Social networks – Page 20

Telstra releases social media policy: it’s time for organizations to get their act together

This morning’s Sydney Morning Herald displayed a prominent headline Telstra lays down the law on Twitter. The article began:

Telstra has become the first major Australian company to set down guidelines on the use of Facebook, Twitter and similar websites by its employees.

First? According to whom? As noted by Stephen Collins, the Australian Public Service Commission publicly announced protocols for online media participation in December. A number of major Australian companies have established guidelines for social media, they just didn’t issue press releases about it as Telstra has.

In any case, Telstra’s social media policy a solid document and it’s good that Telstra has both created it and released it publicly. (See the social media policy itself and the blog post launching it.) Companies that have not addressed these issues are essentially creating a liability out of what could be a strong positive for the organization.

The extensive background to the announcement (including all the fun and games of @fakestephenconroy) is given in an article on ITNews titled Telstra staff given rules on use of social networks. In the article I am quoted:

Ross Dawson, chairman of social networking analyst group Advanced Human Technologies, described Telstra’s new policy as “solid and straightforward.”

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Six key insights into the future of the Direct Selling Industry

By Ross Dawson

One of the things that I love the most about my work is that I’m continually exposed to new ideas, new people, new places, and new industries.

Last week I gave the opening keynote at the Direct Selling Association of Australia annual conference. The theme of the event was “Defining our Future,” so they wanted to kick off with big picture perspectives on the future of business from a leading futurist. My presentation at the conference is here.

I had never been exposed to the industry before, however in preparing for my keynote, and at the event itself where I came in for the cocktail reception the night before and stayed on for the CEO panel following my keynote, I gained a number of insights into the industry and where it stands today.

The Direct Selling industry is comprised of three major segments: personal or door-to-door sales, such as the classic Avon model; party plan, for example Tupperware; and multi-level marketing (MLM), exemplified by Amway. All of the models rely on face-to-face interaction and relationships.

The industry definitely has image issues. My general observation is that there are undoubtedly some in the industry who contribute to that perception, however any who are successful in the long-term are absolutely ethical and genuine. Distribution based on face-to-face relationships is absolutely a valid business model and economic sector.

Here are some of the things I learned or observed about direct selling:

1. Economic downturns can be great for direct selling.

What drives the industry more than anything else is the availability of talented people becoming distributors. When unemployment rises, people seek new ways to make money. The increase in motivated distributors can outweigh lower sales per individuals to create higher revenue.

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Launch of Implementing Enterprise 2.0: using software versioning for books

By Ross Dawson

We have just launched our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report, encapsulating in a neat package (almost) all you need to know to create massive value with Enterprise 2.0 technologies and approaches in your organization.

Our www.ImplementingEnterprise2.com website includes a number of free chapters and resources, which I’ll feature in more detail here later, as well as ordering information.

One of the key aspects of the report is that it is versioned. Version 1.1, available on Amazon.com, includes just a few small fixes from the 1.0 version that we produced for a limited audience. Now we can get down to the more significant modifications that will eventually see this as a highly refined and revised version 2.0, 3.0 and beyond.

That evolution will be largely based on feedback from readers. We will soon introduce a feedback forum on the report website to gather suggestions and input, though we’re always keen to get ideas in any format.

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Why traditional conferences are dying and how unconferences and audience participation are the future of events

By Ross Dawson

For many, many years I have felt that the vast majority of conferences were very poorly run, continuing to apply ancient, didactic approaches. That’s one of the reasons that a few years ago I started running events, organizing the Future of Media Summit, which annually links Sydney and San Francisco, the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum (the second annual event is on next week), Web 2.0 in Australia etc. Earlier events including what was at the time the extremely innovative Living Networks Forum in New York in 2003, using social networking technologies embedded in the event. Even though the events industry is vastly oversupplied, the majority of them are crap, so there’s ample scope for something better, as the consistent success of our events has demonstrated.

Certainly the last few years have seen the beginning of a transformation in how events are run, with in the US, Europe, and Australia (less so in Asia so far) many novel and highly interactive formats. However there is still a massive opportunity to create immense value with face-to-face events, and we’re currently looking to spin off our events business into a new company that will grow aggressively. News on that soon.

I am unusual in that a large part of my work is as a keynote speaker, speaking primarily on the future of business (including sometimes the future of events), usually within a traditional conference format. However at the same time I endeavor to create (or help my clients to implement) participatory formats that transcend the talking head syndrome.

Now the issue is getting mainstream media attention. News.com.au has released an article titled: Networking trend: the ‘unconference’, which examines the plethora of interactive events that are arising, such as unconferences, Lightning Talks, Ignite, and Pecha Kucha, and drawing on an extensive interview with me on where the space is heading.

The entire article is well worth a read. Below are excerpts of the direct quotes from me in the article.

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What business books I’m buying and reading

By Ross Dawson

I just received my latest book shipment from Amazon.com – it’s a tasty pile and I thought I’d share the list in case people are interested. Friendfeed is a nice way to share my various activities, but doesn’t include book purchases, which I’d probably prefer to share on an ad-hoc basis anyway.

Below are the books, together with brief comments. In most cases I haven’t read them cover to cover yet, but I’ll offer my thoughts either through reputation or having had a browse.

The predominant themes of Enterprise 2.0 and influencer marketing are obvious. We are writing our own Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report, as well as running our Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum soon, and it’s good to see what else has been written on the topic. As any regular readers of this blog will soon discover, influence will be a major theme for my companies in 2009.

Enterprise 2.0

By: Niall Cook

A succinct report-style overview of Enterprise 2.0 from an executive perspective, written by Niall Cook of PR firm Hill & Knowlton.

ENTERPRISE 2.0 IMPLEMENTATION

By: Aaron Newman, Jeremy Thomas

An extensive examination of Enterprise 2.0 implementation. It is written primarily for technical people, including some code examples, though is certainly accessible to non-technical people.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

By: Yochai Benkler

I’ve been long overdue to get this on my bookshelf. Already a classic, it covers the political and economic implications of a networked world.

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Keynote at Direct Selling Association conference in March

By Ross Dawson

I’m giving the keynote, titled Embracing the Future, at the Defining our Future conference in the Gold Coast 22-24 March, run by the Direct Selling Association. Below is an introductory video on the event, briefly reviewing the event and main speakers.

DSAA 2009 from Tom Walter on Vimeo.

I’ve never spoken to the direct selling industry before, but certainly the themes I often cover of the evolving network economy and media landscape is highly relevant to the audience. I’ll go into more detail later on what I’ll be covering in my keynote.

Twitter friend inflation, the dynamics of influence, and why shifts in reciprocity are changing the social media landscape

By Ross Dawson

Anyone who uses Twitter will be deeply familiar with the issue of who you follow and who you follow back. As Twitter continues to gather traction, popular Twitterers are gathering followers at an increasing pace. If you’re on Twitter, by default you get an email whenever someone follows you, giving you the option of looking at their profile and deciding whether you want to follow them back. If you know them, you’re likely to reciprocate, however if they are strangers, you go through a process of assessing whether you’d like to follow back.

There are seven basic strategies that Twitter users adopt:

1. Reciprocate any follows. This can be done manually, or automatically by using a service such as socialtoo.

2. Look at new followers and decide whether you want to follow them back. This is the most common strategy, which allows people to decide based on a range of factors whether to follow back.

3. Turn off follow notifications. High profile Twitterers simply follow people they know, and choose not to be notified who follows them (sometimes simply because their email inbox gets clogged by follow notifications).

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Registrations open for Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009 on 24 February 2009 – providing a clear roadmap for organizations

By Ross Dawson

I’m delighted to announce that registrations are open for Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009 on 24 February – full details on the website.

To help you make up your mind early, there are significant discounts for registrations before Christmas, and the first 25 registrations get a free copy of my book Living Networks.

Click here to download flyer for Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009

The inaugural Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum was in February 2008, attracting a sell-out audience of senior executives and extensive media coverage, including Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Computerworld, NineMSN, MIS The Scoop, Smartcompany, The Financial Standard and many others.

This year will be bigger and better, building on an additional year of experience from Australian and global enterprise experience in successfully implementing Web 2.0 and mobile technologies to transform their organizations.

Major announcements soon on a fantastic speaker line-up.

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