I am strongly convinced that what happened to Netscape, once a dominant player in the browser world will happen to the large social networks.
I would even suggest to launch a competition in order to know who will first identify the new contender or at least the new features the contender will have to have.
One first suggestion then with Visiblepath, see the article below and go for a visit to the site
A good article describing what a contender could look like.
Food for thought on how to make communities successful.
The conference given last week at the Boostzone Institute by Guillaume Soenen brought for me a number of clarification lights on several points, I would like to stress one in particular: the identification of appropriate conditions for ensuring quick wins when launching communities. Many members of the Boostzone Institute have regularly asked for these conditions. I would like to contribute to this request.
Please do not consider these as the views of Professor Soenen, I have been adding a strong personal point of view here and Guillaume Soenen is not responsible for it.
In very short, a community will maximize its chances of success if it starts with having to solve a problem. The definition of a problem can vary but my take would be:
·A problem suggested by the hierarchy (like in any SWAT team, problem solving team, project teams, etc.)
·A situation created by an act of God like the fire of a plant, a tsunami wiping out a plant (this case has been seen in reality at Caterpillar) where it is necessary to reinvent processes and to design out of the box solutions. Something similar to what happens in real life when catastrophic events suddenly create senses of mutual help in problem solving.
·The “lack of prescription” as Soenen puts it, or in simpler terms the insufficiency or the internal contradiction of existing procedures or processes. The IT architect community, in Soenen’s thesis, trying to create better processes in a fast changing and highly complex world is a good example. Many others are available. The need for a group of people to compensate what one could call “organizational adversity” enters into this category. This can be for instance the result of too high a bureaucracy that can be replaced by ad hoc defacto organizational processes. The resulting fact is that some groups of people can organize themselves for collectively reacting against it and create better conditions for their work or their lives. The example of the Xerox repair man gathering at a cafeteria for exchanging practical repair tricks, not figured out in the official manual, is a good example of it.
·The need for a group of people to seize part of the power. Although this one might be seen sometimes as a “perverse” effect (i.e. one may see as negative vs. the overall good) it has proven in many cases to be an important driver for community buildings. Examples include labor unions, friendly university alumni groups in large companies, some minorities groups suffering from glass ceilings, etc.
The interesting point in this approach is that the next elements of creating a lasting successful community then come as an output and as a maintenance engine for the community. They include emotional links created between members, the identification individuals can have with the community and therefore the will to build it further, the capacity to see the community as a major problem solving area rather than a simple add on, etc.
This leads me to another way to look at the factors of success. Those who work regularly with me know that I insist on the “balanced” notion between the various gives and takes within a community.
One could also state this balance in the following way. A community should provide to any party several of the following elements:
Finally a really great business view on the various issues of connecting people to people, to knowledge, to resources in a network centric management way.
Le point a été discuté à plusieurs reprises sur les forums privés de l'Institut Boostzone (www.boostzone.fr) , cet article apporte une nouvelle preuve de l'émergence d'un journalisme radicalement nouveau.
Un ami consultant, bon observateur du marché du conseil dans le domaine des communautés de pratiques et autres réseaux internes aux entreprises, me demandait ce matin:
"Mais quand le marché du conseil dans le domaine du Network Centric Management va t'il démarrer enfin? Les entreprises ont de l'argent, elles ont beaucoup de bénéfices à en tirer et elles hésitent, pourquoi?"
Impliqué tout comme lui dans ce marché j'ai plusieurs explications dont la combinaison explique probablement la lenteur effective du décollage de ce marché, et même si je reste persuadé que le marché va bientôt exploser, les raisons ci dessous vont perdurer quelque peu:
Les entreprises ont de l'argent mais à l'intérieur de budgets spécifiques et s'occuper de communautés rentre mal dans la structure des budgets existants. Le même phénomène que l'on a pu observer aux début du web 1.0 pour trouver des budgets pour construire les premiers sites internets vitrines.
Le ROI, retour sur investissement, reste trop conceptuel et peu mesurable concrètement pour beaucoup de clients. Les outils existent mais sont délicats à utiliser.
Les directions IT sont très prudentes face à l'arrivée des outils collaboratifs car ils impliquent de nouvelles règles du jeu difficilement compatibles à leurs yeux avec les règles de sécurité les plus strictes.
La plupart des consultants dans le domaine sont soit des consultants, souvent peu expérimentés en management complexe, proposant des logiciels qui "règleront tous les problèmes" et chaque homme d'expérience sait que c'est faux, ou des consultants en management qui manquent d'expérience dans les outils collaboratifs. La capacité à comprendre les besoins très spécifiques (et rarement exprimés clairement) des entreprises et à les traduire en un système opérationnel, des procédures, une organisation et un outil technologique n'est encore que très peu présente.
Je pense que le marché va décoller quand les responsables d'entreprises auront compris (dans chaque fonction) que les communautés et réseaux internes (et pour certains cas comme par exemple le recrutement, externes) leur apportent des bénéfices substantiels en termes de réduction des coûts et en termes d'amélioration de l'efficacité:
Réduction des coûts par des effets comme l'impact des alumnis ou des communautés de référence sur le recrutement, celui des communautés d'utilisateurs sur la cocréation ou l'aide mutuelle entre utilisateurs, etc.
Augmentation de l'efficacité par des effets comme les échanges internes de meilleures pratiques entre les silos de l'entreprise, des échanges émotionnels internes entre personnes partageant des expériences similaires (comme dans les universités d'entreprises), l'accélération de la documentation préalable à la prise de décisions et l'accélération des dites prises de décisions.
L'une des implications importantes, si ces quelques touches sont justes, est que les cabinets de consultants de demain dans ce domaine méleront une grande expérience de l'entreprise (donc surtout des séniors) une bonne connaissance des mouvements sociaux et des technologies (donc aussi des juniors).
Je reste convaincu que le marché du conseil en management par les communautés sera l'une des plus belles aventures des dix prochaines années car elle ne consiste en rien moins que la préparation de l'entreprise de demain.
The Economist du 18 novembre a publié un article sur les individus qui deviennent "pro" de leur blog, c'est à dire qu'ils en dégagent suffisamment de revenus pour vivre.
A mon sens l'article est intéressant car il annonce, au delà des "boutiques" de bloggeurs et des exceptions, une des véritables révolutions dans le monde de la presse. Je me demande si les journalistes les plus fiables, donc en principe travaillant dans des journaux ou des magazines leur conférant leur reconnaissance, ne vont pas bientôt, tout en restant salariés des journaux, devenir des sources d'information à part entière mais vendus par appartements. Notamment je pense qu'un nombre important de lecteurs, faisant confiance à tel ou tel journal ou journaliste, est prêt à payer pour accéder aux analyses spécifiques de tel ou tel journaliste. Le modèle même de l'abonnement pourrait ainsi être changé. On s'abonnerait non pas à un journal papier, ni à un journal électronique, mais à un ensemble de blogs, comme on achète désormais de la musique titre par titre, pour recevoir les analyses dont on a le plus besoin.
Recently the Harvard Business Review published a jewel in the form of an article on “marketing to avatars”. Avatars refer mostly to those creatures, completely virtual, shaped by individuals on sites like secondlife.com. The reading of the article is both a must because it shows an other side of the virtual sociology, and a real pleasure because it is pleasantly written and extremely well argumented.
I think each of us will have soon avatars for living on the virtual world and even on the real one, and not only on games like Secondlife. Already many individuals use pseudos, the very first and simplistic way to hide one’s identity. But a pseudo is not an identity. It is a pseudo.
Already some individuals have developed avatars for practical purposes. A friend of mine, a male in his thirties, has three identities on Meetic, adating site: one as a girl in order to see the men and to have free access, one as aseducer and one as himself for serious encounters. Each avatar has a number of characteristics, manages dialog with others, etc.
It is highly probable that in order to protect one’s real identity, and to let one’s psychological phantasm develop, individuals will create a number of avatars. I think that many will have avatars:
qTo play
qTo have immoral conduct (on the web or in the real world, the danger is well known in the field of child abuse)
qTo deal and buy
qTo have relations with some social network without wanting to be identified by Google immediately (e.g. most employees would not like their employer to see that they are gay or that they have “incorrect” political ideas)
But interestingly, all these avatars, are potential buyers of real goods. From music to books to equipment of all sorts. They might also be sellers.
Real world marketing to virtual world avatars is therefore an immediate potential. Probably it will be an interesting extension of the marketing concept famous in FMCGs where you sell two very different kinds of products to the same individual depending on the situation where he will use them (a classic case is beer consumed alone at home, with relatively glamour less brands, and beer consumed at home with friends with much more prestigious brands).
As an immediate implication in marketing, I wonder which bank will be the first to see the niche by which individuals will ask for additional credit cards with their avatar’s name (for the time being I have not yet seen this done as part of an advertising campaign) Only the bank will know about the links between identities. And one will in this way purchase on the Internet without to worry too much about identify theft or card number theft or just for worry to be too easily recognized and traced (a new type of Swiss bank secrecy will probably have to be developed). If it happens, one will just kill the litigious identity. One will even think of using an identity to have a mobile phone, to pay for highways, etc. all these places where one does not want to be traced but needs a card to be efficient and effective (in many cases cash will not be helpful anymore).
Un document très instructif de Booz Allen Hamilton, que vous trouverez en pdf sur leur site. En bref, l'idée défendue est que certains problèmes de société ou de civilisation ne pourront être réglés que si des hommes d'horizon différents se rapprochent pour en parler. Plus loin même, les auteurs prétendent que les CEOs de demain devront avoir eu des carrières au carrefour de la politique, du business et des ONG.
Sans aucun doute!
Un excellent document et une thèse de grande qualité bonne lecture
Among the most important trends affecting our society, one of them is the fact that the generational gaps within corporations is also about cultural and sociological behaviors. It includes the fact that for many young individuals the corporate world is boring and as unattractive as an old b&w tv.
The article below states the issue it in a creative and very positive way. Besides the substance of the article it stresses implications for companies on how to be an employer of choice for young people. Do we understand their language and are we able to speak it, etc. are some of the implications. A good read, and not only if you are above 35...
Young workers are unquestionably tech savvy, but those who prefer instant messaging to direct contact can create issues for older members of an organization. A preference for contact via technology is also problematic in areas like sales. Companies are addressing such issues with training.
text of the article first page (the full one via the link):
Business Basics Instant Messenger Etiquette Tom Van Riper, 08.22.06, 10:00 AM ET
Office communication just isn't what it used to be. For folks over 40, the following instant message may look like nothing more than gobbledygook: "#s look gd… lnch @ 1/ back l8r." But for younger employees, it's just simple shorthand for: "The numbers look good. I'm leaving for lunch at 1 p.m., and I'll be back later."
Instant messaging isn't just a new technology, it's also a new language. One that's especially easy to over rely on, misinterpret and misuse. That goes for co-workers of all ages.
The recent crop of grads, those born in the early 1980s, a.k.a Generation Y, has marched boldly into the adult workforce over the past four years. They've brought with them a set of technological tools that makes fax machines, voice mail and spreadsheet software look positively quaint. They've grown up with scanning, text messaging and Googling, and they're not about to stop once they've hit the working world.
Nor should they. Those skills are big assets when it comes to multi-tasking and productivity. But they're also a nightmare for many of their bosses, those over 35 who understand that while technology is a useful tool, it doesn't replace relationship building as a primary means for doing business. Today's bosses can't understand why their young recruits, for all their brains and technical acumen, hardly ever come over and actually talk to them.
"I hear from clients that [young professionals'] first instinct is to IM rather than walk over to their boss's office. That can be OK for a quick question, but when you're planning something, you need to talk face-to-face," says Steven Rothberg, founder of Collegerecruiter.com, who places recent graduates into corporate jobs.
The tech disparity between 20-somethings and 40-somethings is far greater today than it was 20 years ago, when today's 40-somethings were the young turks. Over 17% of today's workforce is between the ages of 25 and 34, while another 28% is made up of employees 55 and over, Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show.
That breakdown is not much different than in many past years. But what is different is the speed of technological progress since the mid-1990s, from the Internet and e-mail to cell phones and instant messaging. A recent survey by outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison shows that 60% of U.S. corporations acknowledge having workplace tensions among generations.
Ruth Sherman, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based communications consultant whose client roster includes Deloitte, Pfizer and Bank of America, says common complaints about younger workers range from lame handshakes and poor conversational skills to super-casual attire and personal use of company e-mail. Some show up at job interviews in tee shirts. What the Gen Yers don't see, she says, is the meaning and value of gestures and other non-verbal skills that don't come through in a text message.
"My clients are frustrated; a lot of them are throwing up their hands because they can't persuade young people to get it," Sherman says.
Carl Tyler, a veteran of Lotus and IBM who now runs Instant Technologies, an enterprise IM software group, thinks one of the biggest etiquette breaches by Gen Y recruits involves newbies typing paragraph upon paragraph of chat.
"It's a new medium, don't treat it like e-mail," Tyler says.”
In other areas, many major companies are doing their best to train their Gen Y hires in traditional business practices. At Deloitte, the accounting and consulting firm which hires thousands of college grads each year, managers' tweaking of young subordinates' habits sometimes includes reminders to use complete sentences in memos, while Googling a topic doesn't qualify as research, according to human resources executive Stan Smith. He adds, though, that while the Gen Y crowd has shown a wider gap than their predecessors between college life and readiness for the workforce, they do generally show a willingness to learn.
"A lot of them actually do want to be mentored; they respond well to smart adults," Smith says.
Other firms--particularly sales and consulting operations that require a lot of client contact--are also making the effort to adjust their training for the new breed. Big Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and UBS all hold communications classes for new recruits. MetLife this year began a program that sends college interns out on client calls with veteran sales reps, giving them a first hand look at the face-to-face selling process.
MetLife's insurance competitor, The Hartford, emphasizes face-to-face and telephone skills, which they see as lacking in IM-happy recruits. The good news, according to Jim Greising, a vice president for the company's Property & Casualty sales team, is that most recruits are smart, talented and open to learning. Where they differ from their predecessors, he says, is in their requests for more hands on, interactive training. Few have the patience to sit through an eight hour class.
And some newbies, according to Greising, have no problem casually talking to the president of the company the same way they talk to a peer. And while that may ruffle some feathers among the old guard, it's not necessarily all bad.
"It shows they're willing to say what's on their mind," he says.
Is it possible that it's the older workers who will ultimately have to adjust, forced to do away with the personal touch in favor of pure speed and efficiency? After all, the young tech-savvy recruits of today are the company bosses of tomorrow. The answer is yes--and no. While increasingly faster communications are here to stay, face-to-face skills have been a staple for getting business done for too long to think they will ever go out of style altogether.
"There will likely be a happy medium," Sherman says. "If you can't build relationships with people, you can't do business."
Carl Tyler, a veteran of Lotus and IBM and founder of the Web site Instant Technology, recommends the following rules when using instant messaging at work:
A consulter, une petite étude de crmetrix, que vous trouverez sur http://customerlistening.typepad.com/baroblogs/BaroBlogs-FRance-crmmetrix-June-06.pdf#search=%22crmmetrix%22
et dont les données sont utiles et claires sur la montée en puissance des blogs comme instrument de communication sociale et des entreprises. Ce qui me semble aussi important, même si ce n'est pas dit ainsi, est que les blogs, à travers les débats ouverts qu'ils instaurent, commencent à ressembler à des mini communautés instantanées et éphémères de discussion et d'expression.Le phénomène n'est pas nouveau, il existait par exemple dans les rassemblements populaires instantanés devant une ambassade ou une entreprise lors d'un problème politique ou sociologique, mais l'ampleur que peut lui faire prendre le net est à noter. La visibilité physique est moindre mais le potentiel de soutien ou de nuisance est infiniment plus grand, d'autant plus que, justement parce que la visibilité physique est moindre, d'aucuns qui n'auraient pas oser s'exprimer quand il fallait se déplacer ou que l'on risquait d'être mollesté dans une manifestation, peuvent désormais participer plus activement
