A Place of One’s Own (On the Social Web)

The world is changing. We are moving from a site-centric world (site in the old sense of the word) to a network-centric world. But it’s a new world with lots of uncertainty. How does a business deal with the fact that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn have such a great presence in the network-centric world? Ignore them? That would be wrong — just as wrong, in fact, as it would be to ignore the largest players in the real world of real estate. But a safe bet would be for businesses to invest in a little real-estate of their own, and grab a piece of the American dream. There’s a nascent market of “enterprise 2.0″ companies (I am with one of them) ready to respond to the market, and already the market is beginning to see the value. I’ll share more as I move along — I’ve been on the job (officially) less than one week. But it’s one of the most interesting and exciting markets that I’ve competed in for quite some time. It’s a great place.

The Out Crowd: Why “Crowdsourced Creative” is Both Smart and Good

These many experiments have given us something else to think about — the use of the word “creative,” which, as I noted, is a term that the advertising community has branded and defined too narrowly. As the entire universe of crowdsourcing has demonstrated, the work that people can be tapped to do is the most important stuff there is. For the essence of “creative” is creating, the making of things, without which there’d be nothing (literally). And, as companies like MOFILM, Aniboom, and Talenthouse are demonstrating, the things we are talking about are potentially great things — this is not the world of amateurs, but a newly organized world of professionals — and people on their way up (e.g., MOFILM has done a great job connecting with students in film school) — who are motivated to work (at least part of the time) in environments that are less hierarchical and more network-centric. That, of course, has long been one of the promises of the social web, but I believe that “crowdsourcing creative” is pushing the outer edges of social technology design and that we can all learn a lot from it. I’ve been watching this market for quite some time (disclosure = Aniboom was a client of my agency a while back), and these are three things I’ve observed.

Teaching the World to Touch

Touch is not a new technology. It’s been around many years, but mostly as a labs-and future-of-technology showcase. Of course, the iPod/iPhone changed all that, and it’s fair to say that Apple and its many device-manufacturer followers have been teaching the world to touch for several years now. I got a good reminder of this about a year ago when I picked up a magazine and unconsciously spread my fingers over the print, attempting to make the type bigger; the iPhone had already trained me to use a computer UI to navigate the world of physical media (a creepy but enlightening moment). But what many people are discovering this month is that touch is a much more compelling modality when the form factor — the size, weight, and field of play of the device — is right. Many things that worked OK on the iPhone work even better on the iPad. If the iPhone was the first device to begin to teach the world to touch, the iPad may usher in a bigger wave of education. And if that happens, all the hype surrounding Apple’s magical device will be deserved. Because of if the world learns to touch, computing may in fact change forever.

Are Southern Accents Contagious?

I am in Savannah this week for a talk with teachers at the city’s fabled school of arts and design. It’s my second visit tot the city, and almost as soon as I set my bag on the ground at the airport taxi station, I was overcome with the irresistible urge to speak in a Southern accent. I almost did — a lady on line ahead of me asked a question, and it was all I could do to hold onto my New York/New Jersey/Northern California cadence, a 50-year plus work-in-progress that one might think is undoable. But undo I almost did. I’ve seen it happen to others. Years ago, a college girlfriend, whose family hailed from New England, moved to South Carolina and 18 months later she easily could have passed for a lady in a Tennessee Williams play (”lemonade, lemonade … made in the shade”). Didn’t make sense — and it didn’t seem right. But over the years I noticed the effect on other people.

So what is it about southern accents that make them contagious, if in fact they are contagious. I’ve decided to crowdsource this question, here on this blog and through several social networks. But to get things started, here are a few pet theories of mine, developed at different times over the years, reflecting the different stages of evolution of my cynical self, which leans neither North, South, but probably East.

Bubble Bathing on the Harvard Business Review Blog

Very interesting entry yesterday on the Harvard Business Review blog (one of my new faves). Umair Haque, director of the Havas Media Lab, has posted a short, sharp screed about the “social media bubble,” complaining that it is “largely home to weak, artificial connections, what I call thin relationships.” I’ve got many issues with the logic of Umair’s argument. At times, I can’t tell if he’s complaining about the failure of social media to live up to its own hype or the failure of social media to live up to the early hype of the Web in general (as when he writes, “there’s this old trope: the Internet runs on love. Equally, though, it’s full of hate: irrational lashing-out at the nearest person, place, or thing that’s just a little bit different.”). And I can’t yet tell if Umair wants to save social media from itself, or whether he just wants to burst the bubble (he’s in the industry, so I am betting on the former). But I do like the he’s chosen a forum like the HBR blog to launch this conversation. At the moment, I see 57 comments from what looks like a broad range of readers. And he’s promising a follow-up on “we can do” about this sad state of affairs. I’m waiting for the next post impatiently. This is an important conversation and I hope Umair guides it well.

Innovation by “Design”: The Case for Social Media

Good post by Roberto Verganti on the Harvard Business Review blog. Topic is how “user-centered innovation” is not sustainable…. It’s an interesting perspective, and one that might add depth to the discussions many businesses are having today about the design and implementation of social media. The bias in this world — and it’s a good one — is for user experience. But our rational obsession with the user can easily obscure the difference between the work that UE/UI professionals do and the work that social-media innovators do. Both are important, but it’s important to see them on different horizons, to borrow from the old McKinsey model for corporate growth. Even Facebook — a company that has developed the gold standard for user experience in social media today (a standard that CEO/founder Mark Zuckerberg proudly calls “elegant organization”) — will sometimes ignore the crowd and bet on a feature, a functionality, a concept that will play big in the future (i.e., across a later time horizon).

Enterprise 2.0, Games, and the “Two-Year Lag”

Hutch Carpenter, VP of Product at Spigit, has a nice post about the “two-year lag” that separates Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 adoption. I like the lineup of technologies in this review — from wikis, to blogs, to microblogs, to location-based mobile apps, etc. But it really gets interesting as Carpenter wraps up, noting that the latest stuff is not just about tools but the rules of social engagement. This has always been the case — and social media tech consultants have lectured on the topic ad naseum — but what’s new today is how game logic is getting woven into the user experience.

Do IT People Matter?

Recently, I attended a workshop at a management consulting company where a very smart social media practitioner blithely dismissed IT as an important stakeholder on social media projects. There was a time when many agreed that IT doesn’t matter (Nicholas Carr’s argument that IT is no longer a competitive differentiator, because every business has it), but lately the rap is that the IT professional doesn’t matter. It’s an unfortunate view — it’s not only disrespectful, but way short-sighted. Yes, many great, emergent Enterprise 2.0 projects can be launched in the cloud, on a personal credit card, without the knowledge or consent of IT. But that’s just a snapshot of where we are today, and it would be a mistake for people to conclude that all things 2.0 and in the cloud leave IT on the sidelines.

The ADD Theory of Public Relations

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We’ve gone through this process before. Apple carefully stages the expectations for a media event, seeding the market with fact and fiction about a new product that’s poised to disrupt the market. In the days leading up to the event, dozens of companies are reengineering their PR strategies to draft from the announcement, or at least position themselves in a way that will make them look good, or at least prescrient, when the announcement is made. I noticed at least two companies doing this last week. First, the New York Times announced it would begin recharging its Web users for “frequent use,” a odd-but-clever reversal in the days before Apple is likely to unveil some new ideas for rescuing the media industry. Then we heard from Amazon, which announced its intention to develop an ecosystem for developers building on the Kindle, the one device most obviously threatened by the Apple tablet. Brace yourself, because this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can expect many other companies to position, reposition, and even contort themselves to fit into this week’s news-cycle.

I’m Latino2 — And You Can Be, Too

If I have learned anything about Latino communications in the past few months — the short amount of time that frames my personal “reawakening” — it’s that Latinos are quickly organizing themselves online, and the speed at which this is happening is remarkable. The folks at LatISM had a hunch last year that the time was right for an organization devoted to supporting — not dictating — this type of self-organization. And it’s all happening at a time when it matters more than ever that Latinos stand up and be counted — the months preceding the 2010 Census, a project that could have a significant impact on national priorities. But even without the census, Latinos have reason to stand up, be counted, and participate in the new conversations on Latino communications. The approach we are taking is the broaden the umbrella wide enough to allow for even livelier conversations. If you are “Latino too” — by origin or affinity (i.e., engaging with Latinos really matters to you) — come to Latino2. But don’t wait for April 30 to make yourself heard. If you can, come to our Tweetup (see details above) and take part in shaping the event from the start.