I recently posted an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 titled 8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0.
To follow up, here is an additional excerpt from Chapter 17 on pilots.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT PILOT TEAM MEMBERS
The selection of pilot team members is a major factor not just in the success of the pilots, but also whether useful lessons are learned and the successful migration of the pilots into other parts of the business.
The reality is that there is usually limited choice in selecting pilot team members. However since it is such an important driver of success, it is important to understand the characteristics of great pilot team members, and to apply this to the degree possible in bringing the right people on board.
There are five key aspects to a great pilot team member.
1. Enthusiasm
There is no substitute for enthusiasm in a pilot. As such, in most cases the best pilot team members are those who are clamoring to try something because they think it will make them more effective in their work.
Enthusiastic team members will:
• Want to be involved in the pilot!
• Think there are better ways to do things than current approaches
• Be happy to try new things
• Put up with immature systems
• Put in extra time and energy now for the potential of worthwhile results later
• Actively suggest and try new ideas to make the pilot work better
Read more →
Twitter stats: more users are engaged, one-third have more followers than following, the most prolific Tweeters have around 1000 followers
By Ross DawsonBarracuda Labs’ annual report contains some interesting analysis of the online space, including Twitter and security issues. A few highlights:
* Only 21% of Twitter accounts are active i.e. at least 10 followers/ 10 following/ 10 tweets
* Even so, there has been an increase in activity from dormant accounts – 40% fewer accounts have zero followers compared with six months ago
* 66% of users are following more or the same as the their number of followers (i.e. you are in the “top” one third if you have more followers than following)
* The most prolific Tweeters are those with around 1,000 followers. Those with more followers tend to tweet less – see chart below.
Read more →
Designing and running executive offsites and retreats in Asia
By Ross DawsonI am just back from Phuket in Thailand where I facilitated the offsite session of the top 120 executives of a major professional services firm in Asia. This is staple work for me. My role at these kind of events ranges from delivering a keynote presentation that brings forcibly home the key themes of the event, for example change or innovation, to in some cases designing and facilitating the entire event, particularly when it is focused on strategy development.
While executive offsite sessions are common to business around the world, there are a few specific dynamics to take into account for organizers of retreats in Asia.
Diversity
Asian countries, economies, and cultures are far more diverse than those, for example, in Europe. There are often different priority strategic issues across country operations, and management structures need to vary between operations. Offsite objectives and structure should reflect that.
Read more →
Five key characteristics of great pilot team members
By Ross DawsonI recently posted an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 titled 8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0.
To follow up, here is an additional excerpt from Chapter 17 on pilots.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT PILOT TEAM MEMBERS
The selection of pilot team members is a major factor not just in the success of the pilots, but also whether useful lessons are learned and the successful migration of the pilots into other parts of the business.
The reality is that there is usually limited choice in selecting pilot team members. However since it is such an important driver of success, it is important to understand the characteristics of great pilot team members, and to apply this to the degree possible in bringing the right people on board.
There are five key aspects to a great pilot team member.
1. Enthusiasm
There is no substitute for enthusiasm in a pilot. As such, in most cases the best pilot team members are those who are clamoring to try something because they think it will make them more effective in their work.
Enthusiastic team members will:
• Want to be involved in the pilot!
• Think there are better ways to do things than current approaches
• Be happy to try new things
• Put up with immature systems
• Put in extra time and energy now for the potential of worthwhile results later
• Actively suggest and try new ideas to make the pilot work better
Read more →
The Evolution and Key Success Factors of Web 2.0 in the Enterprise
By Ross DawsonThis morning I did the opening keynote at IBM’s Collective Intelligence BusinessSphere conference in Melbourne. It was designed as a brief and punchy opener to provide a big-picture context to what collective intelligence means for organizations and the key success factors.
Below are the slides. As always the slides are intended to provide visual support to my presentation, not to be useful by themselves. However there are a few visuals there that may be of interest even to those who didn’t attend.
Media Revenue Models Framework: 12 categories of income sources for media companies
By Ross DawsonAs the world of media moves beyond its traditional boundaries, media operators need to broaden their thinking about potential revenue sources. In a connected world, the possibilities transcend the classic advertising, sales and subscription models.
In my recent article Creating the Future of Media: 4 Driving Forces, 4 Strategic Issues, 4 Essential Capabilities in Media Titles magazine I wanted to point to some of the possibilities. I brought together some of what we had been working on with clients to create a Media Revenue Models framework to show some of what is possible.
Of course a key aspect of potential revenue streams is the value creation that merits payment. While the general categories of value added by media have not changed, their relative importance definitely has. To understand potential revenue models, you must also be clear on the distinctive value add of your media offering.
A few things to note. First, this is a draft, and while I haven’t had time to update it yet I’ve already been given some additional ideas to complement this. I’d love to hear any other perspectives or ideas that would add to this. Second, this only looks at revenue, not at business models, which look at how resources are brought together to create value. We’re in the process of developing a media business models framework. And third, the primary purpose of this is to help executives to think in new ways about their own business. I have already found it very valuable in strategy sessions with clients in generating new strategic options and ideas.
Here is the content in text form:
Read more →
The future IS gaming
By Ross DawsonI recently finished reading the techno-thriller Daemon by Daniel Suarez. It is certainly not literature, but it is a fast-paced thriller that I found hard to put down. It posits a world in which a genius who creates online games builds a systems that makes the entire world into what is effectively a game, with an augmented reality interface, and in which individuals earn points for tasks that give them higher ranking.
I have long thought it is inevitable that much of our work and play will take place in what are effectively game environments.
In Jesse Schell‘s presentation at DICE (hattip: Kevin Kelly/The Technium) he gives an array of fantastic ideas about the intersection of reality and gaming. After covering how many games such as Wii, Guitar Hero and Webkinz are bring the real world into games, he goes off (from around 18:00) on a rapid-fire string of suggestions about how every aspect of the world can be made into a game.
It is intriguing that mobile social networking, which I have written about since its early days in 2002, has only taken off when Foursquare made it into a game. As people become more familiar with gaming environments and concepts, it seems natural to bring in gaming aspects to more parts of our life. Dangerous things that way lie, but it is inevitable that games and what we think of as reality will be merged to an extraordinary degree.
[UPDATE:] Tom Foremski says why he thinks this is a scary future.
Keynote on Web 2.0 in the enterprise at IBM Collective Intelligence
By Ross DawsonIBM’s annual Lotusphere conference is held each January, bringing together customers of IBM’s enterprise collaboration suite. While many associate Lotus with its long-established product Notes, since the launch of Lotus Connections in 2007 Lotus is centered on Web 2.0 tools such as social networks, mash-ups and micro-blogging. After Lotussphere local events are run in countries around the world, usually dubbed Lotusphere Comes To You.
This year IBM Australia is calling its enterprise collaboration conference Collective Intelligence, running this in 9 cities around the country. In Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra they are dividing the program into technology and business streams. I will be doing the opening keynote for the BusinessSphere stream as below in Sydney and Melbourne, though I will be in Asia at the time of the Canberra event next week.
The event is free to attend for “IBM customers and prospects” – you can register at the website. Maybe see you there!
The evolution and future of Social Networking and Web 2.0 technologies
Web and social technologies, having already had a massive social impact, are now being applied extensively in business and government. Many of the most successful organisations globally are implementing social software and web tools to increase productivity, tap expertise, improve staff engagement and streamline processes.
Read more →
Australia is becoming a global hub for crowdsourcing platforms: Freelancer.com, 99designs, DesignCrowd
By Ross DawsonCrowdsourcing in the broadest sense will be one of the fundamental platforms of the emerging network economy. As such it’s pleasing to see that Australia is becoming a hub for a number of the most significant crowdsourcing platforms globally.
I caught up with Alec Lynch of DesignCrowd yesterday for an interesting conversation about the crowdsourcing space and thought it was worth giving a quick pointer to the three main platforms run out of Australia (though all are global in scope).
Read more →
The promise of distributed power: the Bloom Box and more
By Ross DawsonAt Future Exploration Network, one of our roles is to help clients understand the technologies that have the potential to dramatically disrupt existing industries and structures.
Distributed technologies which bring power and manufacturing to the local level, or even the home, definitely fall into that category. Modern economies are largely based on centralized power generation on an enormous scale, combined with power distribution networks taking that to the home.
For decades people have looked at the possibilities of fuel cells which allow homes or neighborhoods to generate their own power. Fuel cell manufacturer Bloom Energy , despite being largely in stealth mode, was named in the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers 2010 list. Last night CBS News ran a 13 minute segment (embedded below) devoted to Bloom Energy, suggesting it has the potential to transform how we use energy.
Read more →
8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0
By Ross DawsonIn my Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report I put Iterate and Refine at the center of the Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework.
One of the most critical elements of this principle is the ability to establish and run effective pilot programs.
Below is an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 on Pilots, which describes 8 guiding principles for pilot programs.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR PILOTS
While there are no hard and fast rules for establishing successful pilots, eight guiding principles that should be kept in mind are:
1. Select fertile ground.
Pilots often establish the tone for how broader initiatives are received across the organization. Stories – both positive and negative – about the success of pilots often filter out very widely. A successful pilot can easily take a life of its own as others hear about the benefits and actively want to apply them in their own work. Failures can often be referred to across the organization as reasons why related initiatives will not succeed. While you can never expect all pilots to be successful, maximize chances of success by selecting the most promising projects and the best team, and make it easy for them to identify value.
Read more →