Yammer and why activity streams are a key foundation for integrated applications and organizations

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I caught up with some of the Yammer team this morning, including Chief Customer Officer David Obrand, while they are in town for the Yammer on Tour series. 

I was particularly interested in talking with them about Yammer’s shift to activity streams. In the massive convergence of enterprise social platforms that we’ve seen over the last years, one of the major emerging spaces is activity streams.

Last year I wrote about activity streams in the context of Tibbr’s launch. Tibbr put activity streams squarely on the map, by integrating status messages from people with notifications generated by enterprise software including ERP, CRM, and HR systems. Employees are able to follow their colleagues and they can also follow updates on any activity, including events, projects, or even invoices. Tibbr was very well positioned to do that given Tibco’s history in providing enterprise integration middleware.
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Social Media Strategy Framework: Explanation and guide

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Our Social Media Strategy Framework has been one of our most popular frameworks, with well over 100,000 views, as well as more for the translations into 12 languages.

I have used the framework extensively as a starting point to help executives understand the space and clients to develop social media strategies. Many people have told me that they have used the framework with their own organizations or clients to develop effective social media strategies, or have shared it in presentations or online. I’m delighted that it has proved so useful.

However the visual still can be hard for people to make sense of, particularly in terms of how it should be applied to their own organization. To help that I have made a brief video explaining and going through the Social Media Strategy Framework. It simply provides a high-level overview of the framework, but for many people it will probabl ybe more useful to watch the video than spend time looking at the diagram. Feel free to use the video however you want if it is helpful.

5 things to tweet and 5 things NOT to tweet

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Earlier this week I spoke at a financial advisor retreat in the stunning Margaret River region of Western Australia, a region of wide-open beauty that is the source of many extraordinary wines.

I gave two keynotes at the event on subsequent days, on How to Lock-in Your Clients, and Success in a Connected World, which drew on my connected world visual framework.

I will write more later on the quite specific topic of Success in a Connected World for Financial Advisors. For now I thought I’d share a brief extract of the content I covered in my keynote on how to approach Twitter.

Around 15-20% of the audience had Twitter accounts, so my suggestions were intended as a high-level introduction on how to get started on Twitter, though the advice is relevant to anyone. The recommendations are based on my own thoughts as well as a range of research, notably the excellent Who Gives A Tweet? Evaluating Microblog Content Value from Carnegie Mellon University. This is what I suggested:

WHAT TO TWEET
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Le futur de Facebook et le rôle de la France

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Voici ma première vidéo en francais, qui est à propos du futur de Facebook.

Quelques miettes du video :
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In the future libraries may die, but they will be reborn

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The future of libraries is a rich and fascinating topic. It’s over 10 years now since I first gave a keynote on the topic, to an an audience of over 1,200 members of the Australian Libraries and Information Association conference. In 2007 I gained notoriety on the topic when Richard Watson and I put libraries at 2019 in our Extinction Timeline, and have been drawn into strategy sessions with a number of major libraries since then.

Last week The Times (of Ottawa, Illinois) published a piece titled ‘They’ll be reborn’ What does the future hold for libraries?, sparked by discussion of the need for big new library projects in the region.

In the article I am quoted:
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The many and varied risk factors in Facebook’s IPO

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My favorite part of reading S-1 IPO filings is always the risk factors. They are seemingly endless, as the company tries to cover its ass for all the things that might conceivably go wrong. But they are often very insightful in pointing to the real issues facing the company.

To save you reading it all, here is a highly selective summary of just a few of the interesting risk factors Facebook points to in its IPO filing:

If we fail to retain existing users or add new users, or if our users decrease their level of engagement with Facebook, our revenue, financial results, and business may be significantly harmed.
…
Any number of factors could potentially negatively affect user retention, growth, and engagement, including if:

* we are unable to successfully balance our efforts to provide a compelling user experience with the decisions we make with respect to the frequency, prominence, and size of ads and other commercial content that we display;
* there are changes in user sentiment about the quality or usefulness of our products or concerns related to privacy and sharing, safety, security, or other factors;
* we are unable to manage and prioritize information to ensure users are presented with content that is interesting, useful, and relevant to them;
* we adopt policies or procedures related to areas such as sharing or user data that are perceived negatively by our users or the general public;
etc.
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PushStart launches new startup accelerator program in Australia

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The Australian startup scene continues to heat up. Arguably Sydney is already in the top 10 tech startup cities in the world, with activity rapidly growing through this year.

The latest news is that the mentor program PushStart (which I participate in as a mentor) is today launching its planned PushStart Accelerator program. I wrote about PushStart and the earlier startup accelerator Startmate at the launch of PushStart. Startmate’s first round of 5 companies has already had significant success, with shopping app Grabble already being acquired by Walmart and Bugherd quickly moving on to participate in the Silicon Valley-based 500 Startups accelerator program.

PushStart uses a very similar model, using the same legal structures as Startmate. There is unquestionably a deep enough pool of rising talent in Australia to fill both the Startmate and PushStart accelerator programs with high quality ventures, with plenty more left over. It will be great to see what comes out of this.

Here is the PushStart announcement:
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How to make money from crowdsourcing: A framework for Crowd Business Models

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I think one of the most valuable aspects of our newly-launched book Getting Results From Crowds is the analysis of Crowd Business Models. While crowdsourcing is clearly a fantastic way for organizations large and small to get access to unparalleled resources and scale their operations, it is also increasingly central to many companies’ business models.

We have created a framework that identifies 7 fundamental crowd business models (plus non-profits), and done an analysis of the monetization mechanisms and success factors behind each one. These provide a broader framework for the 22 categories in version 2 of our Crowdsourcing Landscape.

The Crowd Business Models framework below aggregates these categories. Further details are provided in Chapter 22 of the book on Crowd Business Models. We have chosen to make all of these resources freely available, as we hope they will be useful for those building businesses that are relevant today. Go to the Getting Results From Crowds website for more free chapters and other resources.


Click on the image to download the complete framework as pdf
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Making social media happen in government: case study of NSW Department of Education

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I’m at the launch meeting of the social media community of practice set up by Institute of Public Administration NSW (IPAA).

Earlier this year I gave the opening keynote on The Transformation of Government at IPAA’s annual conference, where I was encouraged to see the interest and appetite for new and more open approaches to government here. 

At the conference I wrote about the case study of Queensland Police, which is a great example of government bodies creating value through social media.

At today’s event Tracey Sen of the NSW Department of Education & Training (DET), which has 110,000 employees, presented on the Department’s social media initiatives. Here are a few live notes from the event. 
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Launching my new book today! Getting Results From Crowds

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Today we are launching my new book Getting Results From Crowds: The definitive guide to using crowdsourcing to grow your business!

This has been, in all, many years in the planning and making, and I’m extremely happy with how it has come out. It is definitely my most useful book, and while it’s hard to compare it with my other books as it has a distinct purpose and design, it is in some ways my best work.

I’ve believed in, followed, and worked with crowds for over a decade. My 2002 book Living Networks had many examples of what we currently call crowdsourcing, including being the first of many business books to describe the Goldcorp challenge, and mentions of Elance, InnoCentive, and Procter & Gamble’s Connect & Develop program, before any were well-known.

Today much of my work is around the future of work and future of organizations. The most powerful single force shaping work and organizations is the rise of distributed work, often drawing on crowds. I have used crowdsourcing platforms extensively for the last decade, and studied and learned how to get the best results from these. Our group business model is centered on the effective use of crowds.

The Getting Results From Crowds book website has a whole stack of resources, including:
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