Facebook VS Google: The Battle for the Web 3.0?

Earlier this year, we heard some interesting statements from Mark Zuckerberg, founder of FaceBook as he talked about being the "Operating System" for the Internet. The concept was that as more people adopt Facebook, and by opening Facebook to enable third party application development on their platform, they could in theory, host the majority of the Internet experience.

Many had written Mark off already, as evidenced by his presence on Business 2.0's (a CNN magazine) "10 People who don't matter" list in 2006. But.... Perhaps, Mark's turn-down of $1B+ from Yahoo! was a wise move. If his vision holds out, Yahoo could be an "application" on Facebook. Recently, the discussions around Microsoft acquiring a 5% stake in FaceBook for $500M would estimate the total work to be approximately $10B. Some might now be asking.... Does Business 2.0 (a CNN magazine) matter?

But then along came Google...

According to TechCrunch, Google will launch a set of API's on November 5th that will allow developers to leverage Google's social graph data (data about your social network/relationships). Starting with it's social networking application, but potentially harnessing all of it's applications. That level of social intelligence could start to create a very different type of social Internet experience.

Think about that for a minute... Eek... Did you just get the shivers?

I guess we'll see on November 5th whether Google is serious about being an alternative to the Facebook OS. Perhaps this is the foundation to which the battle of for the Web will be played.

When self-organization fails

I had an interesting discussion with my friend Peter the other day about when social computing may be less effecting or perhaps inappropriate completely. One of the items touched on was the concept around self-organization.

In situations, where you are looking for the passionate, motivated and driven people in a mass crowd, self-selection can help navigate the social network through transparency and openness. For example, if a company wanted to identify new product features for a niche product, it may simply open up a forum of some sort to all, and allow those with interest self-organize and provide input.

But what about when you need to bring people together who don't want to come together. Perhaps it's a sales team VS a marketing team where you need to make a critical decision for the company? Holding a forum and providing opportunity for participation may yield no benefit as both groups may see it as a "waste of time". What if the "experts" in the room are so set into their thinking they have dismissed the new "concepts" flat out? Or if the new "concepts" do not heed the wisdom of the experts?

Ever hear of the concept of "locking people in a room until they solve the problem"? What happens when the people don't want to be in the same room? Sometimes, the face-to-face session is necessary to "force" collaboration. Through tailored collaboration events and skilled facilitation professionals, you can chip away at the limitations of self-organization. Perhaps an E2.0 approach could be a sequential next step once you've overcome the motivational factors that oppose collaboration.

There are other areas where social computing (as an initial start) may be less effective that I've discussed before but would love to hear your thoughts.

Wiki Mindmap Mashup and Beyond

Bob recently sent me a link for WikiMindMap. The site helps organize Wikipedia's vast amount of information in a mindmap. It's a mashup of Freemind and Wikipedia. Being a lover of mindmaps, I of course thought this was fantastic.

I also started thinking about doing this for corporate repositories and knowledge management systems. Perhaps it's already out there since I just haven't checked. What's fascinating to me about this is that it's not the content per se, but the relationship of content that is highlighted.

Imagine your entire corporate body of knowledge easily surfable via a mindmap. It's not just about searching for what you are looking for but surfing the map and "accidental" learning. Another add-on to this application might be to use "tag cloud" conventions that change the font size based on popularity of link/tags.

It would be interesting to see the topics/tags that are the real central nervous system to a comapny...

Web 2.0 an evolution of facilitation and not KM?

I recently had the pleasure to chat with David Ticoll on a variety of topics. One of the observations he made during our discussion was the concept that Web 2.0, may be the evolution of facilitation and not knowledge management as many people believe.

Within the company I work for, we definitely see the relationship between facilitation and next-generation collaboration tools (Enterprise 2.0). In fact, we've created a single organization that combines these areas.

As I thought more about this, the more I was convinced that Enterprise 2.0 really is an extension of facilitation. Although there is definite value in the digital retention of conversations & documents, that is more a secondary benefit. The holy grail for is really on the achievement of results impossible to accomplish individually. It's the true definition of collaboration, and the creation of new insight or innovation.

Perhaps it's semantics but knowledge management usually implies the ability to effectively retain, distribute and find specific information. This would be effective communication. There is a big difference as I've previously written about... Enterprise 2.0 isn't about communication.... It's about collaboration...

The Weak Links in your Social Network are the Greatest Value.

Last week, Shiv Singh wrote an excellent article, "Social Networks and Group Formation", about theoretical concepts of social network based on various research that has been conducted on the topic dating back to 1973. His insight and application to 'modern day' web 2.0 concepts provides practitioners with some practical considerations. Here are a couple of interesting points he makes.


1. Focus on Weak Ties for your social applications.

Weak ties are more beneficial for individuals. One study demonstrated that people landed jobs thanks to their weak ties not their strong ties. The thinking is strong ties already share most of the same information so do not add much incremental value.


2. Provide Opportunities for sub-networks to grow.

The majority of people in a social network are actually outside the "main" network and reside in sub-networks. Overtime these networks integrate with the larger network. Those social applications that understand this will benefit. Perhaps another insight I would suggest is that having the "capability" to "integrate" these networks (for example using a single platform) into a larger network can overcome concerns of diversity that I previously blogged about.


I look forward to reading the next part of Sivh's article.

Holism: The Real Enterprise 2.0 Opportunity! - Part 3

THIS IS PART 3 OF A MULTI-BLOG POST ON HOLISM & E2.0

Click Here to Read Part 1: Introduction to Holism & E2.0

Click Here to Read Part 2: Organizational Complexity

Click Here to Read Part 4: Technical Complexity

Process Complexity

The more steps in a process, the more groups involved in a process, the more complicated it is and ultimately companies miss the complete picture and think they are doing well when in fact they are doing terribly. Let me jump right into an example to explain this. You may be able to relate to this example...

The above process diagram is a simple process example of someone calling a helpdesk to fix a problem they are having with one of their appliances. In this example, the customer calls the "Customer Support" line and gets treated to a wonderful Voice Recognition IVR type system. The IVR system quizzes the customer for information for the model# of the appliance, the warranty#, etc. In this example, the IVR System records the information from the customer correctly 90% of the time. Errors may result in the system incorrectly translating input from the customer or even the customer providing incorrect information.

Armed with all the information from the IVR system, a call centre rep next talks to the customer and goes through a standard list of questions (i.e. Did you check the batteries, Did you try check the fuse, etc..). 80% of the time, the FAQ actually works or we properly send it to a 2nd level support person. Unfortunately 20% of the time we make some kind of mistake and perhaps falsely diagnose the problem & solution. Maybe the problem even looks solved but there is a bigger problem we missed.

The customer is now getting a little frustrated but confident that the "expert" 2nd line support will solve the problem with their appliance. The "expert" engages a detailed discussion with the customer and eventually comes to solution. Not only do they have a solution but 95% of the time, it's the right solution. Happy that they figured out the problem, the "expert" types up a ticket, and sends the ticket to call in the technician to get the parts and fix the problem. The ticketing system still required human input and 90% of the time everything is entered properly in the system.

Finally, the technician gets the ticket and schedules an appointment with the customer to come and fix the problem. For the most part (85% of the time) showing up to customers place on time actually happens and 90% of the time once the technician arrives, they have no defects in the parts and can properly fix the problem.

The reality is that only 47.1%, less than half of the customers calling in, actually have an "acceptable" experience dealing with the company to get the problem fixed. The Majority actually experiences a problem somewhere in the overall process. In fact, they are likely to experience more than one problem in this example. Now that is definitely a bad thing. But it gets worse!

As discussed in part 2, we have different divisions in the company each focused on their objectives. On the surface, each of the groups thinks they are doing well. Imagine you were a technician, and someone said that customer service is horrible and it's your fault. Well!!!! You would pull out your reports and show them that 90% of repairs are fixed correctly and 85% of the scheduling is done correctly. You hit your targets! Let's say you even understand that of the 85% of the customers properly scheduled that only 10% of the time could we not fix the problem. You would still argue 76.5% isn't bad. It's definitely not 47.1%!!! So the problem must be elsewhere....

Ultimately, the company either falsely thinks things are doing just fine because they look at the division metrics and draw conclusions or they go insane trying to pinpoint the problem when the problem isn't just one point.

This is a VERY simple process. Try taking this example and thinking realistically about a process in your organization. I guarantee it's more than 7 steps and 4 groups like this example. Real processes in large organizations looks much uglier than this example. The point here is that you need to understand the complete end-to-end process and all the steps to fully understand the impact. Say that fast and it may sound easy, but I assure you, it is far from easy.

Enterprise 2.0 allows us to re-think this. These tools, provide a means to allow an entire company to collaborate on any situation. Not just a sample group or a focus group, but every individual working for one cause and as one organization. It would start by enabling us to see things holistically. Imagine if everything was tagged with just a customer's name. Imagine, that individuals could openly share their insights into blogs, discussion forums or custom built social computing applications. Imagine that tools like wiki's would be used not by division but by customer to create holistic understanding.

Once we realize the magnitude of the problem, we can allow the employees to resolve the problem. To work as one company and address the problem as a whole. What if the Q&A, FAQ, Repair details were all on one wiki being collectively worked on instead of handed off. Might the technician be able to review the work from the 2nd Line support and correct a discrepancy before they make a mistake in fixing the wrong problem? What if the customer themselves could modify details of the scheduling? What if the call centre had read/write access to a wiki of FAQ's as did the 2nd line support and Technicians?

This list of ways we could improve the overall process can go much further. The point here is that... Arguably... For the first time we can start to really give all employees a voice that integrates with all parts of the organization. Will it happen by technology alone? Absolutely not. But it's not not about the technology.

4 Tips to Harnessing Informal Learning

I read a Forrester article called "Informal learning connects with Corporate Training Programs". Although the title may not suggest it, it is actually a very interesting article.

One piece of research they discussed that caught my attention is that back in 1986, 75% of the knowledge you needed to do your job was "in your head". Things you would have formally learned. In 2006, only 10% of the information you need to do your job is actually "in your head". The rest is access to information, Internet and collaboration.

The implications are several and most are discussed in the article. The bottom line from Forrester...

THE DAYS OF FILLING EMPTY HEADS IS OVER!

The new critical skill is the ability to un-learn and rapidly learn new. Here's a few suggestions I have for you to survive in this new world.

1. Enhance Your Network/Community
If only 10% of insight is useful, then the more connected you are the better the chances you will get the help you need with your network. Personally I prefer the concept of community over a network. Your network/community needs to have a trusting relationship to work. Notice I didn't say build the network. The fact that you have 1000 contacts on LinkedIn is useless unless you are able to really tap into each of those 1000 contacts. Don't just focus on quantity, focus on strength of your relationships.

2. Constantly Learn
Take advantage of RSS & Social Bookmarking! There is so much information out there, how do you find what is of value to you. RSS & Social Bookmarking holds part of the answer.

3. Collaborate
More and more we have opportunities to collaborate. Take advantage of them. If you want to be the lone hero all of the time... You will end up just being alone.

4. Develop Critical Thinking Skills
With the abundance of information, and no clear cut answer on anything. You'll need to personally evaluate what is right and what is even more correct. Tap into the network, RSS, other sources but in the end make-up your own decision.

What else would you suggest?