April 2009 Archives

The first event of burgeoning new events company The Insight Exchange is announced! And to set the tone for some of the themes we will be exploring this year and beyond, the topic is... The Power of Influence.

This event will be the first of The Insight Exchange lunch series, which each month will explore a different topic, experimenting with formats along the way. The following events are:

19 May - The Power of Influence
23 June - The Impact of Twitter on Media and Journalism
21 July - Social Media Strategy
18 August - A very special topic and international guest - to be announced

For the May event, to uncover some of the dynamics of influence, we are running a competition for influencers – full details at Do You Have the Power of Influence?

In summary, contact us at @insightexchange on Twitter to set up your Twitter name (or whatever name you’d like), and anyone registering with that code (except yourself) will get a 40% discount in registering for the lunch. Whoever has the most registrations under their name will get some wonderful rewards, including a brief speaking slot at the event.

May the most influential win!

I caught up with Laurie Lock Lee yesterday and we compared notes on our recent launched books – my Implementing Enterprise 2.0 and his IT Governance in a Networked World. I haven’t read his book yet but it looks great and I’ll report on it soon.

In our discussion of Enterprise 2.0 and the networked organization, Laurie observed that a minority of people inside organizations actually touch an ERP system. While it runs the basic business processes of a firm, it is essentially linear and doesn’t facilitate the networked connections and communication that support the everyday work of a knowledge-based organization.

Laurie proposed that it would be interesting to ask people in an organization which they would prefer to do without in doing their work: ERP or email. While finance types might immediately opt for the ERP system, the majority of people depend far more on email to do their jobs.

As I wrote back in 2007, we can consider that ERP is about automating processes while Enterprise 2.0 is about enabling knowledge work. While both are essential, as we shift into an increasingly networked world, facilitating connections matters more.

Which would you prefer to do without – email or ERP?

After my TV interview about Twitter the other day, I’ve just been interviewed by ABC Radio about the Nielsen research just out that shows that Twitter’s second-month retention rates for new users are 40%, compared to retention rates of 50-60% for Facebook and MySpace when they were at a similar stage in their growth.

I was asked some interesting questions in the interview, so to paraphrase them and quickly respond:

Is this a concern for Twitter’s executives?
Absolutely. It’s one thing to get massive numbers of new users. It’s another thing to retain them. Unless Twitter can change this, it will never conquer the world as some suggest it might.

To further the TED conference’s mission of promoting ideas worth spreading, it has established the TEDx program of independently organized TED events.

The global Advance network is running its first TEDx event on May 5 in San Francisco, where I will speak on the future of the enterprise.

See the full invitation and registration details here.

I will be drawing on the content and ideas from my recently launched book Implementing Enterprise 2.0, but also putting this in a far broader frame of what lies ahead for organizations of all kinds.

Melissa Vaarzon-Morel of Advance Global Professionals San Francisco Committee and TEDxAdvance creator will speak about the background of the event and global networks.

Following these presentation we will have a discussion, bringing to bear the fantastic insights of:
* Verna Allee, CEO, ValueNetworks.com and author, The Future of Knowledge
* Sam Diaz, Senior Editor, CBS Interactive

The event will be held courtesy of CBS Interactive at their San Francisco offices on Second Street, with Atlassian kindly sponsoring wine and appetizers.

Click here for more information and to register. I hope to see you there!

If you can’t make it the event will be streamed live here.

About TEDxAdvance
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx.

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. This event is call TEDxAdvance, where x=independently organized TED event. At the TEDxAdvance event, live speakers will spark deep discussion and connection. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including this one, are self-organized.

For anyone who has tried to email me over the last 28 hours and received a bounce, please just email me again - my email is back up and I now exist again!

This has been a nightmare as I've transferred my primary website associated my email to a new host, and it did not go smoothly, I'll spare you the gory details.

Now on with the rest of my life.

Download Chapter 9 of Living Networks on the Flow of Services

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 9: The Flow of Services
Reframing Digital and Professional Services

OVERVIEW: Digital connectivity and integration are dramatically shifting the role of services in the economy. Software is being provided as a service, business processes are readily outsourced, and the functions of the firm can be broken down into defined modules. Professional services now range across a spectrum of business models ranging from digital services to traditional face-to-face delivery. The same drivers are resulting in the rise of professional networks as viable competitors to established firms.

Chapter 9 of Living Networks - Commentary and updated perspectives

ComScore has just released global Twitter usage figures for March, showing a 95% growth in the month to 19.1 million visitors. Using the same methodology as my At current growth rates everyone in the US will have a Twitter account by August 22 2009! blog post from last week (extrapolating current exponential growth rates)...

Everyone in the world will have a Twitter account by December 21 2009! (which will be a nice Christmas present for the Twitter founders)

US users currently comprise 48.6% of global visitors. It's interesting that US growth is 131% compared to global growth at 95%. If these growth rates continue the US will again have the majority of global users, after having started as a mainly US application and then gained significant traction internationally. Undoubtedly by later this year global growth rates will pick up relative to the US (especially since everyone in the US will be on Twitter by August 22!)

For a recent boardroom presentation to a group of CEOs of large organizations I prepared ten ‘dos and donts’ on my topic of organizational change.

Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework

I drew on the core ideas in our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report and framework (as above). Enterprise 2.0 is ultimately far more about organizational change than technology, though it happens to be driven by web technologies. As such much of my focus today is on how to change organizations, to literally create the next version of the enterprise. Far more details on how to put the ideas below into practice are in the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report.

My list got an extremely positive response from the audience, so I thought I’d share it here.

DOS

1. Create a vision
The most important aspect of your vision is that it must be compelling. Unless people are drawn to it and want to help create it, it is useless. This means it needs to be focused on the benefits to everyone in the organization.

Today we are continuing our series of visual representations of social media tools inside organizations, taken from our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report.

The diagram below was used in the chapter on wikis in the enterprise, to illustrate how wikis can be used in organizational activities.

Go to the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 downloads page for several free chapters, including the chapter on social networking on the enterprise, with its own diagram on how social networks relate to other Enterprise 2.0 tools.

More Enterprise 2.0 visualizations coming soon.

Unfortunately posting this a bit late, but there is still time to submit your awesome intranet work to the Intranet Innovation Awards - the deadline is May 1.

The awards are run annually by StepTwo Designs, and for the last two years have featured some fantastic examples of innovation in internal web initiatives.

One of my favorites from the winners is Janssen-Cilag. Nathan Wallace, who spoke at the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum both this year and last year, shares his story in this video.

Advanced Human Technologies is an awards supporter, so we'll be sharing more when the winners are announced later this year.

The latest issue of People and Strategy Journal has an extremely interesting Point/ Counterpoint feature. Download the full article and responses here.

Karen Stephenson, a leading network theorist and practitioner, wrote an article Neither Hierarchy nor Network: An Argument for Heterarchy, examining how heterarchies, that bring together elements of networks and hierarchies, are the most relevant organizational structures for our times.

Leading people in the field were invited to respond to the article, with responses from Edgar Schein of MIT, Robert Eccles of Harvard Business School, Charles Handy, Tracy Cox of Raytheon, Patti Anklam, Barry Frew of Center for Executive Education, Art Kleiner the editor-in-chief of Strategy+Business magazine, and Ross Dawson of Advanced Human Technologies (me :-) ).

My response is below. If you are interested in how organizational structures can be more effective in a connected world, I strongly recommend reading the full article and responses – this is an extremely topical issue.

Heterarchy: Technology, Trust and Culture

Stephenson is absolutely right to emphasize both the rapid rise in interconnection that individuals, organizations, and societies are currently experiencing, and the resulting interdependence that stems from that. Relatively few have yet grasped that the degree of interdependence generated in a global connected economy significantly changes the drivers of individual and collective success. Central to these drivers are the organizational structures that coalesce value from disparate participants.

This morning’s Sydney Morning Herald displayed a prominent headline Telstra lays down the law on Twitter. The article began:

Telstra has become the first major Australian company to set down guidelines on the use of Facebook, Twitter and similar websites by its employees.

First? According to whom? As noted by Stephen Collins, the Australian Public Service Commission publicly announced protocols for online media participation in December. A number of major Australian companies have established guidelines for social media, they just didn’t issue press releases about it as Telstra has.

In any case, Telstra’s social media policy a solid document and it’s good that Telstra has both created it and released it publicly. (See the social media policy itself and the blog post launching it.) Companies that have not addressed these issues are essentially creating a liability out of what could be a strong positive for the organization.

The extensive background to the announcement (including all the fun and games of @fakestephenconroy) is given in an article on ITNews titled Telstra staff given rules on use of social networks. In the article I am quoted:

Ross Dawson, chairman of social networking analyst group Advanced Human Technologies, described Telstra's new policy as "solid and straightforward."

Following Des Walsh's video interviews with Chris Lampard, Jenny Williams and Peter Williams at the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum, here are three more interviews from the event with Des's accompanying blog posts...

Stephen Collins (trib), acidlabs

Des Walsh blog post on Stephen Collins interview

ComScore has just announced that the number of Twitter users in the US went up by 131% in March.

At this rate, everyone in the US will have a Twitter account by August 22 of this year.

In other news, CNN (which just acquired CNNbrk) and Ashton Kutcher are battling it out to be the first to reach one million followers.

With many million of synapses now firing frantically, the global brain is finally awakening…

I’ve just posted my third logo competition on 99 designs in as many months, as I am now firmly in venture generation mode, and have found that 99 designs can provide excellent results if you approach it the right way. After rebranding Advanced Human Technologies (full launch announced shortly) and launching events firm The Insight Exchange 10 days ago, I have just put up a logo competition for Repyoot, which will be announced soon pre-beta as what will soon emerge as a leading influence and reputation ratings engine.

So if you’re a designer or know a great designer who would like to create a very influential logo design, check out the logo competition!

For years now I have been trying to get the message out to senior executives that effective social networks are critical to business performance. By now that is well understood, in part supported by the large body research and academic literature on how social networks in and across organizations drive results and performance.

Now researchers from IBM Research and MIT have undertaken the largest study of its kind ever. BusinessWeek writes that Researchers at IBM and MIT have found that certain e-mail connections and patterns at work correlate with higher revenue production.

The report itself, Value of Social Network -- A Large-Scale Analysis on Network Structure Impact to Financial Revenue of Information Technology Consultants, provides detail on their findings – for those interested in these issues it’s well worth a read.

In summary, there were four key results:

1. Structural diversity and centrality of social networks are positively correlated with performance for both individual consultant and project teams.

Last night SBS World News ran a segment on the Australian National Broadband Network plan, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the leader of the opposition debating its merits, and a piece on how much broadband is likely to cost consumers, which took some snapshots from an interview with me.

Unfortunately the small quote they took from me and its positioning in the story seemed to imply that I thought that $100 per month was acceptable pricing. Here are the points that I made while I was being interviewed:

* While some analysts have suggested that consumers will have to pay $100 per month for broadband access to make the project commercially viable, there are highly questionable assumptions in their methodology.

* Consumer telecoms pricing has been and will increasingly driven by bundling and integration with value-add services. As I pointed out yesterday, telcos need to shift to value-add services, including content, and this will drive how services are priced.

* People will be prepared to pay a little more than they currently are for vastly superior services. Not three times as much, but a little more.

* The pricing of any service is only meaningful in a market context. Pricing has to be set relative to demand and competitive alternatives rather than the cost of provision, and the landscape for broadband offerings is rapidly evolving.

* The Australian government, if required, is likely to effectively subsidize consumer broadband access. There is no reason to think at this point that it will be necessary, but if so this will likely be an investment that will yield substantial and commensurate economic and social returns.

* This all comes back to the politicians’ argument as to whether commercial entities will want to invest in the project, which is clearly fundamental to its success. The government says they will, the opposition says they won’t. While there is still a lot of number-crunching to be done, my bet is that there won’t be a problem getting investors, not least because there will be significant strategic benefits of being involved in this project. Let’s see.

Yesterday was a busy day. I was called early to come in to the Sky TV studies to respond to the government’s announcement from its National Broadband Network tender, got stuck in traffic and arrived half way through the announcement, and was then immediately put on Sky Business live TV to give my thoughts. I was then interviewed on the separate Sky News program, a multitude of radio stations, and my comments ended up appearing in the New York Times, Forbes, and The Guardian among other global press, fitted into a busy day of work commitments.

So just now getting a chance to write a few quick thoughts.

1. Overall this is an exciting and very promising move.
If one of the bidders had won the tender it would have been a fizzer. 12mbps by 2012? That would probably not have kept Australia at its middling to poor ranking in global broadband connectivity. Fiber to the home and 100Mbps to 90% of premises is worth playing for, and could provide the connectivity that will drive Australia’s economy forward. I have long argued that for a geographically isolated country such as Australia living in what is truly becoming a global connected economy, connectivity (both the infrastructure and the attitudes) are fundamental to our future. I now have more reason to be optimistic about our country’s future than I did early yesterday.

The latest research from specialist investment bank Jordan Edmiston shows that M&A activity in media, information, marketing, and technology sector fell by over 90% year-on-year in first quarter 2009. While the figure seems dire, much of this is due to this being a phase of rapid price adjustment, as Jordan Edmiston points out. First valuations at new levels need to be clarified by further transactions.

The chart below shows the most active strategic acquirers over the last five years in the sector. Some of these - such as Thomson Reuters, Reed Elsevier, and WPP - will continue to be very active in years ahead. Other companies will start acquiring more rapidly.

The human toll of unemployment is stark, as is being experienced around the world.

The most recent unemployment statistics for Silicon Valley below illustrate how the region has greater cyclicality in unemployment than almost any other region in the US. In good times unemployment can fall to almost nil, in bad times unemployment rises faster and higher than most regions.

The recent dramatic upturn in unemployment is likely to be far from peak, with for example the mooted IBM - SUN merger potentially leading to 10,000 layoffs, a large proportion of which would likely be in Silicon Valley.

What is bad news for some is great news for others. Bringing ideas to market takes talented people. In good times those people are either not available, or cost too much for start-ups to engage. Today there are once again fantastically talented people who are looking for opportunities, and willing to work for lower - or even no - income in return for a share of what might become big later.

This balances out to a large degree the far more constrained availability of investment capital. The money may not be flowing into start-up companies at a massive pace, but they need less.

So don’t expect innovation in Silicon Valley (or anywhere else) to dry up. The spigot of one of the key enablers of innovation - talent - has just been turned up high. Entrepreneurship is being democratized as more people with ideas and energy are able to execute their vision, rather than being constrained by lack of resources.

This is just one key driver today resulting in the pace of technology innovation going up, up, up…

One of the things that I love the most about my work is that I’m continually exposed to new ideas, new people, new places, and new industries.

Last week I gave the opening keynote at the Direct Selling Association of Australia annual conference. The theme of the event was “Defining our Future,” so they wanted to kick off with big picture perspectives on the future of business from a leading futurist. My presentation at the conference is here.

I had never been exposed to the industry before, however in preparing for my keynote, and at the event itself where I came in for the cocktail reception the night before and stayed on for the CEO panel following my keynote, I gained a number of insights into the industry and where it stands today.

The Direct Selling industry is comprised of three major segments: personal or door-to-door sales, such as the classic Avon model; party plan, for example Tupperware; and multi-level marketing (MLM), exemplified by Amway. All of the models rely on face-to-face interaction and relationships.

The industry definitely has image issues. My general observation is that there are undoubtedly some in the industry who contribute to that perception, however any who are successful in the long-term are absolutely ethical and genuine. Distribution based on face-to-face relationships is absolutely a valid business model and economic sector.

Here are some of the things I learned or observed about direct selling:

1. Economic downturns can be great for direct selling.
What drives the industry more than anything else is the availability of talented people becoming distributors. When unemployment rises, people seek new ways to make money. The increase in motivated distributors can outweigh lower sales per individuals to create higher revenue.

As announced a few hours ago on Twitter, Beth Etling and I have today launched a new events company, The Insight Exchange.

It’s a major step for both of us. I’ve been organizing events in various forms for the last dozen years, and started doing it more seriously three years ago, when Future Exploration Network launched the Future of Media Summit. Since then Future Exploration Network has organized the Future of Media Summit annually – which is a major production since it’s run simultaneously in Sydney and San Francisco – and we’ve also set up and run for the last two years both Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum and Web 2.0 in Australia.

ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) TV had a very nice segment on Twitter yesterday, as below.

As befits the august institution, the segment was more thoughtful than some other recent media coverage.

It begins with how politicians are using Twitter, including Barack Obama, Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, and South Australian state premier Mike Rann, who announced his new cabinet on Twitter, and talks about how he embraces it as a way of communicating with his electorate.

The segment then looks at how Twitter is becoming a media channel, including providing breaking coverage of events such as the Mumbai terrorist attacks and Australian bushfires, and quotes me saying that many news events are covered first and sometimes better on Twitter than on mainstream media.

On the segment ABC Managing Director Mark Scott says that most Twitter sources cannot be trusted, so people will look to credible sources such as the ABC, possibly delivered over the ABC's own Twitter channel.

This approach just takes us back to the traditional view that news is only news once a journalist has reported it. In part of my interview that wasn't used in the segment I noted that people are increasingly looking for primary sources for news. They are not interested in waiting until the broadcast journalists get to the scene, and they feel capable of assessing the validity of these unauthorized sources themselves.

The segment wraps up mentioning Twitter's search for a business model.