Real time web is not a cure-all (and twitter won’t kill blogs)

July 10, 2009 By 2 Comments

We can hear that microblogging is killing blogging and that, globally speaking, the future of web is real time. An hasty discourse I don’t subscribe to. It does not seem to me that a trend is replacing another but that they are complementary.

This applies to the general public web but also to the corporate web.

This complementary nature can be explained by postionning a given message according to two axis : consistency and temporality.

Consistency

No long demonstration is needed to explain that it’s hard to deliver a message and a consistent information in 140 characters. If all the information had to comply with the 140 chars rule, we would be informed of many thing without really knowing anything. In the other hand it’s hard to fill out a blog post when the message is short, terse. In this case, the title is often meaningfull alone and the body of the message brings nothing new. That’s what made a part of the blogosphere switch to the twittosphere. Not beacause one is better than the other but because its format  fits more with the needs of most of people (remember that pure “creators” on social medias are only a few per cent).

Temporality

Some messages are here to stay and make their place in the worldwide informational inheritance. Some others only have an instant value and won’t deliver it if they don’t spread quickly. When one writes blog post, he aims at his regular audience, but indexation by search engines gives the post a kind of permanence. Then the long tail makes its job. Even of the indexation of the messages on twitter improves, its archives only have a few interest. If a message is missed, there are many chances it won’t be of any interest one day later : either the information will become valueless or it will become available for everydoby through more conventional channels. In the worst case, if something has a real value, it will keep on resonating (being retwitted) long enough in order it will still be able to be caught a few days later.

So a two speed web is emerging. Consistent messages that have to remain and deliver a complex message, and short and instant messages on a faster track.

It’s easy to realize how real time can reach its limits while traditionnal blogging does not have the needed reactivity in some circumstances. The complementarity between both allows to cover the full range of needs.

Some may say some messages meet both conditions. That’s why many people use twitter to mention blog posts. What reminds us the need for articulating both.

webconsistency-eng

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Web 2.0 turned the digital divide into a social divide

June 21, 2009 By 6 Comments

Digital divide used to be and still is a real concern in our industrialized countries. Maybe we should end talking about industrialized countries to say “computerized countries” what seems to be more relevant with today’s world. Maybe some would say that it’s because we neglected this shift that we were stuck with old industrial models applied to a “soft” economy and that what happened last fall happened. We could talk about the destiny of both Google and GM, what is the embodiment of the changes our word is experiencing but that’s not my point here.

At the beginning, digital divide was defined as inequality of access to digital tools. There were those who could access them and the others. It’s easy to understand the amount of opportunties for the early users who were able to gain abilities while the computer and, after, the web industry was growing up, while, on the other hand, the other had to catch up with these technologies years later. And some are still running to jump into the train.

Considering my generation for instance, I can see the difference bewteen those who had their first computer in 1985 when aged 10, discovered the web with a 56 ko modem in 1995 and followed this trend and those who had their first computer in 1997 and their first internet experience in 2000. The gap still remain today.

Anyway, at this time things were clear : there were those who could affort a computer (or those whom parents could) and the others. Among them, some see the interest, some didn’t. Then there were those who had cable or ADSL very early and those for whom this technology was not available in their city. Hence this divide.

Today, web 2.0 shows us the divide has a new nature. What means different means will be needed to fix it.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Society, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , ,

Some advice not to fear internet in the workplace

April 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

You are scared that your employees stop working and spend their days surfing on the net ? A too easy shortcut based on the assumption that people inevitably lose their time when they are on the net. An assumption that may also be true. In fact, the issue is about two questions :

The first is to know if your staff need internet or not, what amounts to wonder if it can be a business tool or if it’s only a leisure tool.

In the case the answer to the first question is positive, the second question will be about usages. Nearly everybody agree that net surfing is like cholesterol : there is the “good surf” ” and the “bad surf”, the one who serves the company and the one that makes you waste your time.

Here again, there’s no “magic formula” but we can figure a few things out with a few common sense.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Story of a professional disconnection

March 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This little story I’m going to tell you is purely imaginary. It’s neither mine nor anybody’s in particular. But it may become ours, one day.

January 2009 :Back to the office after a few days off. I take five minutes to send my greetings to all my friends. Nothing’s like Facebook to do that. I realize that the access is blocked. It doesn’t matter, I can live without facebook at work. Finally I decide to use email but I take care not to use my corporate email but my personal one, through the webmail.

February  2009 : bad news, linkedIn is blocked too. I have to hire two new people this month…awkward. I think that my colleague Rob, who is a salesperson, will be very angry. There’s no one like him to take the most of a network to pass the more insuperable barriers to get in touch with the right people and close incredible deals. He doesn’t have the best results in the company just by luck. I’m sure he must be in a very bad mood.

March 2009 : I’ve heard that the sparks really flew during the individual evaluation meetings. Robert was accused of dilettantism. That’s true that he had to do all his network things in the evening at home since linkedIn is blocked…so he spent hours waiting for the workday to end. I can understand how frustrated he is. The context is difficult and he feels like his employer is playing against him.
April 2009 : Impossible to find a meeting room on my floor and it’s really starting to get me out of my nerves. I can’t undersand why it started a weeks ago. We are not more that before, the activity is rather decreasing… I have to investigate.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Misc. Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Survey on the use of IT in french companies

February 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Two weeks ago I was invited by Microsoft to attend the presentation of a survey on the use of IT in fench companies. Two things made it really interesting

• Although the fact new generations were transforming the use of IT, there was no global study to quantify and qualify it.

• The methodology was neutral and exhaustive : they started with general considerations and focused step by step to get to business cases. So the survey provides sociological elements, that were qualified, assessed, turned into busines practices etc… Each step was managed by a specialized partner (Eranos, Added Value, Ifop andt BearingPoint ).

Let’s see what’s in.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Do not mistake tab keeping for stupidness. Responsability is needed on the web

February 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

In my “web and society” series, I can’t prevent from saying a few words about the tab keeping theory which is put forward by many people as we leave many traces on the web.

Assumption :we leave traces on the web, anyone can use it and not only to help us. We leave traces, the web stores them and it’s dangerous.

I repeat what I’ve already wrote many teams : the web is the world, there are the same people that are not better or worst than in real life and thinking the same social rules may apply is everything but stupid.

Imagine you’re the hero of the following story…

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Society, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , ,

Is internet dangerous for kids or does parents misunderstand what happens

January 26, 2009 By 2 Comments

This blog post by Jon Husband and the  article from the Guardian it menstions takes me to wonder about the presumed impact of the net and its use on kids.

People worry about the time teenagers spend online. So what ? I think that all generations, theirs,mine and our parent’s had their favorite leisures. For some it was TV, for others miniature trains, Barbie dolls had their fans too who were taking care of it like if it was in real life while their brothers were trying to become the new Magic Johnson on the nearest playgroung and, later, on their game console. The list is long and we can all try to remember what was catching our attention when we were younger. Things are not that different now. Is this dangerous ? Not more than everything that catches all our attention and makes us forget about the rest. Not less either. In brief, nothing new since my grandmother’s time.

A danger kids have to be protected from is isolaton caused by too all-consuming leisures. Here again, I don’t find there’s anything new. Solitary leisures cut people from the rest of the world, collective leisures cut kids from their parents. Nothing new.

So why so much fear in front a phenomenon that’s been known for years ?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Society, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Can enterprises organize themselves as markets

January 17, 2009 By 3 Comments

What’s a market ? It’s a place when offer meets demand.

Companies love markets because it’s the more efficient way to find outlets for their products and identify suppliers. It’s a competitiveness factor because of the outlets it provides and the optimization of costs that competition makes possible.

The “social” web is a market somehow. Contents can find an audience, ideas outlets, projects people who’ll make them become real, people partners, question answers. It’s because of this market that events as trivial as flashmobs happened, that some people had great carriers evolutions, that some companies where born. This huge self-organized space made possible things that would not have been in a classical, organized, regulated market, operation costs making it irrational the organization of niche micro-markets. It’s because it has no physical nor economic barriers that the web made all this possible : intermediation and transaction costs are near to zero.

There is another place that is full of ideas, projects, needs, competences, longings, question, which would gain a lot if the ones were able to meet the others within its walls : the enterprise.

Experience showed me this is definitively the place where exist the more questions and answers, and the place where we can be sure there are very few chances that the ones meet the others. Companies are traditionnally, on this point of view, the place for misses opportunities. It may sound surprising according to all the things companies do, to all their obvious successes, but when looking at what they don’t  or painfully do and would make sense, it may makes us feel dizzy. A kind of vertigo that is proportional with the size of the enterprise. Are there any reason to that ? Of course : high transaction and intermediation costs and the fact companies don’t want to give intermediation up.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Economy & New Models, Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Knowledge & Information management, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What we should know as a new year begins

January 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I alreaday published this video last year. It comes back with a new look and soundtrack (even if I liked the previous one too). Nothing new but things to keep in mind while a new year begins. Now we know, let’s act.

Happy New Year everybody !

Filed Under: Economy & New Models, Software & Tools Tagged With: ,

Will 2.0 learn the enterprise ?

December 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

As I wrote in a previous post, all the required conditions are gathered for serious things to begin. Most of times, when a new phenomenon emerges, it goes through the following steps : ecstasy and disorganised intiatives even if brings no benefits, rejection because nothing good has been done at the previous step and then wise and efficient use.

Knowing that one of the economic downturn positive effect, in an enterprise 2.0 perspective, is that it means the end of the first step and will dramatically reduce the length of the second one. As a matter of mact, as I wrote here, companies will have to focus on efficiency and business and do what’s needed regardless to how it’s called.

Maybe some people will found it disappointing but I’ve always noticed that the more interesting contributions on enterprise 2.0 were not from the 2.0 world but from business, organization, management or HR professionals, although there are some excpetions. Nothing but logic because, by definition, the ones are trying to find a room for tools where the others try to improve the way organizations work and, one day, consider some tools may be useful to support their approach. Happily, both always meet at the end.

Now, where is all the stuff bringing us ?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts