Thinking Faster

Not just networks, heterogeneous, dynamic networks

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-12-28T15:22:15-05:00

I read recently a blog post that stipulated that cities are more innovative than rural areas, and that was because of the number of interactions. Therefore, seems the logical conclusion, social media spaces with lots of interaction should be the most innovative. You can see the post here, referencing the book Where Good Ideas Come From. I haven't read the book but I hope the thinking goes a bit deeper than what's on the post.

Yes, good social interactions, whether at a university, or a city, or a social media site, can lead to good ideas, but if that were all that were necessary then Jerusalem or Cairo would be the epicenter of innovation, since they are very old cities with large populations. Clearly, there are major cities where innovation flourishes, like San Francisco or Shanghai, and major cities where innovation doesn't exist or occurs with far less frequency. In fact it would probably be easier to name major cities where innovation was more likely not to occur than to occur. So clearly it's not necessarily about a city, or about the number of interactions that matter.

Orwell demonstrated this in his book 1984. Winston Smith had plenty of interactions and lived in a large city, but ideas were repressed and information limited. There was one dominant party line. Whether we are talking about a city, or a social network, there is more required for good ideas than simply the number of interactions. While a network's value increases by the square of its nodes, from an insight and innovation perspective it increases exponentially on the differences of its engaged nodes. That means that more than interaction - interaction with people who have different experiences, beliefs, knowledge and perspectives drives new ideas. Also, the network cannot remain static - it must change or becomes obsolete very quickly. That's why, increasingly, some cities and some networks are as valuable as others. They aren't as dynamic and vibrant and don't include a broad source of perspectives.

While Facebook and LinkedIn and other social platforms may create many communities and large networks, they don't create heterogeneous networks that are necessarily dynamic. What's more, most social networks and communities tend to engage in positive reinforcement, not debate, so the groups encourage groupthink. No one in the group wants to confront others and if they do they are often ostracized from the group. Social media platforms offer the promise of innovation, but can become highly scaled cliques of very similar people with very similar ideas and experiences. A closed network of people with similar values and experiences eventually becomes stagnant. Only when new people are injected into that network, people who have different experiences and perspectives, and those folks are willing to express their ideas, will the network create new ideas.

It's not just networks, or the number of interactions that matter. If that were the case, IBM or General Motors would be highly innovative. In a social network, innovation is influenced by the range of experience of the nodes, how dynamic the entire network is, and how willing the network is to experience new ideas and different perspectives.

Book Review: Empowered

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-12-21T11:41:06-05:00

There's an interesting cross-current between social media and the new connectivity and networks social media create, and innovation. It's fairly obvious when you stop to think about it - good ideas spring from the interaction of different perspectives or point of view, and the more interconnected we become via social media, the more opportunities exist for innovation.

It was with this frame of reference that I agreed to review Empowered, by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler. Bernoff, as you may recall, was co-author of Groundswell, which was really a seminal book about the different kinds and uses of social media. Groundswell helped define what social media is, and demonstrated the value of social media tools at a time when many businesses were questioning whether or not those tools had value. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums and so forth. The questions about whether or not the tools have value have, to a great extent, been proven out. Now the real question becomes, who uses those tools and how does that change the way the organization works?

In Empowered, Bernoff and Schadler turn their attention to exactly this question - what does it mean to have powerful social media tools that enable increased communication and idea exchange? What could that mean for your business, and how will it impact your business? The authors posit that a HERO will arise from these attributes - Highly Empowered Resourceful Operative. In some ways these HEROS arise in response to the fact that customers make demands on the organization - Twittering about bad service or blogging about a faulty product. This seems to suggest that the HEROs arise in reaction to the difficulty of responding to customers. I suspect, quite to the contrary, that these HEROs have always existed, but now have the tools to reach the customers and other like-minded fellow employees. In other words, social media came along and created communities, but also provided the tools necessary to help engaged, empowered employees to solve problems and create new relationships with customers that simply wasn't available previously.

If you haven't read Groundswell, I'd recommend reading it before Empowered, simply to ensure you have the foundation for understanding the different social media tools and their uses. The book is packed with a range of ideas and suggestions and sometimes seems to create a new acronym per chapter. Beyond HERO we get IDEA, the methodology that HEROs should use to interact with engaged customers:

Identify
Deliver
Empower
Amplify

This methodology defines how HEROs can recruit, develop and use customer activists to further powerful, positive messages about the company through social media. The authors also borrow from Gladwell, leveraging the concept of Mavens and Connectors to further this thinking. Much of the early part of the book does a great job identifying what the HEROs can do to interact with other HEROs internally or with engaged customers externally.

I felt the book got a bit preachy and cheesy in the middle, when it spent time on a HERO compact, basically an agreement between HEROs, Information Technology and Management. Each leg of this three legged stool ends up with a stated compact and set of agreements they must live up to. Yes, IT does often get in the way of the use of externally oriented social media tools, but they have their reasons. And yes, Twelpforce at Best Buy is proof that engaged employees can provide support to consumers, but one example does not demonstrate that every firm will be successful using this approach, and the HERO oath applied on pages 116 and 123 feels forced.

The book turns its focus to helping HEROs achieve great outcomes in the last third, with a focus on helping HEROs innovate and helping HEROs collaborate. These chapters, while short, reinforce cultural changes that must occur to support the rise of hyper-connected employees and the shifts in the work they do and the value they deliver.

For the most part, this book is really less about innovation, or empowerment or social media, and more about the possibilities that exist in a well-educated, engaged and connected workforce. The real barriers to HEROs, beyond the IT bug-a-boo, are hierarchy, culture and risk. The silos that exist in many firms keep the best people from interacting with customers and helping customers achieve their goals. Prevailing cultural attitudes about what to say, and whom to say it to, and who in the organization should say it, will restrict a significant amount of the work the authors are trying to promote. Most organizations live in mortal fear of allowing anyone to say anything in any channel that hasn't been vetted six times. That fact alone will constrain HEROs and social media interaction.

Empowered is a good book that helps describe the shift that will happen in organizations as top-down hierarchical firms begin to shift to flatter, more nimble and more engaged organizations relying on social media tools and the interactions they create between the company and its customers and partners, and internal silos as well. While I think the authors intended this book to act as a guidebook for implementing social media and empowering corporate teams, I suspect it will probably be a longer term change, but completely on target with their ideas.

Social Media Megaphone

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-11-30T14:54:35-05:00

There are several interesting lessons embedded in the current Wikileaks scandal that everyone who is active on social media should take to heart. The first one, of course, is the old saying that you should never say or write anything you don't want to appear on the front page of the New York Times.

I was thinking about this in context of the leak of the State Department cables. What shocked me wasn't so much what was said - I'm certain that other countries have strong feelings and have used salty or derogatory language about our officials - but how it was said. In many of these cables the language is almost akin to what one would expect from a stoner surfer or a valley girl. The language used doesn't reflect the tone, or the importance of the message or medium. If this is what they send back and forth as confidential, good Lord knows what they are sending out in the clear. Could we perhaps revert back to the King's, or Queen's, English so that if our dirty laundry is exposed we at least appear able to string sentences together without the use of the written "um" or the word "like"?

Second, the old saw about the New York Times is interesting, but misses the point. If you did something stupid enough to end up on the front page of the New York Times in decades gone by, you might get the opprobrium of the intelligentsia in New York and more civilized capitals, but odds were that many people would never know. The Times circulation was never that large, and the vast majority of Americans never read it, leave out the rest of the world. Now, say or write something stupid and everyone has the ability to hear it, read it and parse it as it gets passed through Youtube, Facebook and email.

Next, what's going to play out (and has already played out once) is that people will turn these challenges into opportunities. Take, for example, the woman who wore a bikini to board an airplane during the height of the "pat down" furore. Do you really believe she was that concerned about a "pat down", or perhaps saw this episode as a way to get publicity during heightened awareness of the issue and perhaps launch a career? One bets that she is an aspiring actress who saw this as a way to get noticed. Probably hoped her interview would go viral, and some director would cast her or some reality show would have her on. How long before people actively, intentionally do really stupid but really public things simply to get noticed, and doesn't social media promote that behavior?

Another item of learning from WikiLeaks is don't put anything in print you don't have to, and when you do have to write something down be as circumspect as possible. No one in their right mind will actively state what they really think anymore on paper, unless they are trying for instant celebrity (see paragraph immediately above). Thanks to Wikileaks, all that has happened is that people were caught telling the truth in Washington, which is something to be studiously avoided. Now that it is evident that you can't write the truth and consider it protected, no truths will be written. In a strange way Assange is creating an even more repressive information state, where information will be created and transmitted, but now simply through word of mouth, for total plausible deniability. Nothing written, no witnesses, no historical record.

Finally, the last learning from the Wikileaks dump and the burgeoning social media scene is that either everything is public or nothing is public. There was the example a few years ago of a woman who placed a webcam in her apartment so she lived completely online. But even in that case we didn't know what was going on in her head, so is she really completely transparent? If you prepare to live your life online and completely exposed, understand the implications and the ramifications. If you choose to pretend that you can defend what you think and write, be very circumspect about your opinions and very exacting about your facts. If it is written down, it is accessible, and if it is accessible, eventually it will find it's way to the public. Please, for goodness sakes, write in comprehensible English about the intolerable Spanish ambassador and his predilections, so when the documents are revealed you will have been proven to have: 1) great grammar 2) good word choice and 3) the facts on your side. Then all you'll be guilty of is expressing the truth, which is studiously to be avoided in diplomatic circles.

Social Media Battle Royale

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-11-23T15:26:35-05:00

There's a battle brewing for prime real estate on your computer and in your thinking. That battle is brewing between the traditionalists who are task driven and start their work with a calendar and email and those whose starting point is Twitter and Facebook.

The battle is for control of your focus and attention. Anyone who works in a corporate environment can tell you where this battle is being won right now. We corporate drones all live in our email and calendaring systems, and are virtually shut out of many social networking systems outside the firewall. This means, at least right now, that Outlook and Lotus Notes reigns supreme in the corporate workplace. But it doesn't mean that many corporate drones aren't also tweeting and posting from work on their mobile devices and in every other way they can get access to the web.

Meanwhile, many social media users are relationship driven rather than task driven, or use their relationships to find information, do tasks or solve problems. They aren't quite so driven by the calendar, and email seems like an interesting anachronism to people who grew up with IM, texting and chat. Most of these users are in smaller firms or they are individuals working from home, where they can dictate which systems they will use.

Facebook is awake to this brewing battle in a way that, surprisingly, Google doesn't appear to be and, no surprise, Microsoft and Lotus aren't. Why do you think Facebook wants to provide email capability? Next they'll introduce calendaring and scheduling, and you'll never need to leave Facebook again, regardless of the activities you plan to pursue.

Google, for all the lightweight and cloud-based apps they have available, including a nice email system, still hasn't worked out the social media capability, so while many firms are porting to Google Mail and other Google Apps, they don't have much foothold on the social media aspects. Surprising that Google hasn't done a better job anticipating the unification of information, scheduling and social interaction.

Finally, Microsoft and Lotus (Outlook and Notes respectively) think they are in a safe seat, taking their time to innovate. They have good email and calendaring systems and are the products of choice in the enterprise. They believe that they have lock-in and that their corporate customers will continue to restrict access to social media tools for the average worker drone. What they don't know is that the average worker drone is already finding ways to work around the corporate IT stack, and those drones are using Google Mail, Twitter and Facebook applications from work, and are stymied by the IT reluctance to open up to more social media tools. We corporate drones are stuck with Outlook or Notes and little or no social media tools, and increasingly we see innovation in other applications like Facebook, Google and so forth, and we want that on our work desktops as well as our mobile devices and our home machines. Microsoft and IBM are slow to recognize this conflict and are more than happy to place the blame for social media access on the IT staff, rather than trying to build more social media capability in their applications and reduce the risk of corporate usage of social media.

What will be interesting is what happens when enough Gen X and Millenials and today's teens enter the workforce having had exposure to all of the social media and mobile technology, and are restricted by corporate policies and cumbersome enterprise software. Will they rebel against the restrictions? Will they work around corporate policies by creating local "hot spots" to escape the corporate internet restrictions? Will they rely on cloud based applications when they start their own firms?

Facebook isn't just creating email and other "enterprise" and task based capabilities in its applications - it is proving that there is a impending integration of the two capabilities (relationship based and task based work) that will create a new expectation for systems at work and at home. They are also training a large segment of the population who aren't at work today to expect and demand those capabilities in the future - at home, at work, on mobile devices, anywhere.

Attracting new businesses to North Carolina

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-11-12T13:37:59-05:00

I read with great interest that Facebook is coming to North Carolina. I wondered, will they open an office in Charlotte, near the financial centers, or near the Research Triangle Park, near the home of three great research universities? Or perhaps in Asheville, the east coast's answer to Santa Fe. Or perhaps in Wilmington, near the coast and all of its opportunities.

I was a bit surprised when I read that Facebook was headed to Forest City. Nothing against the town, just seemed a little out of the way. Then I realized I'd been "data centered" again.

In the last year North Carolina has become a mecca of data centers. While we celebrate these companies opening new facilities here, we need to take a hard look at what business we are attracting and why. Also, why is it that we in North Carolina continue to graduate thousands of undergraduates and graduates from very well respected universities (Duke, UNC, NC State, Wake Forest, Davidson...) yet the reason Facebook and Apple open sites in North Carolina is, wait for it, plentiful and cheap electricity.

We were excited last year to see the opening of a Google facility near Hickory, only to discover that it would be a data center. Don't get me wrong, the construction jobs on these projects add a tremendous boost to locations that have been struggling economically. But over time these data centers employ between 40 and 60 people, or about the same number as a retail establishment. Sure, they pay a little better but there's little growth opportunity. Even if we wanted to become the state of data centers, we aren't creating any critical mass or knowledge around data centers.

What's interesting is that these companies are targeting North Carolina for exactly the wrong reasons. Sure, we have plentiful land and cheap electricity, and one suspects a reasonable data transmission grid. But if all of these data centers are here, what are we in the state doing to treat them as learning opportunities? Certainly there's about to be a lot of data flowing into, and out of, North Carolina. If as conjectured Apple's facility is meant to be the basis for it's cloud computing capabilities, the streams of data entering and exiting that facility will be tremendous. What can all of our high tech research scientists and professors learn from that? Can we gain more knowledge about the transmission of data, storage of data? How do our universities capitalize on the proximity of one of the largest cloud computing facilities? Could we participate in research that reduces the power requirements of such a facility, to make it more sustainable? Or will we simply watch these data centers and be glad for the 50 jobs?

Everyone, at every level of experience and knowledge in this state needs access to good jobs at good salaries. We're happy the data centers are here. We need to ask ourselves several questions, however:

Why aren't we capitalizing on the move of data centers into the state to create a "creative community" around all aspects of data centers?
What happens when the cost of electricity rises and North Carolina isn't as attractive for large sites consuming lots of electricity?
Why aren't companies locating here for the brainpower that's available? Why isn't the brainpower locally getting engaged with the opportunities these data centers present?
How do we demonstrate that North Carolina has much more than empty land and cheap electricity to offer? How do we create the conditions for small and large businesses to be created here and to want to relocate here, to take advantage of cheap land, cheap electricity and incredible human capital as well?

There's something missing - a gap in our realities - when we welcome a Google, an Apple or a Facebook and a data center is the answer. We've missed a bigger opportunity and so has Apple, Google and Facebook. So, our next steps should be to make lemonade out of lemons and become the experts at data centers - not just their construction, but their operations, their sustainability and the issues of data transmission, which are certain to grow. With plenty of study and research, perhaps North Carolina can become a center of expertise in cloud computing, but only if we partner with these firms to learn from these data centers.

Can I have your attention please?

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-11-10T09:52:05-05:00

There are a number of scientific and technological advances that are showering our generation with information and communication channels the likes of which we could barely envision only a decade ago. When you stop to consider that your average smartphone contains more processing power than some of the Apollo capsules, or that over 90% of the US population has a mobile device, or that over 70% of US households have access and regularly use the internet, you can see quite quickly that we are in a hyper-connected, always-on world.

Further, consider the content available to us. With the advent of Twitter, blogs and other self-published media, on top of a healty commercial publishing industry, we have access to a tremendous amount of content that is constantly being refreshed. Moreover, due to the decreasing cost of storage and retrieval, we can now access far more content and watch what we want to watch, whenever we want to consume it.

So, we enjoy the blessings of a highly connected society, where anyone is really only a few links or relationships away, through LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, and any content you could possibly desire is available almost on demand. And, increasingly, with the advent of mobile and 3G/4G and Wi-Fi, available anywhere. We suffer from an embarrassment of riches when it comes to connectivity and content.

What this means, however, is that attention will become the new currency. In an interrupt driven world, the fact that you access my content doesn't mean very much if you skip right through it never to return, or if you fail to recall who published it or who sponsored it. Science is already demonstrating the the use of the Internet and hyperlinks in particular is re-wiring our brains, making us less likely to recall information from these various content portals. Increasingly, there are two important factors to consider. One from the perspective of the publisher and one from the perspective of the consumer.

As a publisher or creator of content, I want you as the consumer to value my content, return to it and to other content I create and perhaps to share in the development of that content with me. I want to drive you to know, do or believe something with my content, and perhaps make some money with that content. I can't do any of those things without your full attention to my content. Given the breadth and availability of content, I have to be able to attract you to my content, and keep your attention here, now, in my content rather than have you skip away, constantly interrupted or distracted by newer, shinier content. That's a pretty steep hill to climb, especially for those of us in the "text" world of blogs and other written publications. Nothing flashing, no sound effects. So we publishers face a daunting task - how do we communicate ideas that matter and do so effectively in a world increasing driven by interrupting and overlapping communications?

Second, as a consumer of content, my attention is valuable. Perhaps we need a new currency, less based on number of "eyeballs" - remember that one from the turn of the century? Perhaps the new currency is on latency and absorption. Does your material cause me as the consumer to pay attention, to stay engaged, to ignore the other flashing symbols? Does your material cause me to retain your ideas and be able to espouse them effectively?

Richard Florida and others suggest that the "Creative Class" is increasingly important in our economy. If the "Creatives" are valuable and generate new ideas, new products and new trends, how do the rest of us identify, understand and consume those trends if we are so distracted and consumed with all of the available content? Does Ashton Kutcher's current status on Twitter really add anything to the discussion? Sure, Stephen Hawking has a Facebook page with 120,000 fans, but do they stop long enough to try to understand what he is saying?

In older business models we'd strive for brand awareness, brand loyalty. In the near future I think we'll strive for mere attention, latency and absorbtion of a message. Perhaps we'll be able to sell our attention to others - rather than have advertisers interrupt our favorite content, perhaps we'll have them bid for our attention and time.

Social Media Puzzles small business owners

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-11-09T15:53:20-05:00

It's official. Two surveys in a row demonstrate the social media is confusing for businesses. There's a recent survey of small business owners that asks about their evaluation of social media, and the results indicate that they are confused as to whether or not they should be involved and whether or not social media has any impact on their business. Here are the key factors:

"My customers want to hear from me on social networks" -- 25 percent agreed, 36 percent disagreed and 20 percent were undecided.
"My customers spend time on social networking sites" -- 36 percent agreed, 20 percent disagreed and 27 percent were undecided.
"Social media is a quick way to connect with prospective customers" -- 35 percent agreed, 28 percent disagreed and 22 percent were undecided.

Basically one third agree that social media is valuable and important, one third disagree and one third aren't certain. This is strange, and confounding.

Social media is one of the fastest growing online phenomenons, ever, even considering how quickly new technologies are adopted on the web. Facebook alone has over 400 million members. Sure, they may not be looking up small businesses on Facebook now. They are establishing their networks and exchanging information with friends and family and extended acquiantences. Over time, however, isn't it likely that you'll turn to your online friends for recommendations about places to eat, or drycleaners, or sites to see, or home repairmen? Why wouldn't you? We conduct these kinds of activities in the "real world" and Angie's list and Craig's list are good examples of both. Note that with Foursquare and Gowala and TripAdvisor, you can become the "mayor" of a restaurant or write up an excellent hotel or travel site. These too are social media sites.

As is Twitter and Linkedin and a number of other websites and locations. In fact, the concept of "social media" as site-based is going to give way to the concept that every web presence has some "social media" baked into it. If you can comment, or attach a recommendation or a tag, or vote on content, or edit and change content or invite others to participate with you, then that's social media. And increasingly every website has some component of those functions.

Then the question for a small business is: how do you want to interact with your customers? how do you want them to find you, to recommend you? How do you want to attract new customers and interact with your existing customers? Can you afford not to be in the social media space, when your current, and more importantly your future customers spend all their time in that social media space?

You may think social media is uninteresting or unimportant, but that doesn't mean your current and prospective customers think that way. It's a small step from interacting with friends in a social media setting to asking for recommendations or help from those friends. And if you aren't available or aren't engaged online, then you may miss potential opportunities or conversely may not be aware of what people are saying about you - rightly or wrongly.

This also points out another stumbling block - commitment and authenticity. You can't simply paste up collateral and call that a website - everybody understands that. Likewise you can't simply launch your company into a discussion among friends without seeming like you are pushing your wares into a conversation. But you can start conversations with your extended customer base and build networks of committed customers who want you to succeed and enjoy doing business with you, which will lead them to recommend others and build your prospect base. In other words, it has to be done carefully, with ongoing commitment, building credibility over time, just like the way a small business grows its business anyway. It's not a quick fix and it does take time. Get in and learn now, so that you can capitalize on the opportunities down the road.

Social Media and its applicability by industry

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-11-08T15:22:04-05:00

There's an old saying that there are "horses for courses" - in other words, some horses run better on short tracks, others on long tracks. Some are mudders, best in slow or wet weather. Some are better on hard, dry surfaces. So you pick the horse that suits the situation.

Recently I read a blog post by a guy who writes regularly and knowledgeably on financial services. His assertion was that social media had little place in financial services. In fact the title of his article was Why Social Media is a waste of time for most Banks and Credit unions. Now, I believe he was writing this partially tongue in cheek - to poke fun at the difficulty most banks and financial services firms have in opening themselves up to conversations and interactions with their consumers, but I suspect deep down many financial institutions believe this is true - there are great expectations but little benefits and a lot of hard work before we'll see any return to social media in the banking sector.

I disagree, of course, just being a disagreeable cuss comes naturally. Social media is difficult to adopt only if your prevailing attitudes and strategies make it so. Conversely, if your CEO and executives decide that social media is very important and serves important internal and external causes or constituencies, it will be both easy to implement and valuable. The problem with most financial services firms is that they believe they have to serve "everybody" and that makes their offerings generic. Rather than piss any possible consumer off, they water down their messaging to become everybody's friend. That means no real distinctions and no sharp edges. It's hard to have an edgy, online personality when you are trying to please everyone.

Further, banks believe that products, low rates and fees are what drive customers. They don't believe superior service or customer engagement is all that distinctive, missing the Wal-Mart/Target/Nordstroms models of retail, both in the "real world" and online. Social media is about engaging with customers, learning from them and learning with them, and evolving as new opportunities and possibilities emerge. If you are having a hard time evolving anyway, social media may seem like a loaded gun pointed right back at you. But you have a choice - you can choose to participate or choose not to play. But your customers and partners are out there, exchanging information. Banks are noticable only by their absence.

But mom always said if you can't say something nice (or valuable) don't say anything at all. Ok, well at least start a listening tour. Go be Rahm Emanuel and pretend to want to know what Chicagoans think - as if that's going to change his operating style. But at some point you have to be in the social media mix. I can't buy into the fact that some industries can use social media effectively, and some can't. That's like arguing that some firms can use direct mail and some can't, or some can use Software as a Service or some can't. Whether we like it or not, the social media phenomenon is no longer a fad, but becoming an expectation. I want two way communication with my bank and with others who bank with me. I want the bank engaged just like I want P&G engaged in my choice of shampoo. The banks can't afford to sit this one out, and social media does pertain to them.

Hopefully they'll realize that before it's too late, and smaller disrupters who don't care about "how" the industry should act will enter the mix and take their customers. Oh, sorry too late, Mint beat me to that.

Social Media "roles" and the Breakfast Club

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-11-03T15:07:00-04:00

It occurs to me, as an occasional user and constant consumer of social media, that there are many different types of participants in the social media scene. One could draw some strong analogies between the different kinds of participants and a high school classroom. I made reference to the Breakfast Club, that icon of 80s high school, to draw out a point - most stereotypes in high school are present in social media today.

For example, in Twitter there are the following kinds of participants:

The "hey, pay attention to me" folks. In high school this was the good looking blonde who wasn't quite confident in her ability to win friends. She had the looks but low self esteem. On Twitter and other social media sites these are the folks who are constantly telling you where they are and what they are doing. It's almost self-validation. It doesn't add to the discussion and often distracts from it. I don't actually care where Ashton Kutcher is at the present time, or where certain members of my "following" list are eating lunch.
The "hey, look what I found" folks. There are people on Twitter and other social media sites who seem to be dead set on replacing RSS feeds. Their contribution (and it can be an important one) is to find interesting tidbits on the web and tweet about them for their audience. These folks often start a discussion thread but often don't do more than start the thread, then are off to find another shiny new object.
The "hey, I have something important to say" folks. These are folks on Twitter who suggest interesting ideas or create tweets meant to obtain a reaction. They aren't necessarily finding stuff that others create, but are generating original tweets to demonstrate a point of view. This was the class "know it all" in high school who has found an entirely new audience to impress.
The "hey, what's going on" folks. These are the wall flowers from high school who always hung around but never got involved in anything. In the virtual social media space you can call them "lurkers" who are constantly engaged in Twitter or other applications but don't contribute anything.
The "I'm secretly creative" folks. These are folks who wore the mismatched sneakers and socks in high school who now create haiku, 140 letter short stories and poetry in Twitter and in the social media world. Many of them I suspect work in cubicles and are dying to be discovered by a literary agent, while literary agents are dying to find jobs outside of publishing.
The "I can find more data than you" folks. I like to follow Richard Florida in Twitter, because he is always linking to interesting data. But my god, where does he find the time to find all that data and link to it? He must have an army of interns constantly scanning the web for interesting data, maps and research.
The "I'm a newbie here myself" folks. I'll rank myself in this category, since I'm still trying to get the "hang" of Twitter and Facebook and Linkedin, after years of experience in blogs. Some days I feel like Anthony Michael Hall, trying to grasp all the subtle nuances of the experienced upperclassmen who are sharing my space.

I guess the rest of the analogy should be fleshed out as well. Is there a "Stoner" correspondent on Twitter? A "jock" correspondent on Twitter? I suspec that there are people whose participation on Twitter or other social media sites align to our caricatures and memories of the stoner and the jock in high school.

I guess this has me of two minds. First, is the dialog and interaction on Twitter, especially, but social media in general really the best we can do? Or is this just an experiment that will change and mature over time as we learn more about the value proposition and information exchange on social media? Second, there's clearly more communication between and among a wide variety of people than is true in a typical high school, so that's probably a good thing. Now if we can only turn up the value of the content in the way we've managed to turn up the amount of communication...

The Sushi and Starbucks principle

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-10-27T15:38:00-04:00

I've read a lot lately about the creative class and how jobs are migrating towards/away from cities and urban centers. Just today there was a post by John Seely Brown that stipulates that, contrary to Thomas Friedman, the word is not getting flatter but "more spiky". That is, people are moving to urban centers to live and abandoning the countryside. Brown and Hagel suggest two reasons:

The value of "rich exchanges" and tacit knowledge is higher
The potential of serendipitous interactions increases

Hagel and Brown argue that even with the advance of telepresence and other IT technologies that should make it easier to work anywhere, these advances will further increase the focus on moving to urban centers.

I think they are right, but I think they miss the key reasons - what I call the Sushi and Starbucks principle. While many jobs, especially those "work from home" or telecommuting jobs can be done anywhere there is a reasonable internet connection, the fact that work can be done from the hinterlands doesn't mean that it WILL be done from the hinterlands. No, I suspect that we'll find that increasingly, jobs that require knowledge workers who create or manage intelligence or information will increasingly cluster in urban or ex-urban areas, and those who wish to work in these fields will vacate the rural areas.

Why? It's not because the work "can't" be done in the rural areas, but as people work with information and knowledge, they become exposed to a wider world of change and options. Rural areas tend to be more conservative in nature, slower to change and with less dynamic interactions. As people are exposed to information and change, many of them want more of that, not less. They increasingly crave interaction with other people who have these experiences, and they want new experiences as well.

This is where the Starbucks and Sushi principle comes in. I suspect that if you could overlay the locations to get good sushi and Starbucks with the regions that have the highest concentration of knowledge workers you'd find a one to one correlation. Then the question becomes - is Starbucks a leading or lagging indicator for knowledge workers? I'd suggest that Starbucks and sushi are most likely found where knowledge workers congregate. And once you've had the Starbucks and sushi, it's hard to give that up, even if you could do your job in a more remote or rural environment.

Don't buy into the hype that IT and telepresence will enable more people to move to more rural areas. If that were the case then the traffic in DC would be getting lighter, not worse. Rather, expect more movement of educated, younger people to the urban areas, especially those with universities or high concentrations of knowledge work. Expect the rural core and midwest to grow older and change more slowly.

What's on your office Wall? Joe

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-24T16:56:33-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Joe sent over a number of items that inspire and motivate him. He says:

When I need a boost in the midst of the daily grind, I think you will appreciate the progression of my "walls" too ...
The picture "office wall 1 - the quagmire of my day job.jpg" is what I deal with morning, noon, and night: two computer screens, a couple of cell phones, etc, which when it starts to overwhelm me and blind me, I simply rotate my chair to the right and look up ...

The picture "office wall 2 - where i look to gain perspective.jpg" is where I gain perspective, freedom of thought, and clear the clutter of my mind - or think freely. Here you see that my office overlooks Lake Michigan, a glimpse of the architectural genius of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Discovery World, Lakefront pedestrian traffic, Lakefront vehicle traffic, ETC., and then when I am ready, I continue to rotate to the right where I have on my office wall ...

The picture "office wall 3 - where i look to gain an approach.jpg" which is a print out of "Things to ask in any business review", which I think I pulled from Harvard Business Online, and takes me back to "what is the end goal here", "what are we doing differently", "how is this executing on our strategy", and "what would i do with this if I were a VC"

So in conclusion:

1. I have the perfect office wall for me to gain inspiration and perspective and I am fortunate that my office came with it: what I see outside my window, which can get even cooler (no pun intended) as depicted in my "bonus pic" to you.

2. While it may be a little too tactical, I have three "walls" that progressively get me through my "day job"

Joe is lucky enough to have a window that looks out over Lake Michigan, so he can be forgiven for his lack of photos or cartoons.

And, for further inspiration, the questions to ask about your business from HBR:

What's on your office wall? Alex

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-23T08:19:03-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Alex sent along one quote and one picture. His quote:

Tenacity is to success what water is to life

His picture is of a military unit. He says:

The pictures shows a team of soldiers out on a mission which as everything else in life is a journey one must complete.

What's on your office Wall? Mark

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-18T08:24:51-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Today's post comes from Mark, who is an administrator at a private school. He says:

My goals for the week, month, year. So I always know what we're trying to get done!

What's on your office Wall? Eric

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-17T08:19:30-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Today's post is from Eric, an innovation leader in a large health care firm. Eric writes about the picture:

I saw this image as an ad in a magazine - ironically for a product I can't remember - and it just spoke to me. It reminds me that we have to continually question our initial reactions and assumptions about what is "innovative" and make sure we understand how it truly is (or isn't). The tag line "so what" reminds me exactly what we never want to hear when we present a new idea and motivates me to work hard to develop every concept to its fullest potential.

I'll never look at sheep the same way again.

What's on your office Wall? Seth Godin

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-16T08:00:00-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Today's graphic comes from Seth Godin, who needs no introduction. Seth shared the following graphic with me:

You can find this cartoon and others from the artist here. For those of you who have read LinchPin, this choice of Seth's is a no brainer.

What's on your office Wall? Kyle

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-15T08:32:52-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Today's graphic comes from Kyle, a good friend and unexpected history buff. Kyle has a letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to General Joseph Hooker while Hooker was in charge of the Union forces during the Civil War. Kyle writes that the letter impresses him because:

Besides just appreciating Lincoln’s clever style of simultaneously admonishing Maj Gen Hooker while setting clear expectations for his new command of the Army, this letter reminds me of the power of respect. Commanding respect only comes with giving respect. Lincoln respectfully leads Hooker to understand his role in the cause.

Lincoln contributed mightily to the success of the war. Hooker was quickly driven from command and only lent his name to the women who followed the army.

In the letter Lincoln tells Hooker that he (Lincoln) has given command to Hooker, and yet Lincoln has several concerns. He recognizes that Hooker is ambitious and has self-confidence. He understands Hooker is a good soldier and does not mix politics with his profession, which had been a problem with some of the preceding generals. However, Hooker had been spreading rumors and failing to adequately support the previous general, Burnside. Lincoln is reminding Hooker that the army needs leadership and that the government will do everything it can to support him.

What's on your office Wall? Saul

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-12T08:00:00-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Today's submission is from Saul, a noted innovator and conversationalist. Here's what Saul has to say about what's on his office wall:

In my case I have a big map which is a visualization of human history over the last 5000 years. It is there because 1) I love maps 2) it's a great discussion starter: people who see it always comment 3) It reminds me of how late the US is to the global party, putting things into perspective and 4) it is a nice mix of cartography and art.

What's on your office Wall? Jon

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-11T11:00:00-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Today we have an image from Jon. Jon slightly violated the theme that the pictures weren't supposed to be about kids and family. He sent me the picture of his daughter playing soccer (below) but explained his choice this way:

I keep this photo of my daughter above my desk. It was taken at her school’s annual soccer grudge match between the boys and girls. The boys always dominate, with the week leading up to the contest being filled with taunts and smack talk. The girls—although nervous and somewhat resigned—gamely apply facial war paint and take the field. Her obvious grit in the face of overwhelming odds reminds me that, sometimes, you just need to rear back and let ‘er fly.

Looking at that face with the grimace and the war paint - I wouldn't mess with her either.

What's on your office wall? Todder

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-10T08:00:00-05:00

This is a continuing series of blog posts about what's on your office wall that gives you inspiration or encouragement. The original post, where I shared my office wall, is here: original post

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Today's entry is from Todder. Todder is an idea guy and ideas leap from his office walls. Here's what Todder has to say about what's on his wall:

I get a tremendous amount of energy from the things I put on my office walls. Things that I like to put up are graphic in nature (picture graphic, not gross graphic), pictures, colors, funny or energizing sayings, quotations, or jokes. I surround myself with a different world than the one I work in. It makes my beige space and the beige existence of corporate life so much more bright and creative and energetic and fun. I literally feel like the walls and the many colors provide me energy and help me maintain a creative center. Its a little strange, given that I work for a large bank in R&D, rather than for a large agency as an Art Director. Sometimes I get teased about it. While I agree it can look like a 14 year old girl's room, I don't care. Its creative and its a refuge for me. If I had to empty out my cube and work with no pictures on the wall, I'd go crazy.

Here's a shot of the images in his workspace:

A couple of favorites: A picture of the office of the future:

And: why you should never put anything off.

What's on your office Wall? Monty

Jeffrey Phillips — 2010-02-09T08:01:11-05:00

I'm glad to say I've already received several submissions from the readers of this blog who were interested in sharing what they have on their office wall. Remember I'm interested in graphics or pictures or sayings that are posted on your office wall that inspire you, and the reasons why they inspire you.

Here's the original post.

And you can email me a picture of your wall with a short synopsis of what's there and why it matters to:
whatsonyourofficewall at gmail dot com.

Today I'll offer up a photo of what's on Monty's wall. Monty is a good friend who is interested in "in sourcing", outsourcing technical jobs but doing so in the US. His picture is actually a newspaper clipping, showing that IBM is outsourcing jobs to workers overseas. Monty is trying to bring those jobs back to the states.