by Joe McKendrick
April 29, 2010 at 11:05 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing, Social Media, User Revolution, Web 2.0
Prediction markets such as InTrade have proven to be a valuable source of insights, if not outright predictions, on the outcomes of everything from recessions to political elections. 
Now, researchers have tapped into another vein of insights: social networks themselves. The Social Computing Lab at HP Labs in Palo Alto, California released a report that demonstrates that Twitter can be used as a gauge to determine the success or failure of impending movie releases.
The HP researchers, Sitaram Asur and Bernardo Huberman, scanned three million tweets in a given period of time to first, measure the amount of chatter for a given movie, then ran sentiment analysis, employing the services of human workers via Amazon Mechanical Turk .
The results tracked closely to actual movie box office revenues. For example, the authors observed, “The movie with the enormous increase in positive sentiment after release is The Blind Side (5.02 to 9.65). The movie had a lukewarm opening weekend sales (34M) but then boomed in the next week (40.1M), owing largely to positive sentiment.”
As Asur and Huberman put it in their conclusion, there’s a lot of potential for a wide range of business and political applications:
“While in this study we focused on the problem of predicting box office revenues of movies for the sake of having a clear metric of comparison with other methods, this method can be extended to a large panoply of topics, ranging from the future rating of products to agenda setting and election outcomes. At a deeper level, this work shows how social media expresses a collective wisdom which, when properly tapped, can yield an extremely powerful and accurate indicator of future outcomes.”
Analyzing Twitter or other social network chatter may be a valuable tool for predicting the success of product launches, new market entrees, and upcoming trends. This study is a great first step, but more studies — as well as actual experience — is needed to gauge how accurate social networking predictions may be. Perhaps it can be thought of as a giant focus group.
by Bill Ives
April 29, 2010 at 4:45 am · Filed under
Adoption, Enterprise 2.0
My friend, Luis Suarez provided the post, Why Best Practices Don’t Work for Knowledge Work. It nicely articulates some ideas I have been thinking about for some time. Luis was, in turn, moved to write by a post from Oscar Berg, Forget about copying best practices. Luis noted that he has been blogging about knowledge management for seven years and has yet to write a post on KM best practices. He writes, “”Best Practices” are the worst thing you can apply to any kind of knowledge work. Any kind. Social Computing is no different.”
Luis claries that he is objecting to the word “best” and that good practices are certainly possible. He finds best practices associated with the terms: static, fixed, inalterable, unmodified, unbeatable, perfect. In contrast, he finds knowledge work, and enterprise 2.0 certainly falls into this bucket, is: dynamic, flexible, malleable, modifiable, flowing, a continuous learning experience, imperfect. Luis goes on to say that practices that are successful in knowledge work are very context dependent and this is why there cannot be a standard set of best practices. I could not agree more.
In the early nineties I was involved with a number of colleagues at a small consulting firm helping a large property casualty insurance developing a process approach to knowledge work and the technology to deliver it to their knowledge workers. We eventually learned of the term “knowledge management” and applied that to what we were doing but it was really more like a primitive version of enterprise 2.0. Although the firm was small a number of the senior execs at the firm were from big consulting. They wanted to package what we did and sell it to others as a repeatable offering.
It never worked quite like that because what we had done was very content dependent. I raised these objections internally but this was seen as counter to effective sales. No one wanted to hear the phrase “it depends” when asked about best practices. Sure we followed some common process steps in developing a strategy and an implementation plan during the creation of further projects.
However, the people on the ground who had done a prior project knew to not try to simply offer what was done before. They understood the concept of context and knew that the substance of the new work needed to reflect the needs of the current situation rather than universal best practices. The senior people trying to sell the work did not want to hear this. After all if we did not offer best practices how could be justify the high fees we were charging. Unfortunately, the senor people buying the work also wanted a best practice solution.
Later, I went to work for a large consulting firm and was part of a thought leadership group. The senior partners were always asking us to present our firm’s best practices in knowledge management to clients. We would groan and try to offer case examples of successes instead.
It was better to try to sell the fact that we had done the work successfully before, what happen and why, than to try to say that we had the secret recipe of best practices. Of course, if you are trying to staff projects with new recruits who provide higher margins for the firm, it was better to say that you were arming them with the secret recipes.
Based on my experience, I agree with Luis that best practices can do more harm that good. This does not mean that there cannot be lessons learned and some starting points to keep in mind as you move to new work. There are great benefits to doing something the second time. The German sociologist Georg Simmel wrote, “nothing more can be attempted that to establish the beginning and the direction of an infinitely long road. The pretension of any systematic and definitive completeness would be, at least, a self-illusion. Perfection can here be obtained by the student only in the subjective sense that he communicates everything he has been able to see.”
by Rob Paterson
April 26, 2010 at 3:18 pm · Filed under
Adoption
Going 2.0 as Lee Bryant says is not about hanging shiny new objects on your old form. It is in truth that hardest of all things to do – changing who we are. As Euan says – it is the hard work of giving up our institutional form and re-becoming human again. So how do you make these changes to the inside of ourselves and our organizations?
I have been forced to reflect on this as one of my projects comes to the very edge of success. Here is the story I told the CEO today.
You are a chief. Your tribe lives in a valley. Over tall mountains is a much larger valley that has a huge lake – larger than Lake Ontario. It is like a vast sea. But you have never been there. You have never seen a lake. You have never fished in a lake or seen a boat. This new valley is beyond what you have ever experienced and so beyond what you can imagine. For your valley is savannah. It is plain full of herd animals and game of all types. It is lush and there are many plants that you use as well. Your tribe has been there a long time hunting and gathering. You are good at this. The Tribe has organized to do this work well.
But over the last few years, there has been a shift in weather. The savannah is drying out – the drought is getting worse. The game is getting scarce. The plants are dying too. Your success over the last 100 years means that you have many mouths to fill too.
So you have heard stories about the lake on the other side of the mountains from traders who go everywhere. So you send out a small reconnaissance party over the mountain to explore this new land. A new land where the skills to get food and the processes are very different. For remember none of you have ever seen a lake, a boat, a weir, a net. None of you have built houses in such surroundings. You don’t know what a pier is. You have no idea what weather can do on a lake. All you know are stories. Stories that might be fables.
The small party does quite well and returns home to tell you what happened. Now the lake and all that is needed to live by a lake is more real to you. At least people that you trust – your own tribesmen have seen it. But you are not going to up sticks and take all your people there just on the evidence of one trip. The risk is too big. You don’t know if enough of your people could adapt. And anyway, maybe the drought will end soon.
The drought gets worse. Now you send a larger party for a longer time. You tell them to really test this new life. Their mission to to see if a move to the new place is feasible. They set up a base camp in the new valley and build some boats and make nets. After much trial and error, they start to learn how to do well in the very new place. They spend a whole year there. They make a of of mistakes. Some die. But they can now see what has to be done. They are not good at any of it but they know the basics. They return home. Everyone is both fascinated and fearful. For if it is possible to live in this new valley, then it will be possible to leave our ancestral home. Everyone hopes that they don’t have to do that. Who wants to give up all they know? Maybe the drought will end.
But the drought gets worse. It is clear that this is a trend. It is clear that if the Tribe does not leave the valley, that in 5 years all will die. So now you send a lead party back over the pass into the new valley. Their job is to set up a new home for the tribe. They are not coming home. They are the beach head.
But as the new team settle in the new valley, they go home all the time in their minds. For the only home they really know is the old valley. Even though the new is feeding them. Even though they are gradually getting the new skills. They long for what they know. They are torn. They are in the new valley but they still are organized as if they were back in the old.
Still part of the tribe is left in the old valley. This left behind part of the tribe feel bad too. They know that they have been left behind. They know that the future is in the next valley. Both sides feel separated. One from the old, the other from the new. But this separation had to stand until the Chief knew that his people could make it in the new.
You could not wait however until he was completely sure because you could feel that the disconnect between the two groups was starting to threaten the whole tribe. So you moved the rest of the tribe over the pass into the new place as well. Because they were in a new place that needed new skills and new ways of working, you also had to realign who did what and for whom. You had to ensure that the tribe was organized to live in the new way. Fortunately because of the tension of the separation, most were relieved to have their doubts settled and quickly settled down to the new. Also because they all knew that they could not go back, that longing for “home” faded. After a while the new home became “Home” for all.
As I told this story, I started to see what had in fact happened. I had missed it all even myself. What we had done only became clear today.
The institutional world is dying. But it is the only world we know. Our place in it is home. We cannot just jump to the new. We have to explore it. This exploration needs to be organized as history tells us successful explorations are conducted – using larger and longer staying expeditions. At some point some people have to stay in the new world.
Even then history tells us that we at first long for the old. We even organize based on the old even when we live in the new. This tension is debilitating.
This is the story of America itself. Many expeditions lead in the end to the early colonies. The War of Independence is the re-org. This then opens up the west and the new culture and millions cross the sea for the dream.
Yes the tools are important, but it is the change in world view that is the key.
Soon I will have the data to prove this.
What do you think? Where are you on this journey?
by Bill Ives
April 21, 2010 at 3:50 am · Filed under
Adoption, CIO
According to a new study about information management (IM) released by Forbes Insights, data-related problems may be costing large enterprise companies over $5 million annually. Data-related problems cost the majority of companies more than $5 million annually. One-fifth of the respondents estimated losses in excess of $20 million per year.
The report, “Managing Information in the Enterprise: Perspectives for Business Leaders,” looks at the challenges faced by both IT and line-of-business executives as they look for better data management. The study asked more than 200 high-level executives on a global basis.
It found a divergence between business and IT leaders on how to best manage information, including a lack of agreement over who within the enterprise actually “owns” the data—users or IT. I would have to side on the business leaders here for most situations. It is this type of thinking about ownership that can get IT in trouble. It is like librarians thinking they own the books.
Looking into the divergence in more detail, the study found that business executives and IT frequently disagree about where data quality issues exist. The biggest quality issue identified by business executives was inconsistent data (40%), while IT named the gathering of duplicate data (38%) and data migration (38%) as the major problems.
This divergence is not because business leaders do not see the importance of managing information. Nearly all (95%) agreed that strong information management is critical to business success, and 85% agreed that their organizations treat information as a strategic asset.
This divergence is costly. Fragmented data ownership (41%) was the leading business roadblock organizations face in establishing an enterprise information management program, ahead of not understanding the cost of poor data quality (23%) and lack of leadership (22%).
A clear strategy is needed with well defined governance. The study found that 45% of organizations said they have some type of enterprise information management program in place, and 31% said they are currently developing one. This is not enough.
by Hylton Jolliffe
April 20, 2010 at 12:04 pm · Filed under
Webinars
Join us on Wednesday, May 12 Thursday, May 13th when we’ll be joined by Marty St. George, the CMO of JetBlue, one of America’s admired brands, for an hour-long discussion on how JetBlue has experimented with and embraced “social-ness.”
Tune in and you’ll hear how JetBlue has integrated 2.0 principles into its business processes and customer experiences as well as undertaken the hard work of orienting its culture towards a more open and innovative mindset. You’ll also learn about:
- How technology is anticipating and enabling a more human (and occasionally messy) culture of collaboration to drive growth
- How the rise and empowerment of the individual doesn’t have to come at the cost of the company
- How embracing transparency, resisting fear, and tolerating failure are critical in today’s dynamic marketplace
- How the design and architecture of new customer service strategies has driven success
The conversation will be hosted by Francois Gossieaux, co-author of the book “The Hyper-Social Organization” due out this summer.
Find out more and register to attend this free event.
