Michael's shared items in Google Reader

Some thoughts on Twitter vs. Facebook Status Updates

2009-10-25T20:24:33Z

The functional act of constructing a tweet or a status update is very similar. Produce text in roughly 140 characters or less inside a single line text box and click a button. Voila! Even the stream based ways in which the text gets consumed look awfully similar. Yet, the more I talk with people engaged in practices around Twitter and Facebook, the more I'm convinced these two things are not actually the same practice. Why? Audience.

There are two critical structural differences between Facebook and Twitter that are essential to understand before discussing the practices: 1) social graph directionality; 2) conversational mechanisms.

Facebook's social graph is undirected. What this means is that if I want to be Friends with you on Facebook, you have to agree that we are indeed Friends. Reciprocity is an essential cultural practice in Facebook (although they are trying to rip out the functional requirement as it relates to status updates, arguably to compete with Twitter). Twitter, on the other hand, is fundamentally set up to support directionality. I can follow you without you following me. Sure, I can't DM you in this case, but I'm still consuming your updates. Yes, yes, yes, privacy settings complicate both of these statements. But for the majority of users of each site, this is the way it goes. Stemming from this are a whole lot of social norms about who's following who and who's consuming who's content. It's pretty clear that the Celebrity will get followed without reciprocating on Twitter, but there's also a tremendous opportunity for everyday individuals to develop a following. It's not just the Celebrities who are following different people than the people who follow them; it's nearly everyone (except for those who think that auto-follow bots relieve social tensions).

On Facebook, status updates are placed on one's Wall. This allows anyone else (among those with permission) to comment on the update. This creates a conversational space as it is quite common for people to leave comments on updates. Conversely, on Twitter, to reply to someone's tweet, one produces an at-reply on their own stream. Sure, the interlocutor can read it in their stream of at-replies, but it doesn't actually get seen or produced on their own page. Thus, a person's Twitter page is truly the product of their self-representation, not the amalgamation of them and their cohort.

So, practices.. how does this affect practices?

Those using Facebook are primarily concerned with connecting with those that they know (or knew in high school). The status updates are an invitation to conversation, a way of maintaining social peripheral awareness among friends and acquaintances. They're about revealing life as it happens so as to be part of a "keeping up" community.

Arguably, Twitter began this way, if only because the geeks and bloggers who were among the early adopters were a socially cohesive group. Yet, as the site has matured, the practices have changed (and I've watched a whole lot of early adopters who weren't part of the professional cohort leave). For the most visible, Twitter is a way of producing identity in a public setting. This is where you see personal branding as central to the identity production going on there. It's still about living in public, but these folks are aware of being seen, of having an audience if you will. Twitter also enables a modern incarnation of parasocial relations. Sure, there are one-sided relationships on Facebook too, but they are far more the norm on Twitter. I can follow the details of a Celebrity's life without them ever knowing I exist. At the same time, there's the remote possibility of them responding which is what complicates traditional parasocial constructs. Angelina Jolie could never see me reading about her in the gossip mags and commenting on her latest escapades, but, if she were on Twitter, she could sense my watching her and see my discussion of her. That's part of what is so delightfully tempting for Celebs.

In short, the difference between the two has to do with the brokering of status. With Facebook, the dominant norm is about people at a similar level of status interacting. On Twitter, there's all sorts of complicated ways in which status is brokered. People are following others that they respect or worship and there's a kind of fandom at all levels. This is what Terri Senft has long called "micro-celebrity." Alice Marwick has been extending Terri's ideas to think about how audience is brokered on Twitter (paper coming soon). But I think that they're really critical. What makes Twitter work differently than Facebook has to do with the ways in which people can navigate status and power, follow people who don't follow them, at-reply strangers and begin conversations that are fundamentally about two individuals owning their outreach as part of who they are. It's not about entering another's more private sphere (e.g., their Facebook profile). It's about speaking in public with a targeted audience explicitly stated.

As you can see, I'm not quite there with my words on this just yet, but I feel the need to push back against the tendency to collapse both practices into one. How audience and status is brokered really matters and differentiates these two sites and the way people see and navigate this.

One way to really see this is when people on Twitter auto-update their Facebook (guilty as charged). The experiences and feedback on Twitter feel very different than the experiences and feedback on Facebook. On Twitter, I feel like I'm part of an ocean of people, catching certain waves and creating my own. Things whirl past and I add stuff to the mix. When I post the same messages to Facebook, I'm consistently shocked by the people who take the time to leave comments about them, to favorite them, to ask questions in response, to start a conversation. (Note: I'm terrible about using social media for conversation and so I'm a terrible respondent on Facebook.) Many of the people following me are the same, but the entire experience is different.

Over the last few years, I've watched a bunch of self-sorting. Folks who started out updating on Twitter and moved to Facebook and vice versa. The voices they take on don't change that much, but they tend to find one medium or the other more appropriate for the kinds of messaging they're doing. One or the other just "fits" better. When I ask them why, they can't really tell me. Sometimes, they talk about people; sometimes they talk about privacy issues. But most of the time, one just clicks better for reasons they can't fully articulate.

Different social media spaces have different norms. You may not be able to describe them, but you sure can feel them. Finding the space the clicks with you is often tricky, just as finding a voice in a new setting can be. This is not to say that one space is better than the other. I don't believe that at all. But I do believe that Facebook and Twitter are actually quite culturally distinct and that trying to create features to bridge them won't actually resolve the cultural differences. And boy is it fun to watch these spaces evolve.

Facebook Twitter audience status

Corporate Blogging? Make It Great, or Don’t Bother

2009-11-13T13:19:53Z

Hard to believe it’s been over a year since I bookmarked this post on the Sitepoint blog: 15 Companies That Really Get Corporate Blogging. But now that I’ve come across it again, the information is still interesting. The author referred to a then-recent Forrester study that looked at 90 blogs from Fortune 500 companies, and found that “most corporate blogs are ‘dull, drab, and don’t stimulate discussion.’ Sadly, two-thirds hardly ever get any comments, 70% stick strictly to business topics, and worse 56% just republish press releases or already public news.” I would imagine there has been a little improvement since then, but I doubt it’s much.

Anyway, I went looking for the report, found that it is paid content and the original post got its information from a Wall Street Journal article that is no longer available. But I did find a newer—and freer—Forrester paper on corporate blogging, which you can get with a fairly painless registration.

Highlights:

“Only one in six consumers trust company blogs.”

“Like any other marketing channel, blogging can work. But it’s not about you; it’s about your customer.”

“Honest and transparent blogs will get noticed.”

So–what’s special about those 15 companies that “get it”? The answer is absurdly simple: They provide interesting/useful/meaningful content. Or as Sitepoint put it—“informative, fascinating, and a joy to read even for people who aren’t die-hard fans of the company.”

I actually visited every one of the 15 companies, although not every one of their blogs, which would have added up to dozens. I covered at least 20 blogs, though, and at each one, I applied a simple test: “If I were thinking about a career at this company, would their blog(s) encourage me to apply?” Here’s what I decided:

Yes, in almost every case.

At Southwest Airlines, I found “BlogSouthwest,” with some great Halloween posts extolling the fun quotient of that SWA-perfect holiday. (I can testify—it’s all true.) At Lenovo, I discovered a smart, wide-ranging blog called “Design Matters,” which I would probably subscribe to if I had any time left for more feeds. BBC has a substantive blog called “The Editors,” offering a behind-the-scenes view of current events. The “Fast Lane Blog” at GM looks like paradise for a techie auto junkie. And it was oddly seductive to read the supposedly inner thoughts of Marriott’s apparently tireless CEO at “On the Move.” Even Quicken’s “What’s the Diff” was fairly charmful, with its mission of “exposing the gap between average and excellent.”

At a couple of companies, the blogs seemed perfunctory—lacking enthusiasm and/or substance. A couple of others offered blogs so super-technical that I couldn’t make a connection (though they probably have appeal for their target audiences). But on the whole, my cruise through this group of corporate blogs was more interesting than I expected.

And I’m sure there are many other good examples out there. Plenty of bad ones too, though! So I’ll close with another highlight from the Forrester paper:

“If your strategy is to create a blog about your company and its products, give it up.”

But if your strategy is to offer something of value to readers—information, ideas, insights, inside intel, or just plain fun–then it’s worth the effort.

(Thanks to Jason Rogers for sharing his trip to the Grand Canyon.)

Two Simple Rules for Better Job Descriptions

2009-11-06T13:30:01Z

I recently had occasion to look at a job description for an IT contract position. I could recognize a lot of the words, but the way they were put together gave me almost no clue what the company really needs someone to do. So I called a friend who’s pretty far up the IT food chain and read it to him, just in case I was being dim. Neither of our secret decoder rings was up to the task, however, so we could only speculate about what the job might really be—or who could do it well.

This description came from a big company and went through a reputable recruiting agency. In this case, of course, part of the problem relates to the process itself, since in many cases outside recruiters cannot talk to the hiring manager in order to clarify the description and requirements. So if the hiring manager—or whoever wrote the description—is not very good at describing jobs, an HR intermediary may not know the difference, and the mystery document will just get propagated out to the recruiter(s) and passed on to the prospects.

Internal processes can be just as problematic–and when a confusing or inadequate job description makes it onto the Careers site or the job boards, job-seekers are at a considerable disadvantage, since they have nothing else to go by. In these days, when applications are many and keywords often rule, applicants have to figure out how to highlight their qualifications; and that’s tricky when the requirements are not clear.

In the description that prompted this post, I found several common problems, such as:

Requirements that just say “Understanding of X”. (The spectrum of interpretations that can be applied to “understanding” is broad indeed! Define the word? Know X when you see it? Eat, sleep and breath X?)
Requirements that seem to be repeating other requirements in different words. (Is there a subtle-but-important distinction? Or just two different authors? Perhaps a careless revision?)
Requirements that use names in a vague way, and/or acronyms. (Is the requirement referring to ” X the product” or “X the methodology”? Is that unfamiliar acronym a variant, a typo, an internal reference, or just something that hasn’t made it to Wikipedia yet?)

I could go on. But the net result is that candidates for this position will not have a good idea of what’s involved in the job until/unless they get as far as an interview. Therefore they won’t be able to make an informed decision about applying or not. They won’t be able to tailor their resumes appropriately. Et cetera.

And the manager(s) will spend unnecessary time looking for the “right” person, who might not even be found. A lot of misfire hires result from failure to define and describe a job effectively.

People can learn to write better job descriptions, and they should. But in the end, there are two really basic practices that will make a huge difference:

Use simple sentences.
Use simple words.

Just following those “simple” rules will eliminate ambiguity most of the time. And don’t take my word for it. Get some good advice from HRDailyAdvisor. (Yes, they’re selling something, but the advice is good anyway.)

(Want your own “decoder ring”? Get it from the Exploratorium.)

Resumes updated instantly via SaaS

2009-11-03T05:00:00Z

FIVE local IT recruitment agencies have decided to use iProfile so candidates can keep their resumes consistently up to date.

Your Company May Own Your Tweets, Pokes, and YouTube Videos

2009-10-28T09:25:23Z

Your Boss May Own Your Facebook Wall Posts
Both employers and employees may be surprised to find that employee created blog posts, YouTube, LinkedIn profiles, Facebook profiles, and even tweets may be owned by companies. Yes, even those personal pictures you took last Friday with your loved ones, or direct messages in Twitter could belong to your employer. Why is this? Employees sign employment contracts that may indicate that all intellectual property created during employment may be owned by the company, let’s dive into what you should know:

Work, Online, and Life Mix
As employees check personal websites at work (and likely on work computers) they are indeed using corporate infrastructure. Similarly, as employees do work from home in the evening on personal or work computers the lines continue to blur. It can become even more blurry, as the work and lifestyle content share on social networks becomes one in the same. For example, a LinkedIn account that describes an individual’s career goals which she uses to network with prospects is both personal and work related. Secondly, a product manager who announces new features using his Twitter account is discussing work-related content.

Social Accounts Created At Work, Who Owns Them?
What becomes even more dizzying is the thousands of professionals that have career-related blogs that attract companies in the first place. Who owns their blog posts during their tenure at a company? If an employee generated revenue from those blog posts should the revenue go back to the employer? What if a career blog is launched during employment at a company and discusses information related to the company, or a LinkedIn profile during employment, who owns them?

Case Example: Cisco’s CTO on Twitter and Her Million+ Followers
The real question is: Would a company even want this information? I discussed this on Twitter and many scoffed at the ideas that a company would want bits of 140 characters at a time. Take for example the Twitter account of Padmasree of Cisco. She created this account during her employment at Cisco, and talks about both personal and Cisco related content. Her Twitter account, as the CTO of Cisco is on the suggested users list by Twitter and she has over 1,200,000 followers. This is clearly an asset to her and Cisco, and if she leaves would be a loss to Cisco. I’ve spoken in public with Jeanette Gibson of Cisco communications, and they make it clear it is an account owned by Padmasree, she owns it if she decides to leave Cisco.

Guest Post: Perspective From A Lawyer
I’m not a lawyer, so I’ve asked one to comment on this topic. I recently moderated a panel at Blog World Expo on the topic of sponsored conversations, and I was delighted to meet Attorney Lisa J Borodkin, (her blog, Twitter) who specializes in federal court litigation and the resolution of complex commercial disputes. Her substantive expertise is copyright, trademark and new media law. She commented on this post draft post, and gave me permission to publish the following, which are completely in Lisa’s words, she writes:

“There are several dimensions to this issue.

First, the contract law aspect.

It’s important in the age of the blog and Twitter that people understand that a clause claiming all “intellectual property” created during the term of employment would be property of the company would cover tweets and blog posts. This provision would also cover anything else creative the person did on the side, as a hobby, such as writing a screenplay, or creating a comic strip, even purely for fun.

For this reason, when I represent entertainment executives who are presented with this type of clause in an employment contract, I ask that it be restricted only to intellectual property created within the scope of their job duties under the agreement. The rationale is that if you are not being paid to create something, then the company shouldn’t own your output simply because it is created during the term of employment. That would be a windfall for the company. So it’s a new twist on an issue that has been around for a while. The twist is that when these provisions were first written, I doubt anyone ever thought of blogging or Twitter. So this ownership should be only tied if possible to the type of job the person is hired for.

Second, the copyright law aspect.

Most terms of service for blog hosting sites and Twitter provide that the user is the author and owns the copyright in the blog post or Tweets. (Here’s a link to a blog post I wrote on the subject: http://lisaborodkin.com/ip-protection-for-blog-posts/ ) They also provide that, by using the blog hosting provided by the site, the user grants a perpetual free license to the blog host for using the content. This is a pretty fair distribution of rights. Everyone wins.

The point here is that company “ownership” of the blog or tweet content is not the only option. For most company purposes, a shared license or joint copyright would probably also be just as beneficial. For the blogger, ensuring that the blogger is always credited as the author of the work with a credit and trackback or link is probably the key condition.

Third, the policy aspect.

The larger question is whether the job or industry the person is in is of the type that a company would find it beneficial for the person to be blogging during work hours or using work equipment. There is a good online database of social media policies from a variety of companies at http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php They vary wildly, from PR firm Porter Novelli’s “Never comment anonymously” rule, to the EFF’s detailed advice on “How to blog anonymously.” As you state, the reality is that people will blog, Tweet and use social networks, and it is healthier for companies to embrace that and recognize the value in such individual activities, where it is beneficial to the company’s mission.

By now I hope everyone realizes that thousands of lawyers every day are fully employed in reviewing millions of company emails that have been subpoenaed in lawsuits all over the world. As long as a company reminds everyone that they have no right of privacy in anything that goes through the company’s computer systems, and that this extends beyond email to social networks, then employers and employees can undertake these activities mutually aware of the risks and rewards. The hope is that both will find shared value in mixing social media with work and allocate the potential economic rewards in an equitable manner.”

Jeremiah: Thanks Lisa for your insight, it’s interesting that many employees probably don’t realize that content that goes through the company’s systems is owned by the employer –even their personal Facebook messages.

Key Takeaways

Companies are attracted to potential employees with the ability to communicate online, and those that have a built-in following, yet the rights over the content created aren’t entirely clear.
Both personal and work lives are mixing online and off, creating blurry lines between ownership of content. In many cases, legacy employment contracts give ownership to the company –even personal created content on company systems.
Employees are creating social content that relates to work often on company-owned property, or during work hours.

Recommendations:

Employees should get educated on this topic and find out what it means in your existing employment contract. Get a lawyer that understands the language of the contract, and can advise and protect you.
Employees should carefully review their existing employee contract to know the boundaries, risks, and liability for their online activity.
Employees should understand how to create a “carve out” in the employment contract for personal created media.
Companies should understand benefits and risks, then evaluate their social media policy and update it to reflect the changing world of social as personal and work lives collide.
Companies and employees should setup training, policies, and a dedicated group within a company to help employees to understand best practices in the new world where personal and work content collide in the workplace and at home.

Updated: Someone tweeted this related cartoon out.

Rescuing The Reporters

2009-10-02T12:21:58Z

Last week I gave a talk on newspapers at the Shorenstein center. (They did an amazing job with the transcript, including annotating the talk with a remarkable amount of linking.) During the talk, I ran through various strategies for funding local reporting, including an idea I first saw articulated by Steve Coll that reporters should become employees of non-profit entities.

After the talk, I decided to do a “news biopsy,” as a way of thinking about Coll’s idea. I wanted to see how much newspaper content was what Alex Jones calls the iron core of news — reporters going after facts — and how much was “other stuff” — opinion columns, sports, astrology, weather, comics, everything that was neither a hard news story or an ad.

The paper I used was my old hometown paper, the Columbia Daily Tribune. It’s is a classic metro daily and pretty good paper for a town of 100,000, because The Missourian, the rival paper produced by the local journalism school, provides an unusual degree of competition for a town that size. I had several copies of the Trib lying around, having used it in a media class I teach at ITP; I took two copies of the August 27 edition, slit them down the spine, and made two piles, one with odd-numbered pages facing up, and the other with even-numbered pages facing up. (There was an insert about the upcoming football season, clearly a one-off, which I ignored.)

I then cut up each page, labeling every piece in two separate ways. The first label was about content: News, Ads, and Other (opinion columns, sports, crosswords, and the rest.) The only judgement call was an article in the sports section about a judge’s ruling in the Major League Baseball steroids case; I put that in the News pile; the rest of sports went in Other.

The second pair of labels was about source: Created or Acquired. Created content was whatever was written (or taken, in the case of photos) by Tribune staff, while acquired content was material from a wire service or database — news from the Associated Press, but also weather, comics, and so on.

Then I weighed the piles (in grams.) Once I had the weights, I ignored the ads — they are about half the paper, but not the half I care about — and did comparisons of the remaining content:

Created vs. Acquired: The content created by Tribune staff made up less than a third of the total; over two-thirds was acquired from other sources, including especially the AP.
News vs. Other: The paper was about one-third news and about two-thirds “Other” (and this is after ignoring the all-sports insert, tipping the balance in favor of news.)
Created News vs. everything else: News reported by the paper’s staff was less than a sixth of the total content of the paper (again, ignoring the insert, which tips the balance in favor of news.)

In other words, most of the substantive part of that day’s Trib wasn’t locally created, and most of it wasn’t news.

I don’t want to make specific claims for these numbers; I wouldn’t be surprised to see variations in the 2:1 ratios of Created to Acquired content, or of News to Other, either from day to day or paper to paper. However, I would be astonished if those ratios were to reverse — for a medium-sized metro daily to publish twice as much News as Other, or to create twice as much as it acquired — because the economics are tilted so strongly towards material other than news, and towards buying content vs. making it. (The AP provided most of that days news, and the cost of running a wire story is tiny compared to employing a beat reporter.)

More surprising to me, though, was the number of local reporters who had a byline for hard news in that day’s paper: Six. (Given that number, we can name them: Janese Heavin, T.J. Greaney, Brennan David, Terry Ganey, Jonathan Braden, and Jodie Jackson Jr.)

Now one can imagine all kinds of reasons why only six of the Tribune’s reporters filed news stories that day — August vacations, slow news day, all the other reporters were working on bigger stories. I guessed at all those reasons and more, and as it turns out, all those reasons were wrong — the most parsimonious explanation is the correct one. Only six reporters filed news stories that day because the Tribune only has six news reporters, out of a staff list of 59. Every one of them appeared in that day’s paper, with three (Ganey, Braden, and Jackson) filing two stories each

The Trib seems to realize the importance of local reporting to their readers. The outside of the paper (front and back page of section A) was all local bylines and no wire service news, while the inside had not one local news byline. (Local opinion, yes. Local sports, doubly yes. Locally reported news? No.) The local reporters were (expensive) lures, put on the outside of a product that included none of their work, and lots of the AP’s, on the inside pages.

And the other 53 masthead staff? There’s the publisher, of course, and the managing editor, as well as the copy chief, the librarian, a pair of city editors, and so on. Then there are columnists, lots and lots of columnists, writing columns like Granny’s Notes and Smile Awhile, Let’s Talk Antiques and Cookin’ with Hoss (Chicken wings end dinner plan bickering.) There are also eleven people covering sports, including one assigned just to cover the area high schools.

Now the half-dozen reporters covering the City Council and local crime instead of antiques and sports don’t do their work in a vacuum. The city desk editors and the copy chief make the work of Janese Heavin et al. more valuable than it would otherwise be. But you can pick any multiplier you like for necessary editorial and support staff and that number, times six reporters, won’t be a big number. In particular, it won’t be 59, or anywhere near it.

This is, I want to emphasize, the staff for a pretty good paper, in a competitive market. (Ann Arbor, another midwestern college town and just a bit larger than Columbia, doesn’t have a ~~newspaper~~ metro daily at all. [UPDATE: changed “newspaper” to “metro daily” because AnnArbor.com publishes in print on Thursdays and Sundays.) And there’s nothing wrong with reading your horoscope or being reminded by Granny that May really is one of the nicest months of the year. Anyone who wants to read that stuff should be able to.

But it’s not news, and it’s not hard to do, and it’s not hard to replace. No one surveying the changes the internet is bringing to the newspaper business is saying “My God, who will tell me about Big 12 football! Where will I find a recipe for spicy chicken wings!” What matters in the Tribune, and what’s at risk, is Terry Ganey’s work on a state coverup of elevated levels of E. Coli in Ozark lakes, Jonathan Braden on anti-gay protesters from Kansas picketing in Columbia, Jodie Jackson’s reporting of on a child molestation case against a local politician.

For people who see newspapers as whole institutions that need to be saved, their size (and not the just the dozens and dozens of people on the masthead, but everyone in business and operations as well) makes ideas like Coll’s seems like non-starters — we’re talking about a total workforce in the hundreds, so non-profit conversion seems crazy.

All that changes, though, if you start not from total head count but from a list of the people necessary for the production of Jones’ “iron core of news,” a list that, in the Columbia Daily Tribune’s case, would be something like a dozen. (To put this in perspective, KBIA, Columbia’s NPR affiliate, lists a staff of 20.)

Seen in that light, what’s needed for a non-profit news plan to work isn’t an institutional conversion, it’s a rescue operation. There are dozen or so reporters and editors in Columbia, Missouri, whose daily and public work is critical to the orderly functioning of that town, and those people are trapped inside a burning business model. With that framing of the problem, the question is how to get them out safely, and if that’s the question, Coll’s idea starts to look awfully good.

Do We Want Social Media Skills, Or Social Media Curiosity?

2009-10-12T01:36:54Z

I admit it. Google's Sitewiki and Facebook's new search features scare me. If they become fully realized, I'll be busier than a one-armed paper hanger in a, well - I'll be busy. And yet, that work is far off enough...

No one wants to follow your Recruitment Agency on Twitter

2009-10-08T11:56:44Z

I had an interesting call from a Recruiter today. He was complaining about the fact that no one wants to follow his Recruitment Agency on Twitter. I spent some time talking about the ways you can use Twitter in the Recruitment process. But he didn't care.

Living Digitally

2009-10-10T20:44:21Z

In the wake of my comments about hyperconnectivity and overuse I’ve engaged in a few brief, yet very significant conversations about the implications and reality of it all, and they’ve served to alter my perspectives quite considerably. So while I’m still pondering this train of thought, I’m also far less pessimistic about the amount of time I’m actually on the computer.

First there was the conversation that emerged in the comments area of the original post, involving Ed Webb and Laura Blankenship. Speaking with them reminded me of several things that I want to explore here.

Technology is not homogeneous

First that technology is by no means homogeneous. Not only does each service, environment or tool have its own inherent strengths, weaknesses and affordances; they also facilitate different sorts of dynamics and relationships. For example some technologies like the telephone or SecondLife can bring people together – connect them – and help establish a sense of close proximity despite being in very different locations.

Other technologies can facilitate shared experiences for people in the same locale. As I mentioned in the comments:

“…my little one is sick at the moment and feeling very yucky, so this morning we put on The Wiggles and had a cuddle on the couch together. In this case the technology played a central role in establishing a shared focal point, but it didn’t detract from our interaction since our time together was an integral component as well. So really, the TV here added to the experience instead of taking away from it.”

Likewise technology can also inspire more introspection. Blogs could be seen as one example here. Writing posts is very much an individual activity in which people explore concepts, ideas or feelings, and in so doing seek to externalise elements that were previously known only to them. The significance of such activities though are they pave the road to dialogue and discourse with others – thus what was once un-expressed and internalised becomes the seeds from which interaction with others can take place.

Technology as extension of self

The next conceptual leap that has occurred to me is the notion of technology as extension of self. All too frequently when people talk about “technology” they mean high-technology, such as computers, industrial equipment, etcetera – but really the concept of technology is far broader than that.

As Michael Wesch said of media (minutes 11:48 to 12:48):

“At the center of the mediascape is us….Media is not content. Media are not just tools of communication. Media mediate human relationships. When media change, human relationships change.

Here I use the term technology in the same sense that Wesch uses media. To me, technology is an extension of self that we use to interact with people, places and things around us; to express ourselves, our thoughts or ideas, or our emotions. It’s not just a desktop computer, a laptop, or an iPhone; but also pencil and paper, the written word, the spoken word, symbols and other visual representations.

Computers are multi-faceted tools

Why is this important? Well for starters, ongoing innovations and power enhancements in computers are such that home PCs are now multi-faceted tools that support a diverse range of activities – and likewise the internet does as well. We can compose music, digital media, 3D animation, engage with others, communicate, contemplate complex ideas or emotions, review historical events or memories.

In this context it becomes clear why computers are becoming increasingly integrated into every day: they offer or even replace much of the functionality of older technologies.

As another example, as I wrote yesterday, my daughter and I engaged in a vibrant discussion that was largely facilitated by radio, streaming video, and ultimately reflected about it on a blog. Historically this could have easily been a symphonic orchestra, followed by a play in a theatre, and then a reflection in a diary or journal in a spiral notebook.

Putting this another way, perhaps we are using computers more and more because they DO more and more; and not just new activities like virtual worlds and MMORPGs, but activities that humanity has engaged in for a very long time – communication, record keeping, creative endeavor, entertainment.

The Devil’s in the Detail

So really, it’s insufficient to merely say “I’m using technology 15 to 17 hours a day” and leave it at that. Certainly it’s hard on the eyes to be looking at an LCD screen for that long, however the implications of the duration cannot be truly ascertained from such a broad brush statistic.

When I look at the details the reality of the situation is a much different story.

During my commute I’ll use my mobile phone to talk with my wife and family, compose emails, plan my day, engage in discussion on Twitter. I’ll also use my laptop to read for leisure, compose blog posts in which I reflect on my thoughts, opinions, or what I’ve learned; watch videos, listen to music or play games on my iPod.

During the work day I use the computer to help people who are having problems or questions, implement services that seek to facilitate the learning and teaching processes, engage in discussion with people around the world, have video conferences with my children, collaborate with my colleagues.

In the evenings I’ll watch streaming documentaries from the BBC or ABC to learn about history, witness natural environments or cities thousands of miles away. Show my one-year old what a lion looks and sounds like, play educational games with them or engage in some family fun; or I’ll join a campaign to rid a village of orcs and ogres.

Parting thoughts

There is little doubt to me that I’m hyperconnected to digital devices, however I’m not as worried now as I was a few days ago.

Some people rely on analogue technology to make their lives easier – I use digital. Computers and mobile technology are my telephone, television, spiral notebook, reference library, research journal, collaborative workspace, water cooler for discussion, source of entertainment, classroom, exploratory lab, and professional networking space.

It’s also just one facet of my life, and not everything can or should be done digitally. Knowing when to unplug is critical. Fortunately for me I have children who aren’t shy about saying “get off the computer daddy.” And more often than not, I’m only too happy to oblige.

Sidekick Pulls A Magnolia

2009-10-10T21:25:26Z

[via Sidekick™ - T-Mobile Forums]
Updated: 10/10/2009 12:35 PM PDT

T-MOBILE AND MICROSOFT/DANGER STATUS UPDATE ON SIDEKICK DATA DISRUPTION

Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:

T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are reaching out to express our apologies regarding the recent Sidekick data service disruption.

We appreciate your patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on maintaining platform stability, and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers.

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger's latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device - such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos - that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low. As such, we wanted to share this news with you and offer some tips and suggestions to help you rebuild your personal content. You can find these tips in our Sidekick Contacts FAQ. We encourage you to visit the Forums on a regular basis to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.

In addition, we plan to communicate with you on Monday (Oct. 12) the status of the remaining issues caused by the service disruption, including the data recovery efforts and the Download Catalog restoration which we are continuing to resolve. We also will communicate any additional tips or suggestions that may help in restoring your content.

We recognize the magnitude of this inconvenience. Our primary efforts have been focused on restoring our customers' personal content. We also are considering additional measures for those of you who have lost your content to help reinforce how valuable you are as a T-Mobile customer.

We continue to advise customers to NOT reset their device by removing the battery or letting their battery drain completely, as any personal content that currently resides on your device will be lost.

Once again, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger regret any and all inconvenience this matter has caused.

Yikes. No back-up to the back-up?

Creepy

2009-09-28T00:00:00Z

Employees know URLs better than their CEOs name?

2009-09-23T14:03:00Z

44% of receptionists on the main switchboard of the FTSE 100 companies don’t know the name of their CEO?

I find the results of a recent survey of FTSE 100 companies carried out by MoneyPenny really quite astonishing (via Brand Strategy Guru).

Researchers went mystery shopping across the biggest companies in the country, calling the main UK switchboards of the FTSE 100 to ask each company 10 questions over 4 weeks. They evaluated time to answer, friendliness of answer, clarity of information, welcome received, whether it was a human or automated response, how knowledgeable the respondent was, and overall satisfaction with the call.

Now some of these criteria are quite subjective, but over the course of many calls, you’d soon be able to compare companies. And for the most part, the responses were fine; most companies came out as pretty average (the full results are available and an opportunity to compare your own business performance with the FTSE100). But some of the detail is very curious; the poor performance of the retail sector overall, for example – though a few individual companies put in an excellent performance.

I think it is particularly interesting that more people could provide the web address of the corporate site (87%) than could name the CEO (56%) or provide the postal address (86%).

It was peak holiday season, but surely it can’t be that the switchboards were all staffed by temps (and even if they were, the temps could have been given a crib sheet), or that there had been a mass upheaval in the personnel at the top of the organisation? Chief Executives don’t come and go that fast…

We’ve discussed employees as spokespeople before; these front-line staff really are brand ambassadors, and deserve to be given training and resources to provide the answers to some of the most likely questions that they’ll have to field.

We’ve also pointed out that the most common reason to visit the corporate website is to check contact details. Having a visitor-friendly, welcoming website with easy-to-find phone numbers is great, but if the welcome received when the visitor does make contact doesn’t match, then the difference will be starkly apparent.

And it is exactly this kind of mismatch that makes people see the corporate website as spin and marketing.

Oracle HCM has an official Blog

2009-09-18T19:15:28Z

Those who have been keeping tabs on TalentedApps know, that while we work for Oracle, we blog as independents.

We are very proud to inform you that there is now an official Oracle HCM blog where you can find useful and most importantly, official information about products, events and resources in our ecosystem.

Profile: The Oracle HCM Blogging Team is a group of dedicated folks at Oracle that represent E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and Fusion HCM product lines.

Check it out, while you are at it you might want to also follow them on Twitter.

Three Future-Looking Videos Of Augmented Reality For Business

2009-09-20T15:43:18Z

Augmented Reality is certainly in it’s infancy, and we know that at best, is experimental. I’m new to this space but am watching, and learning from Robert Rice and Dave Elchoness to see how it develops. While a few years out, see the proposed Hype Cycle, let’s spend time thinking about what the future could hold.

I’m in intake mode. Over the last few weeks, I’ve watched as many augmented reality youtube clips as possible, reading blog posts (as there are no real articles yet from mainstream) and talking to smart folks. What I’ve noticed? Many videos are folks excited about the toys –yet with little reference to how it impacts business. I’ve also been experimenting with Yelp’s monocle, which is sub-par at best, it’s really early days. My biggest challenge? I’m in the wrong country. The innovation and adoption with these tools will come in Europe and Asia –not the tethered American market.

I found a few videos that are void of the “Shiny object” syndrome and focus on how this could improve people’s lives –or fulfill a meaningful business need, here’s three:

Above Video: Supplemental Information Added On Location.
Dutch company Layar appears to be one of the emerging platforms that enables data to be added to physical locations. It’s location specific and allows content to be shown through the display of a phone related to real estate, shopping, and healthcare. Add on a social layer (where are my friend, or should I know them?) and things could become more useful.

Realtà Aumentata – Augmented Reality from soryn on Vimeo.

Above Video: Contextual Information While Reading Book, and On Location
This Italian video shows how virtual reality glasses (glasses are more fantasy than reality… yet) could be used to provide auxiliary content while reading books –or in real world as the character goes to those physical location and is able to get more information. Imagine if every book you read could provide supplemental information from the web or other digital devices. What if every example you read in Groundswell showed a YouTube video of each story –each executive who is mentioned shows their profile information powered by wikipedia, and pictures and speeches from flickr and YouTube. I’ll chalk this video up as certainly futuristic, but showing potential increase knowledge opportunities.

Above Video: Social Data and Contact Info Overlayed in Business Setting.
This future video created by Tat, doesn’t get into the business setting until half way the video, but shows how additional information can be seen in real life. An audience member can ’scan’ the speaker, and get additional information about their presentations, contact info, and even rate them. Scanning around the table, I had a chuckle when you could see people’s “Mickey Mouse ears” of social site icons appear above their faces.

Early days –but interesting to watch.
It’s early days for the Augmented Reality space, yet that shouldn’t keep us aware of what’s going to emerge in the coming years. Expect innovation and adoption in Europe and Asia, with the US trailing behind. Early bridges will display data from existing web-data bases like Yelp, Facebook, Wikipedia, and review sites. Remember when some websites were not compatible with certain browsers, the AR space is also in it’s infancy as many applications don’t run on all mobile platforms and the data sources are limited.

Lastly, I’m considering hosting an event at our “Hangar” in San Mateo, CA to focus on the business potentials of mobile social networks and augmented reality. Perhaps in Q1, 2010. Let me know if you’d be interested in participating, leave a comment below.

Back to Blogging soon

2009-09-20T07:26:21Z

Folks, finally some good news i am all set to start blogging. As I had shared in my previous post, i was awaiting clearance from my employer to start blogging again.
With the clearance now in place, am ready to blog again
I would soon be up with my first post. Look forward to your continuous patronage and thanks for the innumerable mails asking me to continue blogging, It really adds on to the motivation. :)

Oracle software sales miss target

2009-09-17T03:00:00Z

ORACLE'S quarterly software sales came in sharply below expectations, dashing hopes that corporate technology spending is rebounding and sending its shares down 2.7 per cent.

Avaya gets approval to buy Nortel unit

2009-09-17T23:00:00Z

AVAYA won approval from US and Canadian courts for its $US915 million ($1 billion) deal to buy Nortel Networks's operations that sell communications gear to businesses.

Microenterprises and the Enterprise 2.0 Trajectory

2009-09-09T14:33:09Z

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

What is the curtain?

The enterprise is the curtain.

In concurrent posts, SocialText’s Michael Idinopulos discusses killing pilot projects and the true nature of Enterprise 2.0. He explains:

Enterprise social software isn't one application. It's a range of collaborative modes that includes blogs, wikis, micromessaging, personal dashboards, collaborative spreadsheeting, and social bookmarking.

When Michael discusses killing pilot projects (small rollouts as proofs of concept), he is spot-on in saying that the real value inherent to those types of projects is borne of network effects, not in the efficacy of the technology. So pilot projects = proving the tech and not realizing the business value. It would be like if I told you I wanted to know what University life was like, and you suggested I speak to a professor for a day to “try it out.”

Today, Dion Hinchcliffe compiled a list of Web OS trends. His first one is perhaps the most important:

Innovation is one of the easiest and least risky areas that can be tapped by most organizations.

Michael and Dion's quotations complement each other beautifully, and can be restated as:

Enterprise social software isn’t one application. It’s the realization that innovation has become the easiest and least risky way to solve problems within an organization.

Perhaps most important here is the word "enterprise." I submit that the term has fundamentally shifted from a consolidated model to a distributed one. The enterprise is no longer a central node with dependent groups hanging off of it. Rather, it has evolved into a network with greater nodal autonomy, faster communication, and improved decision making power.

This nodal structure was there all along. We see it in the human circulatory system, we see it in the layout of ant colonies, we see it in flora and fauna.

The hierarchic enterprise is the curtain. We have been fooled into believing that there is, or even should be, one central corporate OZ qualified to make all decisions. Over time, centralization has created costly information and decision making bottlenecks. Does this mean hierarchy is dead? Obviously not.

Enterprise 2.0 is not a panacea, it is a tool to allow corporate structures - congested by unnecessary bottlenecks - become leaner organizations. By redistributing information and decision making, companies limit waste, reduce costs, and are afforded the freedom to innovate. Microenterprises joined as nodes to a larger enterprise have the simultaneous ability to function both independently and as part of a cohesive whole.

What this means for Enterprise 2.0 is not that it becomes the next ERP, but that it becomes a host of spot-applications or, as Michael says, collaborative modes that allow us to realize Dion’s inexpensive and relatively painless innovations.

P.S. I really appreciate Michael’s “collaborative modes” – it re-orients the conversation from one of techno-miracles to one of business process. Not what are we going to use, but what are we going do?

Blogged at Ebeneezer’s Coffee House in Washington DC.

Photo by Tonianne

Changes are afoot at JobAdder

2009-09-13T23:10:08Z

Every 12 months we re-write our products from the ground up.
Every 2 years we re-invent something about our business.
This year we are doing both.

I am delighted to formally announce that at the end of September we are releasing the next generation JobAdder. The next generation is a full recruitment management system (RMS) that allows you to manage your entire recruitment process from within JobAdder.

What does it do?

Some of the key areas of functionality include;

Job orders
Companies and Contacts
Candidate management
Job posting
Candidate communication
Notes
Folders
Comprehensive graphical reporting
Resume parsing
Automated import of job applications
Duplicate record management
Digital desktops
and more

So how is JobAdder's recruitment system different?

It is a pleasure to use.
Is is web based and utilises the latest web technologies to make difficult tasks dead easy.
It is suitable for recruitment agencies AND corporate recruiters.
It is easy to setup and maintain
It is Australian software designed for Australian users
It has the best job posting software in Australia built right in.

A couple of important points

You can still use JobAdder just for job posting. This will not change.
Existing customers who want to continue just using job posting can do so. Nothing will change for you.
The new system will still be called JobAdder. There will just be 2 versions of JobAdder, Job Posting and Recruitment Management.

A few other changes

This blog is being retired. Blogs are yesterday's news so moving forward we will be interacting with our users and friends in a more integrated, communal way. More to come on that.
The public home page will be changing to reflect the new offerings
For everything else it is business as usual.

Arrange a Demo

To arrange a demo please contact Darren Watts by clicking here.

Using social tools with an Agenda

2009-08-20T19:05:00Z

Often these days I come across articles that say "Here's how you use Facebook for Recruiting" or "17 ways of effective job hunting using twitter"

The problem is, if you merely use the tools with an agenda to recruit/job hunt or whatever, then you're headed for disappointment.

That's because these tools are social in nature. And whether you are a marketer, PR person (see post on PR hires must be social media savvy), Recruiter or job seeker, using them badly will not just turn off the very people whose attention you strive to seek, but might also backfire on you.

Remember, as Chris Brogan keeps saying on these sites "it's all about them, not you"

So if you want to use the tools for social recruiting, or job hunting, here are some basics:

On twitter, focus on conversations when you are starting out. If you are interested in a job in the paint industry - connect with other folks from the paint industry (using the @ sign), tweet interesting links about paints and grow a community that you can help. Give help without expecting any. That's the way it works.
Blog about your passion. In this case- paints. Hunt for other painting blogs, link to them. Grow a community again. That's always the way to go about it.
I really don't advocate using Facebook to hunt for jobs, but some people might. Use facebook notes to pull your blog posts - and that way you can get your non-blogging, non-tweeting folks to read your thoughts. Here's how you post your blog posts to Facebook.

Notice that I didn't ever say "approach x person for a job". That won't work in these environments.

You have to sow and invest time and energy, before you reap. That's why when you read articles of examples of people who got a job "using social media" it's usually not true

They were on social media to connect, share and network. Recruiting just happened by the way.