Don Tapscott is, for me, an inspiring voice when it comes to working together. In fact, he was the first person I heard use the words, “Era of Collaboration”. His insight, knowledge and ability to think beyond the box has helped me shape my recent entrepreneurial adventures.

Here he is in an enlightening interview with Google about his book, “Wikinomics” and his thoughts on the future of business…

Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott

In Don Tapscott’s latest book, Grown Up Digital, he revisits the key themes discussed in his 1998 book, Growing Up Digital. Tapscott’s book is timely for me. Our first research reports on ‘NetGeners’ will be released in the new year and Grown Up Digital is a good yardstick for our LINK research team on whether we are on track.

The ‘Net Generation (Tapscott, 1998), ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001) or ‘Millennials’ (Howe & Strauss, 2000; Oblinger, 2003), are claimed as unique and historically unprecedented in terms of their (i) sophisticated knowledge and skills with ICT, and (ii) their particular learning preferences or styles which differentiate them from earlier generation of students such as ‘Gen-Xers’, ‘Baby Boomers’ or as ‘digital immigrants’ (Prensky, 2001) [for a more detailed discussion read our IAM paper on SSRN].  Various commentators place this start of this generation between 1977 to 1982….this doesn’t matter too much; what matters is that they’ve arrived and are in my classroom!

After spending $4m in private research funding, Tapscott provides us with many insights; some are obvious, some are anecdotal and some are questionable but mostly intriguing. He goes as far as recommending seven tips for educators:

1. Focus on changes in pedagogy, not the technology
2. Cut back on lecturing
3. Empower students to collaborate
4. Focus on lifelong learning, not teaching to the test
5. Use technology to get to know each student
6. Design educational programmes to include choice, customization, transparency, integrity, collaboration, fun, speed and innovation
7. Reinvent yourself as an educator

While “Grown Up Digital” has only hit the bookshelves recently in Ireland, I would like to think our own research in LINK has lead us to a similar conclusion in the design that has been invested in to DCU Business School’s Next Generation Management initiative.

• While we still provide the option of lectures, students can sourcing learning in a variety of ways and through different sources and we recognise these in assessment.
• Team building and collaboration is essential and makes up over 50% of all coursework.
• We have a heavy emphasis on life skills including reflective learning, research, presentation, communication and collaboration skills.
• There is no test – it is 100% continuous assessment; 50% of which is determined by the student and presented in a portfolio.
• We make heavy use of learning platforms, social media tools and have online lecture options for certain subjects.
• Students have a minimum quantity of work to complete however can decide how to get there. Allowing for a timelag for correcting, students have a good idea of where they are relative to an overall grade on a bi-monthly basis.
• It has meant for me, as an educator and part of a team, redefining my workload, how I teach, how I assess, the amount of time  I spend with students on a one-to-one or small group basis outside formal class times, how I communicate and how I collaborate.

In fact, in some instances we may have gone further. I agree that technology may provide the potential for flexible delivery of learning however care needs to be taken to avoid focusing on technology for technology’s sake at the expense of a deeper understanding of the potential of technology for learning (Collis and Moonen, 2001). But, lifelong learning requires a rethink. While pedagogy focuses on the teacher as the learning decision-maker and this may be appropriate in the earlier stages of the education system, as the learner progresses to adulthood and independent learning, andragogic paradigms may be more appropriate (Knowles, 1984). Whether the chosen model is pedagogy, andragogy, heutagogy (see Hase and Kenyon, 2000) or some other educational methodology, the technologies to support education need to be prepared for different educational methodologies and be capable of co-evolving with both the educators and learners while being flexible to their needs.   Equally, educators, and those responsible for training educators, must develop, continually, the skills and knowledge to support new education methodologies and new technologies in not only themselves but also their learners. In this respect, Tapscott, is somewhat naive – reinventing yourself as an educator, empowering students, lifelong learning and adapting to the eight norms may, in fact, mean doing away with pedagogy and embracing other -ogogies.

 However, in his rush to embrace all things ‘Net Gen’, Tapscott misses, plays down or chooses to overlook, a vital insight from the frontline: maybe the students aren’t ready for a NetGen-enabled educational experience? Maybe the faculty aren’t either.  Maybe undergraduate and graduate students who have been conditioned over 12-15 years to learn and be taught in a specific way find such a sudden change in educational practice deeply un-nerving?  Maybe some of the norms Tapscott cites can be negatives too – the need for speed can also manifest as a lack of patience….and patience is a virtue! Despite this, I am not convinced that this jolt in to uncertain territory is necessarily a bad thing for students or faculty. I realise all change comes with pain and battles but the post-growth world is very different. Students, particularly business school students, need to be prepared to think differently and cope with this complexity and uncertainty. We are failing them if we don’t.

A couple quick interviews…and two terrific books.  The first from Don Tapscott is “Grown Up Digital” and follows a title from ‘97 called “Growing Up Digital”.  In a nutshell, it’s a discussion that details a growing segment of the population that treats technology the same regard boomers treat a telelphone.  The interview is long (almost half an hour) but offers the thoughts and views of a leading business strategist.

The second is from Charlene Li, arguably one of the planet’s authorities on leveraging social networks.  The video is a presentation made at Google in Mountain View CA and follows the release of her book, “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies”.

I was not addicted to social networking sites or blogging until I encountered twitter.

Here some of my Twitter experiences:

1) I saw the best billboard ever (c/o @smashingmag)

2) Don Tapscott sent me a direct message. [ Well... he just plugged & thanked]

Don Tapscott's direct message

3) I get to share all the links that I found interesting.

4) I get to plug and rant incessantly.

5) I get to practice my communication & people skills.

Don Tapscott is an IT an Internet guru currently associated with the idea of wikinomics.  His concepts came up in one postgraduate class that I taught last week, because we discussed the extent to which information systems had been so deeply embedded into businesses that you couldn’t deal with information systems separately from the business as a whole.  Tapscott had discussed this issue as long ago as the early 1990s, when he proposed that businesses shouldn’t have any sort of information systems strategic plan.  At the time, there was much talk of aligning information systems with business strategy, with the implication that you’d have a business strategy and an information systems strategy, and would somehow need to ensure that the two were compatible.   Tapscott suggested that you shouldn’t have a separate strategic plan for information systems, because the real way to achieve alignment was to ensure that information systems were covered within the business strategy itself.

An important concept promoted by Tapscott was that of prosumption – although the word prosumer was originated by Alvin Toffler in around 1979 (the Oxford English Dictionary discovered that it had been used, as a contrived word, in an American newspaper article before that, but nevertheless credits Toffler the idea for the word).  Prosumption refers to the effect of consumers becoming part of a product, for example when they contribute material to a website.  The designbetterproducts.com blog at http://www.designbetterproducts.com/2008/02/alvin-tofflers-prosumer-is-new-maker.html has some interesting thoughts, in the light of Toffler’s later writing, about the potential of prosumers to improve product design.

My reaction to prosumption is that it’s interesting and important, but not necessarily as new a concept as might appear.  It’s a familiar concept to the proprietors of bars and cafés, who usually recognise that their customers form part of the product.  There’s an excrutiatingly funny scene in Mike Leigh’s film Life is Sweet, where one of the characters sets up a restaurant, but nobody turns up to eat there on the opening night.   To make matters worse, the one waitress employed at the restaurant announces that she’s fed up with working in Enfield, and would like to move to Prague.  Of course the character should have recognised that his customers were prosumers, and invited a few of his friends along to create a pleasant atmosphere in the restaurant.

In fact I’d offer this as a more general observation on the ideas promoted by Don Tapscott over the years.  He addresses issues that are timely, and presents some useful concepts in an interesting and engaging manner, but his ideas aren’t necessarily as revolutionary as they might at first seem.

Once again I am headed on a education technology journey with the likes of Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay of Flat Classroom Project fame. Last spring was my first foray into the multinational, collaborative, project that promotes digital literacy and skills and conceived by these two ladies. I took a grade nine English honors section through the NetGenEd Project, a spin-off of its original Flat Classroom cousin. Using the same methodology, my group investigated how digital technologies, outlined in the Horizon Report intersected with the Net Generation norms outlined by Don Tapscott in his book Grown Up Digital and how all of these factors can be used to improve education.

Without question it was a mildly harrowing but ultimately rewarding experience. I believe it was the most ambitious project Davis and Lindsay had attempted at that point. As one of eighteen classrooms from six different countries, my students dove into an experience that had them producing their own short videos on how their selections of technology and norm could impact education, as well as worked with a group of peers from other schools to collaboratively research and write a wiki page that provided an in-depth examination of the same. All of this work was adjudicated by panels of educators, as well as relevant experts.

I had very little preparation for the experience, consequently compromising some of my ability to alleviate some of the confusion that my students had. Yet, as Vicki Davis quipped at the beginning of the project, “The thing about working on the bleeding edge is sometimes you bleed.” In that spirit, I preached that they all needed to grow a bit more comfortable with chaos. That project unfolded so fast and was really in an always emerging state. This was not all bad at all. Yet, not having ever been part of something with quite the degree of ambition or scale had me feeling like I was constantly playing catch-up, a feeling the students also felt. Our feelings were often a little stronger than the was necessary for the reality of the situation. However, the students all were remarkable. They turned their seeming confusion into stunning results. During the awards show, they ended up with more individual mentions in the final awards tally than any other participating school, despite placing no higher than third place.

In retrospect, the most significant challenge proved to be managing the student’s expectations. At first the prospect of working with students from around the globe filled them with excitement. The notion of video chats with students in Australia, for example, was floated with gleeful enthusiasm. Yet, they soon discovered that hoped for inevitability was not really possible with the time difference. The reality of asynchronous communication that is at times messy and requires patience was not quite as exciting as they were hoping. Still, the experience was a great for me and the students. Admittedly, despite the difference of expectations, never before had the students used more tools and been able to identify more specific skills that they learned. Thus, the whole project proved  to be a great success.

Now I begin again with a new set of students, but this time it is in a new cycle of the original Davis and Lindsay collaboration. Already, the combination of my experience, having already completed a similar project, as well as the degree of preparation and maturity of this project is a great advantage. It all makes me even more excited to see what this group of students will ultimately produce.

News Item – Netflix awards $1 Million Prize for innovation from outside the company

The contest was to help with the most basic of promises of Netflix:  “If you like this movie, we’ll help you find the next movie you will like – even though you had no idea you would like it.”  From the NY Times article: The payoff for Netflix? “Accurately predicting the movies Netflix members will love is a key component of our service,” explained Neil Hunt, chief product officer. The prize went to a seven-person winning team of statisticians, machine-learning experts and computer engineers from the United States, Austria, Canada and Israel, called BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos.

Two of the Winning Team Members Robert Bell & Chris Volinsky

This story about Netflix demonstrates the truth behind two best-selling business books.   The basic premise of the two books, The Wisdom of Crowds, and Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, is simple.  Everybody knows more than anybody.  And when you add the amazing ability of technology for people to collaborate with what they know and what they learn, separately and together, the result and payoff can be beyond amazing.

Here are a few quotes to remind you of the authors contentions.

The Wisdom of Crowds

From The Wisdom of Crowds:
Corporate strategy is all about collecting information from many different sources, evaluating the probabilities of potential outcomes, and making decisions in the face of an uncertain future.  These are tasks for which decision makers are tailor-made.  Yet companies have remained, for the most part, indifferent to this source of potentially excellent information, and have been surprisingly unwilling to improve their decision making by tapping into the collective wisdom of their employees.
The smartest groups are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other.  Independence doesn’t imply rationality or impartiality, though.  You can be biased and irrational, but as long as you’re independent, you won’t make the group any dumber.
The solutions to cooperation and coordination problems are real in the sense that they work.  They are not imposed from above, but emerge from the crowd.
The decisions that democracies make may not demonstrate the wisdom of the crowd.  The decision to make them democratically does.

From Wikinomics:
“No company today, no matter how large or how global, can innovate fast enough or big enough by itself…  Wikinomics reveals the next historic step – the art and science of mass collaboration where companies open up to the world.  It is an important book.”  (A. G. Laffey).
In the past, collaboration was mostly small scale…  Never before, however, have individuals had the power or opportunity to link up in loose networks of peers to produce goods and services in a very tangible and ongoing way.
Whether designing an airplane, assembling a motorcycle, of analyzing the human genome, the ability to integrate the talents of dispersed individuals and organizations is becoming the defining competency for managers and firms.
In-house innovation alone will not be enough to survive in a fast-changing and intensely competitive economy.  The days when companies divided the national pie in a wading pool or well-mannered rivalry are long gone.  Today’s global firms sink or swim in an ocean roiling with cutthroat competition.  And plummeting collaboration costs enable them to reach outside their boundaries for talent.
The new age of mass collaboration will no doubt seem complex and uncertain, and it’s true that collaboration and openness are more art than science.  Capabilities to develop new kinds of relationships, sense important developments, add value, and turn nascent networked knowledge into compelling value are becoming the bread and butter of wealth creation and success.  Is your mind wired for Wikinomics?

Wikinomics: Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

The Netflix story shows us that from the earlier book, The Wisdom of Crowds, companies have now moved from innovation within/by their own employees to innovation from the “outside masses.”  Technology makes it happen.  And the idea of the contest enables a company to “hire” an army of innovators with the promise of a big financial award.  And, I suspect that the losers of the contest may very well find their efforts pay off in other ways in other endeavors.

The age of Wikinomics, based on the Wisdom of Crowds, has surely arrived.

———

My synopsis of both books, The Wisdom of Crowds and Wikinomics, with audio+ handout, are available at our companion web site, 15minutebusinessbooks.

Durante estes tempos de transformação econômica e tecnológica, um dos novos paradigmas que surgem é o do compartilhamento. Abrir suas inovações para o público e permitir que eles façam parte do seu desenvolvimento tem provado ser benéfico tanto para a empresa quanto para o público. No vídeo abaixo, é citado o exemplo da Lego, que há alguns anos atrás estava muito próxima de fechar ou ser vendida, mas que ao compartilhar com o público uma das suas maiores inovações, o Lego Mindstorm, renovou seu fôlego e atualmente está em ótima forma.

O segredo parece estar em compartilhar com o público algo que seja de valor para eles, mas que ao mesmo tempo a utilização que farão do seu produto (e o produto que terão como resultado dessa utilização) seja de valor para a empresa. Isto exige um planejamento pela empresa que é muito difícil de ser visualizado. Talvez nem tenhamos disponíveis, ou processados, os dados que precisamos para poder pensar em como se beneficiar desta troca. Por enquanto é preciso primeiro fazer para depois perceber os benefícios.

Com isso, peer, que pode ser traduzido como par, é a palavra chave deste novo paradigma. Saber conectar-se com as pessoas e empresas a sua volta para criar inovação e valor será um grande diferencial nos próximos anos.

Por outro lado, há vozes contrárias a este movimento. A mais proeminente delas é a de Andrew Keen, que defende avidamente o modelo fechado que vem sendo utilizado nos últimos anos. Keen argumenta que as maiores inovações vem de indivíduos e não de um grande grupo de pessoas colaborando. Também defende que se você é um desses indivíduos com ideias inovadoras, então não deve oferece-las de graça, pois estaria sendo explorado. Este é o mesmo motivo apontado por ele para não colaborar com os projetos propostos por grupos e/ou empresas.

Seus argumentos não estão errados, mas o que falta ao Andrew Keen é a visão do ganho indireto que há nessas práticas. A motivação de alguém para colaborar com um projeto pode não ser apenas financeira (e geralmente não é). Aprendizado, contatos e realização pessoal são alguns dos benefícios que se obtém com frequência ao colaborar. Para muitas ideias, não é possível realiza-las sozinho. Com isso, ao divulga-las, não estaria simplesmente dando de graça, mas sim permitindo que pessoas que se interessam por ela possam ajuda-lo a realiza-la. Você estará influenciando e tornando-se uma referência, o que inevitavelmente trará retorno. Mas isso não significa que toda e qualquer ideia pode ser divulgada sem riscos, como tudo, deve haver um equilíbrio.

No vídeo, Don Tapscott contra-argumenta Keen com uma colocação muito interessante: se no início da era dos computadores pessoais a Apple tivesse aberto o seu sistema operacional para outras plataformas além da escolhida por ela, simplesmente não haveria Microsoft. Pois o sistema da Apple sempre foi muito superior ao Windows, mas os computadores da IBM foram muito mais vendidos. Por causa de um acordo entre Microsoft e IBM, todos os computadores vendidos vinham com Windows. Dessa forma se criou o império Microsoft. Se a Apple permitisse que os usuários que compraram computadores IBM trocassem o sistema operacional para o seu, ela poderia ser muito maior e mais influente que nos dias de hoje.

Outra polêmica é a se as redes sociais são apenas uma nova bolha da Internet ou não. Mesmo que sejam uma nova bolha, podemos nos basear pelo o que aconteceu no estouro da primeira bolha ponto-com. Muitas empresas quebraram, sim, mas o modelo de negócios pela Internet não foi extinto. O que aconteceu foi a sobrevivência do mais forte, do mais apto e adaptado à realidade. O mesmo deve acontecer com as redes sociais. Sua extinção não é plausível simplesmente pelo fato de que elas agregam valor ao dia-a-dia das pessoas. Novamente, Don Tapscott faz outra colocação interessante sobre isso: não construímos mais websites (esse era o modelo da web 1.0), agora construímos comunidades.

Por fim, Tapscott também afirma que para compreender todas essas mudanças é preciso utiliza-las. Todos precisamos criar um blog, participar das redes sociais, manter um Twitter e tudo mais que envolve esse novo paradigma. Assim que utilizarmos, começaremos a compreender o que tanto se fala. O que você acha disso?

(Thanks Gerd!)

“Re-Industrialize the Planet”. A quick summary:

* The web is creating a global infrastructure for collaboration (which leads to disruption and confusion)

* As a result, all of our institutions have come to the end of their life-cycle

* The current recession is a crucial punctuation point in human history – the point where we said that we need to reset, the point where the industrial economy has finally run out of gas

* This paradigm shift is creating a crisis of leadership

* The Digital Natives are inheriting this situation – and they think very differently

* Kids are now the authority on many issues

* We have 40 years to re-industrialize the planet

Nicholas Carr

Supongo que el ensayo de Nicholas Carr no deja a nadie ileso, sea que use Internet para informarse, distraerse, comunicarse y/o trabajar. Yo, fui reconociendo los síntomas y los signos señalados por Carr con una cierta alarma y desde luego con la esperanza de que sus temores agoreros, fuesen refutados por alguna mente tan brillante como la suya. He leído mucho sobre el tema y buena parte, en este mundo hiperinformado, no era más que la repetición de lo mismo y esos fuegos artificiales de poca luz que acompañan a cualquier noticia que se dé y más si ésta es controversial, pero que son mucho más ruido que nueces.

Rescataré, sin embargo dos fuentes: un artículo en El País Internet cambia la forma de leer… ¿y de pensar? que desde el título abordaba lo que ya es una afirmación sin vuelta: leemos de manera distinta y lo que es una duda inquietante: si eso cambia nuestra manera de pensar ¿es malo?. Buena parte de las respuestas la dan pensadores del  London University College y como es de esperar no hay respuestas rotundas. Sin embargo creo que el balance se acerca mucho más a no temerle al cambio que a imaginar que Internet nos volverá a todos zombies intelectuales (o por lo menos, eso es lo que mi cerebro quiere creer). En cualquier caso los que lo experimentarán en forma completa serán los nativos digitales (es decir aquellos que ya nacieron rodeados de tecnología digital), que, según Don Tapscott, autor, entre otros ensayos de Grown Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation y de Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, constituyen la generación de los actores, iniciadores, lectores, escritores, espectadores, organizadores, escrutadores y colaboradores” y dice también que estos son más aptos para trabajar en común “más perspicaces, rápidos y más abiertos a la diversidad”, y que los que utilizan videojuegos disciernen mas cosas y tienen competencias espaciales desarrolladas que el son muy útiles a los arquitectos, los ingenieros y los cirujanos”.

¿Cómo le puede ir mal a la humanidad con personas así que además han nacido conociendo el daño que los humanos más civilizados le hemos causado al planeta en que vivimos? Y que además estarán perfectamente enterados de todo lo que Internet tiene de distracción y de ocio mal dirigido y mal digerido. Porque hay otro ocio buscado, encontrado y extraordinariamente útil al espíritu y sin duda a la mente.

La otra fuente es donde la polémica desatada por el ensayo de Carr ha alcanzado sus más altos niveles: Edge, una revista de Internet perteneciente a la Edge Foundation Inc. cuyo mandato es “promover el análisis y el debate de temas intelectuales, filosóficos, artísticos y literarios de manera a ponerlos al servicio del desarrollo intelectual y social de la sociedad, y reúne lo que la propia organización llama algunas de las mentes mas interesantes del mundo”. Es una manera modesta de llamarlas “algunas de las mentes más brillantes del mundo”.

Al final de este texto he puesto, traducidos, los principales pensamientos de los sabios que opinaron en Edge sobre este tema.  Pero si leen inglés, vayan a la fuente directa. Será un poco más largo, pero mil veces más seguro. Cada pensador que cito tiene en su nombre un enlace a su biografía en Edge. Vale la pena ir al enlace antes de leer lo que dice, para descubrir la mezcla de conocimientos, hobbies y frecuentemente éxito en el mundo de los negocios, de estos iluminados.

De lo leído, me  parece importante poner la situación expuesta por Carr dentro del contexto de la historia. La revolución de la información y con ella los cambios trascendentales en la cultura de la humanidad empezó cuando los fenicios inventaron el alfabeto. Y siguió con los escribas de las distintas civilizaciones hasta que llegó Gutemberg y se imprimió la primera Biblia. Vino después una mayor selección de libros, pero era aún literatura solo para un grupo reducido: los alfabetizados. Después se amplía la oferta porque más gente aprende a leer y a los libros sagrados se agrega lentamente una literatura más al alcance del lector, que aún pertenecía a una minoría. La explosión que produce cada vez más libros en distintas formas, de distintos temas, con distinto precio va aparejada ya no solo con la alfabetización sino con la sed de conocimientos del ser humano que encuentra en el libro educación y distracción. Y que está dispuesto a pagar por ambas. El espacio más cotidiano, ligero e informativo lo ocupan revistas y periódicos. La radio, pero sobre todo la televisión, llega como gran competidora del tiempo que se ocupaba en la lectura y, además, deja al humano pasivo delante de una pantalla hasta que llega, finalmente, la oferta infinita y la interacción con Internet. En cada transición los agoreros expresaron su miedo por lo que la nueva tecnología iba a destruir. Y si bien acertaron en lo inmediato, nunca imaginaron las enormes consecuencias colaterales y desde luego positivas, que traería cada adelanto.

La Imprenta de Gutemberg

Por ejemplo, con el advenimiento de la imprenta se temía por el futuro de los escribas, amanuenses o copistas que por siglos habían tenido la importante tarea de transmitir la cultura escrita —o la tradición— en una sociedad predominantemente analfabeta. Un monje llamado Johannes Trithemius y conocido como Johann von Heidenberg, que fue el fundador de la sociedad secreta Sodalitas Celtica (Cofradía Céltica) dedicada al estudio de las lenguas, las matemáticas, la astrología y la magia de los números, escribió en 1492, medio siglo después del invento de Gutemberg,  un tratado sobre la superioridad del trabajo de los amanuenses sobre el de la máquina. Pero al monje se le creó un problema, quería que el libro alcanzase una amplia audiencia así que tuvo que escoger que fuese impreso porque sus aliados escribas no hubieran hecho suficiente número de copias a tiempo, con lo que con los hechos destruía la teoría de su libro en el momento mismo de imprimirlo.

Por otro lado, Gutemberg nunca pudo imaginar cómo ayudaría su invento al protestantismo (es decir que la diseminación de las ideas protestantes fue facilitada por la invención de la imprenta, lo que hizo posible difundir una amplia literatura apologética, bíblica y religiosa y fomentó la edición de nuevas traducciones de la Biblia en lenguas vernáculas). De la misma manera, los múltiples cambios sociales catalizados por Internet son imprevisibles.

Otro ejemplo: los fabricantes de teléfonos celulares, no imaginaban que los mensajes de texto se convertirían en una característica tan importante del producto.

Cada una de las eras incorporó nueva gente, cada vez más, al uso de los nuevos medios. Y la oferta fue variando (es decir cayendo) en calidad y de profundidad (medida en términos de alta cultura) para satisfacer lo que pedían cada vez más personas (no hay mas que ver lo que se ofrece en la televisión hoy en día). Pero la cultura no fue nunca un asunto de masas. Ni las sinfónicas tocan en los estadios, ni los clásicos se reparten en fascículos como oferta de los periódicos, ni los museos de arte necesitan policías para poner orden en la entrada. Siempre ha sido una minoría la que tenía acceso a la cultura. Sea porque los niveles de alfabetización eran bajos, sea porque el costo de acceder a esa cultura de élite ha sido siempre alto. “La guerra y la paz” será leída por una minoría en un libro tradicional o en forma electrónica y algunos la encontrarán sublime y la leerán más de una vez, para lo cual deberán separar el tiempo que toma leer una obra de gran envergadura. Porque no es cierto que mal acostumbrado el cerebro a leer en pequeñas rebanadas la información, se vea impedido de leer algo de mas envergadura. No es, de hecho, el número de páginas. Lo prueba el hecho de que los libros de Harry Potter, best sellers por definición, tienen muchas páginas. Ni tampoco es una cuestión de tiempo: el tiempo (o por lo menos el tiempo libre), lo maneja cada persona y dispone de él de la manara que quiere.

La discusión sobre los grandes autores, que como verán más abajo, ha causado gran polémica en la que han participado varios de los sabios que nombro más arriba, así como otros en un Foro Your brain online de la Enciclopedia Británica

Los dejo con la traducción de lo que han dicho en Edge, los sabios modernos.

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W. Daniel Hillis y Kevin Kelly

W.DANIEL HILLIS

Afirma que si bien algo nos está volviendo estúpidos no es Google: más bien Google sería un chaleco salvavidas que nos permite quedarnos en la superficie de un torrente (de información, claro está) que crece sin parar. Y el desborde de información no es consecuencia de los avances de la tecnología de las comunicaciones ni del poder de los medios, ni lo genera nuestra reciente debilidad por mordisquear la información. Estas son tendencias y no la causa. Solo síntomas del predicamento en el que nos hallamos. Nuestra insaciable demanda de información es la que lo produce. Nos quejamos de la sobrecarga pero tomamos un servicio de banda mas ancha, un teléfono que nos permita recibir e-mails, tarifa plana para nuestras líneas y cable premium. En medio de la inundación abrimos todos los grifos (caños / canillas). La tecnología ha roto nuestro aislamiento y no solamente el mundo se ha complicado sino que más de él se ha vuelto relevante. Tenemos además más necesidad de información porque cada vez hay más decisiones en nuestras manos (o decisiones por las que tendremos que votar) que antes las tomaba otro por nosotros. Por ejemplo el rey. Nuestro entorno ha crecido de tal manera que ahora pertenecemos a la aldea global (término de por sí ya muy viejo pues lo acuñó McLuhan en 1962) con mentes diseñadas para manejarse en un trozo de sabana con un grupo íntimo de amigos. Forzados a tener más información sacrificamos la profundidad. Descremamos, compendiamos, nos saltamos la letra menuda y frecuentemente se nos escapan puntos importantes.

Hillis asume que encontraremos una manera de salir de esta situción, probablemente a través de nuevas tecnologías o edificando nuevas sociedades más afines con las limitaciones.

KEVIN KELLY

K. Kelly, simplifica mucho la cosa (Por cierto le debo a su blog, The Technium, la estupenda foto de la máquina de escribir de mi post anterior —una Malling-Hansen Writing Ball— que usó Nietzsche y que puede verse aquí en funcionamiento).

En primer lugar dice que Carr admite ser un pesimista crónico y que ha hecho tan buen trabajo citando a pesimistas crónicos antiguos que estaban equivocados, que es difícil tomárselo en serio. Se pregunta después si fue el uso de la máquina lo que cambió el estilo de la prosa Nietzsche o si simplemente fue que estaba muy enfermo y muriéndose y el océano de textos cortos de la web se debe a que somos incapaces de prestarle atención a los artículos largos o si se trata de que antes era poco lucrativo producir en pequeñas cantidades  ahora no. Y al recordar que Carr describe al inicio de su texto la manera tan inteligente como usa Google si no será más bien que cuando nos salimos de Google nos volvemos mas tontos y mas bien al usar Google mejoramos nuestra inteligencia.

Ante la duda decide que prefiere perder los, digamos, 20 puntos que pierde su IQ (cociente intelectual)  a cambio de los 40 que gana al utilizarlo.

Larry Sanger y George Dyson

LARRY SANGER

También va al grano. Acepta que la tendencia a picotear información es cierta y nos está llevando a lo que llama con gran humor una indigestión epistémica(1) y que es cierto que deberíamos leer más libros incluyendo a los clásicos. Pero piensa que Carr se equivoca al presentar el problema como uno tecno-social colectivo, fuera de nuestro control por el que hay que culpar a los programadores y que debe ser tratado por los psicólogos sociales más que por los filósofos y los humanistas.

Sanger cree que hay un solo culpable de esta situación: uno mismo. Si algunos de nosotros no podemos leer un libro completo no es por culpa de Google ni por la vasta información en Internet. Afirmarlo sería aceptar una cierta dosis de determinismo que, a fin de cuentas negaría aquello que nos hace más humanos y que casi indiscutiblemente nos otorga nuestra dignidad: nuestra habilidad para pensar sobre las cosas de punta a cabo, con intensidad y de manera que pueda llevarnos a cambiar nuestras mentes en forma profunda.

Es ridículo quejarse de algo que cada cual maneja o puede manejar y un signo de falta de la voluntad o de indisciplina pero no de ser víctima de nada o nadie.

GEORGE DYSON

Al principio se pone dramático al preguntarse si el precio a pagar por máquinas que piensan no será el de personas que no piensen y saca un ejemplo de J. B. S. Haldane que, en 1928 dijo: “Los antepasados de las ostras y las lapas tenían cabeza. Las serpientes perdieron sus miembros y los avestruces y los pingüinos, su vuelo. El hombre podría de igual forma perder su inteligencia.”  Pero corrige y dice que sin duda perderemos algunos de nuestras atesoradas formas de pensar, pero las reemplazaremos por algo nuevo. Porque si bien la generación actual no ha tenido inmunidad infantil contra la estupidez asentada en la red, las siguientes si la tendrán. Y declara que le preocupa más que la gente crezca sin saber atar un nudo bolina (nudo marino) y afilar un cuchillo de caza o reconstruir un carburador que la gente que no lee libros (¿habrá que ganarse el sustento cazando y pescando?).

Termina diciendo que el iPod y el MP3 causaron la declinación del album y el ascenso de la lista de canciones. Pero que más gente está escuchando más música. Y que eso es muy bueno.

Jaron Lanier y Douglas Rushkoff

JARON LANIER

Lo que nos está haciendo estúpidos es pretender o fingir que el cambio tecnológico es un proceso autónomo que continuará en la dirección que escoja independientemente de nosotros.

Es cierto que alguna tecnología en particular puede convertirnos en estúpidos. Casinos, dive bars, los tabloides sobre famosos, el crack… Y ciertamente hay tecnologías digitales que no extraen los mejores aspectos de la naturaleza humana. Los comentarios anónimos, por ejemplo. Lo que hace peor a la tecnología es el concepto de que solo hay un eje para escoger que va de pro a anti. Los diseñadores de experiencias digitales debe alegrarse de que alguien formule una crítica bien articulada, porque es un paso crucial en hacer mejores cosas digitales.

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF

Afirma que en 1995 sostuvo que miramos a los niños instruidos en el uso de la red de manera equivocada, y que éramos como peces lamentando que los chicos hayan evolucionado, les hayan salido piernas y caminen en la tierra y que en ese proceso hayan perdido la capacidad de respirar bajo el agua, mientras que ahora es menos optimista particularmente porque aún ignoramos los sesgos de los medios cuando nos movemos de un sistema al otro. No es tanto una cuestión de qué es bueno y qué es malo sino de cuan conscientes estamos del poder de cada medio y cuan conscientemente nos movemos entre el uno y el otro.

El problema de Internet, dice, es que nos empuja a cortar en tajadas delgadas la información o pasar rozando sobre ella en vez de ahondar más profundamente y reflexionar. Es como una lectura de The New Yorker que nos da  suficiente información para proporcionarlos los trocitos de ella que necesitamos para discutir un tema en un cóctel: la web proporciona grandes dosis de eso.

La fortaleza de la web está, sin embargo en proporcionar sus textos en un contexto más coloquial y abierto a la colaboración. Mientras que el libro está más sesgado hacia la persona (con mucho tiempo disponible) sentada en su estudio y leyendo casi siempre en solitario, la red abre la posibilidad de explorar de manera compartida. Como esta por ejemplo.

Por lo tanto la clave, según Rushkoff, está en entender los sesgos de cada medio (como diría McLuhan). No debemos ver nuestro movimiento entre un medio dominante y otro menos dominante como un beneficio o una pérdida sino como un cambio de panorama que puede ser explotado positivamente si tomamos el tiempo y la energía para examinar las características y oportunidades del nuevo terreno.

Nicholas Carr y Clay Shirky

Una escaramuza importante, en torno al ensayo, se produjo entre Nicholas Carr y Clay Shirky un personaje de primer orden en el mundo intelectual conectado con Internet, del que hemos hablado antes y del que hablaremos más en este blog. Shirky, un optimista que ha medido la participación activa, solidaria y gratuita de la gente en proyectos como Wikipedia, responde al escepticismo de Carr con argumentos que Carr rebatirá y Shirky volverá a contestar. El debate se llevó a cabo en un Forum de la Enciclopedia Británica (Your Brain Online: Forum) que se desarrolló en torno al artículo de Carr.

A pesar de presentar muchos argumentos, la posición de Shirky se centra en que lo que se está jugando es el concepto de cultura y se monta sobre el ejemplo de Carr sobre “La guerra y la paz” en su ensayo (1) para decir que realmente que la gente no lea “La guerra y la paz” no es culpa de la red, es simplemente demasiado largo y no tan interesante. Que el público ha decidido que la sagrada obra de Tolstoy no merece el tiempo que toma leerlo. Y que el proceso empezó mucho antes de Internet, porque lo que desplazó muchísimo la lectura de libros fue la televisión. Pero que ahora, la gente ha vuelto a leer (y coincide con Shirky en que la gente lee más que en los 70 y 80 cuando reinaba la TV) pero que el retorno no ha sido hacia los iconos literarios del pasado. Y concluye el pensamiento diciendo que el problema, como lo ve Carr es que ya no solamente la gente no lee “La guerra y la paz”, sino que ha dejado de hacer una genuflexión frente a la idea de leer “La guerra y la paz”. Finalmente lo tilda de ludista y de querer volver el reloj atrás.

En su respuesta Shirky reitera que su problema no es con el tiempo que quita la red sino que nuestros cerebros está posiblemente siendo recableados de una manera distinta a la del pensamiento “concentrado, linear, relajado, reflexivo y profundo” que él ve como central en la identidad humana y en la cultura. Lo acusa de filisteísmo y de imaginar que seremos capaces recuperar nuestra capacidad de concentración con lo que además de querer volver atrás el reloj, él también se convierte en un practicante de la tecno-utopía. Esto lo negará posteriormente Shirky diciendo que lo que ayudaba enormemente al poder de concentración, era que el entorno estaba prácticamente vacío,  situación imposible de recrear. Y que quizás un medio que expande tan radicalmente la posibilidad de compartir información terminará siendo malo para la humanidad… pero que será la primera vez desde la invención del alfabeto fenicio.

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(1)epistémico, ca.

1. adj. Perteneciente o relativo a la episteme.

episteme.

1. f. En la filosofía platónica, el saber construido metodológicamente en oposición a las opiniones individuales.

2. f. Conocimiento exacto.

3. f. Conjunto de conocimientos que condicionan las formas de entender e interpretar el mundo en determinadas épocas.

Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados

(2) “Ya no puedo volver a leer La guerra y la paz —admitió—. He perdido la capacidad de hacerlo. Me resulta difícil absorber incluso un blog de más de tres o cuatro párrafos. Lo leo por encima.” (en declaración de Friedman, patólogo de la facultad de la Escuela de Medicina de la Universidad de Michigan)

(3) philistinism (filisteísmo)

materialismo, preocupación por las cosas materiales; creer que el confort físico es el de más alto valor, deseo por la riqueza y los bienes materiales con poco interés en los asuntos morales o espirituales. Una persona a la que guía el materialismo y usualmente desdeña los valores intelectuales o artísiticos; alguien no informado en un área determinada del conocimiento

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The Wisdom of Surowiecki

The subject matter is the health care debate.  But the underlying premise is about a much, much bigger issue.

That issue:  everyone’s opposition to change.  The author of the article is James Surowiecki, and his book The Wisdom of Crowds was one of the most memorable books I ever read.  He is thoughtful, thorough, and provocative.  Any company or organization that wants to understand how to pull and pool the wisdom from your people — your workers, your colleagues, your customers, your entire “tribe” — should read The Wisdom of Crowds.  (To take the next step, also check out Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams).

But in this article in the New Yorker, Status-Quo Anxiety, Surowiecki reminds us just how difficult it is to implement change.  Here are a couple of key quotes:
• the public’s skittishness about overhauling the system also reflects something else: the deep-seated psychological biases that make people resistant to change.
• when we think about change we focus more on what we might lose rather than on what we might get.

He argues that we are intensely protective of the status quo; we love it, we cherish it, we protect it, we overvalue it.  Even a culture that wants to change rallies to protect the status quo when change begins to look actually possible.

WE-DON’T-LIKE TO-CHANGE!    WE-DON’T-WANT-TO CHANGE!    AND-WE WILL-FIGHT-CHANGE-EVERY-STEP-OF-THE-WAY!

This is the message about change from Surowiecki, and it does not matter if the change is in the corporate world or in public policy.

I’ve posted before about the constant need to change.  You might want to read my post, (The Woes of MySpace)  The Future is Utterly Predictable – it is a Future of Constant Innovation.  But Surowiecki reminds us just how hard it is build and sustain a culture of constant innovation.

Read the article by Surowiecki.  Don’t think about the subject matter of the article (alone) – think about its implications for business, for innovation.  It is enlightening.

And think about all the ways that you are resistant to change.  I promise you, it is a long list.  It is for me.

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• You can order my synopses of both The Wisdom of Crowds and Wikinomics, with audio + handout, at our companion web site, 15 Minute Business Books.

Enquanto viajava para Santa Maria eu escutei a inspiradora palestra que o Don Tapscott deu no CIO Meeting da Info deste ano. O tema da palestra foi a Geração Net (de Internet, não a TV por assinatura), a nossa geração. Resolvi então escrever sobre o que me chamou a atenção nas suas idéias.

Pela primeira vez os jovens sabem mais que os seus pais e chefes. Uma criança mexe com a web e a tecnologia com uma naturalidade assustadora. Muitos pais consideram seus filhos como prodígios até descobrirem que todos os seus amigos também tem a mesma facilidade. Normalmente quem administra os equipamentos eletrônicos em uma casa são os filhos. Esses nativos digitais (como Don chama a nossa geração) estão começando a chegar no mercado de trabalho com força e estão mudando os paradigmas dos imigrantes digitais.

Trabalho, aprendizado e diversão começam a ser uma coisa só. O valor do salário deixa de ser o único dado importante e o quanto vou me divertir e aprender no meu trabalho passam a ter peso na hora de decidir o que fazer. Contar com pessoas talentosas é essencial para desenvolver um negócio de sucesso. Para conquistar as pessoas com talento que estão chegando no mercado de trabalho, o caminho não poderá ser diferente: além do salário, oferecer possibilidades de aprendizado, diversão e, talvez o mais importante, liberdade. Além disto, outras duas palavras chaves para qualquer negócio que queira realmente atingir as pessoas são colaboração e comunidades (ou tribos). Não basta mais ser focado no cliente. O cliente tem que ser estimulado a engajar-se com o seu produto ou serviço.

Na palestra, Don cita o exemplo da Ford nos tempos de Henry Ford, que precisava possuir toda a cadeia produtiva relacionada à produção de um carro para que pudesse construí-los com o menor custo e maior eficiência e qualidade possíveis. A Ford possuía desde as madeireiras, para ter a matéria prima para os painéis dos carros, até empresas de transporte naval para transportá-las. Tudo porque o custo da colaboração era muito alto naquela época. Com a internet, o custo da colaboração está praticamente reduzido a zero. Assim os peers, ou os indivíduos, ganham muita força.

O que antes só poderia ser feito por uma grande organização, que tivesse em seus cofres recursos suficientes para possuir toda a informação e capacidade técnica necessária para desenvolver seu produto/serviço, hoje pode ser feito por uma comunidade de pessoas que colaboram entre si. O faturamento desse produto/serviço, que iria para os comandantes da organização, hoje pode ser dividido entre os indivíduos que compõem as comunidades.

Veja o exemplo da indústria da música. Até poucos anos atrás, para um músico alcançar o sucesso era necessário um contrato com uma grande gravadora, que distribuiria sua música para todo o país ou o mundo. Hoje inúmeras bandas independentes surgem através da divulgação pelas comunidades que gostam do seu estilo. Rapidamente uma música pode viajar o mundo. Assim bandas que antigamente teriam muito mais trabalho para viver da música, hoje podem conseguir isso divulgando seu trabalho pela internet.

Terceirizar os serviços e contar com o talento de pessoas espalhadas por todo o país ou pelo mundo pode aumentar a qualidade de um produto/serviço e reduzir custos. Essa já uma prática relativamente antiga, conhecida e bem sucedida na área de telemarketing e S.A.C., por exemplo. Don também cita o exemplo de uma mineradora de ouro, que conseguiu aumentar o valor de sua empresa em duas vezes depois que fez a loucura de publicar na Internet seus preciosos dados geográficos de minas (que são guardados nos mais seguros dos cofres pelos seus concorrentes) e premiou quem pudesse encontrar ouro lá. Novamente, a liberdade do conhecimento aparece para favorecer a todos.

O que mais, que até então não imaginávamos fazer de forma distribuída, hoje podemos fazer melhor e mais barato? O que mais pode construir comunidades? Será que não podemos, por exemplo, fazer uma festa para as tribos que não são atendidas pelas boates de sua cidade?

I’ve finished grown up digital, and I can’t help but wonder if digital babies might be our solution to everything?  No more consumption, population control, just ones and zeros floating out in our virtual space?  Think about it, no dirty diapers?  Perhaps not, especially if the fate of our species is dependent upon actual reproduction not the Matrix.  Yet, as we continue to digitize everything, from our planners to our postcards, I can’t help but think that digitization may just be part of the puzzle to the hot, flat, and crowded world we are continue to create.

With that one statement I just proved Don Tapscott right.  I am a net generation member, now, granted, I may be at the beginning of the net generation, but when I read this book I could identify with much of it.  What I most appreciated about it is that he took a rather positive look at me rather then telling me I’m an selfish idiot (well…maybe I am just once in a while).  I feel like people who are calling this net generation self-centered and lazy forget that a. you created us and b. sound like they should be saying words like “whipper snapper” (which by the way, what is a whipper snapper in the first place and why should that be a term for youth?), “golly,” “gosh darn,” “gee willikers,” and “gadzooks.”  Is this just another case of the aging of one generation and a younger generation forming their own identity with their values that are perhaps different than those that are older…me thinks so (and so does Tapscott).

This net generation is simply wired differently than our baby boomer generation predecessor.  We want to be connected, but not just for connection sake, but to do business.  We’ve been told all of our lives that you need to work together (make sure you share your pb&j with your co-worker too!).  Well, now that we’re able to do so across continents (watch out, we’re trying to bend space and time as well), we want to be able to utilize collective knowledge and skills rather than re-inventing the wheel for each project we undertake – it’s not “work smarter, not harder” anymore, instead it’s “work together to be smarter.”  Is it so bad to think we can create more efficiency by creating new ways of connecting or questioning why it takes so long for a decision to be made as it passes through 15 people’s hands?  Raise your hand if you hate bureaucracy!  The concept of self importance simply for hierarchy’s sake is going by the way side as we see more and more netgeners wanting to be involved in decision making processes to ensure their opinion and knowledge is valued through the flattening of organizations into horizontal structures.  I look forward to when higher education realizes how wasteful individual departments are instead of cloud education – where we have people exploring their area(s) of interest, and we can pull from our cloud of knowledge to formulate connections that make sense to our individual projects (some of this is happening with open source education).

So while the humbugs him and haw about this jibberish and jabberish of this self involved generation, what I hope that you gain from this book is that perhaps its simply just cultural shifting, and we need to understand each other’s perspective so we are better able to bridge this potentially huge generational gap.  This is a great book for educators, business professionals, and anyone with netgen children, specifically, because it helps to exhibit the powerful and positive potentials and possibilities we have to offer you and the future.  Just because I want my latte, and also the knowledge behind where the coffee beans come from so I know if I am supporting fair pay and business practices rather than terrorist cells makes me more responsible, not self-centered.

THE VERDICT: Read it; if you are in business or education you might want to buy it for a report, but it’s not a book you need to keep around for constant re-reading or everyday usage.

BASIC STATS

Title: Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World

Author: Don Tapscott

Amazon Price: $18.45 hardcover, $15.37 Kindle

Pages: 384

Publication Date: 2008, McGraw Hill.

Date Started:  July 25, 2009

Date Finished: August 2, 2009

Up Next:  Help Yourself by Dave Pelzer

We are in the midst of a dramatic shift in the way business is done.  In most industries, a much more open and collaborative network model is replacing the traditional closed and controlled firm-centric view of the world.   This shift has been well documented by my colleague Don Tapscott in his bestselling book Wikinomics.  Don is the head of nGenera Insights (a Customer Innovations partner).

As this shift takes place, companies must reconsider many of the foundational assumptions about their role in the complex ecosystem of customers, competitors, intermediaries, and other influencers.   While many basic relationship management capabilities are still important, there are two major problems with the traditional approach to  “Channel Management”:

1. The first problem is the “channel” part. In a network view of the world, a channel is an outdated, linear way of viewing the market.  In many ways, it reinforces the notion that you move your products and services forward through the channel to reach end-consumers.  This doesn’t work in the presence of media-savvy and networked consumers.  These next-generation consumers can easily find better deals with more agile providers and, in the process, are more likely to either by-pass intermediaries all together or deal with newer intermediaries (e.g. Amazon, etc…) that consolidate products and services in a way that makes it easier for them to get what they want.
2. The second problem is the “management” part. In a more agile, networked view of the world, channel participants are more difficult to manage or control.  They tend to either have or believe they have more alternatives.  In most cases, they have the all-important relationship with the ulimate consumers who are paying the money.  In addition, they have to deal with a rapidly changing set of consumer demands that change what it takes for them to be successful.  If I’m an insurance agent, retailer, distributor, etc… struggling to keep up with changing consumer demands, preferences, and alternatives, I’ll challenge anything that product providers do that gets in the way of my responding to and serving my customers.

As we move beyond the linear, Channel 1.0 view of the world, companies must begin to more effectively position themselves as part of a collaborative ecosystem.  We call this Channel 2.o model, Collaborative Ecosystem Management.

The new channel model builds on many of the Channel 1.0 capabilities (covered in:  Channel 1.0: Foundational Capabilities for Optimizing B-to-B-to-C Performance) but must express these capabilities in a world that includes a complex, shifting network of participants, an evolving and emerging set of channel partners, and, as a result, must leverage more adaptive collaboration processes and technology.

Example:  The SAP Developer Network (SDN) is an online community for SAP developers. It is a resource and collaboration channel for SAP developers, architects, consultants and integrators. The SDN hosts forums, expert blogs, a technical library, downloads, a code gallery, e-learning catalog, a Wiki and more.  All these support open communication between active members of the community, which includes more than 1,455,000 members.  The SDN has fundamentally transformed the scale and effectiveness of integrated and supporting SAP’s products in a way that continued to fuel the growth of the company.  This allows SAP to maintain a primary focus on evolving their product while managing an enabling network of other participants that can apply the product and fuel their growth.

In general, we’ve learned that moving to a Channel 2.0 model must integrate three dimensions.  This builds on and extends the basic Channel 1.0 Capabilities, as well as, the Consumer-Back Approach that were introduced in Channel 1.0: Foundational Capabilities for Optimizing B-to-B-to-C Performance.  The three dimensions that must be integrated are:

1. Consumer-Back Experience Design. Creating a platform for integrating complementary providers and partners in order to provide a seamless end-to-end consumer experience around goals that are important to consumers.
2. Provider-Forward Experience Design. Creating an “experience chain” that helps makes traditional intermediaries, as well as, the wide range of other ecosystem participants successful in serving their downstream customers, whoever those customers are.
3. Collaborative Ecosystem Platforms. Providing an open communication environment for connecting consumers, channel customers, complementary product/service partners, and other influencers.  This collaboration platform often creates the opportunity for channel customers and complementary product/service providers to collaborate with each other in ways that are currently impossible.

These are not three alternatives.  Effective Channel 2.0 strategies must integrate all three.

Dimension 1:  Consumer-Back Experience Design. A more ecosystem-oriented environment makes it possible to integrate capabilities across complementary service providers in ways that were previously impossible.  Often that integration was left to the customer.  For example, if your goal was to relocate your family from New York to San Francisco, the experience you would have as a customer would involve integrating the capabilities of real estate agents, mortgage companies, movers, banks, schools, doctors, utilities, home furnishing retailers, cleaning services, hotels, airlines, the post office, etc…    A significant step beyond the Consumer-Back approach described earlier would be to do what we call Consumer-Back Experience Design. This is what “The Right Move Group” did when they created an integrated platform of services address all of the elements listed above for families moving to the San Francisco area.

We are starting to see an increasing number of Consumer-Back Experience Design examples in other areas.  For example, the range of integrated platforms for launching small businesses (a.k.a. Business in a Box platforms).  This includes platforms like:  Smart Online and Microsoft’s Start Up Zone.    Other examples include travel integration services like TripIt, wedding experience integration service like Wedding Channel, and personal concierge services like Fini.

We believe that building an effective Channel 2.0 strategy starts by thinking Consumer-Back.  However, success is dependent on also considering the other two perspectives.

Dimension 2:  Provider Forward Experience Design. Forward Experience Design builds on and significantly extends the capabilities described in the Channel 1.0 Capability Model.  A more technology-enabled, ecosystem-oriented model makes it possible for providers to collaborate with their channel customers in fundamentally more effective ways.

Examples of technology that can enable Provider Forward Experience Design include:

• New Media Broker/Agent Portals. This includes the systems provided by FirstBest, iter8, or  The Broker’s Workstation.  These systems provide capabilities that help make intermediaries more effective in meeting the needs of their customers.  Systems like this can offer significant additional collaborative capabilities, dashboards, information, and what-if-oriented sales tools that go beyond the first generation portals many companies provide their intermediaries.
• Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com provides a suite of tools that enable partner channel management on a collaborative community platform.  It’s worth checking out their whitepaper with ideas on next generation channel management.  Their suite includes it’s Partner Portal, Partner Marketing, Content Management, and the innovative Ideas Platform.  This Ideas Platform is currently being used for Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbuck’s mystarbuck.com sites.
• Other Partner Relationship Management Vendors. This includes companies like Channeltivity and Treehouse Interactive which provide sophisticated partner relationship management systems.

Dimension 3:  Collaborative Ecosystem Platforms.  As we move towards more of a Channel 2.0 world, both of the previous two perspectives will increasingly be enabled by an Collaborative Ecosystem Platform.  A Collaborative Ecosystem Platform creates an environment within which participants from multiple organizations can work together to create an integrated experience that improves the performance of participants and, in the end, creates more value for customers.  This can run the range from:

• Relatively unstructured sites for sharing information, like Microsoft’s Technical Community Platform
• Process specific platforms for collaborative service like Get Satisfaction (enables product companies, intermediaries, and end-consumers to all collaborate on generating answers to technical and service issues.
• Domain specific platforms like Sermo which provides an environment for physicians to discuss courses of treatment, the application and effectiveness of pharmaceutical and medical device products, etc…
• Social networking platforms like Facebook which is providing additional ways for companies to reach end-consumer and participate in the dialogues that consumers have about the experiences that are important to them.

The migration to a Channel 2.0 strategy is very much an emerging capability for most companies.  It creates the ability to mobilize a much larger and more diverse set of participants in a way that can accelerate growth.  At this point, most of the companies we’ve seen and worked with are putting their toe in the water.   In our experience, it’s still very important to address any gaps in the foundational capabilities that are left over from Channel 1.0.  Very often addressing those gaps can have a substantial and immediate impact on business performance.  In most situations, we are recommending  a parallel set of activities aimed at:  1) addressing Channel 1.0 capability and performance gaps and 2) developing a Channel 2.0 strategy and roadmap that includes identifying the business experiments required to start to learn about and get traction in a Channel 2.0 world.

How do we keep up with changing consumer expectations when we only have limited direct contact with the ultimate consumers of our products?

How do we align agents, brokers, retailers, or franchisees in order to deliver a consistent brand experience that drives growth?

How do we overcome complex, legacy distribution channels in order to reinvent the customer experience in a way that allows us to stay competitive?

How do we balance attention or investment in channel “customers” versus end-consumers?

How do we collaborate across an increasing array of diverse distribution network participants in a way that helps us accelerate growth?

The majority of companies we’ve worked with operate in some form of intermediated business model that fits a Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B-to-B-to-C) structure.  This includes:

• Product companies that sell through retailers, distributors, or sales reps
• Financial services companies that sell through agents, brokers, or financial planners
• Technology companies that sell to and through integrators
• Food products companies that sell to restaurants and food service companies
• Franchise operations that maintain and manage a network of franchisees

It also includes many companies that haven’t traditionally thought of themselves as operating in this model, but would benefit from doing so, including:

• Pharmaceuticals or medical devices that focus on providers as well as patients
• Placement agencies that manage employer, as well as candidate relationships

Although the B-to-B-to-C structure is an efficient way to go to market, there are a common and predictable set of challenges that not only make it difficult for the model to work effectively but to change as market and competitive conditions shift.  As downstream consumer expectations change and competitive alternatives arise, upstream product companies often find themselves locked in to a set of channel relationships that are difficult to influence.   Most of the B-to-B-to-C companies we’ve worked with experience a lot of angst and conflict about how to integrate:  1) what they do for their channel, 2) what they try to encourage the channel to do for the downstream consumer, and 3) what they do for the downstream consumer themselves (often very uncomfortably by-passing their channel.

This angst is now being amplified by a dramatic shift in the way business is done.  In most industries, the emerging model for the market is a much more open and collaborative network rather than a closed and controlled firm-centric model.   This shift has been well documented by my colleague Don Tapscott in his bestselling book Wikinomics.  Don is the head of nGenera Insights (a Customer Innovations partner).

The traditional concept of channel management is a product of the older closed, controlled, and firm-centric market model.  We call this “Channel 1.0.”    The basic capabilities associated with Channel 1.0 include carefully selecting, cultivating, collaborating with, and deliberately managing the lifecycle and performance of channel relationships.

In the more open, collaborative network model for business, these capabilities are still critical but they must be exercised in a fundamentally different way.   In this new world, there are two problems with the traditional Channel 1.0 concept of “channel management:”

1. The first problem is the “channel” part. In a network view of the world, a channel is an outdated, linear way of viewing the market.  It locks you into thinking that you move your products and services forward through the channel to reach end-consumers.  This doesn’t work in the presence of media-savvy and networked consumers.  These next-generation consumers can easily find better deals with more agile providers and, in the process, are more likely to either by-pass intermediaries all together or deal with newer intermediaries (e.g. Amazon, etc…) that consolidate products and services in a way that makes it easier for them to get what they want.
2. The second problem is the “management” part. In a more agile, networked view of the world, channel participants are more difficult to manage or control.  They tend to either have or believe they have more alternatives.  They also have to deal with a rapidly changing set of consumer demands that change what it takes for them to be successful.  If I’m an insurance agent, retailer, distributor, etc… struggling to keep up with changing consumer demands, preferences, and alternatives, I’ll challenge anything that product providers do that gets in the way of my responding to and serving my customers.

This leads me to Channel 2.0, which for the lack of a better description can be called Collaborative Ecosystem Management. In a more networked business environment the fundamental shifts include moving…

In my next two posts, I’ll share some of what we’ve learned in helping companies improve performance by establishing the foundational performance capabilities associated with Channel 1.0 and building on those foundational capabilities in order to move to a more agile, next generation Channel 2.0 model.

Addendum… here are the next two posts:

• Channel 1.0: Foundational Capabilities for Optimizing B-to-B-to-C Performance
• Channel 2.0: “Collaborative Ecosystem Management”

Don Tapscott é um dos mais influentes pensadores da actualidade. Numa inspirada apresentação sobre o tema “Rebuilding The World”, título do seu mais recente livro, é de forma particularmente efusiva que cita Portugal como um dos bons exemplos sobre como mudar o mundo.

Como refere, outros países deveriam inspirar-se no princípio do Magalhães (um computador por aluno) para desenvolver um novo projecto de ensino, mais moderno e sobretudo mais desafiante e participativo. Para ver a partir do minuto 11, sendo que vale a pena seguir cada segundo até lá.

Via Sérgio Gonçalves.

Opennes. Peering. Sharing. Acting globally.

Once you’ve read Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything byDon Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, these words will remain stuck in your brain.

The expanded version of the book, published in 2008, offers insight into what’s happening within the Web 2.0 world. Those quite unfamiliar with social media might find it useful to learn a bit more. However, those same unfamiliar people will probably be lost in the book’s technical jargon. While the authors do a good job defining terms and programs (it even goes so far as to define what Facebook is, as if anyone reading this book wouldn’t know), readers would probably be grateful for a condensed 150-to-200-page version instead of the full 315 pages.

Here’s what’s not-so-good:

1. Rather than having many supporting examples, the book basically focuses on one example per chapter. This isn’t good for two reasons: (a)It doesn’t make it look like wikinomics is actually as wide-spread as the book’s thesis claims and (b) It gets really boring, as a media-oriented person, to read 100 pages of praise for Best Buy’s Geek Squad. I get it; they’re cool. They’re innovative. Can we move on?

2. Because of fast-paced technology updates, its main thesis faces becoming outdated quickly. Based on this book alone, one would think MySpace leads the social networking field and Facebook has a ways to go to catch up. Even mroe interesting, this book doesn’t mention Twitter once. Granted, Twitter is much more new than Facbook or MySpace. But this just shows how it can be pointless to read a book on the changing technology two or three years after its written–and shouldn’t printed books be able to last for a lot longer than a couple years?

But it’s not all negative…

With that said, however, credit must be given where credit’s due. The book’s four principles, while sometimes drilled too stiffly, remain true to this day, and probably won’t change any time soon. As Gen-Yers, or the “Net Gen” as Wikinomics calls it, become part of the workforce, companies will become more open. The thought of openness scares the bajezus out of a lot of baby boomers, but it’s the future. With information being able to move around the globe in a matter of seconds, the masses will demand transparency and will demand what they want: information, fast.

Another important takeaway for me, personally? Learning a little about open courseware at schools like MIT. It intriguied me and is very likely to come up in a future blog post.

In conclusion, while businesses should be moving toward a more open policy, it’s not here yet, and there’s no reason to force companies into something before they’re ready,  even if that’s what Wikinomics advises for all companies. The truth is, no company is the same, and sometimes it’s OK to breathe for a second. But once you’ve got your breath, it’s a long, fast journey, and businesses large and small must prepare themselves for the sprint ahead.

Wiki is claimed as a ‘paradise’ for businesses ready to take a plunge into the sea of mass collaboration. ‘Tourists’ often confuse it as a city in Hawaii but it’s not. Though, Wiki’s etymology is Hawaiian for fast.  The countless ‘Islands’ of Wikis are located somewhere in the World Wide Web (WWW). It’s along the network of Intra- and Inter-.

Living the Wiki way is not for the faint hearted or should I say technophobe or traditional? It’s highly ‘technological’ but not as complex as working the Intranet. The mantra of the inhabitants of Wikis is “the power lies in us”.

The Wiki-an culture is basically self-organizing. Self-organizing because each inhabitant is given the liberty to work the way they want to work. They collaborate or team-up to solve problems and to make crucial decisions. They are open to new ideas and believe in peer production.

By the way, the Wiki-an leaders actually encourage their people to participate in the quest for innovation, total knowledge-sharing, and to think and work with a global mindset. J

Aloha

When I arrived at the 9^th platform of the Wikinomics express, I only brought with me my 2-cents on wikis,  myself, and curiosity to understand how it is like to live the wiki way.

At the platform, “leis of wisdom” on experiences at the Islands of Wikis were given. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“… real innovation can occur when companies take the time to observe how the existing workplace culture operates in a “state of nature,” and then learn how to serve that culture effectively.”

“… wikis distribute the burden of organization across a collaborative network instead of making an individual project manager a choke point.”

“The technologies that come along and change the world are the simple, unplanned ones that emerge from the grassroots rather than the ones that come out of the corner of offices of the corporate strategists…”

These “leis of wisdom” or success of the locals at the islands of wikis is driving me to aspire to live like them. They make me want to wiki-fy everything. However, questions on chaos, feasibility, and resistance were at the back of my mind.  Is a living the Wiki way the best thing to do? Will acculturating be easy?

The Trouble with Paradise

The testimonials of the people who live the Wiki-way are undeniably inspiring and stimulating. Their successes convince you to be just like them and employ the same formula. However, doing that would be stupid. Their formula for success will not be the same for you. I have three reasons:

1. It’s not easy. It’s easier to tell a success story over a failure. I do not think that all the organizations who did the wiki are 100% successful. Also, it’s not as easy as the way they explained their story. It’s not always smooth sailing when change is being introduced.
2. Their success cannot only be attributed through self-organization and mass collaboration. There are other factors that could have defined their success; good leadership, ‘bright’ employees, organizational climate, work benefits, industry type, etc.
3. Your company is not their company. It is unique and have different needs, employees, nature, culture, etc.

It’s not about acculturating or assimilating to the Wiki-an culture, it’s about discovering the things that will work for your company. It’s about being sensitive to the needs of your company and being critical to ways that claim to address your needs. So, if one is fully sure and fully prepared to face the consequences of embracing the Wiki culture, then go ahead and dive into the sea of mass collaboration.

Wish We Were There

The Wiki-way is not perfect. There will always be loopholes.  But I think it will work for me. I’m not saying that I’m techie savvy like the Geek Squad or innovative like IBM. But as part of the Net Generation, it’s obvious that I grew up “digital.”  Hence a “Wiki-fied” environment is pretty scenic or the perfect destination for my generation.

Im stets aktuellen und informativen Blog von Hugo E. Martin wurde auf  die Keynote von Don Tapscott aufmerksam gemacht, welche er während des VINT Symposium 2009 “Fast Forward”  gehalten hat.  Don Tapscott ist unter anderem der Co-Autor von Wikinomics.

In seinem bemerksenwerten Vortrag geht es um die Wirtschaftskrise, darüber das Innovationen wie YouTube und Twitter nicht von großen Medienunternehmen kommen, den verzweifelten Überlebenskampf vieler Tageszeitungen,  die demographischen Probleme von Industrieländern & ihren Unternehmen, Web 2.0, Digital Natives, Veränderungen im Gesundsheits- und Bildungssystem usw. Er greift auch viele Thesen seiner bisherigen Bücher nochmals auf. Ein bemerkenswerter Vortrag, der viele Anregungen für das Business liefert.

Das komplette Video der Keynode hat Sander Duivestein auf Vimeo veröffentlicht: http://vimeo.com/5727784

Hier sind die passenden Slides zum Video:

In our world today, we cannot erase the fact that people are involved in special ways. Lovers can interact online, workers can submit outputs online, communties get larger and larger online, government offices start to revolutionize communication system online. But these are no bottom lines of innovation. These are not single online works needed to be recognized. These are some proofs of unleashing the power in us.

Application in a simple life

As I was reading the ninth chapter of Wikinomics of Tapscott and Williams entiled, “The Wiki Workplace”, I was reminded on my role as organizational officer, former intern, and simple student in the university I was enrolled in. This chapter made me realize that innovation can change even the simplest workplace you are with. As a student, I can go the distance in looking for materials for my Review of Related Literature and Studies chapter of my thesis. Aside from going to local libraries and inhale the dust of decades, I can alter my working environment. I can work at home–in my inmost shelter–and search through the power of websites that cater comprehensive and numerous links for my work(s).

As a former intern, I have realized how important it is to look for feedbacks regarding the products of our company’s clients. Through these feedbacks, I have made attempts to a more productive conceptualization and construction of a superb press release draft. As an officer in my organization, it is possible for me to directly address my concerns to our big boss (the President) and receive feedbacks afterwards.

These are among the realizations that came to my mind.  Going back to the impact brought about by this ninth chapter of Tapscott and Williams’ work, I have to agree that most organizations today are geographically dispersed. What these organizations need is a strong communication channel which can directly address their needs towards achieving of their goals. Here comes the work of an organizational communication practitioner.

Challenging the ORCOM practitioner

Since workplaces are becoming self-organizing entities that lead to mass collaboration, employees become free in delivering their concerns. Employees are given with the chance to act not in the default way the company allows them but on their choice of making positive things for the company.

As an ORCOM practitioner, it will always be good waking up to a wiki workplace where collaboration happens to meet the desire of the company.  Through a wiki workplace, I can see what the public knows about my company. Through a wiki workplace, my company will be literally creating a window to the external environment.

Artist Talia Chetrit http://www.taliachetrit.com

This found post stimulated my thinking for the preparation of the annual plan 2010. Not only cost, quality, flexibility are key drivers in the forthcoming year.  Innovation and collaboration are the new elements that may lead us out of the current crisis (which may also be a leadership crisis in many organizations).

In my analysis of the excellent text I missed one point. Collaboration will become more and more independent of organizational walls.  That’s why I added networks.

http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2009/07/19/the-importance-of-creating-a-collaborative-enterprise

http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2009/07/19/the-importance-of-creating-a-collaborative-enterprise

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