activities, rather than trying to drive or acquire attention for attention’s sake (or to make money), we will find that Twitter-like capabilities or Twitter clones will be built into most, if not all, social-network platforms and collaborative-work platforms.
I suspect that this emerging concentration of attention and time allocation onto purposeful activities is what is behind the thinking in this extract from a WebGuild piece by Daya Baran titled “Twitter Will Be Obsolete In A Year“.
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Twitter Will Be Obsolete In a Year
[ Snip ... ]
He says Twitter won’t be as important as some think. He points to Friendster and how it was surpassed by MySpace which in turn was surpassed by Facebook in a shorter time doing the same thing.
He says as with any internet “gold rush,” as soon as others demonstrate success, everyone moves in, and the “next big thing” is born.
“All I have to do is mention QuickBooks, and I have 30 QuickBooks “experts” following me in hopes of getting business. How long will it take to wear people down dealing with these kinds of requests?… I predict Twitter will find its social media and marketing niche, but I cannot see it being nearly as important as some marketers are making it out to be.”
He also points out the retention rate of Twitter is ONLY around 30 percent, which means seven out of 10 people try it out once and don’t come back. So to get users the hype must continue and the process it becomes overhyped.
“Twitter seems to be proud of the fact that it has no profit model. I’m imagining that the company will want to keep the hype building long enough to sell the company for a few billion dollars… I also cannot foresee Twitter’s user base growing too much higher than it is now.
The simple functionality of Twitter will also lead to a glut of competition in the next few months, with companies duking it out for the best implementation of the microblogging model. There’s not enough to Twitter to keep it on the top of the heap. Being first in this case, as we’ve seen, is not a guarantee that you will have longevity.”
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I’d love to learn what you think.
by Bill Ives
June 12, 2009 at 11:31 am · Filed under
FASTforward'09
There has been a lot written about Google Wave. Miguel Helft provided a nice overview, Google Showcases New Communication and Collaboration Tool. David Coursey asked, is Google Wave a Twitter Killer? and Dion Hinchcliffe discussed, the enterprise implications of Google Wave. John Moore wrote about how Google Wave could be a great CRM for the small to mid size business market and I am sure many other applications built on top of Google Wave will follow.
Paula Thornton urged me to watch the long video demonstration (hour+) of Google Wave and we discussed where Wave might go. I finally had a chance to do this and wanted to share my notes and impressions. Paula looked at a draft of this post and gave me comments but I take responsibility for any remaining short comings.
Lars Rasmussen was the master of ceremonies and introduced Google Wave as a communication and collaboration tool. It is Open Source with robust APIs, and built leveraging the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). They introduced it at a developer’s conference to encourage others to build apps on top of Wave. I would agree here. I think that Wave has great potential but its potential will be best realized through focused applications that sit on top of its very open structure. Most people like more than a blank slate, even a very robust one that does things not done before. More on this later.
Lars said that email was invented 40 years ago, before the Web. They wanted to create email as if it was a new thing today with the Web in mind. I can see this in what they did. As Lars said, email was created to work like “old school” mail. You send mail and you receive mail and you send more mail back. With Google Wave you work in the same space and just keep editing the same content if you want or interjecting comments anywhere in the content. It is much more collaborative and conversational — it takes greater advantage of what the Web can do.
You can also drag and drop stuff such as pictures from your desktop anywhere into the conversation that is happening in a Wave. Things are no longer sequential. However, if you want to see the sequence of how the conversation got built you can use the Playback feature to get a “movie” of the construction of the conversation.
This is transformative, similar to the transition from typewriters to word processing changed writing except more so. With Wave you see the new content emerging as it is typed simultaneously on all computer screens that are tuned into the Wave. There is no sending back and forth, it just ‘is’. There is no ‘there’ — just a global ‘here’. There is no linear transactional and temporal exchange between individuals, it’s all ‘now’. They even showed four people editing the same document at the same time. This might get chaotic. You can set privacy levels so you decide which people see the new content emerging.
Lars discussed ways to organize Waves. I think this will be important. In my view that was a flaw in del.icio.us and is a potential issue with Twitter, What do you do as you start to create massive amounts of content? That was a problem for me with del.icio.us and is starting to be an issue with Twitter. I use Twitter to record interesting links for future exploration but after a few weeks it may be hard to find them. Wave does provide tagging and you can embed a search field. However, the better feature is the way you can embed Waves within Waves by drag and drop. This allows you to create tables of contents and indexes in a “master” Wave that links to the details within each Wave.
Lars and his colleagues next covered the extensions offered with Wave to enable development of applications by others outside Google, as well as inside. They gave examples of applications that they built using these extensions. One I liked was a smart spell checker that looked at the context of the word. For example icland is an icland was transformed to Iceland is an island. Another automatically put in links.
You can also make extensions that integrate with other tools such as Twitter. You can write tweets in Wave and they appear in Twitter or vice versa. Of course, other Twitter related apps also do this. They showed how Wave could be integrated with an issue tracker. You can take comments from Wave and load them into the issue tracker.
I think this integration and the development of more focused capabilities that sit on top of Wave will be key to its success. As I mentioned earlier, I think that the completely open Wave will get some use as a novelty and even as a collaboration platform. However, it is too open ended for many work applications, as people will not want to recreate the functionality and features. It can potentially serve as a meeting point for applications. On the other hand, people might want to shape application themselves and not be forced to follow the structure of existing applications.
Since Wave may serve as a useful meeting place for applications, it may not replace many but become a useful platform. Paula pointed out t me that Dion Hitchcliffe wrote a preamble to this in 2006, Blogs, wikis, and Web 2.0 as the next application platform. I talked with a number of venders who said they were first afraid that Sharepoint would be a heavy competitor. However, they discovered it opened more doors than it closed. Sharepoint is getting more companies involved with collaboration and these venders can integrate with it to bring in their specialized functionality to a bigger audience. I think a similar thing many happen if Google Wave takes off. It certainly has expanded the playing field and should be a positive thing for enterprise 2.0. Like many tools, I do not think it will live up to its wildest supporters or act in the market the way its hardest critics propose.
by Paula Thornton
June 12, 2009 at 8:44 am · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, Business Model, Enterprise 2.0, FASTforward'09, Innovation, Organizational Design, Social Work-net-ing, Socialprise
Just before flying home from FASTforward ‘09, in February, I took advantage of being in Las Vegas to visit Zappos, an online retailer that has been repeatedly recognized for its unique culture (not to mention their own book on the subject) and embracing social media. CEO, Tony Hsieh, was even on Oprah last October. So what more could I possibly add here?
I focused ‘between the lines’ and ‘outside the box’ — the larger experience of what makes Zappos, well, Zappos. I’ve watched a lot of videos about the place, follow Tony on Twitter, and even did a brief piece on them before, but as with other 2.0 experiences, immersion makes all the difference.
The ‘get to the chase’ version:
- The Zappos environment is a full-blown corporate anomaly: full of things that most corporations would dismiss as being “unproductive”, “chaotic”, “unmanageable” and “unprofitable”.
Between the Lines: Note on video…the flags on poles…critical artifacts of the culture.
- People LOVE to work here (earning a spot on Fortune’s coveted”100 Best Companies to Work For” 2008 list). Why not? They get to follow their passions (even if they want to invite Ellen to come to Zappos) and evolve their own path of doing ‘work’, all while having LOTS of fun.
- The results: 2008 sales = over $1BIL
- Bottom Line: This crazy stuff works and they’ll even tell you how to do the same.
The ‘insights’ version:
- The Zappos experience begins way before the on-site tour. Even vendors coming on sales calls are picked up in Zappos-branded vehicles (3 SUVs and a bus in the fleet) at the airport or their hotel.
- My driver, Zack, was the Shuttle Manager. He was eager to talk about just how much he loves the company and its culture (even as a New York transplant). He worked his way into his job because he just likes to drive, which he sees a lot of: 4-5 drivers make 150-200 runs a week!
- During major conventions shuttle runs get a bit hectic, but Zack was proud that they were able to ramp up and cover 300 runs during the February 2009 CES convention (having a work culture that allows them to tap into volunteers throughout the company, makes a huge difference).
- Walking through the doors is not like entering any other company: people in motion and endless visual stimulus. Everything has been thought of, including checking in your luggage, complete with a ticket, and getting you a drink.
- Tours at Zappos are like a parade — tour guides carry a flag/banner, which alerts employees to greet guests. My guide, Jerry, while retired from Nordstrom (a company also founded on great shoe sales and service) had infectous energy that belies his ’silver’ exterior. The tour itself cannot adequately be described in words — the videos are a must watch.
Between the Lines: Our tour was cut short as CEO Tony Hsieh was available, so we headed straight for the ‘jungle’ (the location of his office) to catch Tony for his interview where he reminded me again of their ‘other’ brand 6PM.com.
- Not to downplay my chat with Tony (he gets so much press already), I was anxious to talk briefly with Alfred Lin (@Zappos_Alfred) because he holds both the COO and CFO roles, which I asked him about. His answers were insightful and his presence clearly belies his kid-like avatar on Twitter.
- I was a bit surprised to find out just how far they take their Core Value “Do More With Less”. Clearly operating as a 2.0 company, internally they leverage only very basic technology (email, wiki, blog, newsletter, word-of-mouth), in very simplistic ways — allowing for natural collaboration and connections of a tight culture to carry the rest.
- To dip yourself into the Zappos culture on an ongoing basis, be sure to check out employee voices via their many blogs.
- Oh, and did I mention, they sell shoes, accessories and clothing?
The last half of the Tour is shared in two parts.
- On average, 4-8 tours come through every day — more during the annual shoe conventions. While Jerry and Donavon are the primary tour guides, any employee can take the tour guide course and serve as a fill-in. This wasn’t staged — this is the ‘norm’ in their culture.
- The entire environment is a testament to their culture, of constant motion, immersion and learning. There are 4 bookcases at the entrance with multiple copies of ‘current reads’ for employees to grab and enlighten themselves — including Tribal Leadership (Zappos sponsors a downloadable audiobook version).
- Learning is for EVERYONE, on both sides of the coin — giving and receiving. Classes are ‘live’ and taught by employees. If you’re moving ‘up’ to a role, you’ll be taught by people currently ‘in’ the role. Likewise, you’ll teach those coming in behind you.
- Inspired by some of the things gleaned from Tribal Leadership, a more structured “Pipeline” path was created for classes. Training Supervisor, Loren Becker, readily shared the outline of the Pipeline program (which she merely had to print from the Zappos Wiki and had in my hands within minutes). Simplistic, there are:
- Core-Level Classes (in 6-month segments)
For the first 18 months of employment, a total of 213 required hours — the majority of which is “Customer Loyalty Training”, plus books to be read.
- Management-Level Classes
Includes 37 required hours (with department-specific specialization added in) and 6 recommended books
- Leadership-Level Classes
Includes 32 required hours (including hours to ‘teach’ classes, as noted previously).
- “Introduction to Coaching” is taught by their own full-time coach for employees, Dr. Vik — who sold his Northern California Chiropractic practice to join the team (in the Part 2 video, just before we arrive at Dr. Vik’s office, someone asks Jerry to have Dr. Vik ‘come down’ when he has a moment — there are a lot of word-of-mouth activities going on all the time). Not only did I get my own Zappos Vision planner, I also got a copy of Dr. Vik’s DVD “Taking It to the Next Level” (explained briefly here).
Special thanks to Elizabeth Gregersen who handled all of my arrangements and who was patient with my questions after the fact (here’s Liz and Jerry just having fun — its encouraged to do so). My apologies that it took so long to get this posted (it’s been a steep learning curve to edit/load the videos). If there is any information in the videos that is out of date, please let me know.
For a ‘more professional’ version, check out the ABC Nightline segment.
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