by Bill Ives
January 7, 2011 at 3:45 am · Filed under
KM, knowledge management
Here is a useful list of knowledge management blogs to start the year. It includes three categories: general knowledge management, Web 2.0 and content management, and collaboration. The list from Biz-gasm offers a brief description of each listing so they took some time to get to know the sources. There are several FastForward bloggers on the list. All the ones I know on the list are excellent and I learned a few new ones to check out. Of course, there are other great ones that are missing but this is a nice start.
by Joe McKendrick
January 5, 2011 at 1:38 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, FASTforward'09, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0
Consider the plight of the Web designer. I saw a comic a couple of years back (author unknown) that really laid out quite well the hair-pulling process of designing, building, and maintaining a site. It goes something like this:
- “Everything is cool the beginning. The client communicates their needs. You set expectations. Enthusiasm and excitement all ’round.”
- “The client shows you their current Website. You both laugh at how terrible it is.”
- “You redesign the Website. It looks nice and works well. This is the high point of the design.”
- “Just a few ‘minor’ changes.”
- “Minor changes start to add up.”
- “The client gets others involved: ‘Looks great, but I want feedback from my friends, co-workers, uncle, pet hamster, etc.’”
- “All hope is lost. You begin to fantasize about other careers… “
- “You are no longer a Web designer. You are a mouse cursor inside a graphics program which the client can control by speaking, emailing and instant messaging.”
- “An abomination is born. The client has completely forgotten that they hired you, the Web designer, to build them a great product.”
The process of Website design and management has turned up many, many abominations for businesses across the land. However, social networking may be sorting that all out. In fact, the flight from Website abominations may now be fueling the social networking movement for many businesses.
IDC’s Frank Gens, for one, recently issued his predictions for the year ahead, and foresees social networking software growing at a 38% percent clip over the next five years. In addition, more than one-quarter of vendors could be gobbled up in 2011:
“We believe that — as a sure sign of social business mainstreaming — 2011 will be a year of consolidation and convergence for social business software vendors, as well as a year of adoption expanding into small and medium-sized businesses.”
The small to medium size business sector is an interesting and growing sweet spot for social enterprise. In fact, SMB adoption is likely to grow to 40 percent of these companies employing online services to better market their products and services, he predicts. The benefit to small businesses: it’s cheaper and easier to use free online social media services than to go through the time and expense of setting up a customized Website.
In his 2011 report, Gens observes that Website development has topped out for many small and medium-size businesses. Instead, he says, “small and midsize firms will increasingly flock to Facebook and other social networks to establish a free online presence that improves their ability to acquire, engage, and retain customers without the hassle and cost of setting up a traditional Website. We predict that the percentage of SMBs using social networks for promotional purposes will exceed 40% by year-end 2011.”
by Bill Ives
January 4, 2011 at 3:24 am · Filed under
Social Media
As reported in the New York Times, a new Pew Research study finds that some of the greatest gains in social media use are occurring in older generations. For example, the percentage of Web users between 55 and 64 using social tools increased from 9% in December 2008 to 43% in May 2010. At the same time period, those 74 and older who are online quadrupled their social networking presence from 4 to16 percent.
The same trend occurs with blogging. Only half as many online teens are blogging now as in 2006. Those ages 18-33 have also seen a modest decline. . At the same time, however, blogging has increased among most older generations. This has driven the rate of blogging for all online adults up slightly from 11% in late 2008 to 14% in 2010. Many former bloggers are now are doing blog-like things in other online spaces as they post updates on Facebook and Twitter, among other new channels.
What does this mean for the enterprise? Now we go from research by others to my opinions. The use of social media has often been seen as an act of the young workers. I usually objected to this but now there is research to back up these protests. We can now count on more older workers to have familiarity with social media as we implement it within the enterprise. I would like to see similar research within the enterprise.
I am especially pleased to see the continued rise in blogging by older generations. Perhaps they have more to say that what can be compressed into 140 character sounds bites. Blog on.
