June 23, 2012
August 09, 2011
March 02, 2011
July 18, 2010
May 11, 2010
April 08, 2010
Every time you make a PowerPoint...
January 16, 2010
Major cull of 'Smores' and 'B1tches' complete:
Had to be done. Noise to signal was driving me nuts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler
January 06, 2010
Cartesian Content Management - Step ladder required.
Working on a global CMS project and was able to sneak a little of my past into a presentation to illustrate a point...
Content may look elegant on the surface, but once you dive into the user's experience to search and share, frustration abounds.
Having explored and studied this library: (http://www.bookofkells.ie/old-library/), antiquated information mangement systems still work, they just take too much time to figure out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_coordinate_system
Make it work for your users, not the other way around. Please, no step ladders to reach for the Z axis.
Social Media 'Landscape' c. 2007
Found this today on Twitter as part of a larger collection: http://econsultancy.com/blog/5126-eight-cool-social-media-infographics My, how things have changed.
October 17, 2009
'Internet and Strategy' for CMA Calgary
Thanks to Doug and the group for the discussion. Thanks as well to Greg for slide 17.
September 21, 2009
Did you Know 4.0
I've been following them since the Business 2.0 days, but Dave et al's visual interpretation of these facts is spot on.
September 09, 2009
User Generated Content - A double edged sword
I've always thought that the Globe and Mail was at the leading edge of integrating Web 2.0 tools into their content. Their live discussions are slick, a number of featured writers Tweet and blog on behalf of the 'paper'. Now, I'm not that clever I know, but I'm a little surprised it took me until now to put 2 and 2 together on this one. The Globe has started integrating Twitter feeds right into news stories.
I tweeted just to see my name in lights, but it raises interesting questions about the value and veracity of this type of user generated content (read the tweets around mine...). And since the Globe has no 'control' over this content, it also raises intellectual property and legal issues.
What if someone tweeted something untrue or of a threatening or criminal nature? Yes, that person might get a knock on the door from authorities, but could the Globe also be held liable? Probably not, but as stated, interesting.
UPDATE: The Globe appears to be at the Web 2.0 trough again. This time by imbedding official documents and press releases into articles using Scribd. It certainly augments the user experience and keeps them on page.The NYT has been doing this for awhile, but it's the first time I noticed on the Globe.
August 04, 2009
Social Networking and the Enterprise - Part 4 : How?
In a recent Forrester article and blog post, Jeremiah Owyang talks about the 5 ways companies are participating in Social Web. Although he's mostly speaking to the inside-out communication aspect of this phenomenon, the model is still applicable. 1. No clue: It's a complete free for all, it puts the organization at tremendous risk of Intellectual Property leakage and regulatory non-compliance, often without the firm knowing until it's too late.
2. The Corporate Representative: This is analogous to the 'tower' model where a silo of representatives, often senior leadership, are responsible for all Social corporate communications. This is safe, but doesn't truly embrace true sharing or collaboration. The analogy here is the 'Message from the President' newsletter.
3. Common Employees Blessed for Social: This model lets a few more trained people within the organization behind the velvet rope to act as Social Media ambassadors. This, and 4 below, follow the 'hub and spoke' model. The challenge here is that you're creating two classes of workers and it is still more of a push model rather than true collaboration and sharing.
4. Everyone is Encouraged: Again the 'hub and spoke' model, with a cross-disciplinary team in the middle acting as a conduit between various business stakeholders. From a brand communication perspective: "This is ultimately going to be the future, but having a free for all isn't an excuse for having a strategy, guidelines and resources to support the brand and employees". For a regulated entity, it may take a long time to get this far, both externally and internally.
5. Shut it down: The pendulum swung to the other extreme of the free for all, this is analogous to organizations that block Internet access to Webmail and other 'non' work sites. This happens more often you might think, particularly in regulated verticals like Finance and big Pharma. (I once built a clinical trial portal for a large pharmaceutical manufacturer. It failed because the clinicians using the site couldn't use it to 'talk' with each other. Legal, Medical and Regulatory got a hold of it and were so concerned about Adverse Event reporting they shut down all community elements, including hard coding email addresses so they weren't clickable!). This doesn't work because employees will use their mobile devices or just surf from home.
So, which one makes the most sense? It depends. Maybe a checklist:
1. Involve your Regulatory, Legal and Privacy people early.
2. Do a POST analysis on your organization or team. It will vary from Marketing to Operations to Sales, so it's important to do more granular analysis.
3. Don't forget about your company's Intranet and email client. Your organization's Intranet can (and should) be the primary information sharing and collaboration space if it's easy to use and addresses the needs of workers.
4. Get Identity Management working - fast. My experience with regulated entities is that some employees have access to things that others don't. This is typically managed by multiple passwords or the user having to 'ask for permission' (via telephone or email) to gain access. With single sign-in and Role Based Access Control Lists, access to information is based on your role within the organisation. This leads to a better end user experience and improved information control. This can then be extended to the personalization and customization of the Intranet and in-house Social Networking applications.
5. Start small and practical. A blog or wiki? For one department? Yammer.com for your sales department? Perhaps start a 'Social Media Sandbox' with a pilot group or team?
I'm certain there are others. Any thoughts from the 'community' would be most welcome.
July 29, 2009
Social Networking and the Enterprise - Part 2 : Why should we bother?
We've already established relevant definitions and put together a visual fabric about how
Although the point of this exercise is to determine how regulated entities should incorporate Social Networking strategy, we should first establish the 'why' and 'if'.
So, why is it important to consider Social Networking as part of an organization's information sharing and collaboration strategy? Let's look at some top-level drivers:
1. Technology Populism: This really puts pressure on organizations to act and to give their knowledge workers the tools they require to share and collaborate. Although somewhat dependent on the demographics - and by extension the culture - of the organization, people are increasingly finding or using their own solutions. If your organization doesn't have an in-house IM application, guess what? They’re going to use their own MSN. No online collaboration spaces? Maybe your employees will start using a solution like Google Docs or TeamViewer.
2.
3. Cloud Computing and the virtual desktop: Innovations in cloud computing are making the virtual desktop the norm thus reducing the cost of connecting workers and thereby increasing the potential reach of corporate social networks.
It’s not all sunshine, however. A recently released survey by eMarketer reveals that 45% of Social Media Marketers think that Social Media is not effective at improving internal communications.
Taken from a Forrester paper “Facebook for the
1. “Notifications” and “tweets’ assume more connectivity is better. I don’t regularly use our internal IM application and I have trouble keeping up with Twitter.
2. Interruptions sap information work productivity. Research suggests that it takes workers 25 minutes to return to what they were working on.
3. Professional capital needs identity, reputation and objectivity. Translated: I can pretend to be anyone on Facebook or Twitter (although this is changing with vanity URLs), but within an organization, identities need to be verifiable. This is where Identity Management and Role Based Access Control Lists becomes critical.
There are also legal and Intellectual Property issues to consider. Even with safeguards in place, employees will find ways to let knowledge walk out the door. And, the ill-timed release of sensitive information can land companies in trouble with regulators.
So, there are things to consider on both the positive and negative side of the equation. With the ‘Why’ out of the way, it’s time to move onto the ‘if’. Before we even consider how an organization, particularly a regulated one, should implement a Social Networking strategy, we need to ask if they should even bother. That’s next in Part 3.
July 28, 2009
Social Networking and the Enterprise - Part 1: Definitions and Mapping
Earlier, I mentioned that I'm scheduled to speak at the AIIM Western Canada conference.
My topic is, Social Web: Cutting through the clutter. How to use Social Networks and other tools to enable appropriate information sharing and collaboration within your organization.
So, I've got a little leeway, but was also struggling on how to approach it. I spent some time doing research and have come up with an outline for the talk.
1. Definitions: First, it was important for me to understand what all these terms mean.
Enterprise 2.0: According to AIIM, this can be defined as a system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities WITHIN the extended enterprise. In other words, Web 2.0 for the enterprise.
Enterprise Content Management: ECM can be referred to as the strategies, methods, and technologies (tools) used to Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve and Deliver content and documents related to organization processes - they permit the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever it may exist. (emphasis is mine).
For the majority of users within the enterpise, it's the Manage component (which can be further broken down into DM, Collaboration, WCM, RM and Workflow) that they spend the most time with, so emphasis should be placed here.
Enterprise Social Software: A subset of E2.0, it comprises social software utilized in a business context. Applications such as internal blogs, wikis, feeds and internal social bookmarking - all often bolted onto an existing Intranet - live in this space.
Finally, you've got good old-fashioned Social Web (including Social Networking and User-Generated Content - Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, personal blogs, Youtube, Flickr, etc.).
So, the business question is how all of these fit together for enterprise context, particularly for heavily regulated verticals such as Oil & Gas, Big Pharma and Government.
2. Mind Map: A visual representation of the space.
To begin to answer how these fit together, I came up with the visual above. The X - axis represents the number of users - few vs. many. The Y - axis talks about the amount of control an organization can exert over information - the higher and to the up and right you go, the more difficult it is to 'control the collaboration'. As a reaction, some organizations just shut everything down. I'll get to this when we talk about Jeremiah Owyang's thoughts on "How to Organize Your Company For Social Computing".What's also interesting is how a company's Intranet and email applications fit into the mix. Email is often overlooked as a 'social network' but that's exactly what it is and it's still the most popular platform.
With these definitions and framework in place, I'll next examine the emerging trends and key business drivers behind enterprise Social Network adoption (or lack thereof). Then, I'll look at a model that helps to determine in which direction an organization should move. Finally, I'll take a stab at some key conclusions and direction.
UPDATE: I asked my friend and colleague Greg Clark from C3 Associates, who is an ECM and E2.0 ninja, to vet this model for me. I got a passing grade, but he raised an interesting and valid point. To quote:
"One thing that jumped out at me is your comment about the importance/focus of the “Manage” portion of ECM. To me this is where a lot of implementations fall down; infrastructure geeks in black Nine Inch Nails t-shirts sitting in windowless server rooms spin up an ECM app and call it a strategy. Don’t need to tell you this is bad. The “Deliver” portion is where things get interesting from an E2.0 perspective. Marrying up these two (with a side benefit of some subversive records management to handle the end of the information lifecycle) is where it’s at.
The 'Why, If, and, How questions are next.
Pushbutton Ecosystem
An interesting post by Anil Dash (via Tyler) about the evolving ability to deliver realtime messages to a large audience using an open-source (read non-proprietary) plaftorm that he's calling Pushbutton. Currently, it's mostly an asynchronous Push-Pull model. I update my blog, and then if you subscribe to my RSS feed, you get an ALERT that I've updated, but not the message itself. You, as a user have to go and physically get the message (either manually or via a Social Networking platform such as Facebook or Twitter).
!n the Pushbutton model, it's Push - Push. "...it proactively delivers not just the notification that there's a new message but the content of the message itself." In other words, it saves the user a step in receiving information - and it happens in near realtime.
A cool concept based on existing and expanding technologies.
June 30, 2009
This bears repeating
A nifty take on visual explanations, brought to you by Commoncraft.com.
I like the US election one myself.
June 10, 2009
Aw crap, this is going to put us out of business
Relatively new and a fantastic example of Web 2.0 tools.You can build a professional-looking website in minutes and mess with it to no end. Pretty cool. Squarespace.
Web Design and Development for Dummies (oh, and the rest of us).
June 02, 2009
Customer Touchpoint maps and the Social Web 'Diamond'
I've realised that I'm a synergy thinker as opposed to being completely organic. I take bits and pieces of thought from disparate but related sources and mash them together with a dash of personal insight.Case in point. Thoughts from @evansdave and Kawasaki blended for the TV industry. I think it makes sense, but would be interested in thoughts and (constructive) criticism.
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Similar to a traditional media conversion funnel, TouchPoint analysis and mapping offers a distinct and insightful view of media tactics. The X-axis describes ‘Performance’ – a measure of effort and spend, while the Y-axis describes ‘Talk-Value’ – the relative value of the tactic as it relates to customer conversation and social interactions. Ideally, what should emerge is a cloud of media tactics trending ‘up and to the right’ – spending time and dollars on tactics that yield a proportionately higher number of brand conversation cycles.
Our online competitive analysis of recent mainstream media entertainment reveals some interesting trends. In addition to Television and traditional Public Relations efforts to promote an entertainment product (e.g. movie, TV), some organizations invest significantly in promotional websites as well as on-site Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
With notable exceptions however, Social Web and PR 2.0 is largely ignored. As a consequence, once an entertainment product is launched (theatrical debut or other), the Social Web and its associated User-Generated Content significantly increase the signal to noise ratio. In other words, the promotional website gets lost in the frenzy of Social Web activity – SEO rapidly degrades. Rather than fight against this User-Generated Content tide, adaptive marketers are embracing this trend by creating destinations for Social Web interactions. By using Social Network applications such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as employing off-site SEO (linking) strategies to blogs and other media, marketers have an opportunity to concentrate and monitor online brand building.
In Reality Check, Guy Kawasaki describes why concentrating on the tip of the pyramid of influencers (traditional PR efforts) – in this context film and TV critics – is no longer effective. Although it is still important to use broadcast media and to develop a robust online presence, it is now critical for marketers to facilitate conversations in Social Networks. So, instead of a pyramid, the sphere of influence is more accurately visualized as a diamond.
We advocate an integrated online approach, utilizing ‘official’ websites and on-site SEO as well as a healthy mix of off-site SEO and Social Web applications, including Facebook pages and Facebook Connect.
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May 27, 2009
Visual Thinking
For those of you that have worked with me, you know I'm a visual thinker. If there is a whiteboard in the room, I'll use it. Need to explain something, I'll doodle it.That's why I enjoy David Armano's work so much. Adopting from those such as Edward Tufte and with the visual feel of old school Business 2.0/ XPlane, he takes relevant business ideas, or just life in general ideas and brings them to life. The Power of the Pictogram.
He explains it - visually - here.
UPDATE: From our User Experience Designer, more chartporn.