Social Network Analysis
Check out this website for the International Network for Social Network Analysis
Check out this website for the International Network for Social Network Analysis
I think BlogMaps – where blogs meet maps – are fantastic tools (thanks to FeedMap.net for the free service). Using BlogMap you can geo-code your blog using ordinary geographical coordinates, browse already geo-coded blogs and search for blogs. It is a great way to watch your local blog community growing, and to pick up on some like-minded local thinkers!
One of the finest “Neighblogs” I’ve discovered through my BlogMap is The Future Bank Blog – the brainchild of Herman Singh and Dave Glass.
The former recently posted an outstanding article highlighting his concerns about the future we are building for our children, in the light of the phenomenal advances we are witnessing in technology, connectivity and automation.
Every now & then a book comes out that corroborates certain facets of the TomorrowToday.biz message. Daniel H. Pink a former White House speech writer has recently released a book that he spent several years researching. The books deals with what he calls the ‘Conceptual Age’. If you read the paragraph below from the book review in The Futurist magazine you will hear echos of our message using slightly different words. These aptitudes are precisely what will bring success in the Connection Economy, and they are covered in varying degrees of detail in all of our frameworks.
This book may be one to add to your shopping list. Order it from Amazon here “A Whole New Mind”
The Futurist book review
Pink identifies six high-concept, high-touch aptitudes needed in the new era and devotes the bulk of his book to describing them and outlining specific ways for readers to develop them.
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Within the space of 24 hours, my relationship with airlines underwent another rollercoaster ride. Loves to travel, hates to fly … is fast becoming my new mantra.
It all started when we tried to change the dates of my husband’s British Airways ticket from London to SA. We tried everything … from the travel agent, to the airline watchdogs to a friend at Expedia who we thought might “know someone who knows someone” … to no avail. We were down £500 as the ticket was completely non refundable. Our own fault for not reading the fine-print admittedly … but still, the experience did not leave me feeling warm and fuzzy. I was left with the impression that BA was heartless, inflexible and archaic. And just as I was vowing to never fly with them again … they managed to show me the flip side of the coin.
Back at Vodaworld’s website this morning in the hope of discovering that upgrading my wife’s mobile phone may lead to the free acquisition of a PSP or iPod nano or something, I was horrified to discover that Vodacom’s newest strategic partner is none other than Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horror’s (see image above).
No, seriously, it seems that Vodacom have linked up with none other than the Rolling Stones to promote audio and video streaming via Vodafone Live!. This “strategic move” can only be one of two things; really smart or spectacularly stupid.
Every now & then an internal conversation happens in TomorrowToday that reflects some of the difficulty of moving away from the traditional business structure into a virtual & connection economy one. A recent conversation that did the rounds concerned whether we should have any more JIMY [Jedi Master Yoda - more on that in another post] meetings this year. JIMY is the closest thing we have to a management meeting in TMTD.biz, and to be totally honest I don’t know what was decided [hence the first line in the email below].
In most businesses today a ‘meeting culture’ prevails such that you can only get your real work done after hours, when everyone is at home [or at their desk too]. In TMTD.biz we have the opposite reality – we have very few meetings [and still happen to run a dynamic & fast growing business]. But, every now and then we need to have conversations around our meetings, and this is one of them.
The conversation started off as an honest question about whether the last two meetings of the year were necessary. It was an enquiry into whether we would be meeting for meeting’s sake. The conversation wound its way around the team and my response is below [you are essentially seeing this at the same time as they are]. In a nutshell my response is that sometimes we should meet for meeting’s sake because it gets us together for together’s sake.
So what do you think?
__________________________________
THE EMAIL
Hey Everyone
I’m not sure what was eventually decided
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An article in the Futurist magazine addresses an new way of developing / running enterprises that uses the best of the outsourcing trend, the connection economy, and connection technologies. The article ‘blurb’ says: “Information Technologies are toppling traditional hierarchical business-management systems. The new model for twenty-first century management will be extra-preneurship – virtual networks based on collaboration and self-actualisation that will add value to all current & future jobs…..”
If you would like to download the article click on the following link [be warned it is 3Mb in size] Extrapreneurship article [3Mb]. The article is 8 pages long with the following section headings:
The mileage our monolithic proprietary friend has gained out of its new human persona, attributable to the 2,000 or so registered Microsoft employee blogs, not to mention the now-famous Robert Scoble (of Scobleizer), is suddenly being tainted by a self-proclaimed Microsoft Deep Throat.
“Who da Punk”, as he refers to himself on his Blogger-hosted Mini-Microsoft site (ha ha – Blogger being Google’s free blog hosting service and all) is an anonymous Microsoft employee who “pretty much ‘tells all’ about too many meetings, sagging morale, the slow schedule of new releases, etc. (He) also mocks CEO Steve Ballmer’s relentlessly upbeat, non-answers to BW.” (See the recent BusinessWeek Ballmer interview).
Debbie Weil comments, “Interestingly, the anonymous blogger insists that he loves his juggernaut employer and only wants to make it a “lean, mean, efficient customer pleasing profit making machine.” But then Mini (he admits he’s a man; that’s the only identifying detail we get) agrees to meet with a BW reporter at a Starbucks in Seattle.”
BizCommunity today had an interesting report under the heading, “Internal branding values ignored“.
“A UK marketing study by Price Waterhouse Coopers shows that less than a third of senior managers believe their companies’ external values are matched by its internal values. There is nothing more destructive to brands than for customers’ expectations to be disappointed and this misalignment is creating a massive threat to companies and destroying customer loyalty.
“Terry Behan, MD of The Fearless Executive and a specialist in the field of brand success, says: ‘Companies spend millions on building a brand only to disable it by neglecting to communicate with their employees on what the brand stands for and how to deliver it to its customers. Without ongoing brand integration, the promises made to customers are fundamentally not achievable. As we move into an experience driven market, bridging the divide between what a brand says and what a brand does is key to the protection of market share and growth.’ ”
This is one a key pillar of the connection economy – that internal and external values are fundamentally aligned.
“Behan says few companies get this right because of the silo mentality within company departments, management’s resistance to change and a lack of know-how in the basics of branding at the operational level. These shortcomings are universal and not peculiar to any one industry. However it is a sobering thought that brands that do get it right out-perform their competition by a ratio of three to one.”
I was working through some email articles, and found the following piece from AAP, June 8 2004.
Teens’ friends their new families
By Gosia Kaszubska
AND you thought the teenager texting madly on your train home was just bored.Seems those twitching thumbs are the drivers of a cultural shift that could reinvigorate Australia’s long-lost, and much yearned for, sense of community.
Social researcher Hugh Mackay said yesterday that younger generations were herding together like never before, using new technologies such as SMS and email chatrooms to foster tight social bonds.
Having grown up knowing only “instability, uncertainty, and unpredictability”, Generation Y had instinctively drawn together to cope, Mr Mackay said.
“The most precious resource they have is each other. And they can’t get enough of each other,” Mr Mackay told the Communities in Control conference in Melbourne yesterday.
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“The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.” Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle, Funky Business. This is the heart of the “Connection Economy” concept. We cannot differentiate ourselves on the traditional “P’s” of marketing (product, price, placement, promotion), but increasingly have to rely on a fifth “P” – people. WHO you are is becoming more important, and WHAT you sell is becoming less so. It is an environment dominated by globalisation, constant change, advanced telecomms and multinational companies.
So what must companies do to adapt to this new economy? There are many places to go for answers to this question: Quantum Theory (Margaret Wheatley is the best business thinker in this space), Systems Theory (see Peter Senge and now Stephen Covey), Games Theory and the Open Source movement. Each of these provides hints on how to adapt to this new environment.
In each of these systems of thought, there are recurring themes of building feedback mechanisms, empowering the edges of the network, and creating communities. These three activities seem to be central to success and resilience in the connection economy.
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KPMG, one of the global “Big Four” accounting giants, has acknowledged guilt in criminal tax frauds, by providing sham tax shelters to wealthy clients between 1996 and 2002. This was announced by the US Justice Department on 29 August, together with a fine imposed on KPMG of US$456 million (US$100 million for failing to disclose tax shelters on tax filings, as required by law, which cost the US at least US$2.5 billion in tax revenues; US$128 million for illegally earning US$115 million in fees; and US$228 million to be paid to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for US$2.5 billion in loss of taxes due to illegal activities).
This follows the collapse of one of the “Big Five”, Arthur Andersen in 2002. The auditing industry is in crisis, yet it has never been more secure. An oddly disturbing place to be, since many required reforms are no longer URGENT, although they remain IMPORTANT, and will thus probably be put on hold for too long.
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Last summer I waged a lone war against the world’s best cricket all-rounder. Simply put, I contend that Jacques Kallis should not be playing one day cricket (and definitely not 20:20!!). (PS – if you don’t know what cricket is, or who Jacques is, then just skip this post).
Yesterday, a South African XI played a Kallis Invitation XI as part of Jacque Kallis’ benefit year. It was an exhibition match (including Lara, Rhodes (bowling!), Kirsten, and Donald), and in the true tradition of these types of games was meant to be a great spectacle. The SA team batted first, posting 258 (see full match summary here). Kallis’ team started the run chase badly, with AB de Villiers back in the hut after only 2 balls. But this brought the man of the moment to the wicket… What would he do in this benefit game? Would we see the Kallis who holds the record for the fastest test 50 of all time? The blindingly brilliant batsman who can dominate an attack and is impervious to sledging?
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Take a look at Microsoft’s Web Site. Looks like it’s been taken over by someone, or something. I reckon it’s been hacked and every link is redirecting people to somewhere else? I haven’t followed any of the links but they all start with http://g.msn.com….
I don’t know enough to know, but I do know something wierd is up.
It’s not going to last long, so take a look. We’ll see the reports during the week. Written Saturday 16:28 (South Africa time)
My friends over at Jo’blog have posted an entry showing how customer-oriented SAA are, despite their recent bad press (see Graeme’s previous entry).
When are SAA going to learn that consumer-generated media holds weight? When are they going to start responding? Or are they simply too big to bother?
Companies simply cannot afford to sit back and ignore citizen journalism anymore. Rich…! shows us how a digital camera (or camera phone), a quick blog entry and a few links can turn into a PR nightmare.
Do you know who’s talking about your company?
BusinessWeek Online, who brought us Blogspotting and other fantastic business blogging resources, have added a new string to their blow.
The MBA blogging community (still in beta version) allows users (MBA students, alum or recruiters) to start their own blogs under the BusinessWeek umbrella, and according to the site users will be able to share their ‘journey’, exchange ideas, build a network, post photo’s, rate fellow bloggers in the network, and much more.
From the links and previews on the site it looks to be pretty popular already.
Business2Day Blog reports “Goodbye, Coins. Hello, Digicash“, which, in my humble opinion, adds weight to my predictions at RIP: Newspaper.
My genius aside, can you think of one good reason coins and notes should stay in circulation? (ok, besides the tooth fairy…)
First, there was the MACH3 – one of the 90’s biggest marketing successes, and the flagship of the Gillette range of men’s razors. During its first week on the market, the MACH3 was the No.1 selling razor in the U.S., gaining a 35% over it’s nearest rivals (read more here). Heck, even David Beckham uses one. Needless to say, the MACH3 fast became, and remains, a status symbol in the metrosexual man’s bathroom cabinet.
Then, quite recently, Schick (who have been living in the rather impressive shadow of Gillette for some time now) released their 4-blade Quattro razor, obviously wanting to raise the stakes. The 4-blade Quattro has struggled to even dent the now almost impenetrable brand status built up around the MACH3.
But our friends at Gillette can’t back down on a challenge…
Introducing the 5-blade (I kid you not) Gillette Fusion Razor. Thanks to Seth’s Blog and Business2Day Blog for the links.
I agree with B2Day – this can only be classified as a gimmick. Do five blades really cut closer than two? Or even one, for that matter? And, to be quiet honest, my wife doesn’t rub up to my cheek like the lady in the ads (nobody else wants to, either), so who’s going to know besides me anyway?
Funny thing is, knowing all this, my MACH3 is already starting to look inadequate…
However, the funniest part of it all comes thanks to an article (sensitive viewers may be disturbed) written at satirist’s paradise ‘The Onion’ on – get this – 11 Oct 2004. Coincidence?
Credit to Jackie Huba of the Church of the Customer – blog for picking up on this link.
Shimmy off to legos.com to see the accompanying legal admonishment. You will automaticall be directed to the holiest of holies, www.lego.com (naturally).
Next thing they’ll be issuing “cease and desist” documentation with all their new products in the hope that lego-lovers the world over will convert. Oh, and I can’t wait for Mercedes-Benz to forbid it’s customers using the term “Merc” when referring to their shiny new automobile.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the value of a brand, and I respect the time, effort and money marketers pour into campaigns. But this is just way too anal for my liking.
I remember the first time I heard the Dave Matthews Band – it was a summers day driving along the South Coast with Mike (see his post on DMB). I could not quite figure out why this band resonated with me. Boasting a gruff voice, tainted with mud, Dave is not an ordinary musician. He is not easy on the ear, and the way the Band comes together can lose you in its complexity. But what grabbed me was the way that he had constructed the band – in commercial terms, he’s the quintessential talent networker.
Even in Africa, Seth Godin is a marketing god. Each new post on his blog is a gem. I’ve wangled a copy of his new book, The Big Moo (check out Seth’s unconventional marketing campaign for the book here – brilliant) from the lads at Jo’blog, and will be reviewing it soon.
But I digress. Seth has posted a marvelous story from a recent shopping trip. The story tells how a just little bit of creative thinking, mystery and outright fear can turn ordinary shoppers into frenzied buyers…
Michelle Conlin wrote in 2000 for BusinessWeek on how the turn of the millennial would not necessarily solve one of women’s age ol dilemmas – how to balance work, marriage and kids. It seems that men just get to carry on, assuming that the women will pick up the child care pieces. Whilst the attitudes of some men are changing, this is still probably the norm, and women bear get the raw end of the deal more often than not. Read her full article here.
She says: “Some 25 years after women started pouring into the labor force, you would think the work-and-family dilemma would have eased, or that the judgments women have about each other’s choices would have at least lost some of their sting. But in some ways, the tensions today are fiercer than ever, exacerbated by the New Economy’s demands on dual-earner couples for 60-hour workweeks on the one hand and the increased option for some to stay at home on the other…. It’s this can’t-win-no-matter-what dynamic that is distracting women from drilling down to the real problem: the way the workplace in Corporate America is designed. According to Joan Williams, co-director of American University’s Gender, Work & Family Project and author of the recently released book Unbending Gender, most jobs are centered around the notion of an ideal worker who labors at least 40 hours a week–and often 60–without ever taking a break or downshifting for child-rearing.”
BBC News (UK Edition) has published a thought-provoking article titled “What will newspapers look like in 20 years?“, on the back of The Guardian’s decision to switch from ‘broadsheet’ format to a more compact, practical ‘berliner’ style.
10 years ago predictions were rife that the newspaper’s days were numbered, based on the increased popularity of the internet and television media. Papers continue to circulate, but sales figures are dropping, especially in 1st world markets.
20 years on is a scary proposition. At the rate our world advances today, it’s likely the changes in store regarding the ways and means of communicating and disseminating information are beyond comprehension or imagination. One is inclined to conjure up images of the ‘moving picture and content’-type newspapers found only in Harry Potter novels, or Steven Spielberg’s interpretation in the sci-fi Minority Report, if one believes newspapers will continue to exist at all.
It got me thinking about other ‘institutional’ stalwarts we might see disappear in the next 20 years. I’ve listed one or two I would expect to have vanished by 2025 – what do you think?
I find it fascinating that more and more people are getting their news from “spoof” news shows. The Late Night Shows (Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, etc), have always provided light relief, with a few well placed jokes about current affairs up front. But now, with the proliferation of blogs, as well as the mainstreaming of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” (Global Edition) on CNN (a comedy central production), spoof news is big news.
Also check out one of the hottest vlogs online at the moment: Rocketboom (see story from BusinessWeek below). Its a three minute a day mock news show, using an actress, Amanda Congdon to host the show. The filming takes about 90 minutes every day. They’re trying to build a faithful audience so that soon they can start charging a small subscription fee, and also introduce advertising. Nice idea, and they’ve got my vote! PS – because its a vlog, you can actually post your own comments on the show, submit your own footage, and interact with it.
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Last week I had 2 Millennium generational (Gen Y) encounters.
The first one was while visiting a client. A very progressive company with a young dynamic staff. Anyone would give their eye teeth to work in a company like this. When I asked what one issue would they say is the most prominent…..she answered Generations! I presumed between Boomers and Gen X’s, BUT no the company only has a hand full of boomers. The issues are between Xer’s and Millennial generations.
The “what ever� attitude of the Xers are getting fed up(already) with the socially aware, conservation caring, confident millennials that are now part of their staff.
With a few exceptions, rules and regulations only serve to:
1. Divert attention from a company’s objectives,
2. Provide a false sense of securty for executives,
3. Create work for bean counters, and
4. Teach men to stone dinosaurs and start fires with sticks.
Courtesy Ricardo Semler, Maverick.
When considering how to attract and retain talented “Bright Young Things”, not only must you consider remuneration policies, flexibility and freedom, challenging work and personal development opportunities (amongst other factors), you also need to take into account the physical environment in which they will be working. (Yes, these “young snots” DO want it all – they DO want everything to change. In fact, they’d probably settle for a lot less than we often suggest, BUT, if you want to become a legend to them, and attract and retain the cream of the crop, then you’re going to have to overhaul everything!).
In a well thought through contribution in the Harvard Business School ‘Working Knowledge’ series, Thomas Davenport explains “Why Office Design Matters“. The article comes out of a research project aimed at understanding the link between office design and performance on knowledge workers. I would personally like to see the researchers overlay some of our understanding of generations, as well as insights into the changing values of younger talented staff, onto their research. It would be great to know if some of their comments (especially, for example, the last one below) have a generational bias on them. However, the article is still worth a good read.
The bullet point summary is:
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The HR magazine, Personnel Today, 13 Sep 2005, cites a survey by Deloittes that indicates globally HR practitioners are most worried about attracting and retaining talent over the next few years (read the full story here – includes graphic summaries).
They state: “the most critical people management issues are attracting and retaining high-calibre workers…. Respondents identified a clear link between talent management and business performance. More than half (54%) believe talent issues have an impact on the overall productivity and efficiency of the organisation and 40% say that a lack of good people affects a firm’s ability to innovate…. Organisations now needed to be agile in turning this understanding into clear people strategies that will create attractive working environments.”
The focus of most company’s desire to retain talent, in this survey, seems to be increasing productivity and efficiency. The second major concern was innovation, followed by customer service.
WOMMA is an acronym for the newly-formed Word-of-Mouth Marketer’s Association. It is the official trade association for the word of mouth marketing industry, and according to the site, a collection of “fantastic brands and marketers who know that happy customers are our most powerful advocates”. It’s mission is to promote and improve word of mouth marketing by:
* Protecting consumers and the industry with strong ethical guidelines
* Promoting WOM as an effective marketing tool
* Setting standards to encourage its use
Interestingly, they have made a pretty strong statement when relating WOM to conventional marketing and advertising channels (I would have assumed WOM would be a sub-category of conventional marketing), by setting up a WOM vs. Advertising blog and following it up with a conference, headed up by heynote speaker, author and marketing guru Seth Godin. It’s almost as if they’re implying that WOM could replace conventional advertising as we know it.
Ever wondered how much free phone calls are worth? Wonder no more. E-Bay is going to pay around $4.1 Billion for Skype. From an article carried on ZD Net “The auctioneer said it plans to pay $1.3 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in stock for the Web communications company. It would make a further payout of up to $1.5 billion by 2008 or 2009 if financial targets are met, giving the deal a total value of up to $4.1 billion, executives of the two companies said.”
That’s not bad money for a company that expects to make $60 million this year. But the growth path it’s on is impressive. Skype has added 54 million users to it’s service in just 2 years. This is going to be an interesting industry to track as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft make their own entry into Skype’s playground.
The 11 March 2010 edition of the TIME magazine had a great cover article on “10 ideas for the next 10 years“. In the same edition, Nancy Gibbs (who has often written on generational issues for TIME), wrote an interesting short piece on how young people perceive the generation gap these days. It’s [...]
A report under this title appeared in the New York Times on 12 March 2010. It’s a great example of a few things, but especially of the power of social media, and the fact that innovation (and competition) can come from anywhere these days.
Read the story of how technology developed in the aftermath of [...]
For years banks and credit card companies have held a strangle hold over the movement of money and charged exorbitant rates for doing so. Now this is changing and fast.
Michale Ivey the founder of Twitpay has devised a system, using code that PayPal made available to him, that allows people to make payments [...]
In the last few hours the 10 billionth tweet was tweeted on Twitter. As one would imagine there was all kinds of hype and excitement, as Tweeps with the necesary skills attempted to predict the time it would happen, and I imagine even be ‘the one’?
My last tweet was 9999989724. Wild. Will be at 10 [...]
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