Do organizations have anything to learn from Foursquare ?

Every year (if not every half-year) a new service becomes the main topic of conversation on the web. The buzz comes, of course, at a so early stage that’s it’s impossible to guess at this time how perenial the success will be and if the service will be able to find a sustainable business model, but this does not prevent experts to imagine it as a pillar of new usages on the intranet that will, at last, make enterprise 2.0 mainstream in the workplace.

In these early months of 2010 the pretended “next big thing” is called Foursquare and many things have already been writen here and  there about its future brilliant success in the workplace. Let me also mention Gowalla, that’s more recent but has many interesting features and Whrrl that is not “officially” working in France at this time.

So, is it one more craze or the future next big thing ?

What’s that ?

To keep it simple, let’s say these services allow you to “localize” where you are to tell your network “I’m there” or tells any of your contact going something “x… whas here and he even let a tip/recommandation about the place”. You can tell me that it may quickuly become boring and even pointless. That’s why some funny things have been added to keep the interest up.

The person with the most “check-ins” in a given place becomes the “mayor” of this place. This is an honorific title but some businesses already try to make things to pay more attention to the customer who owns the mayorship of their place. People may also win “badges” when they accomplish things like cumulating x check-ins, x airports, 3 Apple Stores….there is no limit to what can be invented to create new badges…

Everything is, of course, opt-in : one share only what he wants with whom he wants.

What benefits for users ? ?

Here things get more complicated. It stimulates a kind of funny competition within one’s network, most of all when these people do a little bit more than home-transportation-work every day. It’s always funny to go to a new place and to know that a friend of yours was theis months before and let a message about things to do, to see, specials if it’s a retaurant….

Now let’s be honnest and pragmatic. Except this funny competition side (I sometimes like these kind of pointless games), the vague feeling of being closer to other since we can know who is where, who’s around…I can’t find any tangible benefit at this time. Maybe I once appreciated a “since you are there, xxxx recommands such restaurant that’s one block away” but nothing more. Humm..I was forgetting one point : when I’m at a conference abroad it’s always useful to know who is where, attending such track in such room, is at the airport, is at such restaurant to be able to micro-organize all together without spending our time calling each other on the phone.

I’m afraid that’s all.

We used to live very well without that in the past. Let’s also admit we can say the same about mobile phone…

Let’s admit that it does not look that a business killer-app. But is there a part of this new paradigm that may bring any benefit in a business context ?

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Convergence ? You said convergence ?

Once again I found this nugget thanks to Luis Suarez . And as usual, the same question comes to  me : what does it inspire “normal” people with ?

3 web 2.0 tools enterprises must consider

I often touch on the need for professionaling web 2.0′s tools and usages in order to make them consistent in a corporate context. But we also have to keep in mind that there are some tools and usages that exist on the general public web that businesses haven’t considered yet and that they should bring inside their firewall.

Why three tools ? Because I didn’t find more. Even if I more addicted to the Harvard Business Review than to Techcrunch, it seems to me that as regards tools the essentials are behind us. Some cobble things up, make improveent, build mashups but no new logic comes and bring something really new in the extensive catalog that already exists. I was really looking for some new logics and not for an nth copy of something that already exists.

If you look at web 2.0 tools, very few are those that businesses have not try to implement for internal purposes yet (which does not mean they successfully managed to do so). Blogs : done. Wikis : done too. Social Networs k : they are learning. FlickR and YouTube like ? Done. Google Docs : done. Bookmarking : done. Then come some new services that are nothing but mashups. Let’s end the list.

3°) Silentale

I’ve put silentale on the third step of the podium because it’s not available yet so I rely on the promise that was made at the last LeWeb08 conference when won a special award from the public. The ability to gather and funnel all your conversations, exchanges, wherever they take place is an interesting productivity booster. This is a part of the “personal information supply chain” I’ve already developed here. A part of the corporate plumbing.

2°) Dopplr

To be honnest, Iwould  never have thought of mentionning  Dopplr here if I hadn’t have a conversation with a friend weeks ago. He works for a company that has subsidiaries all over the world and which teams are send…all over the world too. Experts can be in a local headquarter or send to join temps in a place near you, in the jungle or in the middle of the ocean. “Sometimes we can be 10 at the same time in NYC, each one coming from a different country….plus our NYC team. But it can also happen in the middle of nowhere without any of us knowing others people from the company are there. So we’d like to use Dopplr but, considering our industry, we can’t rely on a public platform. A prive dopplr would do the job”. What may seem of a secondary importance for sedentary businesses may be essential for those where mobility is the norm. And not only for human reasons…

1°) Seesmic.

Here is the big winner, coming in an easy first. It take a long time for businesses to recognize the business value of asynchronous and public conversations between the members of their staff. Video seems to be gadget for many of them. But the video asynchronous public conversations, instead of cumulating all the barriers bring a sudden ray of light as its ROI is obvious. Perhaps it’s also because of the current context.

Imagine that you need your sales team to be more efficient (I know…nobody cares about that today ;-) ). They are asked to qualify their leads better, to react in an adapted way to each situation…. The solution has a name : training. But how can an expert trainer work with people all over the world knowing that it’s just not possible to put him on a plane every morning !

A case can be imaginated. Everyone is asked to register his sales speech when he can. The trainer can see them one by one, make corrections showing what to improve, the the sales person start again… It’s more efficient than a videoconference because it does not disturb people’s own agendas, it allow corrections, it allow to teach by the example and, most of all, conversations can made accessible for all so that a real expertise library is available on the intranet with cases, real examples, corrections etc…

Only a blind person would not see the ROI here. And it’s only a quick and dirty example.

Ok…maybe none of these players are interested in this kind of market.

And you ? Do you see others ?

Enterprise 2.0 : my predictions for 2009

Honestly I was not sure I would conform to the annual predictions tradition. Finally, since my 2008 edition was not that bad (shift from “social tools at people’s disposal” to the acknowledgement it needed inclusion in business process) and Susan kindly asks for it, I’ll try to do something interesing this year.

That said, I will divide my note in two parts. As any good “thoughtleader” sometimes mistake predictions for his own wishes, I’ll try to be lucid enough to clearly separate both and end my note with a few pious hopes.

Let’s start !

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Digital Nomads : today’s community for tomorrow’s workers

Perhaps you’ve already heard about Digital Nomads. More than a site it’s rather a community for those who break the traditionnal link between working and being at the office and use the right tools to be connected and able to work anywhere, anytime. Alone but not isolated : digital nomads often interact more with their ecosystem, are more informed about what the others are doing and keep more the others informed than people who work close one to another in traditional offices usually do.

In short, more than a way of working it’s rather a new daily way of life for more and more people. Please don’t tell me it’s only for independant workers or small companies : more and more companies now have mobility and nomadism programs that are more than experiments. Sometimes it’a about home office, sometimes it allows people to work from wherever they want. Those who read Tim Ferri’s “Four hours workweek” will appreciate… [Read more...]