The Future of Workplace Communications – Live notes from Future Forum webcast

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I am at The Future of Workplace Communications webcast, which is an hour-long discussion broadcast as live video as part of Viocorp’s Future Forum series. (Archived event now available)

The four panellists are Oscar Trimboli, head of the Information Workers group at Microsoft, Nicky Wakefield who runs the Human Capital practice of Deloitte Australia, Phil Cronin, General Manager of Intel Australia, and myself.

I am just taking notes through the event – on the fly so they probably include misquotes. I also won’t be able to record what I say, so I’ll do a separate post later with my thoughts.

[UPDATE:] Here are the thoughts I shared on future of workplace communication

NICKY: It’s about solving the war for talent. Difficult to get talent. We have found a strong correlation between use of Yammer and staff retention. Deloitte Australia is world’s largest user of Yammer, with over half of 4,600 employees using it, having sent over 24,000 messages. Use quickly shifted from social use to business applications. People are looking to communicate with each other and the organization. Workplace communications is a key part of the answer.

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“iPad Strategy”: incredibly limiting or a useful frame?

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I recently tweeted to announce The Insight Exchange’s iPad Strategy Workshop, which will be held as part of the Newspaper Publisher’s Assocation Future Forum in Sydney on August 27.

I was a bit surprised by the response, firstly from @trib who said:

@rossdawson seriously, Ross, *iPad strategy*? Isn’t that incredibly limiting and the sign of some bandwagon-induced narrow thinking?

with @renailemay supporting @trib and @abroadabroadeh separately writing:

@rossdawson cmon Ross – ” iPad strategy” ? Please! It’s a tool it should be part of a strategy – talk about shiny object syndrome

…followed by a bit of to-and-fro between us all on how iPad is only one element of media distribution.

It’s a fair point. As a media organization, anything you do on the iPad has to be considered within the complete context.

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Breathe in the cloud! Keynote for Telstra Business

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This morning in Adelaide I delivered the first of five keynotes I’m doing as part of a Telstra Business national roadshow on cloud computing. I am giving the opening keynote at the breakfast series, followed by Telstra Chief Technology Officer Hugh Bradlow or his key staff.

In the preparation phase I wrote up a brief description of my keynote on Tapping the Forces of Change for use in Telstra’s promotion of the event to their clients and prospects. In doing so I came up with the concept of ‘Breathe in the Cloud‘ as a useful metaphor. Companies need to breathe in the resources of cloud computing in order to give them the vitality to grow and prosper.

Here is a video of the opening for my keynote, talking about why it is so important for companies to Breathe in the Cloud.

Tech23: showcasing the best of Australian start-ups

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Rachel Slattery’s second Tech23 event is coming up on 19 August in Sydney, providing a showcase for the best start-ups in Australia.

I was able to spend some of the day at last year’s event, and blogged about the showcase and the SaaS/ In the Cloud session.

I had been thinking that Australia needed a good tech showcase, and after our Top 100 Web 2.0 Apps in Australia list and event I was considering running one. However with Tech23 doing a great job there was no need.

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Thought leadership in technology – five key services to influence clients and increase sales

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It is sometimes difficult to describe what my companies do. That is now a little bit easier, as we have created a flyer describing the key services of Advanced Human Technologies, focused on clients in the technology and media sector. The flyer does not mention our publishing and ventures activities, but covers the kind of consulting we do for vendors. Our Enterprise 2.0 flyer describes our work for corporate clients on implementing Enterprise 2.0.

Thought Leadership in Technology – Advanced Human Technologies

I hope it’s useful for those that want to know more about what we do (or may even want to engage us!).

I will later share some snapshots of what Future Exploration Network and The Insight Exchange are up to, to give a better picture of the group and how it fits together.

The increasing divergence in business performance – if you’re not ahead you’re dead

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In my keynote speeches over the last couple of years I have often talked about how there is an increasing divergence in business performance. This theme was particularly pertinent at the height of the global financial crisis, when it was important to make people understand that there were still some companies and sectors that were doing very well. However arguably this issue of divergence is even more important now that many companies and economies have a more buoyant outlook.

As I wrote last year about the Big Shift in economic structure, some great research from Deloitte’s Center for the Edge supports my views on divergence, as illustrated below.

divergence_ROA.jpg

Data source: Deloitte Center for the Edge

This shows that Return on Assets for the top quartile performers has stayed consistent at 11-13%, and in fact recently has been close to its all-time highs. In contrast, more recently the bottom quartile is consistently destroying value, sometimes in a spectacular fashion. The only possible outcomes for these lesser-performing companies is that they get their act together, are acquired, or go out of business.

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Getting perspective: Hand-held business computers are over 20 years old

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Last week I interviewed my old friend Tom Stewart, formerly editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review, and currently Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer of Booz and Co, for a piece in CPA Australia’s magazine InTheBlack. I’ll share the article, on the role of financial executives in business strategy, on this blog later in the year.

Tom mentioned the fact that Frito-Lay, the most profitable division of Pepsico, introduced hand-held computers for real-time inventory management back in 1989. I had a look and found a fascinating article from 1990 in the New York Times titled Frito-Lay’s Speedy Data Network, focusing on the information the system provided. It says:

Frito-Lay’s electronic network has already led to a sweeping change in the company’s competitive strategy. As the network developed, the company realized it could now shift from a national marketing strategy to one that emphasized local responses, so-called micro-marketing.

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Tapping the forces of change: Why cloud computing is the future

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Through the month of August I will be doing the keynote address at a five-city Australian roadshow run by Telstra Business. I will open the breakfast events by providing a big picture view of how driving forces in technology, business and society are moving the world towards cloud computing, cloud working, cloud thinking, and cloud strategy.

I will be followed by Hugh Bradlow, Telstra’s Chief Technology Officer, who will provide a more detailed vendor view of cloud computing.

There is no public website for the event; I was told to suggest you contact your Telstra account executive if you’re interested in attending the event.

Below is a brief article I provided Telstra to help promote the event to their customers. I’ll be fleshing out the thinking in this article in some further writing and quite possibly a cloud framework.

Tapping the forces of change

Take a deep breath. As you breathe in, think about the invisible substance that is all around us and sustains us, but we cannot see. Air is vital to us and fuels our energy. In the same way, businesses today are finding that access to a universe of computing resources on tap in the ether around them is helping to keep them healthy and drive their growth. A company’s vitality increasingly depends on how readily it can breathe in this vital resource.

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Lessons from iPhone4 Applegate: social media augmentation of consumer voices and the need to listen

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A few days ago I was interviewed by ABC’s Newsline program for a segment they did on Apple’s response to the iPhone4 ‘Antennagate’ problem.

Here is the second part of the segment including my thoughts. To see the full piece go to the Newsline archives and click on ‘Bad Press’ dated 21/7.

Despite the way the piece was edited, I was not scathing about Apple’s response. I think their solution of a free Bumper case is, so far, reasonable. However there are two important points.

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Twitter uncovers the real-time mood of the nation through the day

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Some lovely research from Northeastern University uses sentiment analysis to show the changing moods of the United States through 24 hours.

In the video below showing changes over the course of a day, colors indicate people’s moods from red (unhappy) to green (happy), while the size of the state shows how much Twitter activity there is.

A few things that stand out: Early morning and late evening are far happier than other times of the day, California and Florida are the happiest states, and from other research on the site, the unsurprising finding that people are happier on weekends than weekdays.

Click through for the detailed research including a high-resolution pdf summarizing the findings.