Category: Social Media

A Year’s Summary of Personal Reflection

I took some time to think about this post before I committed fingers to keypad. Readers of this blog know I’ve been tracking the burgeoning market in what is now a popular meme called “Enterprise 2.0” for about a year– almost to the day in fact. First, let me say– the Enterprise 2.0 Conference was such an enormous success. It far surpassed my expectations, and I’m still reeling from the widespread coverage and insightful analysis coming out of the conference sessions. The bottom line is– the market I once referred to as a baby, is now indeed a strong, healthy child, growing stronger and bigger every day. I have nothing more intelligent, or more meaningful to add to the dialog that is out in the blogosphere or in the trade media on the various presentations, panels, and informal meetings that took place in Boston last week. I highly recommend you set some bots for “enterprise2conf” and catch everything that has been written from the conference and about the conference. I’ve been tagging several of the posts in my del.icio.us “Reading Room” list you can view on the lower right hand side of my blog.

At this juncture, at my one year anniversary of covering enterprise 2.0, I want to reflect personally on 1.) how the next generation web has changed me 2.) how I believe it is reshaping business and the global online village of “friends,” 3.) the collective responsibility we share by virtue of this powerful medium, and finally 4.) what to expect from those who are “left behind.” This is a long post and a bit of a departure from my typical posts, so I hope you’ll be forgiving and permit me to self-indulge. Don’t worry; it’s a once in a year thing.

Me 2.0

Who wouldda thunk? Where I used to be opinionated and somewhat obnoxious in my 30s as a leading industry observer in the IT services tech sector– quoted hundreds and hundreds of times in every trade pub and major business publication of record, even made it onto TV as a talking head… the blogosphere has humbled me. With sheer humility, I’ve come to realize I am, well, not all that. Even though I participate in this market as a contributor, I feel badly that I take more than I give. The discussion, opinion, and worldwide classroom experience of the blogosphere has rendered me a full-time student for life. As I continue to learn, I hope to contribute more. One lesson I have learned in this experience, is there is no room for arrogance in the next generation web. There will always be someone more insightful, more interesting than you contributing to the worldwide repository of metadata on the web—even if you think you are all that. What’s different in this era is that voice could come from a corner shadow in a faraway place, and not from the pages of the Wall Street Journal or from the stage of a large industry event. What’s really different is the respect these voices command on impact as you read them in blog comments, see them on YouTube or hear them in podcasts. NoName gurus churning out genius. I celebrate them.

Busciety 2.0

Yep. It’s a mashup. Business is mashing up with society at a fast and furious pace as social media networking and blogging continues to blur the lines between people and their professions. We’re learning more about who we are as well as what we do. Hierarchies are breaking down and the zeitgeist of this era is integrating our networks (social and physical) in ways we never before imagined possible. The spirit of trust, respect, and collaboration is propagating around the digital village emerging in different geographies, time zones, and in artificial environments such as online gaming where rules of engagement are being rewritten from the bottom up. My son, for instance, is a World of Warcraft Guild Master. He leads a guild of about 120, with members ranging from the age of 8 to about 35. He says he thinks the average player is about 16 years old. He knows this because he has told me he has spent time with each member individually as he helps them progress through their levels. At one point he had over 200 in his guild, but he parsed it down to about 100. I asked him, “Why would you do that?” He told me, “It’s not how many friends you have; it’s how many you trust.” We just celebrated my son’s birthday this past weekend. He turned 11 this year. He’s a fifth grader learning lessons in organizational psychology that took me decades of professional trial and error to hone.

Over 60 of my professional “friends” have joined me recently on Facebook. We use this word “friends” loosely, but Facebook sure humanizes us, and we act a lot more friendly. Because of an incredibly powerful post I read on Tara Hunt’s blog, I put up photos of my children on Facebook this week. That woman effected a change in my behavior. She touched my life and caused me to take a risk I might otherwise not have taken. Now, I don’t really know Tara. I’ve met her, but I wouldn’t say we’re friends, yet I admire her and thank her for impacting my life. There are many, many examples of ways I have interacted with my social networks and blogger comrades this year. All experiences have been positive, even ones where I had to learn a few hard lessons about digital village etiquette. I have come to know many of my online “friends” who I share tweets (Twitter) banter with, blog comments, and the occasional email. Some I have met in person; some not yet. Invariably, I feel relatively confident I will do business with all of them in some way, some day. Either directly or through an introduction I make through my clients or another part of my network.

 

Don’t be a John Mayer

Why is John Mayer waiting for the world to change?

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood

We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population

So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

With millions and millions blogging (70M+), social networking (160M+), sharing, collaborating, mashing up, feeding, linking, tagging, texting, Twittering, and online gaming… we do have the means to, well, change the world now. Our world, anyway. The online world. I recently looked up the stats and it seems about only 15% of the worldwide population is online, but it’s a good start. It covers 100% the wealthiest countries dominating the globe. No need to wait for John Mayer’s generation to rule the population. So, what is your issue? Is it the environment? Is it a political issue? Is it race/religion/sex? Is it a rights issue? Is it a local issue to your community? The power to influence others is at your fingertips. I’d urge you to use the tools you’re learning in the workforce to do some good for society—to change your world. We’re all passionate about something in our private lives. Use your emergent, user power in the online world for good. Make a difference. It doesn’t even matter if we all disagree with each other and ignite passions for opposing sides—activism is a healthy gift you give yourself first, and then share with others.

 

The Digital Rapture

In the wink of an eye, the “get-its” got it and the resistors didn’t. It was a little scary this year for me. The old schoolers wanted to cling to their power base regardless of where that power emanated from. The range of dissent covered enterprise application vendors, high-priced gurus, consultants who catered to the IT department, traditional IT analysts and editors, old school research houses and publishers, and sometimes even users who just didn’t want to bother to learn something new and really weren’t even protecting a power base. But as the light bulbs went off around me, and I witnessed the viral adoption of how liberating web 2.0, emergent, user-driven collaboration took off in the communities where I participated and in the blogosphere… it was exhilarating. I’ve talked a lot in this blog about the “movement” and have referred to the adoption of web 2.0 in the enterprise in terms of a “revolution.” I’ve even taken Andy McAfee on myself in this regard (yikes!). Now he’s poking me on Facebook. It’s been an amazingly great year. I rejoice with every startup success, and I don’t sweat the case studies. I know they’re coming. Some breakout business model will be borne on a wiki and stand to reinvent some industry because an enlightened executive gave free rein to a smart team of design engineers or product managers, and they collaborated freely—uploading documents, designs, video—sharing ideas around the world until they got it right. It’s only a matter of time. The energy that comes with this digital addiction is infectious. You can’t stop yourself from innovating.

For those who are “left behind,” I imagine there will be gnashing of teeth when all data on the planet finally transcends up into the cloud in the final days. Not because they’ll miss the data, they’ll miss the community. We may be a reckless, rumpled and disorderly group, but we share a common vision about information—its ownership and the right to access it. More importantly, we’re all connected in the blogosphere. This post is more like a column or a speech than a traditional blog post (and if you’re still with me, you’re a trooper). You’ll notice it has very few links or references. It’s a bad example of a blog post, actually. Those who have resisted embracing the web 2.0 gestalt are disconnected from this vast interconnected community. Further, they’re not even connected to each other, save for email and maybe instant messaging. Not even a close comparison to what we’re talking about with social media and web 2.0.

I’ll end my year-end harangue with this: blog. I know it’s short for weblog. But what an unattractive word. I know I’ve seen this mentioned before, but I need to reiterate it. Blog has an onomatopoeia quality to it like the sound an upset stomach might make. Or maybe it’s a really unattractive verb: “blogging” which might be what I look like on the treadmill in the morning. Fits somewhere between plodding and blobbing?

I think the new word for blog should be bond. When we are blogging, we are bonding. We are stitching together the fabric of a new digital society with many voices. The next generation internet has become an always-on lecture hall and playground where those of us who wish to engage in the dialog can participate and thoroughly enjoy the community we built and continue to build.

Thanks for listening. We will now return to our normally scheduled programming.

Up Next? That long-awaited Vyew review.

Allen & Overy: An about Face on Facebook

I picked up this story up from Scott Gavin’s blog (who sources Tim Duckett), “Staff complaints force red-faced A&O into Facebook U-turn” about the London office of Allen & Overy (A&O) that first banned Facebook, then re-instated it.

Scott writes:

Before your company blocks a site such as Facebook why not consider the following:

  • Is the site being used because of a lack of social software/enterprise 2.0 implementations behind the firewall? Put simply, what are the alternatives for the employees? If it’s none, then consider finding someone who can talk to you about implementing enterprise 2.0
  • See what Andrew McAffee has to say about the enterprise potential of Facebook and alike.
  • Consider issuing guidelines for usage instead of a ban. Be up front with people about why it might be a bad thing to do certain stuff.
  • Think about the young, net savvy internet generation your company is probably looking to attract. Will banning sites such as Facebook without offering any viable alternatives attract them to your company? Or keep them at your company?

This isn’t a rant at IT departments, as they are trying to come to terms with the boom in web2.0 applications and social networking as much as anyone. Instead I just wanted to point out that it’s not always a bad thing to do a bit of social networking on company time. The real answer is to learn from what’s going on and build on the desire to connect, collaborate and innovate. Not sweep it away with a block on firewall port XYZ……..

In the past few weeks, I’ve become a Facebook fan myself. It’s very true that the blurring of the social and professional is blurring with the ease of use of social media tools, but in the case of A&O, the IT department had a practical reason why they wanted to shut it down– downloading videos was degrading the performance of the network. Sure you could say– oh, that’s B.S. They’re control freaks! But, hey, it sounds pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? I’ve been feeding a number of IT blogs lately that are talking about enterprise 2.0 and I’m hearing a lot more of these type of practical concerns vs. the command and control/sovereignity type issues.

Similarly, Bill Ives wrote a blog post I commented on over at the Fast Forward blog. I wrote there:

Hi Bill. Over the past week or so, I’ve seen a lot more IT bloggers talking about e2.0. This is encouraging to me. It’s going to take a “village” to enable enterprise 2.0 to take root in large corporations. I’m starting to believe that without the endorsement, cooperation, and/or tacit permission of the technology overseers within large companies, collaboration platforms and nextgen tools will be limited to yield their full potential.

I expect Tom Davenport and Andy McAfee will be touching on a lot of this in the live debate which is now scheduled for June 18, 10am at the Boston Westin Waterfront (Enterprise 2.0 conference). We are going to tape it for future videopodcast playback, but we are also attempting to livestream it as well. A big THANK YOU to Brian Solis who is helping out with this. Details and updates are on the BSGAlliance blog.

Andy (I hope I can quote him here in fun) says he’s, “looking forward to… publicly humiliating that Davenport unbeliever.” Remember, Andy, everything you say to a reporter is on-the-record 😉 I’m just waiting for Davenport’s retort!!

A good time will be had by all. Hope you can make it in person. The room only holds 45 seats– it’s first-come-first-served. And free bagels, donuts and coffee. (Now who can I get to sponsor that?)

Let Freedom Ring

I was helping my son study this morning for his 5th grade test on the American revolution. (I always feel like I have to apologize to my British friends when I write about our country’s rebellious beginnings.) Nonetheless, one of the questions on his study guide was, “Who was Swamp Fox?” I laughed and immediately thought of Maggie Fox, who is not an American, but a Canadian who has been Twittering from the Mesh conference there– giving us a play-by-play of what the highlights are from the day’s speakers. She’s been doing that for two days. It’s rebels like Maggie who are using social media tools like her weekly podcast and now Twitter to keep us informed and engaged, as we sometimes get battle fatigue out here beating the drum for Enterprise 2.0 revolution and Social media salvation. According to Wikipedia, “Swamp Fox” became famous for “his ability to use decoy and ambush tactics to disrupt enemy communications, capture supplies, and free prisoners.” This movement has its unsung heroes too– like Maggie, tirelessly, thanklessly, Twit-casting away at Mesh. She may just end up with a Wikipedia entry of her own.

Some housekeeping notes: I’ve been getting a barrage of spam for some reason that Akismet is not catching. It’s been really annoying, so I had to adjust the commenting form for the blog. You’ll have to sign in now with your email address. I hope that solves the problem.

Also, on the BSG Next Generation Enterprise Daily blog, I posted today about the long overdue face-off we are putting together with Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport. Because it’s a BSG-related event, I’ll be writing about it over there.

The CEO Whisperers

During the 90s, when I was tracking the IT services market, there was a continuous blurring of roles and activity between Management Consulting firms, Strategy firms, and good ole’ IT services firms. IBM had IBM Consulting, CSC had CSC Index, EDS bought A.T. Kearney— throw in a few strong boutiques, and they all competed against McKinsey, Booz Allen and Bain. It got really wild during the dotcom run-up toward the late 90s, as web 1.0 approached because a lot of these guys left the security of these large firms to run start-ups. Looking back, there was one reason these guys made good candidates to run web startups– they spoke the CEO’s language. They could persuade and convince a board room to make a “bet your business” proposition. Now luckily, not a lot of F500 CEOs made decisions they couldn’t undo based on dotcom disasters, and most of the well-healed consultants went back to their high billable rate profession after the bubble had burst.

I’m writing about this today because I’ve participated recently in two events on adoption on Enterprise 2.0. One was a live event in NY which drew mostly a financial services audience and one was a webinar with approximately 50 callers participating.

Today, I’m writing from my room at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Naples, Florida (pictured left) where I’m about to attend a few social events with CEOs who are looking for answers about this new wave of Internet disruption or opportunity– as the case may be. I promised not to flack here about BSG, but we did make a terrific acquisition this week which gives us the privilege of bringing this story to the executive suite of some of the most well known brands in the world. You can read about goings on at BSG on a blog I’ve started here. I have to admit, frankly, the chance to evangelize on the next generation web to customers like American Airlines, British Telecom, Deutsche Bank, DaimlerChrysler, DuPont, ING Bank, Johnson & Johnson, Marriott, Merck, Pfizer, Rolls Royce, Royal Bank, and Shell gives me goosebumps– even in the hot Florida sun.

Even though we speak a lot in the blogosphere about the user-generated, collaborative, self-service benefits of social media and enterprise 2.0 technologies– the radical, cultural, enterprise-wide transformation we’re looking for is going to have to come from the top of what are still hierarchical organizations. And for that discussion to begin, the best tool we have today, may be the same tool that has worked for decades– the golf ball.

THIS changes everything— Now it gets interesting.

5/18 OKAY. Just got a WSJ alert that Microsoft is buying aQuantive which owns Avenue A|Razorfish. More on this later.

5/20 Update:

I was going to write a new post, but I didn’t want the headline I feel I must attribute to this acquisition to show up on feeds… which is this:

It’s the People, Stupid. (!)

I haven’t studied the coverage, blogs or commentary on this, but I’m giving you my off the cuff reaction to this acquisition and why I was so excited about it when I first saw it. It’s not how much Microsoft paid for Aquantive, the fact that now Microsoft will get into the advertising game, a revenue play, a beat Google strategy, a grease the skids for Yahoo strategy– none of that analysis is meaningful to me from my perspective. Microsoft IS enterprise 1.0; it still is the evil empire, I suppose. (Just humor me here, please? Here I go mashing up Star Wars with Trekkie zealotry, but like I’ve said before, we’re trying to save the galaxy for geeks of all nations, eh?) To introduce Aquantive to the Microsoft family which owns the #1 worldwide interactive agency in the world– whose median age worker is probably 27? Just a guess, but I’ll confirm… is real progress. With this acquisition comes fresh thinking– new ways of applying web technology to consumers and business. Doesn’t anybody even remember Andrew McAfee’s “Now THAT’s what I’m Talking About!” ?

Shake. Rattle. And Roll.

The evangelist in me sees a potential cometojesus awakening at Microsoft through the eyes of these nextgeners… yet, the old analyst in me fears my friends at AA|RF will sit in endless meetings much like canaries in a coal mine. But, I’m a glass is half full person– I gotta believe. Time. It’s on our side.

Big Animal Pictures

Back in the stone ages, I had the good fortune to work on Madison Avenue before the digital age had arrived. One campaign I was working on was IBM’s launch of its long-awaited mid-range series, the AS400. We grappled with the positioning of the product and did focus group testing across the country. When it was time to launch the product, the creative team pitched using the team from M*A*S*H, including Alan Alda to promote basic positioning of the product which was simple: the AS400 will help your small business grow. Why am I risking humiliation revealing my age by telling you this? The account team was headed by a guy that often used the turn of phrase, “big animal pictures” to describe how we had to have a very simple visual impression to tell our story. I can’t reveal to you what IBM spent on their launch of the AS400 with our Madison Avenue agency, but even after 20 years– it’s a lot. Similarly, during web 1.0, we saw hundreds of millions dollars spent on advertising to create awareness, induce trial for Internet companies. Add to that the giddy Wall Street headlines and until it all went south, there was a baseline understanding of what it was all about and what the benefits of doing business on the Internet were.

We are lacking Big Animal Pictures to bring the message home for Enterprise 2.0 today. In web 2.0– we have the blogosphere and maybe YouTube. The problem with the blogosphere is, well, we get it. The budgets and the markets aren’t the same as they were in 1.0 and in the enterprise space, until the large enterprise vendors get serious about enterprise 2.0, we’re not going to see widespread education and awareness building for the masses. In the meantime, we will get to appreciate the terrific work done by what I’m starting to dub “Pirates of the Collaborian” like this guy, Scott Gavin, with his truly awesome “Big Animal Picture” slide show: Meet Charlie. (Please send Charlie to everyone you know in the hopes it will be picked up on a major media outlet.)

It is interesting, however, because just as enterprise 2.0 must grow virally throughout the enterprise as an emergent, collaborative alternative, it is following the same pattern of adoption in the broader context. Exposure and education is still the gateway.