by Joe McKendrick
November 8, 2010 at 6:15 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, SOA, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0
MIT’s Andrew McAfee, one of the world’s leading advocates of Enterprise 2.0, says he has started to notice a “sea change” in enterprise and CIO thinking about the Enterprise 2.o constellation of capabilities.
Speaking to an assembly of “old-economy” CIOs — typically jaded and seasoned individuals who have seen technology fads come and go and come and go again — McAfee says they recognized that Enterprise 2.0 had much to offer their organizations. “I realized that a fundamental shift had taken place: these executives were no longer talking mainly about their concerns, hesitations, or reasons for caution around Enterprise 2.0,” he relates. “Instead, they were talking about their frustrations that their companies weren’t moving faster toward it. For the first time with a group of ‘old economy’ CIOs, I was preaching to the converted.”
I have been hearing similar messages from CIOs over the past year, and Enterprise 2.0 offers two types of advantages to their businesses. First, it offers a way for IT and business end-users to better collaborate on new technology initiatives. One of the greatest criticisms of IT departments over the past decade is their “disconnect” from IT. Think about the mega-millions spent on large ERP and CRM systems over the years, only to face end-user resistance. Practices such as “Agile development” are intended to get IT and end-users to work more in sync with one another; social media and Enterprise 2.0 transcend physical and geographic barriers (e.g., executives in EU; developers in India; sales offices in USA) to enable groups to come together in real time.
Second, Enterprise 2.0 offers a way to put power directly in the hands of end-users to create and manage their own applications and networks without the bureaucracy of IT to slow things down. IT still has an extremely important role to play — ensuring the security, availability and conformity to standards of Enterprise 2.0 environments. But end users shouldn’t burn daylight waiting for reports and interfaces from their IT departments.
by Rob Paterson
October 24, 2010 at 1:38 pm · Filed under
Adoption, CPB, Change, Connected Enterprise, Content, Culture, Doc Searls, Google, HBO, KETC, Media, Netflix, PBS, Platforms, Public TV, TV, User Revolution, Video
Will newspapers all die? Maybe not. I am sure that, in some form, some Newspapers will live on. But for most of us – the Newspaper as a “Paper” for the masses is already dead. Will Paper Books die? Maybe not – I treasure my new Picture Book of my son’s wedding. There are few text filled books I will always treasure. But as a mass market object, books are already dead for many people as the sales of eBooks and Readers show.
The mass market distribution systems that supported newspapers and books will die soon as a result. For traditional papers and books only have to shrink by 15 – 25% to make the economic burden of running the presses and the system too much. Once these systems have gone they will be gone for ever. New systems are emerging.
I can already design and set my new book and have it printed and sent back to me – a market of one!
This is a new system quite separate from the old book distribution and publishing system. New “newspapers” such as Politico and Huffington are here. Some old ones such as the Guardian are moving to the new space. Twitter and Facebook fill in more news for me. My new “news paper” will be edited largely by me for me!
The same process is now going to affect TV. Most of the old infrastructure will die. New structure will emerge quickly. Some old structure will hybridize. The power will shift from them to me!
I have just enjoyed an Apple TV for a week with Netflix. Now watching content via the web is easy. But the big attraction is not just that getting content online is easy. What I had not known about was how powerful the impact would be of how my habits of watching affects how Netflix adjusts its offering to me. In only a week, it has used its algorithm to begin to offer me content that I might never have noticed that I will almost certainly enjoy. What it is doing is “meaning making” of the almost infinite pool of content that is out there. This has put me in charge – I am now my own programmer. I am my own network CEO. I choose the time and I choose the content knowing that I will enjoy it. I also lose all the rubbish and all the ads.
I am constructing my own TV Network! This is the revolution that extends way beyond the web access issues. The web enables this personal customization for TV as wit will for books and news.
I am happy to pay a subscription for this. I don’t demand that this be free because it is great value for me. I will never go back to appointment TV – no matter who puts it on – a network, a cable company or public TV.
My bet is that within a year, the death of Appointment TV will be sure and a new system will be visible. Look at how TechCrunch see this right now!
- Google
unveiled its Google TV platform less than 3 weeks ago. You can’t ignore Google. Hey, they just built a car that drives itself. But Thursday, in a battle that will likely become more frequent between old media and new, ABC, CBS and NBC blocked their programs fromGoogle TV. MTV, Fox and HBO are still available, but that could change. Still, one TechCrunch post declared “I’ve seen the future and it begins on my sofa with Google TV.”
- Steve Jobs bragged this week that Apple has already sold 250,000 new Apple TVs. The first Apple TV shipped in 2007. It had its fans but didn’t take off like the iPod or iPhone. The second generation of Apple TV’s launched just last month. MG Siegler really likes the device, but admitted it’s not yet the killer device in the living room. To get there, he said, would require tv network subscription packages.
- “Watch Instantly” is booming at Netflix. A shocking statistic came out this week. 20% of Internet traffic during peak times in the U.S. is coming from Netflix.
For more on Netflix’s plans, see Sarah Lacy’s interview with CEO Reed Hastings.
- Hulu Plus will be coming to the Roku box in the fall.
For some, the Roku box may be the first step towards eliminating cable.
- Boxee announced the new Boxee Box will ship next month, both if you pre-ordered fromAmazon or want to buy one in stores.
- Flurry reported Apple’s iOS Apps are responsible for the recent downward trend in TV ratings. The actual cause may be a bit broader.
- A TechCrunch post Friday suggested the future of TV is HTML5.
At the moment much power remains with the old powers. Netflix and Google are enduring tough negotiations with the producers of content. But why wouldn’t they take up this mantle of being the producer? Why can’t they do an HBO? Certainly today if I was a maker of documentary who cannot get space on conventional TV, I would approach Netflix and Google. Just as cable supplanted the networks, so those who provide access via the web will supplant cable and networks.
So what then for Public TV and the local Public TV stations?
If you are a producer it seems straightforward to me – you too have to approach those who shape access to the web – or add a service to the web yourself!
But that leaves the local TV stations on the beach! It does but like a local book shop, the audience is going somewhere else for the mass content.
So what to do?
Here is Doc Searls’ advice in a recent interview with me at KETC:
I think that an answer is to build the “Local Cloud” – Host the new Forum or Agora or Market. Be the host of the new/old marketplace for sharing through video.
There is not yet a really well functioning local cloud yet for video. This is a huge hole, waiting to be filled. Look at all those who are learning to use video. They are driving to HQ video. Look at the new screens that offer up a much better experience.
Take a look at your new 1080p HD TV screen. You know what the best-looking source is for that? Your new 1080p camcorder. That’s because all the TV stations, and all the cable and satellite services, compress their video, often to the point where grass fields look plaid and detail is just wiggly lines. Camcorders compress video too, but not as much.
My point here is that more and more individuals and small groups are going to be in better and better positions to produce their own video, and won’t be satisfied seeing it compressed to ugliness on YouTube. They’ll want to produce their own movies, their own documentaries, their own creative work, outside the industrial system that YouTube comprises.
If they want to mash this video up, edit it, do CGI, do the kind of rendering that serious video requires, they won’t have the means at home. And it’s often too hard to do it out in some remote cloud provided by the likes of Amazon (which doesn’t even provide that yet — at least not exactly). They’ll need low-latency fat connections to back-end servers and rendering farms.
Thus we have a big opportunity for KETC and other public TV institutions, to ally with local telco and cable companies, which in most cases have the space, the conditioned power, and the direct connections to the Net’s backbone.
How much time before the Tipping Point? My feeling is 2-3 years tops. In 2-3 years time all your best audience will have made the shift to the web. This may be 30- 40% of the total. There will still be a conventional audience but it cannot pay the bills. Just as when a newspaper or a book publisher loses its best readers, it cannot pay its bills either.
The pace is change is accelerating as each new phase builds on the previous one and adds new platform power to the web. Coming right on the heels of all of this – a new web based system of education and then right after that a new web based health system. All based on the same idea – of putting you in the driver’s seat!
by Joe McKendrick
October 20, 2010 at 11:46 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0
The Altimeter Group just wrapped up its “Rise of Social Commerce” event, and there’s no question that there is a groundswell of interest in adopting and adapting social networking to drive new business.
Altimeter partner Lora Cecere provided a four-stage continuum to assess where companies are at in their social business growth. The four key phases are as follows (by the way, she noted in her presentation, most companies are still in Stage 1):
- Stage 1 — “Let’s Be Social”: Companies “are using social technologies for the sake of being the social. The focus is on the brand, and building a community and its value.” Questions to be asked include: “What are the best tactics to use?” and “How do I influence
the most influential?”
- Stage 2 – “Enlightened Engagement”: Companies “recognize that customers seek to be informed during the shopping experience, and integrate an information layer onto the two-way dialog. This is done through external voices, from customers, prospects, subject matter experts, in the form of reviews or opinions, for example.” Questions to be asked include: “How do I make this easier for the shopper to engage?”, “How do I effectively connect the shopper to enterprise processes?”
and “How do I use social technologies to improve dialogue with the value chain?”
- Stage 3 — “Store of the Community”: Customers “help drive product selection, assortment, and merchandising. Few companies are ready for this phase, as it requires a complete rewiring of the organization.” Questions to be asked include: “How do I use shopper insights?”, “Which shopper input best reflects market opportunity?” and “How do I engage trading
partners to deliver against the store of the community?”
- Stage 4 — “Frictionless Commerce”: The buying experience “is completely redesigned to create a fully customer-centric experience. Companies will need to start with a blank slate to truly envision what this will look like.” Questions to be asked include: “How do I redesign the buying experience?”, “How do I enrich enlightened engagement processes without slowing buying cycles?”
I like Ted Rubin’s wrap-up of the discourse being heard through the conference, and he surfaces the ROR metric (Return on Relationship), which pairs nicely with the network-effect Return on Investment in Interaction that my colleague Jon Husband has discussed here at FastForward. Rubin talked about the relationship aspect of social business:
“The view/perspective I keep hearing is all about leveraging consumer’s social graph to sell more product. But when I hear the case studies, and see where true progress is being made, I hear more about interaction, engagement, and sharing… i.e. relationships. When I think about social commerce what seems to be the greatest opportunity is growing/nurturing the connection, participation and loyalty of a consumer, which in turn will build ROR… Return on Relationship. This is the first step required to make all this social integration sustainable and long lasting. Relationships are what will lead to the ability to sell more, not using customers to sell more product, but by facilitating/enabling feedback, sharing, reviews, and therefore build dynamic advocates who openly sell product they love and are passionate about.”
by Rob Paterson
September 27, 2010 at 10:34 am · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking, Adoption, Barriers, Community, Connected Enterprise, Customer Service, Disney, Energy, Interaction, Interviews, Management Theory, Marketing, Network Effect, Organizational Design, Platforms, Relationships, Robin Dunbar, Social Contact, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Objects, Socialprise, Trust, Trusted Space, Twitter, User Revolution, Web 2.0, Wisdom of Crowds, Work 2.0, Workplace
What would it be like if your business had a sales, marketing and support force that was 1.3 million strong that you did not have to pay for? What if you could source this leverage with a tiny central force? Sounds impossible? Do you have any idea of how this could work?
Now that everyone is using Social Media – what I am seeing mainly are people who using the new tool in the old way – trying to shout above the noise – “Look at ME!” “Aren’t I cool!” “Aren’t we good!”. I am seeing a Dilbert approach – “Let’s have a Facebook site” “Let’s get on Twitter”.
Most do what most do when a new technology arrives – they apply it in the old way and so get nothing in response.
So what then is the power and leverage that you can harness by using social media well?
Boingo are on their way to finding out how to do this. Oh yes and I am one of the people that are part of this and oh yes I am not being paid and nor do I in any way work for them. I am living the theory.
So how might this work and so how might you do this too?
Boingo have a class of people that are deeply committed to the enterprise that Baochi calls her “Super fans”. They and why they are connected to Boingo and each other is the core of the leverage potential. We will meet 4 of them in this post who agreed enthusiastically to be interviewed by me. As you will see, these Super Fans are attracted first of all to Boingo by the obvious:
- The service – easy one stop access to Wifi in Airports and Hotels – is now no longer a nice to have for travellers but an essential
- The support for the service is outstanding – got a problem – you get instant personal help
But a great product is not enough. Nor is good service. What is the differentiator for Boingo is the human nature of the relationship that Boingo has with its customers. Most organizations do not allow their people to be human. Service people are often ciphers working from a script. Boingo have set up an environment where their key point of contact is a real person who is allowed to be herself.
She has a name and a face and we are all in awe and a bit in love with her. We all feel her presence watching over us. It is way more than getting her help when we can’t sign on. She watches out for us. Have a problem – A quick tweet. In minutes she is there. She is like the guy who runs the old corner store who holds your keys when you go away, keeps an eye on your kids in the street, helps you find a new roommate.
As Nuno Montegro, a customer in Portugal says – It is not what she says but how she says things that is the difference.
Nuno is like me, a customer who actively refers others to the service.
Most of Social media is all about Weak Ties – They are very useful but Weak Ties don’t get people to do much – or risk much – or commit much – that is why they are Weak – they are easy.
If you want to do something – Civil Rights in the US – you need Strong Ties. (Nice new piece by Malcolm Gladwell that explores Weak and Strong Ties in depth)
The key to attracting Strong Ties is being human. It is NOT PIMPING your product. It is instead to show that you really do care about ME. It is instead to show that you can indeed be trusted.
How do you show this? Nuno makes the point that every service and product fails at times. The key is to offer the best possible response to the inevitability of a problem. The best possible response is to know from experience that if there is a problem, you can reach a real person quickly and that they will go the distance to help you get it fixed. “I felt as if I was the only customer in the entire world when she was helping me” Nuno told me. I had the same experience.
Attracting Strong Ties is all about “Giving”.
Aaron Strout is the CMO at social media agency, Powered Inc. and is also Super Fan. “Boingo is proactive and they don’t expect a direct return – they are not selling all day – so if they want an inch, I go the mile back. It’s Karmic! I know if I have a problem that they will look after me. If people are good and do good, then good comes back. Not necessarily directly but good gets attracted back. We talk about a wide range of things that affect me not just the product – which is great too – have to have that – they listen.”
What Aaron is talking about here is a very old model for an economy that was the centre of all tribal economies – the Gift Economy. In the Gift Economy, the Big Guy is not the man who has the most stuff but the person who gives the most.
This is the power in networks – this is how Open Source Works too.
Cliff Bremmer is a programmer who works for a company called Carley Corporation that bids on government contracts to develop instructional CD base/computer based training for the US military. ”In my spare time I help companies understand and navigate the social media spectrum in a professional yet interactive way. The company I’m currently helping is the one my father works for called the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel“.
The Gift?
Not only is he a fan but in interacting with Boingo he has learned a lot about how to use SM media well. “If there is anything I’m proud of lately it’s that I helped the Pegasus Hotel promote their brand with the help and support of @Boingo and other companies to become one of the most popular brands in Jamaica.” Boingo is not only helping him with his travel and Wifi but is talking with him and helping him help his dad in his business with advice and Tweet Up prizes such as free access and bag tags. The Gift in action!
He can see the flaws of how most use SM – “They are stuck in self promotion versus communication. I can see through it all – it’s all about them.”
In the Gift Economy that drives Trust and so Strong Ties, the starting point is YOU. In the non network economy the starting point is ME. No small difference!
Shelby Rogers is a flight attendant, a serving soldier (in the active reserve) and the wife of a serving soldier. Travel is her life. When she is not working, she travels. Access to Wifi has made her travel better – “I now know more than the Gate Agent does about my flights!” and it has taken away much of the loneliness that travel brings with it. Who has not been alone eating room service and watching TV in our room? “I can stay in touch with my husband on Skype and every city seems to have a friend in it.”
For Shelby, Boingo is a service that truly meets her needs. But it is how Boingo is connected to her that has transformed a pleased customer into a Super fan.
How often has your service provider taken you out to dinner? “We have even had dinner recently. I am now a walking billboard for Boingo with winking bag tags!”
So what does this mean? What are the lesson for both Boingo and for you?
- Baochi is no accident – the Boingo senior leadership have created the role and given it the space to enable someone who is naturally humane to be herself inside it. This new way of using Strong Ties to be the centre of a network is all about culture. In most cases senior leadership is too scared to let go. But if you do let go and create this safe place then the power of the network effect can be yours
- A really powerful network has to have an inner core bound by Strong Ties. This is where the leverage is. One staff person like Baochi can without too much trouble have close ties with 34 people. That gives her an outer network of 1.3 million. If she can handle the Dunbar limit of 144 that creates an opportunity of 400 million! You can see that with the right person, you can have a vast reach – provided you realize that your goal is not to have thousands of relationships but a few Strong Ones
- The secret is the math of social leverage. Many of you know about the “Dunbar Number”. Some of you know about “Magic numbers – the hierarchy of trust in human groups. If you don’t here is a quick primer.
So what now?
I think that the next stage would be this:
- At the moment all the Super Fans have a strong relationship with Baochi – I think that the best next step might be to find a way to connect them to each other
- At the moment most of the dialogue is still about the obvious and excellent service that Boingo provides – I think that some of the work that the Super Fans could do might be to deepen the conversation – Shelby touched on this in her interview with me – What is it that being easily connected while travelling does? In her case it helped her deal with isolation and loneliness – it helped her do her job better – it kept her in touch with her husband – these are deep issues that I think connect all of us who travel a lot
As I think about networks, I think about the laws of physics. All systems have order and attractors. Some force is needed to keep systems coherent.
Think of the Sun in our own local system. It has mass that provides a gravity that holds all the planets and asteroids and stuff in a pattern. It has energy that creates life in the system. I think that any healthy human social system has to have gravity and light.
At the very centre is the “Right Space” a Trusted Space created by the leadership. In this Space, the Right Person – Right being a person who as part of her natural persona truly cares about others. Connected to her is the fuel and the mass that makes up the Sun – the Super Fans. The closer they are to the centre and the closer they are to each other – the more mass and the more energy. The more mass and energy, the larger and more healthy the network of Weak Ties that form up around the Sun.
What gets in the way is our fear about losing control.
At Disney the surface of the Brand Icon never changes but inside the mask is a person who changes all the time and so is never allowed to speak.
But in the new world we have to take off the costume and let the person inside have conversations with the public – HARD to do.
by Joe McKendrick
September 14, 2010 at 4:27 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, SOA, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0
Over at my ZDNet site, I’ve been engaged in a number of discussions about the uncertain future of IT departments as we know them. Outsourcing and cloud computing — especially cloud computing — are being seen as the culprits bringing about a new IT reality, with technology services increasingly delivered from outside the firewall.
Whether or not you agree that IT departments will wither away in the years to come, there’s no question that the role of IT executives, managers and professionals will evolve, likely away from that of hands-on technologists and more toward that of “technical strategic thinkers,” or consultants to the business that identify and secure the necessary IT resources to move the enterprise forward.
That being said, another important element of the evolution of IT that must be considered is the trend toward “self-service IT.” That is, thanks to Enterprise 2.0 tools and services, business end-users are now masters of their own domains, they can create and share their own front-end applications (or mashups) without having to submit requests to IT. Does this mean less of a role for IT, or simply less hassle of fussing with piles of user requests and the ability to concentrate on the big things, like back-end security? More likely the latter.
Dion Hinchcliffe recently weighed in on the future of IT, and suggests a new type of re-alignment is taking place. Dion is in the camp that suggests rising tides such as cloud computing, social business computing, and now, “enterprise app stores” are killing off enterprise data centers.
What will take the place of enterprise IT? Dion calls it “Shadow IT” or “CoIT,” which will soon be competing with traditional IT departments for IT dollars:
“IT is increasingly being marginalized by such business priorities and needs on one end and on the other end by workers on the ground who feel they have a better grasp of their own local requirements and are therefore happy to use the consumer IT they are so familiar with to address them.”
CoIT may see success because it percolates up from the business, and is not based on big-budget projects that often don’t see much adoption across enterprises. IT departments may find themselves working more closely than ever with the business as end-users assume greater responsibility for their technology choices. And remember, having advanced technology does not automatically mean business success. Anyone can make a high-quality movie these days, but how many new Steven Spielbergs are on the horizon? Probably no more than 40 years ago.
Perhaps the new role of IT is work with the business to bring out the magic that technology makes possible. “There is an important supporting role for IT but history has shown that only in a small number of companies does IT lead business innovation,” Dion says. “A larger group of non-IT workers than ever before in history can now see what’s clearly possible with technology, we are surrounded by it every day on the Web and in our persona lives.”
