Themes of the day: Consumerization of IT, Crowdsourcing for small business, Crowdsourcing in PR
These are frantically busy days, which is squeezing my ability to blog and capture some of the fascinating stuff flying by. In coming months I think I’ll try to do more ‘mini-blogging’, just capturing quick thoughts and impressions rather than writing up every interesting speaking engagement or media appearance I do.
Yesterday I gave three presentations, and I’d love to write (at least) a full blog post about what we covered for each one. However that’s not possible, so I’ll just share quick thoughts about each topic and what I will try to write more about later.
The day started by giving the keynote at a Consumerization of IT event run by CIO Magazine, supported by HP and Microsoft.
My topic was The Future of IT Consumerization. I have tried to find a better term than Consumerization of IT but so far have been unsuccessful, as it does capture what is perhaps the most central theme in how enterprise technology is shifting today. In many ways the drive to cloud and big data is being fueled by consumerized technologies.
As we shift to an economy of individuals, the primary locus of technology is moving from organizations to people. The challenges for CIOs and IT departments of these changes are enormous. Yet it would be a massive mistake to ignore these forces and try to lock-down technology. From now on, users will drive enterprise technology.
At lunch I presented on a webinar on Crowdsourcing: how your SME can benefit from the outsourcing boom, run by Business Spectator and supported by Amex.
My focus in this webinar was on what small and mid-sized businesses need to know about crowdsourcing. I first provided an overview of the space, drawing on our Crowdsourcing Landscape, then provided a highly condensed version of the recommendations from Getting Results From Crowds on how to use service marketplaces. The diversity of crowdsourcing can easily be confusing, so for this audience the focus was on helping them grasp the possibilities and first steps to success.
During the night my time I presented to Ketchum PR’s Global Media Network on Tapping the Power of Crowdsourcing for PR.
I have been an advisor to the Global Media Network for some time, among other activities presenting the highly successful Tapping the Power of Mobile webinar series last year.
A key focus for me over at least the next six months will be crowdsourcing for creative agencies. This is a very important space that will be central to the coming shift in creative professions. However I think this could be particularly pointed in PR. PR agencies are arguably more experienced than the other marketing domains in engaging large groups, so it would seem natural to turn their capabilities to the possibilities of crowdsourcing. As it happens Ketchum has already launched a very interesting initiative called MindFire, which taps a pool of bright college students for original ideas for its clients. I will definitely be sharing more of my thoughts on content on crowdsourcing for creative agencies including PR in coming months.
