-
About
-
-
Visitors map
May
11
I haz a Mine! Let me show you it…
Filed Under Mine!, VRMHub, VRM, Tools and applications | 5 Comments
After many years of internet existence, scattering ‘digital detritus’ as I go, I am ready for tools that help me reclaim my online personae, help me piece together my fractured identity. And then allow me to drive it forward with all of the benefits that it can bring me and to those I interact and transact with.
In the last few months, I have been thinking about what would such tools do and look like. I knew that they have to be driven by me - adding value to me and allowing me to add value, flexible and modular.
The first hint was in the white paper was about the sharing mechanism, a feeds-based VRM. Using feeds to share and distribute data - called FeedMe - has always been predicated on the existence of something like the Mine! - a structural element that allows individuals to bring together data they would like to a) have in their ‘domain’ b) manipulate and learn from and c) share with others as you see fit. A haven for data, a playground and a spring board for further online existence. The foundation for individual being the platform and for creating an ‘asset’ to be used in further interactions, relationships and transactions.. Thinking through some of the details and implications has taken longer as the Mine! incorporates the feeds based sharing as described here.
The aim is to equip individuals with tools to take charge of their data (content, relationships, transactions, knowledge), arrange (analyse, manipulate, combine, mash-up) them according to their needs and preferences and share them on their own terms whilst connected and networked on the web.
The Mine! as VRM infrastructure v.1.0.
Also in pdf (although I recommend the linked version that will be edited and revised and edit as I go along).
Apr
11
Facebook Anthem
Filed Under Social web, Tools and applications, Web/Tech, Trends | 1 Comment
Came late to this party, just found it on Johnnie’s blog. Rather apt I thought:
Mar
28
Musings on social media, enterprise, wine-making and terroir
Filed Under New models, Enterprise 2.0, Business, Tools and applications, Web/Tech | 1 Comment
Most of my recorded experience with social software revolves around the ‘hard’ issues like people and shifting their minds and corporate culture, so in my conversations with David Tebbutt and Angela Ashenden of Macehiter Ward-Dutton earlier this week I wanted to offer a useful perspective on social software in the enterprise that takes a broader view than just focusing on individual employees. I came up with an analogy based on the wine industry.
First a brief background on what has happened to the wine industry globally in the last 30 years. Before 1970s French wine used to be considered the pinnacle of all wines. It was the great French tradition, the noble grapes (despite Phylloxera wiping out most of the original vines in 19th century), but mainly it was the unrivalled terroirs of Bordeaux and Burgundy. (Loosely translated as “a sense of place” which is embodied in certain qualities, and the sum of the effects that the local environment has had on the manufacture of the product).
In 1976, the (in)famous wine tasting of Californian wines next to top French wines in Paris has shifted that world view*. This is because the Californian wines beat the French ones in a blind tasting on their own territory and in their own game - by tasting the way it was believed impossible to achieve without the magic of the terroir. The fallout over the next few decades was profound - once wine-makers all over the world realised that it is possible to produce wine a la Bordeaux or Burgundy in other countries, the experimentation and eventually production of quality wines from other countries has exploded. Thanks to that we now have some superb Californian, Argentinian, Italian, Spanish, Australian, Chilean, South African and Lebanese wines capable of matching the French ones in quality. There are purists who’d disagree and for a long time I have been amongst them but I am not enough of a wine snob to persist in that view in the face of considerable (and very enjoyable) evidence.
Before 1976 tasting, there seemed no point in producing quality wine aimed at the same market that the French wine-makers so successfully monopolised for centuries. Even if you had the same grapes and same techniques, you couldn’t replace the terroir… or could you? A few mad wine aficionados, with burning love of wine, innovator’s zeal, insane persistence and a big dose of luck spend years experimenting with wine-making techniques that would bring their brews close to their beloved Grand Crus. They have changed the balance between the three elements that makes wine - soil, grape and wine-making - and demonstrated that it is possible to compensate for the lack of the terroir magic with carefully applied wine-making techniques. It was no longer imitation of the ingredients or methods but an entirely new mix of components still designed to produce the same highly desirable outcome.
And this is how it is with social media/social software. There is no point in planting the vines of social web in the enterprise and expecting them to produce the same as they do outside in the open web. The soil is not the same, the terroir wildly different. If you want to achieve an outcome of similar quality and impact - better communication, more transparency, faster information exchange, more skilled and engaged employees, more and rewarding involvement with the outside world - you will have to take the grapes (the social media tools and software) and make sure that your ‘wine-making’ balances out what your environment lacks.
The most important things missing from the enterprise terroir is the individual autonomy. It is a sad and indisputable fact that anyone can do a lot more online outside their work than in the office. If companies want to get close to the social web magic, they will need to include this crucial ingredient into their approach. Treat your employees with respect and trust. Give them space to play and experiment. They will reward you with creativity and innovation. And if you do it right, with more respect and trust in return.
Ultimately, as every company has its own mixture of systems, culture and employees drive and skills, here are some tips for companies:
- the best wines tend to be made by people who grow the plant the vines, harvest the grapes and then make the wine with love and care - the best use of social media comes from within the company, your own people who can combine understanding of social media/social software with your business, customers and processes. they can also look for new grapes, new ways to improve your techniques.
- vineyards and winemakers often get experts in but these are invariably very accomplished practitioners with reputation that proceeds them. If you need external expertise make sure those you bring in have a proven record as well as understanding and respect for your terroir and know how to adjust their approach to it.
- wine-makers share their experience, results of experiments, collaborate, even help each other practically - reach out to your peers, to exchange and compare notes, don’t just copy case studies or methodologies, respect your own terroir.
- enjoy your experiments, they might actually be palatable, if not right now, then in the future.
*Judgement of Paris is a wonderful book written for 30th anniversary of the 1976 wine tasting by the reporter present at the event. Highly recommended.
Mar
26
What’s the real value of social software in enterprise
Filed Under Enterprise 2.0, Tools and applications, Web/Tech | 3 Comments
Earlier today I spent several invigorating hours talking to two analysts, one of them is a good friend, who are gathering material for a case study on social software and collaboration and were interested in my approach and experience of introducing corporations to the world of social web/media/software. In a nutshell it is ‘technology comes after or behind people’ and I find the tools only as interesting as their functionality and usability helps people do whatever they need to do.
Social software has an added dimension, which is that it should not be handled or implemented by IT departments or even marketing or HR departments, and certainly not in a traditionally organised and run enterprise. So I wasn’t sure whether I could offer what they are looking for.
Interesting and worthwhile knowledge emerged from the discussion but I am yet to be convinced about it lending itself to case study format and whether it has any meaning within the current metrics requirements.
Here is an example: I described the ‘implementation’ of a wiki used by the staff in a team of about 40 people. The wiki has been set up for sharing of work priorities on a weekly basis, to notify others about absence from the office, projects, holidays, announcements. It was originally set up for one specific purpose - to save several hours a week for the person collating information into an email that became obsolete almost the moment it was dispatched to everyone.
Very quickly more information and functions were added as their usefulness became apparent. It would be fair to say that the wiki has turned, gradually and without much ado into a kind of team intranet. It has been ticking over in the background with the users driving and looking after it. Not the IT department which has had zero involvement.
Now what about the value of the wiki? The current metrics allow for a straightforward calculations based on time saved for the one person and then distributed across more people who now have contribute to the wiki. Not a huge deal really and the time saving alone would most likely not warranty the introduction of the wiki, if that’s how its implementation had been approached it.
The value of correct and better class of information, timely and updated as needed, adjustments to the type of information recorded, the focus the wiki brought to the department, the better communication seems always lost in such calculations. There are, after all, no metrics for it. However, true metrics zealots would deny there is value in the above and these are direct outcomes of the tool.
But what about the indirect ones? They are the most valuable aspects of the wiki’s impact but they cannot be tied in any measurable way to it.
1. The autonomy employees experience when driving not only the content but also the structure of a collaborative working place. The sense of ownership and ability to have impact - social software tools are almost exclusively under the control of the individual as they are build around the user (the good ones anyway) and this brings an unheard of degree of user-centricity to inflexible process-driven environments.
2. The first hand knowledge of the tool, the experience of its capabilities and limitations. The value there is those same employees will introduce the wiki they use regularly in one areas of work into other areas and projects. I’d argue that this is the most significant and long-term value of social media and social software tools at this stage of their use in enterprise. If anyone tells me they can put metrics on that, I’ll just call them a consultant (not a nice thing in my book!).
In short, the current metrics and the way we approach measurement of value in enterprise is deeply flawed and inadequate. The answer is to look at alternatives measures of value that we can’t see it for the metrics right now.
Feb
12
Social cloud and the blue pill
Filed Under VRM, Social web, Tools and applications, Web/Tech, People | Leave a Comment
A great presentation by Kevin Marks on social cloud. The cloud is an abstraction that we create of the net. It is the perception of the network, the internet, by people who no longer see or need to think of all the piping and wires. Those are in the background, invisible to most of us.
There are several important points that Kevin makes but here’s a taster.
The younger generation doesn’t see the cloud, it experiences it as oxygen supporting their digital lives. The older generation sees this as a poisonous gas that has leaked out of their pipes, and they want to seal it up again.
Another important bit is the one about our brains and minds being the best social networking tools. Software cannot match out ability to sort out our friends and contact, establish how much we trust them and how we arrive at that trust. No software can fully map the relationships, let alone replace our natural ability to create and maintain them The implication is that therefore software should support the kind of cloud abstraction we have around the internet, also around our social relationships. You can feed it (the social networking app) relationships that are in the ’software in your head’, feed the stuff related to people in your network to software online. Users will assume that your software (this is aimed at developers) will be able to see the information that they have already fed into the software and be able to use it. (Please watch the whole thing as I hardly did full justice to Kevin’s talk.)
This skirts the edges of what I see in VRM - tools and software enabling me to take charge of my relationships by helping me with the data around them, their capture and manipulation. The cloud is abstraction of my relationships but before it recedes into the invisible strata I need to be able to breathe freely. The starting point is having healthy lungs and not having to worry about the tubes and the mechanics of breathing. And we are far from that.
At the moment, we are all connected to the matrix, with tubes still being more important than our freedom to move. The many silo-like platforms try to keep us hooked and locked in, whilst giving us enough delusion of capabilities. Alas, there is only so many times you can (super)poke or zombie someone before you start wondering what’s the point.
The point is I want to be able to hook or unhook myself at will. I want to be able to connect and create relationships without lock-ins (other than the ones that relationships bring with them naturally :-)). I don’t believe I will be able to do that unless the tools are built around me, for me and eventually by me. Blogging took off when people could set up a page and start publishing in a way previously available only to geeks with html skillz. Today I can do more things with my blog than just publish - tag, add videos, plug-in more functionality etc. with the underlying technology is invisible to me now.
I want tools and applications that will help me do that with my relationships (as social network platforms are rather inadequate for my purposes) and ultimately transactions.
One of the fundamental building blocks of VRM is the ability of individual users to take charge of their data instead of managing them via a platform and ‘trading’ that data for the functionality that the platform might provide. Once I have it in my hands, I can manage, analyse and whatever else I wish to do with them, applying various functionality directly. And share and interact with others in ways richer than platforms currently allow. It might be messier to start with but closer to human affairs in its complexity. And that is a Good Thing.
Apologies to Kevin for hijacking the cloud imagery.
Jan
22
The long tail of production
Filed Under New models, Film, Tools and applications, Trends | 1 Comment
This is very cool, especially being able to see how it was made:
Technology doesn’t create amazing things like this, people do. Technology helps people to do that and maximises the chances of new and better technology. And more amazing things being created.
What’s new is that the new camera/apps are steadily coming becoming like a word processor — both pros and amateurs use the same one. The great script is not due to a better word processor; it’s how the great write uses it. Likewise, a great film is not due to better gear. The same gear needed to make a good film is today generally available to amateurs — which was not so even a decade ago. Film making gear is approaching a convergence between professional and amateur, so that what counts in artistry and inventiveness.
The long tail of production is the effect of technology being widely available and, in case of videos, making the physical limitations of video production (expensive equipment, video editing suites, studios etc) slowly dissolve just like the physical limitations of music stores were bypassed by online distribution of music, books and films. On the production side, it means that more people can produce and the story is in watching what kind of things they will make.
Jan
3
The curse of the platform or advertising is not a business model
Filed Under Social web, New models, Advertising, Business, Tools and applications, Media | 4 Comments
I must agree with Alec’s post Twitter Business Models / Calacanis is Bonkers? where he calls Calacanis barking mad crazy for talking about in feed advertising and SMS advertising for Twitter. I am surprised that in this day and age anyone would consider advertising a long term, or even medium term, way of making money online. I can only hope that Hugh was being deeply sarcastic.
At best they may maintain some control over their half-life - how long it will take to lose half of their users, and then half of what remains - but decay is inevitable and will be rapid. Maybe they could milk some cash out of it on the way down, whilst they are pissing-off their userbase? Not a good plan for growth…
Indeed, especially as Calacanis believes in scale and this underscores his recommendations to Twitter.
It’s about scale. When you’re playing in the big leagues with unlimited access to capital you shouldn’t worry about revenue BEFORE you have critical mass.
Here is industrial age thinking translated into online environment. And true enough, to the extent that the mindset still rules our behaviour online. But there may be another way, in the ‘channel world’ scale is in aggregation. In the networked world, scale is in distribution. That is why people from the former build platforms, people from the latter build applications that help distribution. It is not platforms that are bringing the media industry to its business model knees but P2P-eed teenagers, networked bloggers and applications that increase the individual’s ability to produce, share and distribute.
The curse of the platform is that although it may initially bring users value, as time goes on it is hard to sustain, let alone make money as the cognitive dissonance about who your real customers are increases with time. At the start, when building a platform, the platform owners consider themselves, or at least behave as if, serving the users. But the moment they decide to start placing adverts or otherwise ‘monetise the eyeballs’, their real customers are the advertisers. There’s not many of them wot gets it:
Craigslist had been approached about placing text ads on the site. “We’ve had the numbers crunched for us,” he said. “The numbers are quite staggering.” But, no, the site wasn’t interested. “No users have been requesting that we run text ads, so for us, that’s the end of the story,” he said to the befuddlement of the crowd. “If users start calling out for text ads, we’ll listen.”
Another unspoken question presents itself - Is making x gazillion $$$ within a finite amount of time a business model? Or is an exit strategy with $$$ in the bank a business model? Both are certainly a way of making money but a business model is something more fundamental. It is about creating a way to create value, to maintain and grow it. The aims is to make enough money to keep doing just that. I don’t see much of that in Web 1.0/2.0. But I may be old-fashioned like that.
One of the statements that made my heart leap last year is: Advertising is a form of censorship. The Web of 2007 is a house built upon sand. But more about that later…
Nov
29
Power to the Persons!
Filed Under Social web, Film, Tools and applications, Web/Tech | 2 Comments
The real sense of achievement is from not mentioning Web 2.0 or social media even once!
Here is version 1.0, may need to revise bits of it later - first time attempt at screencasting, new software and not used to Apple, blah blah blah….
Nov
12
OpenSocial - more social than open
Filed Under VRM, Identity, Autonomy, Social web, Tools and applications | 4 Comments
So, been watching all that excitement about Google’s OpenSocial and I couldn’t hear over all that cheering how much do I get to ‘own my data’ and take it with me until I read Tim O’Reilly’s post OpenSocial: It’s the data, stupid:
My disappointment with OpenSocial was crystallized by an exchange between Patrick Chanezon, Google’s developer advocate for the program, and an audience member at the OpenSocial session at Web 2.0 Expo Berlin. The audience member asked something about building applications that can remix data from the participating social networking platforms. Patrick’s answer was along the lines of: “No, you only have access to the data of the individual platform or application.”
That is rather disappointing. I do not just want social network aggregators. As a user I want to take my information, profile, contacts and context with me wherever I want and can. If I am to invest my time into creating profiles and gathering contacts (thus making my friends to invest theirs), then spending time building context, which is actually more important than data. Data has become a commodity, it can be replicated and distributed without the physical constraints data faces offline. What is now rare is context because that still a) has to be created by humans and b) is not machine readable. So to elaborate on Tim O’Reilly’s
…two key principles of Web 2.0:
* It’s the data, stupid. (Formerly “Data is the Intel Inside”)
* Small pieces loosely joined.
…a principle of social web
* It’s the context (and control over it), stupid.
If all OpenSocial does is allow developers to port their applications more easily from one social network to another, that’s a big win for the developer, as they get to shop their application to users of every participating social network. But it provides little incremental value to the user, the real target. We don’t want to have the same application on multiple social networks. We want applications that can use data from multiple social networks.
Such applications would have to be based and designed around the user, not another platform and its growth and maintenance. Which is what every social network to date has been. And if you design for the individual, the distributed is definitely the way (see Small pieces loosely joined). At a VRM meeting in London last Friday, among other things, how to design an architecture around increasing control over our data. Alec summed it up:
…should we consider making a VRM pilot and simplify our lives by making the assumption that the database would be wholly centralised; the answer to that was an emphatic NO; the reason being that working from a perspective of “the data is centralised in a fortress” will lead to thinking that will never be able to accommodate a distributed architecture; whereas there is nothing to prevent an architecture which is capable of distribution in a wholly or partly centralised matter, as a convenience. In short: the web-browser would never have been invented had someone elected to ignore the distributed nature of the Web; instead, they would have merely yet again reinvented the file-browser. So: DESIGN IT DISTRIBUTED, TEST IT DISTRIBUTED, BUT IMPLEMENT IT HOWEVER YOU CHOOSE.
That’s the spirit. But Tim O’Reilly asks the crucial question:
Would OpenSocial let developers build a personal CRM system, a console where I could manage my social network, exporting friends lists to various social networks?
No, it doesn’t look like OpenSocial will, but VRM is predicated on that. Set the data (and their owners) free!
Sep
28
Customers are not ‘brand accessories’
Filed Under Autonomy, Tools and applications, Web/Tech | 3 Comments
It seems that the Big Apple-in-the-Sky is punishing its acolytes users for daring to change the pre-ordained Order of Things.
Thursday afternoon, Apple released the scheduled update to the iPhone software. And the gadget blogs confirm that it does, as Apple threatened, wreak havoc on modified iPhones. Some phones have indeed been “bricked.” In others, unofficial applications have been disabled. And there are worries that hacking the updated phone will be harder.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate all things Microsoft with a passion.. Well, not all, there is one social object associated with them that is unobjectionable. But neither I am an Apple fan. I own an iPod that I got as a gift, and a nice one it was. I thought iPhone was great news for everyone because it is the ‘web’ people doing phone, as opposed to telecoms people, and showing what can be done. I have been thinking about about MacBook but the Sony Vaio although perhaps inferior in other respects is still a lot lighter. I do appreciate Apple’s design superiority and functionality. But I don’t want to be locked-in and treated as an accessory to a brand. Which is what Apple has been doing with their customers.
On Monday, Apple had issued a press release warning of “irreparable damage” to iPhones that have been modified or unlocked from the AT&T network. It also threatened users that “the permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone’s warranty.”
Of course, the small print is clear. The users knew very well that they are not supposed to unlock their AT&T-possessed iPhones and install programmes on it. But users do what users will. They try to improve the usability of their gadgets, toys and business devices. No amount of functionality will be able to match usability as defined by me, the user.
Since the iPhone is a very sleek, capable handheld computer, people are going to want to run programs on it. They are going to want to hack and see what they can build. It’s a law of nature. And Apple might as well be fighting gravity.
Many other cell phones are locked down, of course. But few other phones capture the imagination of programmers the way the iPhone does.
Nokia’s approach with the N800 internet tablet stands in stark contrast to Apple’s strategy. The operation system is based on Linux and a complete developer kit is freely downloadable. It has extensive documentation and a community around it. Its designed is not as refined and it certainly requires a fair amount of configuration. But that’s precisely my point. You can configure it any way you want. And you can “hack root” on it, which does turn some people on, if not others.
Apple’s propensity for control and closeness is well documented. It also seems to be accepted by its fans and evangelists.
When the price of iPhone was cut by $200 people interpreted it as broadening its appeal to the mainstream. It worked apparently, the sales trebled. But it’s not just the Apple aficionados that will need to be appeased and controlled. One could argue that Apple’s brand is so strong that it can withstand such expansion. Nevertheless, once a business has to fight its own customers and users, something has gone horribly wrong. Just look at the music industry…
Bonus link: iPhone Wars… May the unlock be with you!
Update: Gizmodo does a damning summary of Hacked and Official version of iPhone. Via Hugh.
Update II: Class-Action Lawsuit Over iPhone Locking?
Aug
31
Confusing Free with free
Filed Under Open source/IP/DRM, Tools and applications, Web/Tech | Leave a Comment
Simon Phipps explains - for the thousandth time I imagine - some basic things about Free/Open source software.
From what the blog says - “Yes, clearly it’s cheaper, but does it really save money in the end?” - it’s clear this part of Adobe thinks of Free/Open Source software purely as a commodity and a way of cutting corners. That it’s ultimately only about saving money. They seem to confuse Free with free, liberty with payment. In the process Adobe is missing a huge opportunity.
Alas, outside the open source communities, this is not being explained/understood widely enough. So thanks to Simon for delving deeper:
As Stallman points out, software freedom is not about avoiding payment, it is about preserving and exercising liberty. I don’t accept that pursuing profit and respecting software freedom are unrelated, much less that they run counter to each other. Profit and liberty are not orthogonal. I also profoundly believe that competing against software freedom provides (at best) a short-term advantage.
And now he’s talking my language:
For a company like Adobe, to compete against software freedom is to ignore the inexorable progress of disruptive technologies and the Innovator’s Dilemma.
One of the challenges that open source faces is that its most significant and enduring impact is at the level that most businesses don’t pay attention to. The level of innovation that goes beyond the product, market or industry analysis usually based on controllable and measurable variables and the bigger-picture-doesn’t-get-me-through-the-next-quarter kind of thinking. A classic case of what doesn’t get measured, gets ignored. And misunderstood. So often Free/Open source software is seen as a comparable alternative to proprietary applications and the comparisons are made in terms of the wrong dichotomy, as Simon points out.
But the point is, the dichotomy Adobe paints is of its own making. It is not inherent in either Free software or in the open source communities which create it. And by trying to protect their short-term revenue, Adobe avoid affinity with some high-energy developers while pushing their customer base to increasingly attractive Free - and free - alternatives.
In fact, they are not comparable as you simply cannot compare the dynamics of community behind Free/Open source to the arbitrary, insulated and often turgid development of ‘closed source’ software. If the internet has shown anything it is that open is better, faster and ultimately more powerful. The principles that apply here:
No one owns it.
Everyone can use it.
Anyone can improve it.
These principles are so basic, they undermine all efforts to deny them.
Aug
23
Stealing the waves
Filed Under Privacy & Security, Tools and applications, Web/Tech | 1 Comment
This is ridiculous:
Police officers arrested a man on suspicion of stealing a wireless broadband connection after spotting him using his laptop in the street.
The move is the latest example of police cracking down on a crime that did not exist several years ago when wireless internet access was relatively rare.
Using an open wifi is insecure and potentially dangerous enough without the police getting involved. This is user beware kind of thing and it really doesn’t help to have governments creating laws to that effect. They are notoriously clueless when it comes to the internet (or indeed anything).
Techdirt points out:
If the guy isn’t physically trespassing and the owner of the WiFi has it open, then what’s the problem? You can’t assume that the owner wanted it closed. If they did, they would have closed it. It’s the access point owner’s own fault if they’re not securing the WiFi. Since all it is is radio waves, we’re again left wondering if police will start arresting people who use the light shining from inside a house to read something out on the street. After all, that’s basically the same thing: making use of either light or radio waves that were emitted from within the house, but are reaching public areas.
So what about companies like Fon? Or about all the wifi enabled phones and handhelds?
-
London VRM meetings
