Zappos: A 2.0 Company

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.

Comments (2)

Culture - The Secret to a 2.0 Organization

August 11, 2008 at 9:12 am · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Barriers, Blogging, Business Model, CPB, Community, Control, Culture, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Enterprise Software, Interaction, KETC, Measurement, Mortage Crisis, Network Effect, Public Media, Public Radio, Public TV, Relationships, Social Media, Social Networking

What is the secret of a 2.0 organization? Is it merely the mastery of the tools?

If your organization is all about control and top down - it is unlikely that having a Wordpress site will take you to the new world of networks. To make a 2.0 world work for those you serve means that you have to have such a world working inside your organization.

So what do you do to get this? It is clear to me that we have made this shift at KETC in St Louis.

The context of this story is a project that KETC is working on to find ways of activating the community in St Louis to help reduce the pain of the mortgage crisis.

In so doing we are testing the big idea that Public Media can do more than bring Jane Austen to your TV screen. The CPB is testing this idea in St Louis and if we have enough progress - will expand the test to many other cities and stations.

So an important task that we have to fulfill will be to help the system replicate what we have done.

The easy part of this task will be the “Whats”. The Content we created, what we did on air, on the web, in meetings with the community etc. But I don’t think that only talking of the “what” will be very helpful. I think that it will be the “how” that is the real secret. The “how” will be about the new culture - the new set of work and social norms that are behind becoming a convener.

We surely have to become a Convener inside the station before we can have much a of a chance of being the Trusted Convener outside. That is the really hard work. I know that KETC has pulled this off. But how can I tell you about the how. How do you tell another about a new way of being?

This weekend while watching the Olympics I had an aha about the “How” that I would like to try here with you.

Here is a picture of the Canadian men’s 8 at the Olympics yesterday.

When all the 8 in the boat and the cox are aligned - something magic happens. All the effort is applied to the work. When this happens, you feel it. It is almost a spiritual feeling. It’s a form of magic. The boat just flies. You dissolve into a field that is the boat, the 8 and the cox. You are ONE. All friction and resistance is gone.

With a big race and your reputation on the line - the pressure to get aligned is huge - you can feel if one person is not there with you.

This is what it feels like in our KETC project meetings now. It feels like the boat is flying - it feels so good to be with the other members of the boat.

The pressure is there. As the guinea pig for Public Media we feel the eyes of thousands upon us. Upping the pressure to perform seems to help with transformation. Like heat applied to water creates steam or heat applied to iron with other things creates steel.

So creating pressure about results, time and scale is a first step. You don’t go gradually into this - you have to go full tilt.

We had no time. the project is only 3 months long. So there was no time to be incompetent. In the early days we had to re-arrange the boat a bit to get the team that could do the work and do it with the others. We could not tolerate anyone in the boat who could not pull their weight. We acted immediately when it was clear that the mission was being threatened. This is not the pub media way but it is the real community way. Real communities see everything and expect a lot. Real communities are not soft.

But after this initial shift - we know we have the right team. With the right team we build energy and confidence over time. There is a trust and a confidence in each other that has been developed by publicly and transparently experiencing the abilities of the others.

To get this transparency - we have a process that is built around all involved making public commitments.

It has developed by a simple part of the Project Management process - the day starts with asking each other for help. Every day we meet for 30 minutes to talk about what is going on and all the cards are face up on the table. We have learned to be explicit. Not rude but very clear. A very different norm from the past or most organizations. Accountability is fully visible.

This does not seem like the typical meeting that many of us have. It is very operational - what has to get done today and this week. But it is also very social. As trust has built there is also a lot of laughter and banter. The walls of the silos are coming down. We are finding that people who we did not know or trust much can be very helpful and that they can work miracles. Especially when the chips are down.

We have set major milestones and we have surpassed them all. Everyone has been tested in public. By being open - by being demanding in public - we are closer. Nothing is not unsaid anymore. You don’t have to whinge in the washroom. This is more than transparency - this is “clarity”.

So how does this happen? Well we are set up as I now see like an 8. The engine room is of course the department heads - they do the rowing. But it is the project management structure and discipline that makes the 8 go so well. So let’s look at this because all can replicate this.

First of all we have “Cox”. Not the project sponsor, not the President but the Cox (The Project Manager). In an 8, it is the cox - usually a very small person (Our PM is new and is very young but is an old soul) - who not only steers but who encourages and who works with the crew to respond to threats and opportunities as they happen on the water in the race. He is always pulling us back to the task. He is always asking the awkward question - he is always asking for more clarity. He uses humor and self-deprecation to get his way. But behind him is the power of the coach and the President. He can always use disappointment as power - “Do we really have to go to Jack about this?” usually settles most issues without escalation.

So the PM/Cox not only sets the process tone but also shows us how to use power as a convener. He uses personal power and almost never has to escalate because all the conversations are in the open - bad behavior - is obvious to all - social pressure ensures good behavior.

There is no doubt in my mind that Project Management is a key skill in the operation of a high performing organization. What it does is it keeps focus - it forces accountability - it manages the white space between the silos - for this is where the cooperation is demanded. For a while it all feels forced for this is new. But after 9 weeks it is our new normal.

Of course what is really happening is that the PM is “Convening”. He is holding the kind of open and trusted space that enables groups to work well with each other. The central process at KETC has become Convening.

We are also seeing that the project never ends. There is always complex work that is measured by outcomes to do. That raises another issue. Outcomes and measurement: in the old norm, we were soft on both. Now everything that we do has to have an objective and hence has to have a measure. This again was awkward at first but now is a new normal.

Which brings us to the “Coach”. The Coach in an 8 is not the cox. The coach’s work is all about ensuring that the goals are set and the capability is ready. We have such a role being played at KETC - the project Sponsor.

There is a lot of discipline in the role. The coach is not one of the guys. The coach pushes all the time. the coach has expectations.The coach sees the needs of the whole race/project. She sees how this race/project connects to others. She sees the development needs and she has an eagle eye on personnel. If someone is not working out, she has to deal with this.

Part of her power comes from her appointment. She has been selected by the “Club President”. She can escalate and does over personnel and budget issues. But she settles organizational issues from her position. But not all her power is delegated from the President. She has her own power based on her own achievements. For the coach is also rooted in their own talent. She has deep skills in a key area - Community Engagement. She has a track record of her own in getting tough jobs done well.

Finally we have the club president. He is responsible for the financial envelope - which provides the boat etc. This is a separate role to that of the Coach or the Cox. But in most organizations this person does all of this.

This is what I mean by Top Down organizations being political. They tend to be like medieval courts, where factions compete for influence and power. All the work happens in the corridors or in secret. Little is really visible. All in the end is decided by the King.

What is happening at KETC is that all the key work is now taking place in a process that is fully transparent. The President can look at the boat in the water and see all the workings. Accountability is clear.

• Each rower has his or her part and they have to be visibly working with the rest of the 8.
• The cox’s ability to get the boat running optimally in each race is clear to all - especially in the boat itself.
• The results of the boat belong to the coach - her role is clear.
• The resources for the club are the President’s role - and he is delivering and he also sets the tone.

The President in our case, asked the team for it all. He wants Gold in an Olympic setting and he asks for nothing less. In asking for all, he is getting it.

So that’s my metaphor. If you run your organization like a rowing team, if you set up the key roles as you find in a rowing team, you can make the shift inside from 1.0 to 2.0.

The irony is that the 2.0 world is more disciplined than the 1.0 world. But as you can see much of the discipline happens because of visibility and clarity. It’s like being in a small town. What you say and what you do can never be a secret. So your word and your actions define you. In a small town you also have to help each other.

In the 1.0 world of the huge city - there is little social pressure. All is anonimity. So there have to be rules and policemen and gaming the system.

Installing the kind of Project Management Process that we are using at KETC gives you a good shot at making this shift.

Comments (1)

New Enterprise Communications Tools ? … Twitter Conjoined With Instant Calling (TM) = Phweet

August 5, 2008 at 1:09 pm · Filed under Business Model, Change, Cloud Computing, Community, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Mobile Phones, Public Media, Social Computing, Social Networking, Stuart Henshall, Trust, Twitter, User Revolution, Web 2.0

Thanks largely to Rob Patterson’s previous posts on the issues and opportunities, regular readers of the FASTForward blog will know by now that Twitter (and other similar services like Pownce, Jaiku, Friendfeed, Identi.ca and Kwippy) have strong potential for practical use by project teams and connected networks of knowledge workers.

These services can be used to keep people aware of fast-moving issues, events and changes, and bring the strengths of IM and online presence together in useful ways.

Here comes another dimension to group instant messaging … one which promises to further close the gap regarding utility and the ability to reach into a network and connect with someone to whom you want to discuss whatever it may be that interests you or what you may need to know or find out.

A friend who is well-known to many in the Web 2.0 arena, Stuart Henshall, and his colleague David Beckemeyer (TelEvolution / PhoneGnome, Earthlink), have just launched Phweet, a service whereby a user with one click can ask someone who has just twittered (or pownced, or jaiku’d, or fed a friend or kwipped) whether or not they will accept a VoIP call.  Once accepted, voila !  Connection is established and the voice conversation begins.

In terms of how it operates technically, this service effectively eliminates the need for dial-tones (arguably the last remaining communications bottleneck the telcoms "own") in order to talk to someone else via voice.  Powerful stuff !

Please note that this service is alpha, and applies only to twitter at the moment, though I believe there plans to enable it for the other similar service I have mentioned.

Of course group IM users can already connect with someone they "know" and ask about / initiate a VoIP call in any number of ways, but this service makes the functionality available during the course of using the group IM service, thereby enhancing existing online presence and creating what some are calling ambient intimacy.

Go ahead, sign up and try it out.  I have … it’s easy, fun and potentially very useful, especially for project teams or private networks of people who are connected together on some issue or other.

.

Tags: Stuart Henshall, David Beckemeyer, Phweet

Powered by Qumana

Comments (5)

Supernova 2008 - Interview with Umair Haque

June 18, 2008 at 5:36 pm · Filed under Business Model, Change, Emergent, Social Computing, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0

          (originally posted to Supernova Conversation Hub blog)

I sat down earlier today with Umair Haque, who had been scheduled to present his Manifesto for a Next Industrial Revolution today at Supernova 2008.

Unfortunately his mother is quite ill and so he was not able to travel from London to be here.

He graciously shared with the Supernova attendees a write-up of the Manifesto, and also made himself available for this interview. Thanks, Umair … and I’ll do my best to do justice to his thinking and message.

Over the past seven or eight years the users of the Internet and the architects and developers of web services have created a new infrastructure and architecture for people to interact and create value in a wide range of human activities. Many have spoken for at least a decade about the transformative power of the Internet, and we have seen at least two waves of innovation develop … the initial dot.com boom and bust and the subsequent arrival of the broadly defined Web 2.0 phenomenon of social computing.

Umair suggests, provocatively, that while we are increasingly living and working in these new interconnected conditions, we are still by and large using industrial era assumptions and logic to drive the purpose and, yes, the dynamics of creating economic and social value. We have (collectively) inherited a dominant economic model based on exploiting resources, capital and talent in order to create, grow and make more efficient, a model that increasingly appears ill-suited to the challenges of a world whose population is growing, whose complexity is accelerating and whose ambiguities and pernicious challenges are clearly more threatening than at any time in the past. Haque argues that we need to undergo a fundamental DNA-like change in our dominant concepts about economic purpose and value. We need to organize differently, in order to seek value from new forms of efficiency, more constant innovation, easier and more comprehensive adaptation and more consistent effectiveness.

One of the key issues contained in this major challenge is that of raising the awareness for entrepreneurs, investors, executives, managers and policy-makers everywhere the need for and availability of “flexible centralization / decentralization”. This is the ability to centralize the parts of a business or organizational operations necessary for greatest effectiveness while simultaneously decentralizing other parts of the operations into distributed networks to gain the greatest benefit possible from those dynamics.

Umair said he wrote this manifesto because of his conviction that the necessary “DNA” (see the reasons for the scare quotes below) is coming out of, or being generated by the dynamics of the Web 2.0 environment wherein information is being shared and relevant utility, knowledge and business logic is being constructed during the course of (generally) non-hierarchical social interaction.

However, he believes there is a trap, which he is now calling the Facebook Trap. It’s not clear what Facebook is organizing or what specific purpose of form of economic value it is supporting or creating, other than personal profiles and page views against which to match contextual advertising. This extends into the point noted above, that by and large with current developments on the Web we are still using 1.0-ish economic and business logic. While it’s true that there are more and more conversations searching for conceptual pathways and answers at edge-dwelling gatherings like Supernova, it’s also true that the significant applications and services on the Web to date are still primarily concerned with monetization and economic performance based on existing business logic.

In his opinion, Silicon Valley (as an example) is either ignoring or refusing to confront some simple economic logic … use of the Web to build services and solutions won’t stop, it has become a structural component of our societies and economies, and it’s not about charities or about games. As he noted during the interview, the marginal scarcity of water or food may not be a huge problem for the Valley, but it’s in solving such economic problems that there exists the potential for creating huge, and progressive, economic and social value … for building a better, and interconnected, world.

In his words “the Valley should be the crucible of asymmetric competition“, out of which will emerge new companies using new mental and physical models to solve problems the old companies aren’t equipped to solve,. And when they emerge, they will do so much more quickly than did yesteryear’s examples of creative destruction.

I challenged Umair on a pet peeve of mine … academics, management and organizational theorists and business consultants everywhere often talk about organizational and economic DNA. I suspect that organizations and models don’t actually have DNA … it’s a fundamental component of a coherent organic entity. Rather those who work with and in the concepts and knowledge of given domains or in the structures of a given industry are so immersed in the models and dynamics that they “feel” the fundamental assumptions are natural. Thus, these fundamental assumptions are like DNA in that the core principles drive the thinking, perceptions, analyses and actions.

Haque agreed, and we both agreed to agree that the use of the term DNA is in effect (for our purposes here) a metaphor, a useful mental construct for helping to guide evolutionary processes and growth. And thus back to Umair’s central point … time is short, powerful new conditions are at hand, and the problems we need to solve are important, urgent and present significant new opportunities. But we need to look at them using new attitudes and new logic, or in Umair’s words, new DNA.

.

Tags: Umair Haque, Havas Media Lab, Next Industrial Revolution, Supernova 2008

Powered by Qumana

Comments (2)

Size Matters - When Small is Big

March 31, 2008 at 5:04 am · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Analytics, Artisanal Economy, Barriers, Brian Hurlburt, Business Model, Change, Enterprise 2.0, Interview, Long Tail, Marketing, Metadata, MicroBrand, Personal Branding, Social Media, Social Networking, Trusted Space, WalMart, Web 2.0, Web Advertising, Web Services, Wikinomics

Sam Walton’s wife’s deal with Sam when they got married was that he could do whatever he wanted - he wanted to be a retailer - but she would never live in a community that had more than 10,000 people. So his constraint was to build an epochal retail system but in the boonies. Look at what he accomplished with this as a restraint! He also found on his path that being in the boonies also gave him a defence against the huge competitors such as Kmart and Sears. No one took someone who worked in the boonies seriously. That is until it was too late!

My point is that, no matter what you think of WalMart now, that we are predjudiced about the boonies. Smart people in all fields - not the least in Social Media - tend to have a big city bias. We too often over look the boonies and those that live and work there - how could they affect us? We all know that you have to be in the big city to know what is really going on. Of course that is why Warren Buffett is the richest man in the world!

My story today is about a man that you likely have never heard of - who lives and works in a small town that you also may never have heard of. We can never know today if he may become the Sam Walton or the Warren Buffett of media, but my bet is that if he does not then someone like him will be.

My bet is that at the heart of the real social media revolution is that if we do indeed move to a networked world then small communities will be able to stand toe to toe with the big cities.

Meet Brian Hurlburt who lives in Yarmouth Nova Scotia a small port on the southern tip of the province where the high speed ferry comes in from Portland. Brian owns a runs a Web “Something” (Yarmouthcounty.com) that tells the aggregated story of everything that happens in Yarmouth. I call it a web “something” because it is more than a web site - it is closer to the old style of really local newspaper that you might see in a western.

Until Brian, everyone had ignored Yarmouth. The fact that the domain was available told Brian that no one cared. The Province did not care - Yarmouth is off the radar in Halifax. Tourists from the US got off the ferry and drive through town and onto other more exotic places that were better known. (Nothing is really exotic in Atlantic Canada but you know what I mean) The B & B’s were all separated and isolated and could not get their message out.  So were all the social groups such as Church groups. Small business struggled to get noticed and worried about maybe a WalMart coming to town. The social capital of Yarmouth was draining away. At some point, it would no longer be a community at all.

So who is Brian Hulrburt? Is he some flash young techhie? No Brian is a regular guy who knew next to nothing about the web. Everything he now knows about how the web works he has learned by trial and error. All the fears that a church or a B & B may have about the web - he has experienced himself.

Fear is the great barrier that we all have of the new. So how Brian learned and how he is - an open and vulnerable man - is an important key to his success in bringing so many parts of his community together online. He can describe what has to be done in language and in a tone that does not judge or appear mysterious.

He also did not try and monetize the site until it was ready. He had faith that if he was able to reach a critical mass that the money would come. So he also did not carry a lot of costs himself. He could not afford to have costs involved that would force him to force the economics before the time was right.

Is this not the Craigslist model?

What he has been able to do is to aggregate the life of Yarmouth online. Aggregation in a safe and trusted place is going to be one of the key value creation processes in a world of infinite content. By not pushing the economics he has built the trust and now “owns” the space.

The underlying metrics are also emerging that will drive an economic model that benefits not just Brian but all those who inhabit the site.

In 2007 the site had 100,000 visits. Not hits, over 1 1/2 million of those, but real visits. Because of the power of aggregation, all those that live on the site have now access to al this traffic that they could never have reached on their own. The local paper reaches about 20-30,000. So Brian is reaching more and at a fraction of the cost of the paper. He also enables a growing interaction between all parties which is not possible in a paper.

This is more than Google Local or Craigslist - this is a personal aggregation that includes a filtering that is part Brian and part the client. It can therefore be trusted more than a simple mechanical aggregation. It will over time therefore have more value than a simple algorithm.

A growing part of what Brian can now offer his family of clients is the kind of measurement that conventional advertising cannot. Brian is becoming expert in analytics.

Here I think is part of the core of the new economic model. Mass Marketing needed a mass market as there was so much leakage. With no precision possible, as in WWII, only area bombing was possible. So what could a small place do like Yarmouth. Their feeble sums of money wouldn’t even be noise in the larger scheme of trying to get noticed. What Brian can offer is precision - the Long Tail in action. A B & B can see exactly who it is reaching online and can adjust to get a better focus and hence result.

This will kill the mass media alternatives. Niche + precision = high return.

For me the lessons that  I have gained from looking at Brian are these:

• Niche is where the energy is - the Value will be on the right hand side of the Long Tail
• Aggregation around niche is where the value is - the more personal the better
• Precision about what happens in the aggregated niche is what drives the economics and the return
• Power will shift from the large and diffused to the small and concentrated

I asked Brian “where is it going?” He replied by saying that “The web is changing the world. It is helping us help each other again. We can take charge of our own lives again. I want to be part of this.”

Comments (5)

Worth Watching

March 12, 2008 at 12:21 pm · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Adoption, Business Model, Cloud Computing, Community, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Open Source, Relationships, Social Computing, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0

In a recent keynote at SXSW, Charlene Li of Forrester Research predicted that social networking platforms will be "like air" … "They will be anywhere and everywhere we need and want them to be."

More specifically, she broke down the use of such platforms into four components of utility and impact:

.

• Profiles - universal identities
• Relationships - a single social graph
• Activities - a social context for activities
• Business Models - social influence as a key definer of marketing value

.

Here’s an item from the NY Times about recent speculation that Yahoo may join OpenSocial, the Google-led social networking alliance that aims to bring significant degrees of openness to social networking platforms, thus (eventually) stimulating and enhancing ubiquity and pervasive use.

.

Yahoo May Join Google-Led Social Networking Alliance

By Miguel Helft

Yahoo intends to join OpenSocial, a Google-led alliance that is developing a common set of standards so developers can create programs that run on many social networks and other Web sites, according to a person with direct knowledge of Yahoo’s plans.

Yahoo’s backing, which could be announced as early as this week, would bring a large base of users to the OpenSocial alliance, which is seen as a counterweight to Facebook’s successful courtship of application developers. The alliance, which was announced in the fall, already includes MySpace, Bebo and several other social networking sites.

Yahoo’s participation “would mean that the site with the largest group of users, and with the largest base of registered users, would be joining OpenSocial,” said Charlene Li, an analyst with Forrester Research.

When asked about Yahoo’s OpenSocial plans, a company spokeswoman said: “Yahoo has a rich history of supporting open standards, such as OpenID and Apache Hadoop, as we believe industry collaboration is beneficial to the developer community and the Web as a whole. While we are evaluating OpenSocial as an emerging standard, we do not comment on speculation or rumors.”

Yahoo has said it wants to speed up efforts to open its site to outside developers. Although it is not a social network, Yahoo could benefit from third party “social” applications that allow users to share, say, their favorite photos, music or movies with their friends.

Read the rest of the article here …

.

I think that much of what is written here at the FASTForward blog by my colleagues also supports the distinct probability that the foundation is being created for the step-by-step (depending upon take-up and implementation) of collaboration and social computing platforms, tools and services which will redefine the dynamics of knowledge work and tie, tightly, into Charlene Li’s four key components of social networking platforms.

Powered by Qumana

Comments

For All Those Who Have Said Blogging Was Just A Fad …

March 9, 2008 at 11:51 am · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Blogging, Business Model, Culture, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Enterprise Software, Messy World, New Realities, Social Computing, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0, Web Services, Wisdom of Crowds

I remember literally scores of conversations over the past five years with smart people in various areas of business and the professions … almost all of whom were over approximately 35 years old … in which they were dismissive of blogging, for one or other of the various now-well-known reasons that blogging is often portrayed as demonstrative of human foibles, warts and the fact that not everyone is a well-read, thoughtful and considerate person when expressing themselves.

Here, via the Guardian (UK) is a brief report that demonstrates how far and wide the impact of blogging has spread.  We know that many mainstream online publications have adopted many of the features, and worked at increasing interactivity with readers, and I suggest here that this is but a harbinger of things yet to come.

.

The world’s 50 most powerful blogs

From Prince Harry in Afghanistan to Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology and footage from the Burmese uprising, blogging has never been bigger. It can help elect presidents and take down attorney generals while simultaneously celebrating the minutiae of our everyday obsessions.

Here are the 50 best reasons to log on.

.

The spread of the use of wikis and blogs into the world of enterprises began being considered not long after the rise of blogging as a sociological phenomenon, and made clear the different dynamics and structural impediments that would be encountered as the tools and services spread into the organizational environment.  Humans spend a lot of their time communicating with each other … always have done, and always will do so.  And wikis and blogs make it easier to do so in an interlinked environment in which humans use integrated information systems, keyboards and computer screens and software to enable their communications.

I know I am stating the obvious here, but the concepts of knowledge work and knowledge workers take on additional meaning, I  think, when one considers that much of the products we purchase and use are manufactured elsewhere, such that much of business and the activity of many organizations consists of exchanging information in the pursuit of product design and development, marketing, sales and customer service.

Email is still in many cases the "killer app" for human communications, but the advent of wikis and blogs lent some additional structure and focusing-of-purpose (in the context of knowledge work in an enterprise) to communicating for the purpose of accomplishing objectives.  That’s a key reason why essentially every purveyor of enterprise software has incorporated the capabilities of wikis, blogs and easy publishing to the Web into the collaboration suites  they are now working at selling to the enterprise IT function.

It was this realization, for example, that led to the writing of "Making Knowledge Work - the arrival of Web 2.0".  I was a reasonably early adopter of blogging, and because I had been involved in the issues of work design for the past two decades, I became convinced that wikis and blogs would spread into the enterprise setting.  I thought they were a natural extension beyond using email for people to communicate and share information that may be useful to small groups of other people interested in the same or similar issues.

In 2003 I began arguing about that with a man who was on the Board of Directors of the blogging start-up I co-founded (Qumana) and who at one time had been the head of KM research at the Gartner Group.  His position was that it was just a fad that teenagers and cranks were using to bleat on about whatever it was they wanted to bleat on about, and my position was that "yes, there was that aspect to it", but that it was also a natural way for people to express ideas, opinions, point others to useful information, carry out arguments and dialogue and spark insights and the need to collaborate.

Well, blogs and wikis continued to spread and eventually Web 2.0 and then Enterprise 2.0 became recognized as domains of ongoing activity in which participation, interactivity and collaboration were key dynamics.  In 2006, he (the man I was arguing with) basically said  "OK, you win" and challenged me to add the observations and knowledge about the use of social computing (wikis, blogs, etc.) to the existing edition of "Making Knowledge Work" which had not foreseen the rise and penetration of Web 2.0 tools, services and dynamics into the enterprise setting.

It will be most interesting to see what the state of human communications looks like in 2015, both inside the firewall of organizations, and outside … although it may be that the lines between "inside" and ‘outside" continue to blur, the beginnings of which we have already seen and which has been much discussed, though to date mainly in the realms of marketing, PR and more recently product development.

.

Powered by Qumana

Comments (6)

How Obama is Using Web (and Enterprise) 2.0 in the US Primary Campaign

March 5, 2008 at 7:19 am · Filed under Business Model, Change, Community, Election 2008, Enterprise 2.0, Long Tail, Politics, Web 2.0

Yesterday Hillary Clinton made a come back to win 3 of the 4 contested primaries but Barack Obama was able to close early gaps to gain significant delegates and keep his lead in the pledged delegate count. There has been a lot written on the organizational strength of the Barrack Obama campaign. Part of this comes from some creative use of the new web, both on public sites and within the organization. One of the tools they are using is Central Desktop, a collaboration platform for business teams. Yesterday, I spoke with Isaac Garcia, CEO of Central Desktop, on the day of the Texas primary on what the Obama campaign was doing in Texas and what they did in California. Prior to our conversation I read his Central Desktop blog post, “Barack Obama and The Long Tail of Politics.” It spoke well to the general issues of the long tail, but I wanted to know what they actually did with the software, and Issac filled me in and took me to the Obama Texas site to see some stuff while it was still up. I was very impressed.

Howard Dean made effective use of meetup.com to organize meetings and his web site to gather donations in his 2004 campaign. Many other politicians have since used their web sites to gather donations. Some, such as Mitt Romney, have even employed tools such as salesforce.com to manage the donation process. Almost all campaigns also started blogs in 2004. The Obama campaign has gone a step further and uses web 2.0 tools to help train and organize their volunteer supporters, allow volunteers to rapidly update information and, in some cases, provide web 2.0 tools to help manage their volunteer efforts. The core staff has also used these tools within the campaign.

Central Desktop is an on demand collaboration platform that is wiki-based and designed for the business user. A political campaign is also a business, as well as a movement, and is really a rapidly growing startup that has huge collaboration and communication needs. I will write about the details of Central Desktop in a follow on post but want to focus on its use within the Obama campaign in this piece.

The use of Central Desktop started in the California campaign where the Obama people faced the task of developing and managing a field operation in a geographically massive and diverse state. According to Issac, the conventional wisdom was that you could really only campaign in California effectively through TV and direct mail. No one had tried to build a field operation from the grass roots up in California since Bobby Kennedy. Several volunteers started using Central Desktop to coordinate their internal efforts. It worked well so they decided to open it up to more volunteers as they hired and then organized a field operation that enlisted 6,000 precinct captain volunteers.

They set up MyPrecinct pubic workspaces for selected precinct captains. This allowed them to manage their efforts with task assignment, calendaring, documents, lists of key information, and other workspace tools. These spaces were separate form the main web site. They allowed the precinct captains to manage and organize themselves, reducing the burden on the central staff and on the central web site staff. It also reflected the more decentralized operational mode of the campaign. One of the main themes is increased participation in the political process, and this allowed for increased participation in the workings of the campaign. While Obama did not win in California, he did manage to close the gap and gain significant delegates.

As the Obama campaign moved on to Texas, Central Desktop came with them. Since this campaign was still current at the time of the interview with Issac, I was able to see much more about what was going on. Here the main focus was to the use the tool to quickly train precinct captains on their job and provide the information they need. The wiki based tool allowed for rapid content development in the few weeks leading up to the Texas campaign and then maintenance and updates by volunteers. Central Desktop has many permission levels so the content could not be spammed or trashed as sometimes happens in public wikis.

New or prospective precinct captains can go the Precinct Captain Learning Center, a separate application from the main web site. I put the link in but I am not sure how long it will be up. You are first greeted by these choices on the home page:

1. “Apply to be a Precinct captain - not yet a Precinct captain - click here to sign up”

2. “Get Started - First time visiting the site - Start here” - the page starts with - “From the entire Obama for America community in Texas– staff, volunteers, and supporters — we sincerely thank you for stepping up and taking responsibility for a piece of this movement… (then it goes on after more welcoming) - Time is precious — click here to get started now!” You go to a clear and detailed list of steps to take. - Step One - learn your role, Step Two - Call 20 voters using MyPrecinct (with many quick guides on effective calls), Step Three: Recruit Help (with more guidance).

3. “New Features in the MyPrecinct calling tool” - this section has screen shots and explanations. It showed you how to do data entry. The precinct voters are already entered and when you want to update the results of a call - you click on edit data giving you wiki editing rights. You also get rolled up data on your efforts. In addition, there was also a My Precinct Team feature where you can meet other precinct captains through their contact information for further collaboration.

4. “Find Your Early Voting Location” - here the wiki format is useful in up dating information

There are also many links in the side bars under training & tutorials, help (FAQs, contact your organizer), and resource center (issues, fact check, office locator, etc.). Underneath the four main sections above were three links with graphics:

Share Your Story - people can write about how they got involved in the campaign in a blog format

Office locator - with maps - the wiki tool helped with the updates

The Texas Two-Step - clearly written explanation of the hybrid primary voting and caucus process that explained in a way that I had not heard in the media.

This was all done in a few weeks and allowed for more effective participation but a campaign that is attempting to bring new people into the process and make them effective. The campaign sates on its main web site, “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring real change in Washington… I’m asking you to believe in yours.” It is nice to see the campaign use participatory web 2.0 tools to further enable people in this process. I hope that whoever gets elected will try to engage more people in the political process through tools such as these.

Comments (7)