Archive for New Realities
by Rob Paterson
July 24, 2009 at 7:57 am · Filed under
Adoption, NPR, NPR Music, New Realities, Social Media
NPR continue to press ahead in their search for how to make the web work. Here is their wonderful new site – a masterpiece. Not simply visually but in how it contains all the relationships that are at the core of the new web world.
I am also profoundly affected by this work because I am now seeing that all the effort put into learning how to cope with the web by NPR, the system and me back in the day is paying off.
Back in 2005 NPR did something that I think is still unique. They hosted a mammoth engagement process, New Realities, that involved over 300 stations and over 1,000 people. The purpose was to discover what the web would all mean. You can see the results in so many of the actions that NPR and the radio system have taken since then. This new site is a pinnacle of that collective insight
But at first, at the end of the process, I and many who had been involved were disappointed. For the immediate result was not there – or so I thought. For two years, like seeds in the ground, there was little or nothing to see. But with NPR Music, the real green shoots began. Since then, the seedlings have grown and multiplied.
I had been foolish and naive. I thought that the conversation would produce results immediately.
But! Now – 4 years later – I am beginning to see the real result. And it is this. That NPR and the lead stations in the system are convinced and are committed to making the web work. They also have a common language.
This is simply not true for most others in the media world. They have not had this personal and deep experience with each other in an examination of what will come.
I think I see the true result of New Realities now. It is cultural readiness. For is not Culture the main barrier?
by Jon Husband
May 24, 2008 at 4:44 pm · Filed under
Artisanal Economy, Blogging, Economics, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, IT Department, Information Management, New Realities, Relationships, Search, Social Computing, Social Networking, Trust, Web 2.0, Wisdom of Crowds
I just discovered, tangibly, something I have thought of before and had imagined might happen. I did not experience it until today.
I have been writing and blogging more over the past six months or so about social computing inside the firewall, and have spoken at several conferences about the issues and dynamics therein.
Today I used Google to search for references to me and my work, and so rediscovered a blog post I wrote four years ago about the use of blogging in organizations to stimulate dialogue, learning and innovation.
Obviously, people looking for references to my past writings on the use of blogging inside the firewall have helped this old and forgotten blog post to surface.
Update for the fact that there are now more collaboration platforms and applications, change the verb tenses and few words to make it pertinent to today’s Enterprise 2.0 context, and I think it’s still relevant.
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Blogging, Dialogue, KM and Learning
by jonh on Thu 03 Jun 2004 12:17 PM PDT | Permanent Link | Cosmos
Over the past couple of years many knowledgeable and committed bloggers have held forth on how blogging can replicate the dynamics of dialogue. They have also offered opinions and examples of how blogs and blogging can (potentially) be extremely useful for what we call "knowledge management".
In addition, there have been various anecdotes and examples of how reading blogs, commenting on blogs, and creating blog posts are activities that accelerate learning.
All this makes good sense. There are core aspects of blogging that facilitate learning in simple and effective ways.
Firstly, individual or group blogs that are focused on a domain of information and expertise chronicle and catalogue the blogger(s)’ knowledge. Over time, this grows to create a recognizable "body of knowledge".
Secondly, by offering the capability of commenting and interacting, the information on offer can be better defined, refined, explored, tested, and built upon.
Thirdly, the information on offer provides a latent platform for action – information that can be acted upon often turns into knowledge that can be shared and used in various ways.
Fourth, by linking to the blog or blogs that offer related information, the knowledge that is built can be shared more and more widely, if desired.
Fifth, the rhythym and cadence of the posting, reading, commenting and linking replicate the dynamics of dialogue in very effective ways. There aren’t the same kinds of interruption and distraction that so often occurs in conversations that only weakly replicate the dynamics of dialogue.
Finally, an ecosystem of knowledge can develop that consists of the aggregated sets of links and content the participants in a blogalogue create. And this "body of knowledge" and understanding remains online, available to anyone who cares to become involved.
I think these dynamics hold great promise – they demonstrate the characteristics that many have suggested are desirable and necessary for learning communities and learning organizations.
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Tags: Enterprise 2.0, blogging, dialogue, accelerated learning
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by Jon Husband
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.
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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.
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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.
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by Joe McKendrick
February 13, 2008 at 12:54 pm · Filed under
Donut, Economics, Messy World, New Realities, User Revolution, Web 2.0
A couple of weeks back, I ran a couple of posts (here and here) that talked about how social networking and Web 2.0 technologies may make things different for people in the next economic downturn — be it this year or some other time in the future. New technologies and online services may help empower people to forge through lean times with new opportunities, versus becoming victims of the economy — as has been the case in times gone by.
Rob Paterson just posted this account of a Yahoo employee who was Twittering his way out the door after being laid off. What better way to communicate your situation — and availability for new opportunities — to the world? Truly astounding, and an incredible , empowering resource. That dude probably won’t be spending too much time on the unemployment rolls.
Forrester’s Josh Bernoff has weighed in with some of his thoughts on how Web 2.0 would prevail through a down economy. “Things are different this time,” he opines. For example, we won’t a repeat of the devastation of the 2001 recession, because this is “not a tech bubble” as it was in 2000-2001. “Technology spending is not irrational,” he points out. Agreed.
Josh adds that social networking platforms will flourish in a down economy, however. While advertising may get cut, marketers will see greater value in blogs and social networks. And the best part is that social applications “can be nearly free (think blogs, Ning.com, facebook pages) and even more sophisticated communities are typically $30K to $200K — a lot cheaper than a significant sized ad campaign.” Plus, being all digital and all, social network-based responses are extremely measurable.
So the social networking platforms will do just fine in the event the economy were to go south for a while — and in fact, may even receive a boost from companies seeking inexpensive channels to their customers. And, as I mentioned previously, end users will have that power in their hands as well.
by Jon Husband
February 8, 2008 at 10:16 pm · Filed under
Adoption, Blogging, Culture, Dead Paradigms, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, New Realities, Social Computing, Trust, Twitter, User Revolution, Web 2.0
Via Jeremiah Owyang on Twitter, I learned that George Colony, Forrester’s CEO, has recently started a blog (… as Rob Paterson has been pointing out, Twitter is a great place to pick what’s of interest to you out of a flow of murmurs, pointers and other snippets from a bunch of smart people)
I think Forrester has been pretty steady and early in their understanding that blogging is here to stay and will have large impacts upon marketing, PR and the evolution of knowledge work inside the enterprise. Forrester’s Charlene Li was early to the party and produced some good research about the blogging and social software phenomena in a business context …
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… and more recently Forrester had the good sense to hire Jeremiah (Owyang), a smart and well-informed fellow.
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It will be interesting to watch and read Colony’s blogging, and over time see if he, like many other people, comes to believe that it is useful to think, question and listen in public and "out loud".
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Tags: Forrester, CEO blogging, Charlene Li, Jeremiah Owyang
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