Social Media is not a strategy

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the Web 2.0 Conference. The conference, like the Enterprise 2.0 show in Boston this past summer,  is atypical in that most of the good stuff was happening in the talks and workshops. People were there to learn and see what the thought leaders were thinking. And there were some fabulous thinkers there. Jeff Dachis and David Armano gave a fantastic discussion of social business, Gentry Underwood artfully presented is very useful insights into adoption of Enterprise 2.0. Really, the list of luminaries and their beautiful and insightful presentations are well worth a look here.

In this context, my talk was very nervously executed (I was speaking on topics I don’t normally cover, I’m more of a culture and collab gal), but the quality of the audience was fantastic. The basic idea was this. You don’t start with a social media strategy. You start with a marketing strategy, a customer relationship strategy and a collaborative objectives strategy.

Insightful and important questions ranging from budgeting to competitive differentiators, and importantly, how to convince people of the worth of what you’re doing came up, and I believe the Q&A lasted longer than the talk itself.

More than 100 people came to my session, and I was grateful for the engaged audience, and have a lot of new twitter buds as a result. Hopefully I also created some interest in the excellent range of technologies, products and expertise that Open Text has to enable Enterprise social media.

My slides from the talk are here. If you attended the session, or if you didn’t, I’d appreciate your thoughts and a continuation of the Q&A.

We are “The Sims”

I like to think that sometimes my posts are pithy and clever, but I know that sometimes they are a bit abstract. This is usuallly cause I’m using this blog as a way to work through what i’m thinking about. This is one of those posts.

Back in the late 90′s, i spent a few years studying, designing and implementing “agent based simulations of complex systems “. I was studying emergent behavior. These were somewhere between “boids” and The Sims in their depth.

I was doing an incredible amount of online research, and realized that if I ever wanted to do related research it would be very difficult to re-trace my steps, bookmarks not withstanding. If I wanted OTHER people to be able to retrace my steps, it would be very difficult to share HOW I’d found what I’d found, in addition to the what.

These two issues put me on a tear to understand tacit knowledge.

So – I wrote a whitepaper that I titled the Self-Organizing Knowledge Manager. The idea was this. People are not very good at tracking things, but computers are. we could get a computer to track where we go and how we get there and what we do when we’re there, and amek it so we can retrace our own steps and share our pathways with others. You wouldn’t have to be explicit about what the relationships between the linked items were, just the fact that there were links at all. People are really good at divining meaning – unlike computers. So leverage what each does best to capture and share tacit knowledge. Simple, right?

Then I asked smart people how to build software that would track click paths, what files were open at the same time, cuts and pastes, etc. They told me I’d need a database as an operating system and it didn’t work that way. hmph.

So the punchline here of course is that Social Media tools are the perfect substrate for capturing this information. Micropublishing, in the form of wikis, blogs, tweets, etc, are capturing the little bits of insight and information, connecting them together – along with the people who contributed – to achieve a self-organizing knowledge system.

So – now people can

a) track the links between people, objects (content) and each other, capturing a ton of tacit knowledge in the process

b) enable people to participate, much like the “agents” in my old simulations, to create emergent behavior.

Unbelievable. I was reminded about all this stuff, and how (perhaps surprisingly) relevant it is in understanding social media. David Armano’s engaging and relevant talk about how his effort to help a homeless family connects the dots.

So – what do we know about tacit knowledge, and what do we know about emergent behavior.

1. We know that most people think those terms are inscrutable.

2. We know that neither are easily tangible or predictable

But – if we apply the study of complexity theory, emergent systems, and what Stephen Wolfram calls “A New Kind of Science” (the first couple hundred pages of which are fascinating, but while I love Stephen (i know him from way back) he could use an aggressive editor, the book weighs about 10 lbs (and thanks to Salinger for teaching me the art of the multiply embedded flourish of parens – there’s a quote somewhere)) and the study of communities and collaboration, then, I think we can help enterprise, government and society develop a language for expressing ideas in this area, and start to really pursue the possible.

I promise my next post will make more sense.

Oh – the title – “The Sims” is a very popular computer game which is, in essence a sophisticated agent based simulation. It is unpredictable in its behaviors and outcomes, and yet elucidates cause and effect very well. Try it and you’ll see. My obscure point here, is that the read-write web has turned its participants into real-live actor agents in a giant simulation game. We can’t predict its outcomes, but we can learn a great deal about cause, effect and the important drivers of various outcomes.

2 hints that the future has indeed arrived

Web 2.0 or, as I prefer, the “Participatory Web” is basically about increasing participation, and not all of it is revolutionary. Some is, at best, a new way to socialize or self-aggrandize. At worst-  a big waste of time.

But there are some wildly interesting things out there too. Here are two things that struck me as glimpses into the (not yet evenly distributed) future.

What would you add to this list to expand this little spy-hole onto what’s next.

1. The library of congress has posted its photos on Flickr (the most popular photo sharing site) – in order to get the public to help tag/narrate them.

2. Lessig’s read/write vision. If you haven’t yet, just watch it. I promise you won’t find it a waste of time. (if you do, you can slam me in the comments)

What else?

5 steps to Web 2.0

Some people have been doing the Web 2.0 rhumba for years. But not everyone. Here’s how I got started.  I’m still on step 5.

Click on it to see the whole thing.

Anybody care to add to it? Have a different path in?

New media makes talk a lot closer to action

At first it was just email – as soon as you thought about someone, you could jot off a note, without searching for paper, stamps, your address book, getting it written, putting it in the mail etc.

Then it was IM – even more immediate.

Then it was these blogs – think a thought, type a thought, and boom, its published to the world (or the very small subsection of it that reads my blog). (Pro – more thoughts out there, lower barriers. Cons – not everything is as high quality as you might like.)

Now – I have an ear out to truly remarkable people that I might have never known about or met. Through Twitter, and Facebook, I have a very up close view of what they are thinking about and doing. Through Wikis, email, twitter, this blog, facebook and dozens of other websites, I can act almost as quickly as I find out about things. New conferences that are likely to collect wildly interesting groups of people – not only can I register, I can get involved. Contacting people about projects and expertise that I never would have tracked down, without this new social networking thing. Donating money to help women in Africa start businesses to support their families and communities. Keeping my imagination charged with the ideas and activities of others…. its pretty darn cool.

And another thing is going on. When I’m away from the internet – it seems so quiet. And I haven’t even begun to really get into things like digg yet.

So – what’s the next step in eliminating boundaries? If we look at Web 2.0 as the participatory web – a slightly different slant than the “social web” – then what are the possibilities? How can we make it easier to expand and achieve our goals, our dreams through technology?

Web 2.0 and Digital Asset Management

Yesterday, I gave a talk to people developing high end DAM solutions about how Web 2.0 is affecting DAM. In short, Web 2.0 is creating a proliferation of media, changing the process of creation, collaboration and use, and driving the need for DAM solutions to integrate with more tools and think about metadata a bit differently. Moreover, Web 2.0 is changing how major media producers think about new ways to use their assets.

Here are the slides. Web 2.0 and DAM

5 Product Requirements for Social Media Widgets (at least)

Lately I’ve been asked to help design or add input to several widgets designed to create a sticky and viral presence in places like Facebook, Blogs and other “New Media” outlets.

Here are some rules of thumb that I’ve come up with. As I see it now, there are 5 basic requirements to make these successful. The importance of each will vary according to the goals (don’t neglect to examine yours) and context of the widget.

1. Compelling seed content.
Text, Video, Flash, Game-like interaction, or – heavens – Utility! Whatever, but you need a reason for people to look at it. Some kind of clever, meaningful, interesting or compelling hook. Humor is a good one. The chance to “do good” is another. Entertainment (puzzles, etc), a third. The Bob Dylan Facebook app does this in spades for me, even though its not very useful.

2. Sharing
Every good widget must have some easy way of sharing it or otherwise spreading the word. Otherwise you’re shortsheeting yourself. Super Groups on Yahoo have some great features for this. Check “John Stewart for Moderator“.

3. User contributions

Most new media widgets should have some way of allowing users to contribute – either through comments, or ratings, uploading pics, or something. The easier and more creative the better. But be careful about having people harshly rate people who are trying to do good.

4. Look and feel.

This is New Media. Design is IMPORTANT. It needs to be hot, fresh, and interesting. And it needs to be ergonomic. Think about what links and actions need to be visible and make them boldly so. No boring hotel room art, you know what I mean?

Also – you need to be sensitive to who’s using it and how. Do you really want consumer ratings of people’s earnest thoughts? Frame your language and your functionality so that people feel good about using it, not insulted (well I guess there are some rare funny things where insults work, but who looks at those every day?)

5. Tracking

No good product should go unmeasured. Continual Improvement (aka learning) relies on objective measures.

Number of interactions, number of referrals, and number of productive referrals should all be tracked. Return visits – people who come back to check on it should be counted.

Got more? Please share what you’ve learned in the comments.

the most powerful marketing feature on facebook

Its brilliant. viral marketing is now passive. its voyeur marketing. its marketing nirvana.

The News Feed on Facebook. I “friend” people I like and/or admire (or who like and/or admire me). I visit my home page, and I get snippets of what they are doing. Joe joined a new group or made a new friend or became a “fan” of a new brand or product. “Gee”, I say to myself, “Joe’s a pretty savvy guy, I wonder what that group is, who that person is, what that brand is”.

And there it is. I’m checking it out because Joe checked it out, and Joe didn’t have to take the active role of advocate. I am interested in what he does, so I can follow it passively.

I’m not sure if this was the original intent of the News Feed, but I think its the very most powerful form of viral marketing I’ve seen. Why? Because Joe doesn’t need to take the step of endorsing something. It’s his interest in something that is conveyed. And since I’m interested in what he’s interested in… it works. And I don’t need to become some smarmy “brand ambassador”. And as a marketing person, I don’t need to go find some way to incent or create some a “viral feature” that doesn’t really match my audience. Its gorgeous.

Even better! The Facebook Beacon application. Its a fantastic opportunity. I’m integrating this into my client’s project TODAY. The Facebook Beacon lets you make actions on your site feed into the News Feed on Facebook. Yes. If someone buys something, watches a video (I hope this works, I’m going to try it later and let you know), posts a comment or what have you, it will post to the News Feed. Yes, they’ve made it opt-out and privacy respecting. But the facebook audience is really into sharing. They don’t opt-out in droves.

So – what you get is a tool. If you create engagement on your site, you’ll be spreading the news of that engagement among your users’ friends. Without that user needing to do anything.

It’s perfect. For companies that have been trying to reach a younger demographic through social networking, and have had some trouble knowing where to start, it provides a great, low effort, low risk opportunity. I am going to be working with this quite a bit over the next few weeks, and I’ll report the results.

Getting started with wikis

One of the first things I like to do when I begin any engagement  or project is to set up a Wiki. Wikis are a great collaboration tool, and getting better. I like them because they are so simple to use its easy to get people to cooperate.

A wiki is basically a website that is meant to be designed and edited by a group of people. If you have a wiki, it means that you and your team, friends, whomever you designate as authorized can come, type, edit, and upload docs and meda. Don’t be alarmed by the idea of editing a web page. If you can use email and Microsoft Word, then you can easily use a wiki.

Early wikis had little formatting capability (unless you wanted to use html tags, and I don’t), and were really designed by and for engineers. But they’ve improved. In just the last six months, wiki tools have become more flexible, easier to use, and a lot nicer to look at.

Wikis can solve 2 very common problems:

1. The “What’s the Latest” problem: You’ve probably done this – email a doc out to a group, edit, resend. Things get out of date and out of synch. Nobody knows what the “latest” is. Post it to a wiki and bam – every one knows what the latest is. Every one is literally on the same page. Not only that, but whatever format you’ve got it in, and whatever email products everyone is using, the file won’t get munched in the transfer.

Having a wiki is like like having a shared notebook. You and your team can each post anything from minor comments to fully formalized docs. Everyone has equal access to them. I’ve managed large and simple software projects this way, along with the design and permitting process of a house.

2. The “Where is that thing” problem: Because its so easy to put stuff up there, people actually put stuff up there.. Feature ideas, minor issues that need attention, meeting notes, Aha! moments. The number of the pizza place. The team roster. Whatever it is you’re looking for now, you can stick up there, and then you’ll know where to look. Where is it? On the wiki.

Getting started.

Getting started is pretty much as easy as going to the wiki website of your choice, signing up, and dithering around with the buttons. Your second wiki will take you less than 30 seconds to set up. Your first may take all of 10 minutes, if you aren’t really used to the software. There are wikis that you can run on your own computer or on your own servers, but fortunately, there are plenty you can just go to, create an account, and you’re in.

Once you’re in, you can edit pages, add pages, upload stuff and link stuff together. Invite your teammates to join. They get an account, then they can edit the pages too.

Cautions:

1. The biggest problem I come across in a wiki is that while everything is up there, it can sometimes be hard to find. You may want to come to some kind of agreement with your group as to where you’ll put various categories of stuff.

2. Wysiwyg formatting is still not as good as it could be. We’re used to word and power point, and we’d like that level of sophistication in our tools. Google? Got a minute? I expect this to improve significantly and soon.

Free wiki’s to try:

These are just a few in a relatively crowded field.

www.wikispaces.com – this is my tried and true, but its not the most beautiful, nor does it have the nicest wysiwyg editor anymore. Has ad supported free, and paid, private offerings.

www.wikidot.com – love this. nicer editor, nicer looking. Free. Embedable widgets. Great formatting for academia: footnote, bibliography and formulae are all nicely handled.

www.pbwiki.com – also very nice. embedable widgets

or, if you have more elaborate collaboration needs, you can try: www.basecamphq.com, which includes, to do lists, time tracking, milestones, and more complete project management features.

The New New Internet

Last week I was at the TNNI conference. It’s a medium sized conference – about 700 people, but there were some very powerful things going on. People were there to discuss how the internet gives companies the opportunity and the challenge of relinquishing control of information. Information can be shared more easily, companies can collaborate internally more easily, and can engage in far more meaningful dialog with their customers. Seems all good – but there were some pretty interesting issues – legal, technical and bureaucratic – raised as well.

Most folks at the conference were trying to figure out how to make “web 2.0″ help them collaborate more easily within the organization, hopefully freeing them from the IT police, and/or trying to figure out how and why a blog or user forum could help them improve their relationships with their users.

There are some great collaboration (or just sharing, really) tools available now that can get you up and running in a trice. (I’ll write about my favorite of the moment, wikispaces, another time) A wiki – and I quote from a conference speaker – gets everyone on the same page – literally. No more wondering if you have the latest version of whatever. Regardless if you prefer inline editing or formal docs, this is an easy and effective way to distribute them and maintain consistency over any size of team.

Collaboration is more than just sharing, of course. Its sharing, communicating, keeping a high level of information awareness (do you know if the team across the hall is solving your problem? or causing it?!?), and my favorite rant – reuse. (Once you’ve done the thinking, capture it, and reuse it. This is harder, and I think there’s some interesting thinking, and even more opportunity here.).

People brought up some really interesting issues on the marketing side. On the one hand, people are afraid of being left behind by not having blogs and user forums. On the other hand, people are not comfortable with loosing control of information. There are some darn good reasons for this.

Companies are concerned that people will say unflattering things. But negative comments can be a great opportunity. Any company can present a pretty face, but the real quality of a company comes out when it deals with bad news – mistakes or misperceptions – that are reported by the customer or the press. In the past, negative comments were passed person to person, and were distanced from the company. But now you can give people the opportunity to say it to you, and to respond. Admitting and fixing mistakes and misperceptions – and most importantly, demonstrating that you care about what people say, can make you a hero.

I got a much deeper look at some of the deeper challenges some companies face from the new participatory web. A woman from a pharmaceutical company told the room how people come to them looking for information, and that she very much wants to give it to them. But, it is illegal to discuss the details of medical cases and for non-doctors to dispense medical advice in such a forum. She’s concerned that her very knowledgeable and active user base will cross the line on the forums – divulging to much and offering too much information.

This is a real challenge. She can moderate the forum, and gently remind people of why those laws exist and point them toward places where their questions and knowledge are more appropriate. However, she can’t do it 24/7. There’s a lack of clarity about how liable her company is for this information, and some of those laws may need updating.

This is a huge challenge for the government as well. Security, privacy and liability are tough questions, and the issues and boundaries haven’t been tested. People don’t want to break the law. Or get fired.

What’s clear is that we’ve moved from an age of control to an age of emergence. Where companies need to be more in touch with their users and more responsive to what they hear than ever before. The new participatory tools of the internet are not just about social networking and blogging, but are changing the way people think about business and government. The new challenges they present are equally interesting.

There were some cool companies showing their wares, too. KickApps gives any company the tools to create their own social networks and forums. Jeremy Epstein was there from Microsoft. To say he’s excited about getting Microsoft into the game here would be an understatement. I wouldn’t be surprised if his enthusiasm and the people he attracts with it didn’t make a real difference in Redmond.

In short, the conference made it really clear that we’ve only just begun.