Inflection Blocks for social media enabling “in-network” value creation A 3 minute podcast series by Kim Patrick Kobza

Getting Off of the Rock

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 10:36:25 -0500

With advances in cosmology and geologic sciences, we are quickly gaining a better understanding of the earth’s violent past—and certain future. From collisions with asteroids as big as the planet Mars, to ever shifting continental plates, to violent super volcanoes, scientists now recognize that planet Earth has been through a lot over its 4.5 billion year existence. Some even appropriately call it the “miracle planet” for its resilience.

One thing seems certain—Earth is going to become less friendly to life over the next 200M years. Can humans survive? Can we get off of “the rock”. Good question.

Many species outrank humans for longevity on the planet. The dinosaurs’ 175 million year run makes the modern human’s estimated 20,000 years seem rather modest. But humans just might have the edge—our social connections. Is it possible that humans will leverage our seeming aptitude for social cooperation—if intermittent—to devise creative ways to avoid almost certain cataclysm, to survive and flourish?

You might view the question as heretic, or at a minimum far reaching. But I ask it for a reason. If we could answer the question of ultimate survival affirmatively, perhaps between here and there, we could find a way to use social production to solve the problems of hunger, health care, global warming, education, poverty and economic development to name a few.

Can social cooperation lead to a better life, a better world, and isn’t that the point? Said another way, is it possible to solve big problems without it?

What Do Networks Do?

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:52:23 -0400

What do networks do?

Networks help us learn and discover.
Through member exchange we are exposed to new ideas and different points of view.

Networks help us understand.
We often observe, but need context to understand.

Networks help us become aware.
Networks keep us current. They provide unfiltered understanding of the world’s events, often including those in our local communities.

Networks help us solve problems.
Networks enable us to identify and solve problems by bringing the energy and intellect of collective action.

Networks help us make friends.
Networks enable us to find people like ourselves or with similar interests – our families, friends, and sometimes-distant contacts with whom we have common interests.

Networks help us make better decisions.
Networks expose us to more solution possibilities and help us to discover alternatives.

The point of networks is to leverage social production—free contributions by those in our communities—to get things done.

We too often get focused on the technology of networks. We ask: What does it take to build a network? And then our discussion devolves into a construction project: Should I use wikis’ blogs, forums, chats, videos, as if technology creates networks.

People create networks. That is why we should first ask, what do networks do?

Networks and Narrative, The Power of Story Telling

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:06:21 -0500

Networks and Narrative, The Power of Storytelling

Does data drive networks or do people? Of course, people do. And people learn, exchange, and interact with stories. Stories represent our shared experiences.

Too often, organizations focus on the quality of professionally produced content as driving network value. The thesis of many marketing campaigns is that if advertising and marketing firms just send the right message, or share the right content, they will maximize success in building customer networks.

But network exchanges are rarely mechanical. As in physical environments they are opportunistic - dynamic - and driven by what we find interesting. That is why stories are so important.

When brands create the opportunity for customers to share content - they often think in terms of video, photos, or blogged comments. But maybe it is not about content, but about the story, the narrative, that the content creates. Combinations of content - narrative, photos, videos - weaved together - tell stories and build networks. Interesting stories, and story tellers create the basis for strong, and many, network bonds.

This may be the same in government. In public comment hearings, or in approaching their representatives, or agencies, citizens just want to tell their stories. Telling stories is how we form network connections with others. It is how we build trust.

The irony in using stories to build networks is that stories may be stronger visualization tools than shared photos and videos standing alone. Why? Maybe - because we identify ourselves in the narratives of others.

The most powerful human motion - the glue of networks - is the desire to be heard. This means that stories enable us to form connections, and to build networks. When we are building business services, combinations of technology that enable network experiences we have to remember to provide network members the ability to tell and share their stories.

Interesting stories build strong networks.

Shining Meteors

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:52:07 -0500

What gets your attention? Today there is so much content, imagery, and user experience available that it is getting harder and harder to stand out. But isn’t that the point? In the competition of ideas we want to consistently raise the bar to find the most compelling, most creative ideas and experiences that we can find.

The Meteor and Social Attention
Several weeks ago a meteor streaked across the night skies of Canada. The sight of matter coming from outer space - from outside our world, was captivating. It was an event beyond our control and like no other. The event was captured on video and played again and again on the major news networks - pretty cool!

The meteor garnered attention - or social attention as defined by Bernardo Huberman. You couldn’t help but watch it. It drew you in because it was unique and different.

Tell me something that I don’t know!
And so it is with content on the Web. I want to say to twitterers - tell me something that I don’t know. Show me something unique. Share an idea or experience that is insightful - that represents a different point of view.

Truly, we are all on information overload in the digital world. We hear one digital echo after another through repetition of content throughout the Web. And we keep repeating that content back to each other in a digital echo chamber.

But the real power of the Web is discovery - new learning - a different way to view the world and its problems/challenges. New learning comes from unique - sometimes singular ideas not commonly shared or outside of traditional wisdom.

Consider the story of the inventor in SW Florida who believes that he has developed a cure for cancer. John Kazius was in his own battle with cancer and decided to apply his knowledge of radio waves to target cancer cells.

After initial skepticism, the medical and science communities are starting to take Kazius seriously, enough so to run preliminary tests after it was shown that his that his technique, in fact, has helped target and kill certain types of cancers.

The point

The point is that sending “signal” is a skill, one necessary to successfully building networks. By being unique, by becoming that meteor, or by advancing that provocative idea, you add value, stand out, and receive value in return.

I keep going back to my experience with Twitter, the micro-messaging site. If my tweets don’t add value, or interest someone, then it is almost better to be silent. There are many people that I follow that don’t say a lot, but when they do, it means something - it is valuable, and they stand out.

There is a lesson in there for all of us - individuals, brands, employers, and partners. Consistent delivery of unique experience, knowledge, and connections, are a path to developing total network value, and the type of value conversion that makes investment of intellect, time, emotion, and money compelling.

Importance of Micro-Messaging in Community Design

Sun, 7 Dec 2008 10:49:51 -0500

Why is micro-messaging important to the future of community design? Consider these 3 simple thoughts:

(1) It is a low cost/high benefit way to create calls to action and awareness of network (community) members.
(2) Micro-messaging is content rich, but easy to digest.
(3) Micro-messaging promotes frequency and rapidity of community member communication and information exchange.

When we think of micro-messaging most of us think of Twitter as a stand alone application. When we think of community, and especially online community, most of us think of stand alone destination community Web sites with profiling, forums, blogs, ranking,rating, and common community attributes.

But the most statistically significant variable in community success is member participation and contribution. If community members feel that they can make a difference and be recognized, they are many times more likely to participate. Micro-messaging gives members and potential members the opportunity to have frequent interactive exchanges with other peers (community members).

Micro-messaging creates connectedness through both mobile and online devices. It requires members to be brief - stronger messages in fewer characters and shorter sentences.

There are a number of services that provide micro-messaging with practical business models. Given the benefits, and increasing facility with text messaging, watch for micro-messaging to be the next big thing as an indispensable element of community design.

Our First Week With Yammer- Lessons Learned

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:18:42 -0500

Well we made it. That is the good news.

Let me start by saying that I am a big fan of micro-blogging for the enterprise. It seems like a logical extension of the Live Web that actually has value. Let me also share that I can’t stand being a slave to email. If you can say it in less than 100 characters all the better.

As most of you know Yammer represents the next wave in network evolution - enterprise micro-blogging. Think of it as Twitter for the enterprise. See this week’s New York Times article. Similar applications in micro-blogging include Present.ly and Qik.com. See also this entry in the Knowledge Management blog.

It enables all or any group of employees within your corporate domain to freely stay in touch throughout the day in a micro-blogging exchange in generally brief messages. It runs both on your desktop and your phone - in my case an I-phone. The bottom line is that your entire organization is “always on”.

I discovered Yammer and the concept of micro-blogging for the enterprise in the context of research on tools that enable calls to action in hybrid networks. Many of the networks that we support at Neighborhood America are combinations of open and closed networks. I quickly discovered that Yammer was a Tech Crunch award winning application (very impressive) and that it has a solid business model.

As I tried it and invited a few other company leaders into the Yammer discussion, it was quickly evident how easy it was to use, and how completely it could connect all parts of the organization to each other.

Being (a) highly entrepreneurial, and (b) highly connected, it seemed logical that everyone in the organization would immediately benefit from use of the tool - a communication system. Isn’t being completely connected a good thing?

The EVP of Sales, Dan Miller and I, had visions of being able to share sales activity with the technical delivery organization and keeping abreast of events within marketing, technical and customer service. We also believed that we could stay more connected with our remote employees. Personally, I wanted to cut down the email stream as well. Most organizations spend far too much wasteful and unproductive time on email. Email rarely finds its way to everyone who needs to see it without multiple routing and filtering.

Method of implementation.

Simple. We just invited the Company with a group email, asked them to sign up, and started blogging away. We did not establish any internal guidelines. We put a moratorium on setting up groups because we wanted to encourage flat communication across the enterprise. We asked that each person keep contributions business focused. But that was about it. We did not necessarily consult with all top level executives. The EVP of Sales and I got it started. It was in the truest sense a guerrilla move.

Part of the rationale was that we saw Yammer as supplemental to other workflow tools. We did not take away anyone’s skype, or email or AIM. In other words we did not believe that the introduction was going to be “a big deal”. Sometimes you are just wrong - it was a really big deal.

There were immediate benefits and unforeseen disruption that could have been anticipated and avoided. So here are some of our takeaways.

Upside

Yammer worked exactly as advertised:

(1) It was especially embraced by the sales organization (not a big surprise). Sales executives started passing leads and opportunities, collaborating and sharing experiences. It was a natural, especially for sales.
(2) It infused energy, immediacy and accountability into the organization. It was immediately apparent who was and wasn’t contributing in those parts of the organization that were using it.
(3) It helped us as executives to help the sales organization execute on opportunities.
(4) We discovered relevant skills and experience in the organization that applied to specific sales opportunities.

Downside and learning.

The downside of Yammer wasn’t the technology - it was organizational change and readiness. Since we viewed Yammer as incremental change - an extension of what we were otherwise doing in communication, we did not plan for it - we just did it.

Here is what we learned.

(1) Implementing enterprise micro-blogging is not an incremental change. It is a discontinuous change that requires some degree of planning, buy in and ownership. Remember, Neighborhood America is a Web 2.0 company that won the Codie 2008 award winner for best enterprise social networks. It was hard for many parts of our organization - why?
(2) We needed to have a few clear ground rules. For instance:
• Keep discussions focused on business with some social allowed, but not much.
• Move personal discussions to other appropriate tools such as email, skype, aim. phone.
• Groups should have been allowed. Why? Because some parts of the organization such as technology and product development rely upon structure. Taking structure away is not only counter-intuitive but also disconcerting. Letting parts of the organization participate in groups would provide them with a way to get comfortable with the new communication method and adapt over time. Some of our leaders tried to establish groups. We should have allowed more of that.
• Involve all executives, and more appropriately the whole company in the appropriate use. A couple of us thought that it was easy and logical. The reality was that for the most part it was not easy and natural for big parts of the organization.

(1) Yammer creates complete network transparency in your employee network. How much different can that be - right? Wrong. Huge difference. Not everyone in your organization will be comfortable with complete transparency. Is that good or bad? Probably okay, but it needs to be planned for. A little socialization would go a long way towards setting expectations and getting the most out of the platform.
(2) Some parts of the organization wonder if Yammer is a way for employees to waste time. I am not quite sure that I understand that argument except to say that it is a different way of doing things. Is doing email a waste of time? Is using Skype a waste of time? The bigger question is....
(3) How much company communication should be “social” and should we over manage the “social” component? I would make the argument that: (a) there is social communication in all business transactions. i.e., social communication helps us to understand our co-workers and fosters team work; and, (b) you can not legislate good judgement. Clearly the purpose of Yammer is not to promote social communication -there are other tools for that. But banning purely social communication - especially during normal business hours - will make the communication stream more readable for more employees.
(4) Like most social networking tools, communications are often “messy”. They help to foster emergent network properties that create value.

Yammer is great. But in implementing Yammer or its micro-messaging competitors, your organization needs to be in tune with what it is about to do. Yammer is an example of creating complete network transparency. Business models with complete transparency generally are built to create value through distributed network relationships. For organizations that depend upon and are engineered to create value in linear distribution chains, Yammer can be a real challenge - especially if you undertake discontinuous change without complete buy in, clear expectations, and a game plan. In other words it requires leadership.

Like it or not, comfortable or not, enterprise micro-messaging is the way that the world of business is going. It is the next logical evolution of the Live Web. Good luck!

p.s. Our second week of Yammer use enabled the tool to find its own level. The communication stream generally became more focused and more of our staff used it for its intended purpose - connectedness to drive value for the business.

The Live Web

Sat, 8 Nov 2008 18:30:17 -0500

Twitter, Tweetdeck, Twittelator, Yammer, Friendfeed.

Welcome to the Live Web.

If the frequency of network communication is an indicator of value created within networks, the Live Web represents the next transformation in value creation from enterprise social networks.

What is the Live Web? Doc Searls Web Log defines the Live Web by its generative properties. See post http://tinyurl.com/4xg36c Scobleizer defines the Live Web by its “real time” characteristics in the site Friend Feed. See post. http://tinyurl.com/49gkaq

The point is that the Web is rapidly undergoing another transformation - providing real time exchange and transparency in a way that is going to have profound impacts on business, and society more generally.

Say that your employees represent a network. And say that your organization, division, or department could enable each employee to share each others contribution in a real time information exchange across the company, division, or department. What if by enabling real time communication, your company could achieve a 30% increase in efficiency and productivity?

Check out Yammer. http://www.yammer.com The point is that your company can facilitate this communication today. What if in the real time enterprise communication each member of your company was responsible to identify their contribution to the revenue plan for the company on a daily basis - to everyone else on the team - or across the company?

Say that your company enables your employees to collaborate in real time without regard to organizational status - in 140 character bytes - a private twitter?

Or analogous to friend feed, what if every industry enabled knowledge sharing by thought leaders, regardless of company affiliation? And we could witness the sharing through your desk top or mobile device in real time?

Today, Twitter has 3M members, less than 1 percent of the US population. What happens when it has 10M or 100M? The transformation of social networking to Live Web applications is not unlike the gradual evolution of the commercial use of satellite imagery where once we could only receive imagery to a resolution of 30 meters, but with Geo Eye we can now use imagery to 1/2 meter resolution. http://tinyurl.com/675755

How do you make sense of it all? There are new emerging tools that are helping us to organize the feeds - for instance tweet deck, and twittelator pro for the i-phone.

The point is - the Live Web is here - real time, generative, next generation, always on paradigm of Web based network exchange! We have to get used to it, understand it, and leverage the network value that it promises to create. Web based networks are going to move even faster!

Network Transparency - Consider This

Sun, 2 Nov 2008 16:12:51 -0500

Network transparency could well be one of the most powerful considerations when designing business services that support network behavior - with customers, partners, employees, and citizens.

The concept of network transparency has been primarily applied to describe how well computer networks work together. But it may have an even more powerful meaning in the context of human networks. Here is why.

The degree of network transparency designed into business services, in turn, determines the potential for emergent value to arise from networks. Emergent value or behaviors are in short hand, the value that is otherwise unexpected, or unpredicted.

So when a business launches a network of customers, partners, and/or employees, and when interactions - and/or network exchanges occur, behaviors start to emerge that are not what we expected. We learn new things.

Network transparency has to be directly related to business outcomes that are achievable from networks. Why?

To go back to the top, what do we mean by the term “network transparency” in human or social networks? I am not aware of a formal definition, but think of it this way.

Network transparency is a “grey scale” concept. The degree of network transparency is directly related to the rules on which networks are built- if any. So for instance:
(1) Can network members see and become connected with each other? Can they see each other’s profiles? Do they know who are members within the network?
(2) To what extent can one network member learn about another network member through observation of the other network member’s behaviors, likes and dislikes?
(3) Can one network member listen to or learn from the conversations of another member?
(4) Can content freely flow across the network between members, or are there barriers to communication or exchange of information inherent in the network’s rules?
(5) Can members freely talk with one another?
(6) Do members opt in or opt out of exchanges? To what extent can members limit communication?
(7) If a business or government organization is sponsoring the network, then, to what extent will or can it freely share data that might add value to the network or promote value within exchanges between network members?
(8) Does the network promote “social” exchanges?

The point is that networks that have higher degrees of network transparency generally have the most members and create the most value. Why? Because they will have the the greatest number of exchanges that create value.

What does this mean for businesses that are trying to enable networks of customers, partners, and employees, and who try to build value - in network?

The practical questions for businesses are for instance:

(1) Will your business service enable customers to speak with other customers?
(2) Will customers be able to criticize your product and service delivery?
(3) Will customers be able to learn from each other? Will they be able to connect with each other?
(4) Can partners collaborate without your intervention?
(5) Can partners generate business opportunities through the business network without involving your organization? Can they dis-intermediate you?
(6) To what extent does your organization moderate the publication of content - either internally or externally?
(7) Can member interactions be anonymous?
(8) Can people find and meet cognitive outliers in the network?

The whole point is: How open is the network, and how willing is your organization willing to accept and maybe even encourage emergent properties, and/or value from the network?

One way to think of this challenge is an example that we all experience in life. What are the most fun parties, or dinners? Are they the dinners that are highly formal, with structured rules such as seating arrangements, regulation of who you talk to and highly structured activities? Or are they the parties or events where you can talk to who you want to when you want to and meet new people without formality and expectations?

You often meet more new people, learn more, and are generally more interested and have a better time when you can freely move around and have fun. Discovery is exciting and creates social attention.

Calibrating degrees of transparency within your business services and enterprise social networks is not an exact science. In spite of best efforts, chances are that value will emerge from the network that is unexpected.

Chances are as well that the more open the network - the more transparent - the more opportunity there will be for value creation for its members. The more value creation for members - namely, the greater the total network value - the greater the opportunity for value conversion - opportunity to sell goods and services or to achieve continuous business improvement.

As businesses and government organizations decide to support network services for their customers, partners, employees and citizens, network transparency will be one of the prominent design considerations.

Design choices that create higher transparency will lead to more value creation and more opportunities to monetize value. But more transparency can also create more perceived risk. It is never fun to listen to criticism - from customers, partners, and employees.

As we move beyond Web 2.0 and into a world of business services “network transparency” is an example of an important organizing principle that will help all organizations drive new value based on a better understanding of how networks work.

The Emerging Power of Shared Networks

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:31:03 -0400

Network sharing is one of the most powerful and practical emerging trends in enterprise social networks. Enabling multiple networks to join, connect and evolve in turn enables enormous potential value creation.

For instance, let’s use as an example the You Tube video that is embedded on the Inflection Blocks home page. It was originally prepared for a group of high school students in Colorado, but has an even different value when posted here - affected by its surroundings.

Another form of network sharing is demonstrated in the web site Friend Feed http://www.friendfeed.com. In friend feed, members pull and broadcast their communications streams from other networks - such as Linked In, Twitter, Facebook etc., Those communications feeds then become transparent to your friends. One network shares with many networks creating again, significant new value through learning and discovery.

In the future it is not hard to imagine how network sharing will work to create value in commerce. For instance, imagine if two companies want to form a partnership. Wouldn’t network sharing between their employees and partners be a great way to get to know each other?

Or what about two companies that offer complementary products - for instance, a sports entertainment and sports apparel company? Wouldn’t they benefit from network sharing between their respective customer networks?

If you believe that network sharing offers potential for the future, wouldn’t your organization benefit tremendously from growing your networks of customers, partners, and employees today?

Network sharing. The next big trend in enterprise social networks.

Value Conversion

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:43:30 -0400

As the social network phenomena fades, businesses require clear value propositions for their enablement of enterprise social networks. As executives we clearly want to apply discipline to how and why we spend dollars engaging networks of our customers, partners, and employees.

There is compelling work being advanced to help businesses understand the principles of value conversion - a term that I first was exposed to in following Verna Allee and John Mahoney from Value Networks - a group that is creating some extremely intelligent logic in this area. See and use www.valuenetworks.com as an extraordinary resource. Much of this work is not yet mainstream - it is off of the path - but it will be soon!

One of the most interesting recent works was recently published by Michael Cayley of Memetic Brand. Mr. Cayley advances the notion that businesses can and should measure the contribution of social interaction to brand, that business should expand the traditional brand valuation model beyond symbolic recognition to individual contributions. Michael Cayley does a wonderful job in his publication that does not require my further interpretation so I would just like to reference it here. http://socialcapitalvalueadd.com/share-the-scva-ebook/

What might be added to Michael Cayley’s presentation is that in evaluating social capital value add we don’t want to limit ourselves to interaction that arises from our current notion of social networks, but from an expanded recognition of all embedded network interactions with customers, partners and employees, as well as other stakeholders that might arise from points of interaction.

In other words value is often created at points of interaction that are generated through business services - a pattern of network interaction - not simply in corporate communities built as destinations. This will be a very important construct as businesses move forward in the future and I will be podcasting and writing about it in more detail.

The work of Value Networks and Michael Cayley are not today probably mainstream for most business executives, but if carefully considered can help most executives understand where points of value can be created or enhanced by enabling networks with our customers, partners, and employees.