Bas de Baar's shared items in Google Reader

There’s an I in Twitter and a ME in Social Media

2010-03-10T12:07:55Z

As we’ve learned time and time again, there is no “I” in team. Instead of focusing exclusively on “what’s in it for me,” we’re encouraged to contribute to the greater collective of groups in order to accomplish wonderful things – those usually unattainable by any one person.

Of course, this headline is a play on those words, but it also opens the door to an interesting conversation – one that explores a global network of connections weaved from both relations and relationships and bound through action and reaction.

I recently asked aloud who’s the me in social media as a way of escalating the discussion around the importance of what we do and say online and also what we don’t do or say and how these seemingly innocuous deeds contribute to the establishment of our Web identity.

Indeed, we cast digital shadows…

However, with all we know about social media, we are ambivalent to its possibilities and its perils. Instead, we are seduced by the capacity to channel our inner-celebrity and as such, we’re intoxicated by the responses and relationships we earn by willfully sharing in public what was once deemed and coveted as private. The allure of becoming Internet Famous is not necessarily the aspiration of those who engage in social networks, but it is something that manifests either intentionally or unintentionally, almost becoming our certification for tweeting, commenting, posting, and sharing.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating observations that I’ve documented and something that continues to receive a significant focus of my attention, is the idea that through social media, we are creating a global society of digital extroverts, rich with individuals who are gaining confidence online and ultimately offline, by saying and sharing the very things that they might not have otherwise voiced in real life.

It’s almost a form of healthy self expression, combined with validation and a touch of self-actualization…

I Tweet, therefore I am…

I pay attention to the work of Dan Zarrella, a friend of mine who is also a social scientist of sorts. Most recently, I analyzed and shared his work in which he dissected the behavior and defining characteristics of retweets.

His most recent study examines how social behavior affects relationships on Twitter and certain activities contribute to the state of those who follow us.

Even though an “I” is absent from team, a “me” readily apparent. I believe that as social media evolves and matures, we need to focus less on the “me” in social media and more on the “we” in the social Web.

Now we have the data to prove it…

Zarrella drew a parallel connection between social language and followers. Using inclusive words such as “you” and “we” usually ties to a greater number of followers.

Ultimately, it’s how we value and in turn, continually invest in relationships that define who we are in the long term. The net result is that accounts with a greater number of followers tended to use social language more frequently than those who focus on the “I” in Twitter.

Concurrently, Zarrella also surveyed the relationship between narcissism and connections.

Those who tend to talk about themselves also possess a propensity to repel legions of prospective followers.

Emotions also play a role in how individuals form and cultivate relationships. Zarrella documented that people who share updates that are rooted in negative sentiment, such as sadness, aggression, derogatory commentary, etc., will find it difficult to increase their audience and their connections.

Sometimes we need to realize that inner monologue is a gift worth embracing…

We each possess an inherent and unique ability to make decisions governed by a moral compass. These decisions are now challenged by real-time architectures that entice us to say what we think, before we think it through. What we publish online says more about us than we know or we may realize. In an era where common sense may prove uncommon, an updated form of social psychology is necessary to learn and consequently teach netizens how to create their own destiny, centered by a relevant and meaningful social compass.

In a recent discussion with Dr. Drew Pinksey, he advocated a deep understanding of the importance of relationships in the real world in order to foster and cultivate meaningful connections online.

As much of this is so new, we are literally learning as we go. We share what moves us with an audience of people we know, those we wish to know, and those who desire to know us. Part of acting of course, is reacting, and it’s through those reactions that we learn the rules of engagement as well as the content and activities that engender reactions.

In many ways, the “me” in social media contributes to a stage of participation that at first blush, resembles an ecosystem of vanity, or something that I refer to as the egosystem. But it is this egosystem that has empowered each one of us to construct something truly significant.

The true latency of social media lies in our ability to continually connect meaning and relevance over time. After all, we are all in this together. The ability to publish information nowadays is not our true opportunity to gain prominence. Recognition and reciprocity are among the strongest forms of currency in the social Web and as such, we are measured by our actions and our words.

Never forget to pay it forward, it’s how you got here and it defines where you’re going.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook
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Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism:

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

The Wordperfect Axiom

2010-03-10T10:35:00Z

When the platform changes, the leaders change.

Wordperfect had a virtual monopoly on word processing in big firms that used DOS. Then Windows arrived and the folks at Wordperfect didn't feel the need to hurry in porting themselves to the new platform. They had achieved lock-in after all, and why support Microsoft?

In less than a year, they were toast.

When the game machine platform of choice switches from Sony to xBox to Nintendo, etc., the list of bestelling games change and new companies become dominant.

When the platform for music shifted from record stores to iTunes, the power shifted too, and many labels were crushed.

Again and again the same rules apply. In fact, they always do. When the platform changes, the deck gets shuffled.

Think this only applies to software?

The platform for healthcare changed from independent doctor's offices and small practices to hospitals and hmos.

The platform for TV changed from airwaves to wires (so HBO and ESPN win, NBC loses).

The platform for cars is changing from gas engines to alternatives.

And the platform for books is changing (fast!) to e-books and readers. Just published today: the Vook multimedia production of Unleashing the Ideavirus. The price will increase to $5 in two weeks, but right now it's 99 cents. It runs on the web and on your iphone [try this link too] (and the iPad on April 3rd.)

Here's the thing: Vook abridged it, built it, filmed it and distributed it in less than ninety days. They have a software application that they can use again and again for other titles. They've organized themselves to be profitable at a profit margin that few big book publishers can match.

Once again, the platform changes. Insiders become outsiders and new opportunities abound.

Org Purgatory Defined: Being a GenX Leader with a 2.0 Millennial Mind

2010-03-10T06:16:46Z

Recently, via pretty much any social network and email system I belong to, the ‘How Millennial Are You’ quiz was making the rounds.

For disclosure purposes, I scored 82/100.

I am currently 38 years young and for most of my existence on Earth, I have lead pretty much anything I have come into contact with including but not limited to school presidencies, athletic captainships, corporate world roles and community endeavours. Not boasting, just providing some colour for you the reader about this humble ENTJ blog scribe.

My natural leadership DNA tendency is to include, involve, engage and be mindful of the human element … at all costs. Without the team, nothing gets accomplished. There’s an unattached adage I live by, which is “we’re not here to see through each other, we’re here to see each other through”.

This brings me to the aforementioned title point of purgatory.

Although potentially frivolous and certainly not scientific, the quiz mentioned above demonstrated to me that many leaders (regardless of generational classification) have 2.0 tendencies that Millennials also employ, but there are many individuals working in organizations locked into a 1.0 framework. Not bad, per se, merely an observation.

Don Tapscott (1998) describes Millennials using defined themes: (1) independence, (2) openness, (3) inclusion, (4) strong viewpoints and free expression, (5) innovation, (6) early maturation, (7) investigative, (8) immediacy, (9) consumer savvy, and (10) authenticity. Skiba & Barton (2006) augmented the definition to contain attributes such as interactivity, connectivity, and collaboration.

Forthrightly, I’m all of that.

As organizations wrestle with the latest 2.0 technologies, we not only need to stop, drop and roll, we need to think through how these defined themes not only affect Millennials, but how they affect leaders/employees of the organization who have demonstrated these traits for years. It’s not just a Millennial thing. It’s an everybody thing.

Secondly, the defined themes and traits of a Millennial, to me, are merely the definition of the new 2.0 organization itself. Call it Work 2.0, Future of Work, Future of Management, Culture of Collaboration … I don’t care … it’s the evolution of the workplace, and it’s happening right now … across the entire globe.

Millennial, GenX, Boomers, Silent Generation, etc. are simply labels and we are retrofitting those labels into the culture of an organization. The culture of your organization is the single most important aspect to focus on if you want increased revenue, profits, customer satisfaction, etc. The identity of your organizations rests on finding ways in which to bring the Tapscott, Skiba and Barton themes to life, regardless of generational vernacular.

Once this is accepted, adopted and implemented, only then will the 2.0 technologies make sense for the organization.

I am a GenX leader with a Millennial frame of mind; I’m a blue ribbon personality who wants to ensure the entire team is treated equally and fairly. I want to ensure the team is continuously being engaged to explore options, ideas and opportunities before decision making or execution is underway. I use the latest (and sometimes greatest) 2.0 technologies to foster a collaborative work environment. This is fast becoming the new ‘norm’ from a bottoms-up perspective, but it’s incumbent upon ‘the organization’ to sort out how the technologies can assist the culture, which in turn assists the people inside of the organization to feel engaged and a part of the answer.

In conclusion, what is organizational purgatory?

Organizational purgatory slaps the Millennial label solely on Millennials. Taking the characteristics of a Millennial and attaching them to the cultural fabric of tomorrow’s organization is as 2.0 as it can get.

The biggest triumph is getting out of bed

2010-03-09T17:46:02Z

Psychology Today did an interview with me. It was about my most triumphant moments in my life, and how I overcame obstacles to get there. I knew immediately that the interview was going to be a disaster, so I told them I wanted to do the interview written, rather than on the phone.

Then I didn’t write the interview for a week.

Then I complained about the questions: I don’t really believe in triumph. Because the most triumphant moments are the days when I have no idea how I'm going to fix anything, but I get out of bed anyway. On the other hand, the moments of huge achievement are not actually that hard to get to. By the time you're close, you are so motivated to get there that it doesn't feel like work at all.

So I wrote that. And then I felt bad. So I tried to give an example. People like examples. And I like Psychology Today. And I didn’t want to disappoint them.

So I wrote that the moment when I was a freelance writer and a new mom and had post-partum depression but I knew I had to keep working so I had to get out of bed and write. Maybe there were fifty moments like that. Or five hundred. But those are the moments of triumph. The thing is, I think it was probably messed up that I kept working and did not check myself into a hospital. And then I started thinking that all my moments of triumph came at the heels of me having done something totally terrible.

Like, let me tell you right now that before I could play volleyball professionally, I was literally starving. So I stole bagels at the bagel shop. I have had about ten editors take that out of my writing. Out of my Business 2.0 column, out of my book, and my editor will tell me now that this is not good to put in a post. Stealing is bad, right? But my point is that it’s very hard to do some extraordinary triumph without taking some extraordinary risk or making an odd judgment that other people would not make. That’s why the triumph is extraordinary.

Another thing about the bullshit of big triumphs: Our big moments — where we can change the world — come because so many other people have helped us, and luck has come to us. But our small moments, when no one is watching and no one cares and the only thing that makes us try again is an unreasonable belief that we can get what we want for ourselves — those are the triumphs that we do all by ourselves.

When I have been on the cusp of huge success, there have always been people to help me. For example, my agent stayed with me when I was out of money but about to get a six-figure book deal.

But there was no one helping me get out of bed the day I knew I had to start writing my book proposal even though the odds of getting a big book deal from it were terrible. The daily task of believing things will improve when then things look bad. We do that on our own, and each time I do it I am thankful, in a deep, spiritual way. I'm not sure what keeps me going when everything looks terrible, but I know that each time I do it, it's a triumph. And it happens a lot.

Another thing. Everyone, please shut up about your biggest failures. I hate when people write about their failures because they always write about how they pulled themselves up, or what they learned. And really, then, it's not a failure, is it? It's a learning opportunity, or a chance to shine. Failure is something you did not overcome. You did not learn from. And most people are too embarrassed to write about it. High achievers don't have failures because they can learn from everything.

There is no finish line, there is no gold prize. There is only living with yourself, day after day. So each day needs to be a small triumph so you can pat yourself on the back before you go to sleep. I try to do that. Today's triumph is doing this interview with Psychology Today. Sure, I couldn’t quite do it, and I had to be quirky and weird, and it probably cost me getting into the article. But at least I wrote something.

Comment on: The biggest triumph is getting out of bed

Orlando Scrum Gathering Kicks Off With A Bang #sgus

2010-03-09T17:15:51Z

This week marks the annual North American Scrum Gathering in Orlando. This year’s event promises to be very dynamic, with a track dedicated to project management as well as several Pecha Kucha talks.

Day Zero
But before the festivities even began, Mike Vizdos and Jean Tabaka convened a pre-gathering retreat for Certified Scrum Trainers/Coaches. Thirty or so of Scrum’s thought leaders spent a full day trading tips and techniques for helping people learn and do Agile Project Management with Scrum.

There was much discussion around the correlation between coaching and training. The consensus that, regardless of which certification you hold, you need to do both coaching and training for any successful Agile change initiative.

Day 1 Kickoff
Then yesterday came the big kickoff. Scrum Alliance President, Tom Mellor, welcomed 300 attendees. Like last year, he asked for a show of hands for who was a PMI member / PMP, and a solid 40%-50% responded. He also announced the Scrum Alliance board will feature member-elected slots starting in the second quarter of this year. Then Luke Hohmann briefed everyone on the process the Scrum Alliance used to prioritize the backlog of member needs and requests. The results are yet to be finalized, but it was encouraging to see the Scrum Alliance share how intentional it is being with developing its strategic plan. After these introductions, Jeff Sutherland and Kent Johnson took the stage to talk about Scrum + CMMI. And offered some juicy quotes and tidbits:

Regarding role of managers in large scrum: learn to let go of control, motivate improvement, and lead.
Some companies are using scrum to manage their cmmi level 3 efforts…with great results
Root cause analysis of failures. Is a key source for Scrummaster’s impediment list
common benefit of cmmi is rework. Systematic, a CMMI Level 5 agile company moved from 50% of efforts reworked to 6%
scrum maps closely to cmmi level 3 when used with agile engineering
50% of Scrum teams do not have working software at the end of
“pure scrum” doesn’t make sense and is useless.
20% improvement with scrum is a waste of time you shoul be striving for 10x improvement
Self-organization does NOT mean you get to do what you want
Don’t misread the agile manifesto to say process has NO value

Day 1 Deep Dive
After the intro sessions, there were several day-long deep-dive sessions to choose from:

Dialogue Room & Scrum Clinic hosted by Michael de la Maza and Gerry Kirk
Project management, How to: Specify Critical Product Quality Requirements - Tom Gilb and Kai Gilb
Software Craftsmanship Workshop – Micah Martin
Artful Making Workshop – Lee Devin
Coaching the Coaches - Lyssa Adkins
The Kanban Exploration – Karl Scotland
Coaching Self-Organized Teams - Joseph Pelrine
Improv: The Mechanics of Collaboration - Matt Smith
Innovation Games® for Scrum Teams - Luke Hohmann

I chose Innovation Games, and was floored. After only a couple hours, I knew that I would simply have to attend the full 2-day class to get all the golden goodness Luke had to offer.

Innovation Games are facilitation techniques for collecting, organizing, and prioritizing requirements. I continue to be amazed at how little project managers (i.e. people like me) are trained in real product management. I used to think “requirements management” was about enforcing scope with change requests, but now there’s a whole new world I’ve been exposed to. For example, here’s a question every PM should be able to answer: how do you know your requirements are even correct? Yeah, it stumped me too.

It was a fantastic first day, with only more exciting stuff to come tomorrow.

The Lines Continue To Blur (At Breakneck Speed)

2010-03-09T02:27:15Z

Some still look sideways when thinking about mobile. Some are just kidding themselves. Our world is changing faster and faster.

The writing is on the wall. Marketing Charts had a fascinating news item today entitled, Mobile Facebook, Twitter Growth Explodes, which stated:

"In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser, up 112% from 11.8 million mobile users in January 2009. While only 4.7 million mobile users accessed Twitter from their mobile browser in January 2010, this represented 347% growth from 1.05 million mobile users in January 2009."

It's easy to say the shift is subtle (especially when you look at the amount of people who own a BlackBerry, iPhone or Nexus One compared to those who are simply "online"), but it's happening fast, and it's not just about having a mobile version of your website (more on that here: The End Of Big Website Builds). What's happening is that consumers aren't thinking about your online website and your mobile website, they're simply looking to access content and platforms wherever they are and however they want to.

It's not about the kids (at all).

"Despite the stereotype of teens spending every waking moment on a mobile device, Nielsen data suggests their parents actually spend more time performing mobile web surfing. Only 7% of mobile social networking activity was represented by 13-to-17-year-olds and only 16% by 18-to-24-year-olds in December 2009. The leaders in mobile social networking activity are 35-to-54-year-olds, who accounted for 36% of mobile social network usage in December 2009. Close behind them were 25-to-34-year-olds, who performed 34% of the month's mobile social networking activity. Users ages 55 and up combined for the remaining 7%."

What do you think these numbers are going to look like in 12 months time? What about 24 months?

Are you (and your business) ready for this?

Tags: blackberry content facebook google phone iphone marketing charts mobile browser mobile social networking mobile website nexus one nielsen obile online online social network platform twitter website

The End Of Big Website Builds

2010-03-07T01:49:22Z

If you thought fragmentation was changing the way a brand buys media, just wait until you see what it's going to do to the Digital Marketing space.

Are the days of big websites and long website builds numbered? It could well be. If you think about how people find and connect to most brands, it's not just through a search engine anymore. In fact, more and more people are having their first brand interaction on their mobile device. There are many people who are also connecting to brands for the first time in spaces like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Does this mean that the website is going the way of the dodo bird?

Not exactly, but it does mean that the overall Digital Marketing strategy is going to change dramatically in the next little while. Instead of one, big and centralized website with many digital marketing outposts in the appropriate platforms, it is more than likely that we're going to see more and more brands create multiple spaces and platforms to ensure that they're connecting with the right people in the right communities.

Imagine a world...

Where a Digital Marketing strategy focuses less on one big website and more on creating engaging "things" like iPhone apps, a mobile website, a Facebook page along with a Blog (or whatever), and it's all supported with a simple website that acts more like a hub for all of the other spokes. Yes, there are some (only a few) brands already playing with creating Facebook pages in lieu of micro-sites for promotions and experiential marketing initiatives, but it has not become a commonplace activity where you find a brand doing multiple things in multiple channels and focusing less on driving consumers to their marketing-riddled jargony websites.

It becomes a more complex Digital Marketing play.

The "game" used to be about always driving people back to your own, controlled, website, and the truth is that the more vibrant community for a brand may be happening more through a mobile app or online social network platform... or something else or something in addition to it. Does this mean we need to trim websites back to WordPress Blog-shaped platforms or micro-site sizes? Not really, but it does mean that if a brand's vibrant community is happening in a place like Facebook, they won't have much control or ownership over the content, but they might be able to do things (in terms of connecting and growing that community) that they could not scale to with a big, towering website of their own.

This is just further proof that the conversations are everywhere (and maybe not where we always want them to be).

Tags: blog brand branding conversation digital marketing digital marketing strategy dodo bird experiential marketing facebook facebook page iphone app media micro-site microsite mobile device mobile website online community online social network promotion search engine twitter website website build. media fragmentation wordpress youtube

The Last Notebook And Journal

2010-03-06T01:43:11Z

There are moments in time that should make you stand back in awe and marvel at technology. This is one of those moments.

Engadget posted this today: Microsoft's Courier 'digital journal': exclusive pictures and details (update: video!). No, it's not an iPad, but it is one amazing looking device. So, what is this new device from Microsoft? "Courier will function as a 'digital journal,' and it's designed to be seriously portable: it's under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn't much bigger than a 5x7 photo when closed. That's a lot smaller than we expected," reads the Engadget Blog post.

But, you have to watch these two videos demos:

Bye bye Moleskin.

Tags: blog digital journal engadget ipad journal microsoft microsoft courier moleskin notebook online video tablet technology

The One Thing About Building A Community

2010-03-03T14:25:09Z

Have you ever wondered why there is such a struggle to build a sense community around the Digital Marketing initiatives you are developing?

It goes well beyond the famous movie line, "build it and they will come" from Field of Dreams. There is one, critical, piece of the puzzle that most Marketers and self-proclaimed "Community Managers" forget: it's not about what's happening on your space as much as it is about what you're doing on the communities that serve your industry and space.

You will have no semblance of community unless you are an active community member in the other spaces.

If I had to do this all over again and start from scratch right now, what would I do? Without question, I would start a Blog and fill it with relevant and valuable content for the community, but I would spend ten times as much time adding value to the five or ten existing communities where my potential members might be hanging out, reading and connecting. It's not a ploy and it's not a trick, I would do this because I am interested and want to engage with the other community members. I would also be hopeful that those community members would be appreciative of my contributions and take a chance on checking out what I'm up to on my own space.

Give more than you get.

Some people hear that and think it's about giving more on their own space (Blogging more or tweeting more). Big mistake. The "win" (if you can even call it that) is to give away more on the existing/other communities and spaces. To be valuable and relevant there. It does seem so counterintuitive at first blush. The idea is to populate and add value to someone's else's platform and community? Yes. Hugh McGuire (from Librivox, Bite-Sized Edits and a co-host on the Media Hacks) said it beautifully and succinctly: "don't Blog to be known... Blog to be knowable." It's subtle... and it's true.

The community decides when it's a community... you don't.

When you are an active member of an existing community, they will, if everything goes well, become proud participants and members of your community. They don't owe it to you, and just because you created a platform doesn't give you explicit rights to any community. As mentioned here, there and everywhere, community is something that is earned after time and value. Community is not something that happens when you need it, it's something that you build over time that is suddenly there for you, when you need it.

If you want to build a community - be an active community member everywhere else first... and mean it.

Tags: bite-sized edits blog blogging community community building community manager community member contribution digital marketing field of dreams hugh mcguire librivox marketer marketing media hacks publishing reading tweeting twitter

Social Capital: The Currency of the Social Economy

2010-03-03T12:34:36Z

The convention for creating financial opportunities is evolving and changing the way we seed prospects, promote our expertise and prowess, and connect with those who can help us learn and advance through the facilitation of strategic and mutually beneficial alliances.

Digital capitalization is laying a foundation for expanding the need to cultivate and participate, not only in the real world, but also in the online networks and communities that can benefit us personally and professionally.

In an era of democratized publishing and equalized influence, it can be said that engagement and participation are a new, powerful and effective form of “un” marketing. At the very least, this is an epoch of empathy.

Social capital is a strong ally, an elite catalyst for lucrative relationships, and now a metric for qualification, consideration and ultimately success (however you define it). This is a state of human economics that is thoroughly discussed in Tara Hunt’s book, The Whuffie Factor. Our “Whuffie” or social capital and intellectual assets are defined by both online and real world conduct and its “balance sheet” is available for anyone with a web browser to review, assess, and analyze.

Reputation, trust, and relationships, are each earned at varying levels, through our action and words. Our interaction reinforces impressions and engenders experiences. As such, our personal and professional brands are essentially reflections of our contributions. In the end, we get out of it, what we invest in it.

By participating in relevant online communities and publishing content that promotes our expertise as it empathizes with those seeking information and direction in a way that literally speaks to them, we begin the process of building and shaping our online reputation, brand, and persona that traverses virtual, augmented, and actual realities. The ideas and wisdom we share and the relationships we forge only fuel its proliferation and stature.

Like any form of capital, Social capital rises and falls with the market and the individual to which it’s governed by the state of the industry and affected by the state of corresponding affairs. As it escalates, however, it unlocks opportunities that are commensurate with the community’s assessment of its value. In the same regard, the community will not support or reward lackluster, opportunistic, also-ran, or hollow engagement in the long term.

Again, social capital is measured by individual value and collective perception.

The Human Algorithm

But trust and reputation are only as valuable as their ability to represent you in your absence. And as in anything online, perception and presence are the focus of proactive programs that enhance the discovery process and steer recognition and stature in your favor.

As search plays an increasingly important role in the investigation process of surfacing qualified candidates and social objects around relevant topics, we quickly become brand managers for our intellectual and personal assets. Our livelihood now pivots on our ability to connect dots between who were are, what we stand for, and the value we offer.

You will be Googled.

You will also be Twittered, Flickrd, YouTubed, Facebooked, and LinkedIn’ed.

While Google is the standard by which all search is measured, those active in defining their presence in traditional search will do so through organic as well as through optimized techniques such as SEO. However, as search becomes social, the role of queries disseminates beyond Google with content sought and channeled directly within Social Networks as well as new breeds of real-time search platforms. As such, prominence is then ascertained by the digital shadows we cast across the traditional and social Web (yes, there is a difference) and also through our investment in driving strategic visibility. Essentially, our brand as defined by our views, opinions, thoughts, observations, and actions, becomes a social object that requires dynamic cultivation and placement.

The Human Algorithm becomes our lifeline to regulated exposure while also providing a foundation for constructing and enhancing our presence directly within the channels where prospects are seeking information.

Social Customer Hierarchy

As social media becomes ubiquitous, businesses will no longer possess the means to effectively scale and sustain participation across all conversations on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other online communities. Whether you agree with this or not, brands will face the need to prioritize who they engage based on what I refer to as the Social Customer Hierarchy. The level of influence and authority a customer or prospect holds determines their placement in the chain of preeminence.

Yes, we earn prominence and amass social capital through productive contributions to online societies. In the process, we increase our stature and amplify our voices and it will escalate consumer matters when other traditional means are exhausted. Brandishing this distinction however, erodes value, and over time, ranking and credibility are diminished.

Our online reputation and the activity that contribute to its definition are investments in our social capital. The return on these investments is evident in the opportunities and relationships that ensue and proliferate. Our social graph, the connections we forge and actively nurture, represents a very public testimony. If you’re not actively investing in its significance, you may actually take away from its net worth.

Connect with Brian Solis: Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook

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Please consider buying my brand new book, Engage!

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Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism:

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

On project management blogging

2010-03-02T19:00:00Z

When I started this blog there were only a couple of dozen project blogs around. Now it seems like I discover a couple of dozen a day!

And many of us are talking around the same themes and ideas. For example, many of us rail against bureaucracy or bloated control processes at the expense of the team’s motivation, enthusiasm and desire to get things done.

Frankly, I have to question myself about the value of this blog today. Am I still contributing, or is this space just another part of the internets noise?

Way back when this blog was in it’s infancy I decided to focus on the role of the business analyst rather than on project management, to provide it some sort of differentiation from the project blogs that were already out there. But today there are plenty of outstanding BA blogs.

And my focus has broadened beyond my initial focus into scrum and technical pm practices, mainly because these are the things I am working on and thinking about as I go.

So, what’s in it for me these days?

I don’t seek to monetise this blog (although I have added some affiliate links) and I haven’t tried to leverage my online reputation in my day job.

On the other hand I do get to engage in some interesting discussions with my peers around the world, which I don’t get to do with my peers in the building. And by engaging in a professional community I get to learn.

I also force myself to articulate ideas in relatively clear language, which for me is important. I haven’t yet tackled the really important discussion – which is about dialogue with sponsors and stakeholders. Sometimes I think the project blogging community is all about project teams talking to themselves in a closed environment. That’s not really what we are about.

Sometimes I also think that the PM and BA blogs are operating in two different worlds. One a couple of occasions I have asked questions in PM and BA forums what the readers think about the other role, but usually just get a generic answer that, at least to me, says the answers aren’t really thinking about the potential conflict and collaboration embedded in the partnership.

Monster-Watching: Some notes.

2010-03-02T06:10:45Z

So I spend a lot of time with my monsters.

Sometimes I have negotiators or moderators. Sometimes my monsters get cookies. Sometimes they don’t (not all monsters like cookies).

And it seemed appropriate to give some more information about the what, why and how of monsters, in case you want to talk to some of yours.

So. What is a monster?

A stuckness. A block. A wall.

Internal criticism. Old stuckified beliefs about what is true (like the outsider complex).

Anything you think to yourself (or about yourself) that hurts.

But why monsters? I don’t want monsters!

You don’t have to have monsters, sweetie. Of course not!

Jen talks about the Inner Critic. Hiro talks about pictures. Char calls them voices. Voices. Stories. Narrative.

Jo calls them Gremlins. One of my Kitchen Table mice has a flock of birds — the Flock of Stuck. Fi has her goblin (Mike). And, of course, Jung knew about the shadow.

These all work. Substitute whatever you like when I say “monster” — it’s okay by me.

The reason I go with monsters is this: as metaphors go, this one has all kinds of hugely powerful elements. Enough to make Metaphor Mouse proud. Because the monster metaphor is all about transformation.

Here’s what pretty much always happens.

When you’re working on a stuck or sitting with a hurt or working through the layers, you eventually discover that your stuck just wants to protect you.

Your monster means well. It’s just going about it all wrong

Your monster is small and vulnerable and fuzzy. And it just wants to know that you’ll be okay. And that’s why it makes itself so big and fierce — to scare you into letting it take care of you.

And once it knows that you know, it can turn into something else.

When we actually interact with our monsters (and recognize their intentions, while still letting them know that it is not okay to keep freaking us out like that), they change shape.

From big, bad wolves and scary, menacing shadow creatures … into pocket-sized playthings with enormous googly eyes.

From that sense of dread because ohmygod something horrible is Right Behind You … into Sulley from Monsters, Inc.*

* Best tagline ever: “We Scare Because We Care”.

From Max’s initial impression of the Wild Things roaring their terrible roars and gnashing their terrible teeth … to his realization that they can’t hurt him.

They’re just fuzzmuffin furball playmates, as vulnerable to loneliness and hurt as he is.

Talking your monsters is all about witnessing this transformation.

And really, being the one who initiates that transformation by showing up and being genuinely curious about the monster and your relationship with it.

We don’t kill monsters. Or hunt them. Or scare them.

We talk to them.

We let them know what we need to feel safe and supported and loved.

We find out what they need. Where their safety is.

We are curious about them. We are curious about ourselves.

I don’t mean to imply that they’re not scary. Because they are.

It’s super important to acknowledge the scariness of the scary (because encountering a monster really is terrifying).

And that has to happen before we can recognize whatever good intentions or old, out-of-date defense mechanisms might be behind the scary.

Eventually you might realize that whoah, your monster is a total sweetiepie fuzzball. Or that might never happen. Either way, we start with noticing how uncomfortable it is to be frightened.

That’s the starting point. Permission to be scared. And to ask for help. And to have other people stand up for you to negotiate and document the experience.

Would you like to meet some of my monsters?

Obviously you’ve already met my fear and my hurt and my anxious and my stuck.

But some of the physical representations of monsters who live in my house.

This is Diki.

Rawr.

He is a very menacing dragon.

And on the right he’s dressed as a pirate duck. Along with Selma who’s dressed as a pirate dragon. For Purim.

(Thanks, Elizabeth the Bee for surprising us with hand-made costumes! You rock!)

Schmooasaurus is below left. He is a super-schmoo.

That’s Miflatzon at bottom right. Pictured here with his girlfriend Sophie, who is French (and not a monster at all).

He is my little Monsterchen!

Please note him rocking the sovereignty crown, which was a present from Deborah.

It’s not that all monsters are as cute as these guys.

Certainly most of mine aren’t. *shudders*

When we’re in the scary, we’re really in it.

And so I don’t in any way mean to imply that the fear isn’t legitimate or that our perception of how mean they are is wrong.

Of course not.

Just that the more we actively learn about our monsters, the easier it is to recognize their hidden motivations. And their extreme fuzziness.

I keep the monsters I already know around so that I can remember how something that used to terrify me is now familiar.

So that I can remember how I used to believe my monsters when they said I wasn’t a writer. Or when they told me I would fail miserably.

I can remember how useful it was to discover that they were just trying to keep me from getting hurt. And what happened when I stopped being impressed by them.

Some of them went away. Or morphed into other things. And some of them became schnoogly friends who sit at my side while I write to you.

You do not have to like your monsters.

You do not have to become friends with your monsters.

You don’t have to be grateful for them or appreciate them or anything. Blech. Not required!

There are no shoulds in monster-watching.

You get to have negotiators and protectors. You get to have support and love. You get to have hand-holding when you want hand-holding and to be left alone when you want to be left alone.

The point of the watching isn’t to scare you. Or them.

The point of the watching is to find out what happens when you bring attention to your world and your experiences.

And maybe to be surprised.

Comment zen.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.

We try to be patient while interacting with our stuff. We don’t throw shoes or give advice. And, of course, we give everyone’s monsters or non-monsters lots of room to be what they are.

*blows kisses at Commenter Mice and all the Beloved Lurkers*

If this kinda seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

5 Ways to make telecommuting better

2010-02-28T00:42:52Z

I have this idea that I am going to start working from home. I tried to go into the office. But the only alone time I have in my day is the time I’m not with the kids, and if I spend my alone time with other people, then I don’t have alone time and I start to panic, and I do things like tell the guy in the cube next to me that he can’t talk to me.

1. Get a spot where you can concentrate.
So I tried working from home, but then I started feeling like I am the most alone person in the world. So I thought I’d change it up a little; I’d work from home, but the farmer’s home.

I call him to tell him I’m coming to his house early.

“How early?” he asks.

“Now.”

“Don’t you have to work today?”

“I’m not going to the office any more. I don’t want to talk to people.”

There is a beat of silence, and I think the farmer is going to say something. Or maybe the silence is long enough that he is thinking I am going to talk. He has asked me to not talk over him, but I have a hard time telling if it is his turn to talk or mine. I start to panic because the rhythm of conversation is getting irregular, so I say, “Okay. Bye.” And I hang up before he can say anything else. I note to myself that this is the fourth conversation in a row that I did not talk over him.

I stop at the gas station by his house. I have enough gas to get to his house, but not enough gas to get lost and get to his house, which shouldn’t happen, but if it did, it would be bad because I still do not have a winter coat. I am not sure why I don’t have a winter coat. I think it is because it’s so cold that I can’t stand being outside for more than five or ten seconds. So if I’m only going to be outside for a few seconds then I don’t need a coat. The farmer keeps telling me how dangerous it is to travel without a winter coat. I show him I’m paying attention to the dangers of the cold by being sure to not run out of gas on a remote country road.

2. Have close proximity to a coffee source.
I get to his house. I put my stuff down in the kitchen and I make coffee.

The farmer comes in. He kisses me hello. Then he wipes up where I spilled water by the coffee maker. At one point, we had an argument about his wiping up around me all the time.

“I never wipe the table at dinner where you spill,” I said.

“What?” he said. “Are you kidding? I never spill.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t. You spill almost every time you do anything in the kitchen. That is not normal.”

“I spill more than other people?”

“Yes. Adults don’t spill.”

Once he told me this, I noticed that I actually spill something every meal. Sometimes two or three times. I never noticed that other people don’t do it until the farmer told me. So now, him wiping up the water on the counter feels intimate: he knows me so well.

3. Have good food, fast Internet, and a sofa for avoiding both.
He tells me that he is in the middle of moving pigs, and he’ll come back to the house for lunch.

I want to ask him if he's working on getting an Internet connection because if I'm going to work from home from his home, I need Internet. But he always feels like I’m pushing, and then he pushes back. So I decide to ask him while he’s eating lunch. He is easier to talk to if he’s walking or eating and it’s too cold to walk outside.

I lie on the farmer’s sofa and think. The fields are white and rolling, with bits of old corn stalks poking out. The cattle are far off, almost at the horizon: brown dots moving slowly to yellow dots of hay. I stare out the window long enough that the farmer drives by on the tractor. Stops at the barn. Pets the donkey. Comes in for lunch.

Since this is an impromptu visit, there is no food to eat except beef. That’s all he keeps in his house. Well, beef and Frosted Flakes and Dora the Explorer cookies, from the last time that I came here with my kids.

He cooks hamburgers for us.

He tells me he did not notch the pigs' ears in the last litter because he was so distracted dealing with me. He tells me he has never had a litter of pigs unnotched. Ever. Unnotched is not his word. It’s mine. I forget the word he uses.

4. Have a notebook for ideas that you save for when you’re with people.
Then he sits down to lunch and I try to not bring up difficult stuff to talk about because I can see that he is already unhinged that the pigs are unnotched.

But after three bites I cannot hold back: “I have a list of things we need to do so I can move into your house.”

He looks at me. Puts his fork down. Takes a deep breath. “Let’s see it.”

“I have to read it to you.”

He looks. It’s in shorthand. Not regular shorthand but the shorthand I invented to take notes at school because the way I got through school was by memorizing every lecture word for word and then regurgitating it to teachers on essay tests.

I find that my shorthand is also good for writing private notes to myself. Now I can have my list out, at the table, but the farmer cannot read it so I can tell him only the amount of things I think he can handle without going nuts over how hard it is for me to move to his house.

I tell him, “Well. The Internet. That’s an easy one.”

He picks up his fork. Takes a bite. “Okay. What else?”

“The heating has to work.”

“Okay. We have to talk about that. About what it means to you to be working.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about that now.”

“First, tell me what else is on the list.”

“Not that much.”

“What do you mean not that much? I see you have crazy writing down the whole page. That looks long.”

He’s right.

I tell him it’s a secret.

He shakes his head and laughs.

I tell myself I have to develop a shorthand sign for manure, because I need him to not put it so close to the house. I think it’s causing a problem with flies. Which I already have a shorthand sign for because I had a history professor who always used the phrase “flies in the face of . . . .”

5. Find balance: Calm/exciting, chatter/quiet, people/no people.
After lunch we sit on the sofa and talk about grazing. He is thinking of grazing pigs with cattle this summer. People don’t usually do it. He is not sure how he wants to manage it. He likes to have interesting projects on the farm. He is curious and likes the quirky edge of farm life. But he is always trying to figure out how to balance his curiosity with his need for stability.

He says, “Okay. I have to go back out now.”

I say, “Five more minutes.”

He says, “You’re having a hard time transitioning to work, aren’t you?”

He says, “Do you want me to lie on top of you?”

I nod yes.

So I lie on the sofa and he puts the cushions on top of me and then lies on top of the cushions, and the pressure from the cushions is like a big squeeze without the social input of feeling a person as well.

The farmer discovered this trick by reading Temple Grandin's technique for working with cattle. It works with me, too.

Then he leaves and starts sorting pigs, and I sit down at the table and start writing.

Comment on: 5 Ways to make telecommuting better

Costumes.

2010-02-25T07:08:34Z

I have been thinking a lot about costumes.

Mostly because of Anna. Anna is wonderful.

You can completely count on her to put together a fabulously crazy outfit. Even when she’s traveling.

If you decide you want to do Ironic Aerobics (which I often do — step touch step touch step touch KICK jazz hands!), Anna will have a better costume than you.

She’s teaching me.

When I was being Metaphor Mouse, and trying to come up with a better way to interact with filing and all the dread and horribleness associated with said files, her contribution was:

What’s your costume?

I didn’t get it.

But then I did.

When you put something on for the duration of a task or a project, you’re setting a boundary. You’re marking time.

You’re designating the space in which something happens. It’s a more conscious interaction with your own capacity.

And you’re symbolically taking on something that symbolizes a specific quality that can serve you in doing what needs to be done.

You’re appropriating an identity (or a part of an identity) that can be put to use for what you’re working on.

What’s your costume?

I tend to think of costumes in terms of identity. In terms of passing. In terms of play.

But I haven’t been thinking about using them specifically to make work better.

Anna has her Working On A Difficult Project Gloves.

Jenny the Bloggess has her confidence wig.

I have my tiara and my pirate hat … and an entire box of playclothes that is going to live at The Playground (see my love-letter for more on that).

Putting things on. Taking things off.

I’ve been having my whole ~~hissy fit~~ growth period (see, I’m totally a grown-up) about being a grown-up.

And now I have to do stupid annoying grown-up shit like meeting with my CPA and my attorney and the other pumpkins and mice in my grown-up Cinderella entourage.

And dammit, I want a costume.

I don’t think I have the confidence to wear an actual Confidence Wig (ooh, another link).

But I am a fan of play.

And of rituals. Of starting and stopping.

And putting something on and taking it off feels like ritual. And also like play.

Like the spirals of deconstruction-and-creation in Shivanauttery.

So I’m looking for an outfit. Or part of an outfit.

Here’s what it needs to do.

Inspire confidence. Make me laugh.

And be different enough from Usual Me to feel like play … but not so different that I can’t walk down the street without causing traffic accidents.

And I’m going to wear this to a meeting with a total grown-up, so it can’t be too outlandish.

It could …

Make me look “like an adult” while simultaneously poking fun at being an adult by virtue of being a costume.
Be invisible. Or symbolic. Like a piece of jewelry.
Be fun.

What do you think?

Also, did I mention that this weekend is Purim?

Purim! I’m going as a pirate. Probably.

And today I will be baking my blog-famous hamentaschen (this post from a year ago might be the funniest thing that I’ve ever written, thanks to Stu, the creep).

You can make them too if you want. Last year a bunch of people did and it was highly entertaining.

Comment zen! And play with me!

You are more than welcome to leave suggestions for costumes for me, and you can also brainstorm ways to bring more costumery into your own life.

Either one works for me. Or something completely different.

What I don’t want:

To be told that this is stupid.

Or that I don’t actually need a costume (um, I know that already) because transformation happens inside of you. Or anything about magic ballet slippers that are actually regular slippers because the oh look the magic is in my heart.

What I would love:

To play with you. To have a drag show. To be as silly or as not silly as this subject demands.

To put on my feather boa and hang out with the commenter mice. And blow extravagant kisses at my Beloved Lurkers.

If this kinda seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

Personal Branding R.I.P.

2010-02-25T00:48:56Z

The concept of Personal Branding has lost it's way. It's becoming less and less personal.

Personal Branding seemed to be something unique and powerful because of the advent of the Internet and the Social Media channels. Suddenly, any one individual could express themselves (in text, images, audio and video) instantly (and free) to the world. The smartest people could now be heard. The shy people could now connect to others who were like them. Those interested in Digital Marketing suddenly had all of this great content being published by their peers that they could add to, connect to and build a community around. We didn't need the permission or acceptance of the mass media channels to get coverage or ink. Suddenly, we could build our own media channels and get the word out about who we are and what we have to say.

Those that were doing it well, were doing it authentically and with true passion.

While there's nothing wrong with having a media channel that allows anyone and everyone to have a publishing platform, the concept of Personal Branding has evolved along with it. Instead of people really digging deep, opening up and living passionately, we're moving ever-closer to the point where most individuals are expressing their Personal Brands in ways that make them look more like sterile and plastic TV news anchors than original thinkers. It's not everyone (there are still many who are using these channels to really highlight and explore their unique personalities), but there is an ever-growing group of those who come off as fake, insincere, and simply out for their own personal gain. In short, they seem and feel like plastic and taste like vanilla.

The good news is that you can ignore them or not follow them.

The bad news is that if everyone treats Social Media like it's mass media, and attempts to be everything to everybody, it's going to come off as fake and inauthentic. Does this mean that we have to forgo social norms to be authentic? Nope (unless that's your thing). Does this mean that we have to be provocative, irreverent and nasty? Nope (unless that's your thing). What is missing (and what is direly needed) is for all us to take a step back and remember the real power here: to express ourselves in an authentic and passionate way (not in a drone-like corporate way).

Loosen it up.

To truly bring personal branding back from the brink of a world where everyone is not being themselves, but rather trying to create a fake persona of the person who they think others want them to be must stop. We have to encourage everybody to be themselves. In the great words of Oscar Wilde, "be you because others are already taken."

Has the concept of Personal Branding lost its way? Has Personal Branding become to close to bad corporate branding? What do you think?

Tags: digital marketing internet mass media media channel online community original thinker oscar wilde personal brand personal branding publishing social media tv news anchor

Science Fair

2010-02-24T12:58:00Z

I'm at my company's annual kickoff this week. One of the things we do that is always interesting is Science Fair. Everyone has the opportunity to build a project, something they think our software can do that currently isn't in the roadmap. There have been some projects from past years that have made their way into the product. It's a good way to take advantage of people's intrinsic motivation.

I just finished the book Drive, by Daniel Pink. The book focuses on motivation. In the book, the author talks about other companies that do something similar. At Google, people get to spend 20% of their time on projects they want to. Many of these have made it to products. Atlasian software has "FedEx Day" where people are given 24 hours to come up with something, so called because people must deliver overnight (Side note - Atlasian's Jira tool came out as one of the top agile tools in VersionOne's 2009 State of Agile Development survey).

People get intrinsic motivation through autonomy, mastery, and purpose according to Daniel Pink. Autonomy is getting to choose what, when, and with whom they work with. In our science fair, people get to work on teams if they chose. Mastery is getting good at what you do, through such things as "Goldilocks tasks" that are hard enough to challenge but not so hard as to seem impossible. The purpose is why the company exists, something that everyone should relate to.

These intrinsic motivators will drive people and organizations much more effectively than the old carrot and stick approach, which we're all used to...if I hit my utilization target, I get a bonus. The carrot and stick can backfire in a number of ways, including stifling creativity. Things like FedEx Days or Science fair, on the other hand, will bring out creativity in a group of knowledge workers, leading to new products or services. So what's your organization doing to promote creativity?

Do Web Portals Have A Future?

2010-02-23T02:01:17Z

Something big happened in the Digital Marketing landscape last week.

In case you missed it, on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010, Compete announced that Facebook surged passed Yahoo! as the number two most popular website in the U.S. That's big news, and most people focused on the numbers (nearly 134 Million Unique Visitors in January 2010, amazing engagement and thoughts about whether or not Facebook can eventually trump Google's position at #1), which is an important part.

But there's something bigger happening here.

It's easy to call this the death of the portal (and it might be), but that comment would be somewhat displaced if you looked at the numbers and how the rest of the Compete list plays out. What is happening is that as more and more people who are connecting online - and are building their profiles in spaces like online social networks - are much more inclined to make those personal pages their homepage.

That is a really big deal.

What people are saying is, "my space is more important than your space." Sure, portals can lay the pages out with edited, aggregated and curated news, but nothing beats the news that is created by friends, followers and those we know. Even Yahoo! has changed the game a little earlier this year with their new campaign that focuses on making your Yahoo! homepage more personal, but it's still not the same thing as ones Facebook profile. This is not a fad, but rather a huge shift in how we first engage and connect when we go online. The new homepage is slowly shifting away from the portal model and into the personal model. This was not possible a few years ago, but as these technologies, platforms and channels continue to evolve, having your homepage be your own, personal river of news from the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Posterous, or whatever is becoming much more commonplace (and what people seem to want as their home destination).

The Web is becoming ever-more real-time.

And as this shift happens beneath our feet (and though our mobile devices), we're able to capture and connect more to real people - who really matter to us. So, the big question becomes: what are these mass media-like portals going to do to compete against people switching their homepages to their own personal profiles? Maybe a better question is: is there anything the portals can offer up that can trump that?

As we connect more and more, we're clearly looking for something more personal and personalized.

Tags: channels compete connecting digital marketing facebook google homepage mass media mobile most popular website online online profile online social network platform portal posterous real-time web river of news technology twitter unique visitors web portal website yahoo

ITC Keynote: The History and Future of Online Facilitation

2010-02-22T17:22:19Z

Wow, they got the video up fast, so I guess there are two Monday videos today! Here is a recording of the keynote I did a little over 90 minutes ago! The presentation wiki has slides and I’ll reflect on the Twitter backchannel experiment (and thank all the Twitterfolk who helped make it happen) later in the week.

Online Facilitation 13 Years On: What We Learned and What Do We Need to Learn?

Scrum Is Dead. Long Live Scrum. [Part 1]

2010-02-19T20:30:11Z

There has never been a shortage of criticism around the Scrum method for agile project management. However there has been a recent spike in the churn and swirl, and it’s time for some perspective. Specifically this:

The old understanding of the Scrum landscape is dead, and a newer more relevant version is rising in its place.

However, with this jarring change, comes a lot of complaints, confusion, and cults.

1. Complaints over Scrum It’s hip to complain about Scrum. All the kids are doing it, and it makes you feel good. A couple years ago, Jim Shore was among the first cool rebels, saying “Rescuing Scrum teams keeps me in business”. His complaints boiled down to Scrum certifications, which give beginners a false sense of competence, leading to disasters that he has to clean up. The criticisms haven’t changed since then. Just a couple weeks ago, agile co-founder Bob Martin posted his thesis on the shortcomings of Scrum, which offered the same old critiques we’ve heard before. Several people offered their rebuttals, but I doubt that will stop the hen-pecking any time soon. Granted, some of the criticisms are legitimate. But I see very few of these hipsters stepping into the mire to make things better. I am much more impressed by gurus like Ron Jeffries or Alistair Cockburn, who became Scrum trainers because of the complaints, so that they could be a part of the solution. It turns out that Bob Martin and Jim Shore have been contributing to the upcoming Certified Scrum Developer program. This, it seems, is their noble attempt to fixing Scrum’s lack of focus on technical training, which confuses me a little…since they’re still complaining.

2. Confusion over Scrum Over the last week, Mike Cottmeyer has been asking some good hard questions about what Scrum really is:

“How can you certify something that doesn’t have a standard body of knowledge around it?”Actually, the official statement of the Scrum method is spelled out in the Scrum Guide. The problem is that it’s too prescriptive, and the ‘experts’ aren’t very good at explaining what that means. For example, I’ve seen several hyper-performing teams that don’t have a burndown chart anywhere. The official body of knowledge would call them non-compliant ‘ScrumButs’, but I would say the burndown is optional. As long as you some kind of empirical visibility into whether they will make your deadlines, you’re okay. Further exacerbating the problem is the exam, which offers a few questions that focus on the letter of the law, rather than the spirit. So, as in any complex field, there are good ScrumMasters and bad ScrumMasters, good PMPs and bad PMPs, good doctors and bad doctors, good lawyers and bad lawyers. When you have a disparity among experts certified in a complex field of many grey areas, then the market is the ultimate decider of who’s got it together. There is a reason why Mike Cohn is the best-selling author on Scrum: his examples offer the pragmatic flexibility the market wants.
“How can you certify a developer, when there’s no developer role in Scrum?”. The Scrum Alliance already certifies more than just the official roles in the Scrum method (i.e. practitioner, trainer, coach). A developer certification will be the first introduction of a scrum application role. There is a LOT of dialog happening around the Agile BA, the Agile User Experience Designer, and the Agile Portfolio Manager. But there’s no formal agile method that calls those roles out either. Yes, the market is yearning for practical knowledge on application of agile thinking to specific job descriptions. I get a lot of questions from people asking how to apply scrum if they are a graphic artist, or a tech writer. But, that doesn’t mean Scrum is confused about what it is. Scrum is still the same at its core. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the stewards of a methodology to offer maturity around how to apply it to a given skillset. What’s even more ironic about all this is the ongoing complaints. It used to be “Scrum is evil, because it leaves out technical practices.” Now it’s “Scrum is evil, because it wants to promote technical practices.” So which is it?
“Shouldn’t Scrum focus only the IT field?” - Software people grumble about the Scrum Alliance’s stated mission to “transform the world of work”. However, I believe we could have the most mature IT department in the world, but still have that IT department reporting into a broken corporate culture. We’re seeing high-quality software evolving the fundamentals of human communication and learning at break-neck speeds, but we still laugh nervously at the sit-coms depicting bad bosses. You mission is your mission. My mission is my mission. You want to create a new set of expectations around what it means to be a software engineer. I want to create a new set of expectations about what it means to be a manager or executive. Scrum fits my mission, and it doesn’t fit your mission, that’s okay. Just don’t tell me my mission is foolish.

3. Cults Recently, Scrum co-founder Ken Schwaber stepped away from his activities at the Scrum Alliance and launched the Scrum.org initiative to focus on the software industry. Yes, there was some disagreement and some hurt feelings about how things played out. Yes, there is some confusion as to the differences and similarities between the two organizations’ products. It’s messy and confusing, and Cory Foy spells out all the sordid drama. Many have been left feeling like they have to pick sides.

But that’s what creative destruction is all about. One guy does something first, the next guy does it better. Another guy holds true to a niche, and another branches out. Then, you have a little consolidation of players and a few products being abandoned, and eventually the landscape settles. Already, the Scrum Alliance points to Scrum.org as the authoritative definition of the Scrum method itself. Furthermore, Schwaber is being featured as a headliner at the upcoming Scrum Alliance Gathering in Orlando. So, some reconciliation and consolidation is happening already. Unfortunately, it’s human nature to gossip about the drama, but that won’t be the ultimate determination of what the market will choose.

That’s my take on things. The old understanding of Scrum is dead. It no longer fits nicely into a the box you want it to be confined to. Instead, there is a newer more mature understanding of Scrum evolving. The Product Owner committee, the skill-specific applications of Scrum, and the transfer of ownership from Ken Schwaber to a democratic community are all examples. Scrum is adapting to real world constraints, in order to become more relevant to the real world.

Scrum is dead. Long live Scrum.

[Read the comments below, and then read Part 2]

Ten critical foundations for successful collaborative networks

2010-02-19T15:27:03Z

There are 10 really critical foundations to make a Virtual Enterprise Network a success: 1) Communities and Project Dynamic, 2) Network Ground Rules, 3) Group Membership Structures, 4) Practical Group Structures, 5) Complete set of Network Roles, 6) Appropriate Legal Frameworks, 7) Practical Exchange Model, 8) Viable Stakeholder Ecosystem, 9) Realistic Network Development Model, 10) Proven Development Road Map. This article offers an introduction to these ten foundations.

1. Communities and Project Dynamic

A Virtual Enterprise Network (VEN) is a voluntary and dynamic community of SMEs that commit to working together for a period of at least six months (ideally, twelve months) to collectively seek opportunities to participate in collaborative projects of mutual business advantage. Each of these virtual enterprise projects involves a specific subset of members from the community and typically focuses on either winning new business contracts, implementing shared services (cost reductions) or new product adoption and development.

A symbiotic relationship exists between the VEN Community and VEN Projects. The community spawns the projects and the projects validate the community. If you have only the Community aspect, then eventually it will crumble as the only business outcome is networking. If you have only the Projects aspect, then eventually it will harden into a closed supply chain with no ability to attract new members or address new market opportunities

2. Network Ground Rules

Here are the main areas that Ground Rules must address:

1. What damages trust?
2. What destroys trust?
3. Conflicts of Interest, the most likely scenarios?
4. How will the information be shared?
5. Principles of Transparency versus Privacy
6. How will the issues and conflicts be resolved? Both Informally and Formally
7. How will the decisions be made? Day-to-Day, Operational and Strategic Topics
8. How will the new members be handled? Promotion, Selection, Induction and Mentoring
9. What sanctions will be employed and how will they be agreed upon?
10. On what basis will bid and project teams be constructed?
11. How will lead generation and business development be handled?

3. Group Membership Structures

There are typically four entry requirements for new VEN members:

1. Sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement

2. Commit a senior company director to active participation

3. Sign-up to the VEN Ground Rules

4. Be accepted by the other network members

All new members should be subject to a probation period.

Companies may also join the network as associate members if they do not wish to join (or are ineligible to join) as full members, or are fulfilling specific bid or contract roles, or as a first step to full membership.

4. Practical Group Structures/Governance

Experience shows that 6 specific work groups are typically needed in a VEN
.
The first three groups concern the whole VEN community, whereas, the second three groups address specific projects and enterprises within the VEN:

1. VEN Board. This consists of representatives of all companies and sponsoring organizations. The board is responsible for overall network governance and strategic decision-making, and usually meets quarterly.

2. VEN Management Group. This typically has the same membership as the VEN Board, but typically meets monthly to discuss operational issues, whereas, the board deals with strategic issues and investments.

3. VEN Working Groups. Typically the VEN Management Group is too large and has too little time for meetings to deal with detailed issues. The best way to address this is by establishing smaller working groups for handling detailed VEN issues that typically include:

Business and Market Development. Marketing the VEN to prospective customers. Defining, developing and researching the best VEN target sectors, collaborative offers and identifying opportunities.

Network Development and Governance. Developing the VEN goals, objectives, ground rules, roles, working practices and technology and process infrastructures.

Member and Capability Development. Increasing the VEN membership and member capabilities, and identifying, attracting and inducting new member companies.

4. Campaign and Bid Development Teams. Groups of VEN members who form teams around specific opportunities to engage prospective customers and make collaborative bids.

5. New Product Development Teams. Groups of VEN members who form teams around specific new product development opportunities and research projects.

6. Project Management Teams. Groups of VEN members who form teams to manage the execution of project contracts won by the campaign and bid development teams and also internal VEN projects.

5. Complete set of Network Roles

Six key roles are generally present in successful VENs

1. Architect. Qualify opportunities brought by the Brokers and others, and configure viable network supply chains that can win bids, satisfy the members and successfully deliver work to accepted quality levels and standards.

2. Brokers. Use their contacts and personal credibility to bring potential customer opportunities to the VEN, and manage these relationships during the bid process. A broker can also bring other opportunities such as research funding. In a sense, every VEN member should consider themselves as a broker, but there is also a need for dedicated brokers. Lack of a dedicated broker is one of the most common causes of a VEN's underperformance.

3. Coaches. Build Network Teams and Work Groups that trust each other, are able to surface issues and resolve conflicts, and effectively manage their commitments without having to be constantly chased.

4. Digital Technology Support. Train and support the network members in the effective use of virtual collaboration technology in the VEN and technically administer the network.

5. Executive Leader. Win the confidence of the other network members that their interests will be respected, attract new members, represent the public identity of the network and be the senior internal customer for all network activity.

6. Group Leaders. Lead workgroups in key VEN areas, described under VEN Workgroups in the previous section

NOTE: A Bid Manager will also be required if this role cannot be fulfilled by the Broker

6. Appropriate Legal Frameworks

A set of Model Contracts for VENs was developed by the EU Alive Project (IST 2000-25459) [20], that suggested generic but detailed guidelines and templates covering the pre-contract, contract and post-contract aspects of collaboration for businesses cooperating in virtual networks and clusters covering three instruments:

1. Letter of Intent (LOI). This is a pre-contractual bilateral agreement between a network business and the network "Business Integrator" used in the opportunity evaluation phase.

2. Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This is an optional consortium agreement that can be used before a Virtual Enterprise Agreement is created, if it is particularly important to create clarity concerning the roles and IP.

3. Virtual Enterprise Agreement (VEA). This is a very detailed agreement between every member of the network and covering all aspects of internal relations (e.g. IP), external matters (e.g. future relationships and ownership of customers) and hybrid matters

Additionally if a VEN is to be a legal contracting entity then additional Legal Structures will be required. This will require specialized advice.

7. A Practical "Exchange Model"

This must address four key commercial elements:

1. Pricing/Costs: In supply chains bids, it is common practice for suppliers to add in extra overheads as padding, typically in the region of 15-35%, to protect their costs. When Supplier1 submits costs to Supplier2, Supplier2 also adds its padding factor to Supplier1's padding, and the result is "padding being padded." With typical supply chains running to five levels, it is very easy to see how this practice can make the final set of costs offered to end customer somewhat uncompetitive. VENs need to use pricing and costing models that are consistent with the objectives of commanding new markets.

2. Payment: In a traditional supply chains, the payment model is "trickle-down." The prime supplier gets paid, and then, and only then, will it pay its sub-suppliers, who in turn pay their suppliers. Unfortunately, this trickle-down approach can destroy the peer nature of a VEN because money is power and the suppliers higher up the chain control the payments to the smaller suppliers. Even worse, top-tier suppliers can withhold payments for reasons not related to the quality or timeliness of its suppliers work. VENs need to devise alternative payment models that, as much as is practical, result in all parties that have successfully completed their work get paid at the same time: One paid - all paid.

3. Liability and Risk: In a traditional supply chain, the customer holds the prime contractor fully liable and accountable. The prime contractor then uses back-to-back contracts to off-load as much of the liability as possible to its suppliers. This can lead to non-collaborative and combative behavior. For example, if the prime contractor is not careful, it may end up picking up issues that fall between the cracks - sometimes after all the other suppliers have been paid and are no longer under contractual obligation. On the other hand, a prime contractor may try to unfairly offload liabilities to a supplier for parts of the contract the supplier is not directly involved in or has no control over. A VEN needs to explore alternative mechanisms for creating joint accountability among all parties

4. Sustainability and Investment: In a supply chain, it's unusual for the suppliers to make any investments unless the customer or prime contractor "guarantees" the return on investment. For example, if a prime contractor encourages a supplier to buy a new machine, the prime contractor is expected to commit to keeping it busy for the first two years. In a VEN all parties need to be prepared to make investments on the basis of sound business analysis, but without any cast-iron guarantee of a return.

8. A Viable Stakeholder Ecosystem

The figure at the head of this article identifies the 5 major stakeholders who all need to be fully engaged and laigned to support the network:

The VEN Core Companies
The Big Players
The Enterprise Support Bodies
The Major Customers/End-Users
The Research Institutes

9. A Proven Network Development Model

Successful networks need to navigate many stages before they reach sustainable commerciality - typically there are around 7 key development/maturity stages:

Selection - > Incubation -> Mobilisation -> Market Testing -> Viability -> Differentiation -> Commerciality

10. A Proven Development Road Map

Networks need a proven roadmap to ensure sufficient attention is paid to 3 critical types of activity

Member/Capability Development

Network Development/Governance

Business/Market Development

For more details see my book The Networked Enterprise

About Ken Thompson

Ken Thompson is an expert practitioner in the area of bioteaming, swarming, virtual enterprise networks, virtual professional communities, virtual teams and management simulation and has published two landmark books:

Bioteams: High Performance Teams Based on Nature's Best Designs

The Networked Enterprise: Competing for the future through Virtual Enterprise Networks

Ken writes the highly popular bioteams blog which has over 500 articles on all aspects of bioteams (aka organizational biomimicry) - in other words how human groups can learn from nature's best teams.

Ken is also founder of an exciting European technology company Swarmteams which provides unique patent-pending bioteaming technologies for all shapes and sizes of groups, social networks, business clusters, virtual/mobile communities and enterprises. Swarmteams enables groups to be more responsive and agile by fully integrating their mobile phones and the web with bioteam working techniques.

The latest Swarmteams implementation is SwarmTribes which helps social object owners (e.g. musicians/bands, sports teams, film-makers) and good cause sponsors (e.g. Volunteering, Environmental, Public Health) to form unique collaborations with their fans/supporters for mutual benefit.