CIO Magazine interview: Six key points for CIOs in creating value from Enterprise 2.0

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A little earlier in the year CIO Magazine published an excellent feature article titled Enterprise 2.0 – What is it good for? In the print and online articles they included a sidebar: The Organization As Media Entity: Enterprise 2.0 is about making mass participation valuable, which reported on my views (that I’ve written and spoken about on many occasions before) that organizations should start thinking of themselves as media entities. The piece, shown in its entirety below, also includes six key points for CIOs to consider in implementing Enterprise 2.0.

The Organization As Media Entity

Enterprise 2.0 is about making mass participation valuable

Increasingly, the best way to understand how any organization works is to think of it as a media entity, says Ross Dawson CEO, Advanced Human Technologies and Chairman, Future Exploration Network. Organizations create messages and information, take inputs from external media sources, and edit and publish content in an increasing diversity of formats, with e-mail and the intranet often predominant. Their employees are typical media consumers (and creators), deluged by choice, and often ineffective at cutting through with their own communication. As such, the current state of the media industry offers many lessons for organizations seeking to be more effective and productive.

Dawson says it’s important for CIOs trying to come to terms with Enterprise 2.0 to realize it is less about a collection of new technologies and much more about shifting organizations into the next phase of work.

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Peak of Australian Twitter use was at Future of Media Summit 2008

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Hitwise has just released statistics on Twitter usage in Australia, showing that Twitter usage is up over 500% over the last year. More interestingly, Australia’s share of Twittering globally has more than tripled in that time. It should also be noted that people increasingly use mobiles and Twitter clients such as Twhirl, so Hitwise would not be seeing this traffic, suggesting that the increase in usage is probably significantly greater than the figures they’re reporting.

Of particular interest is that Twitter’s peak of usage in Australia was at the time of the Future of Media Summit 2008, on July 15. This isn’t that surprising given the very strong use of Twitter at and beyond the Summit (see Twitter posts tagged #fom08), and the many people who commenced Twittering at the event.

Certainly other more recent events in Australia (for example today’s Web Directions South #wds08) are likely to have more Twitter usage than the Future of Media Summit, however that is on the back of a significant increase in the local Twitter population since then. It’s certainly great to see that the Future of Media Summit got such great Twitter uptake, especially since the event covered the entire media landscape, not just social media, and many attendees were from traditional media and unlikely to ever Twitter.

Thanks for the reference from the blog of social media strategist and Twitterer extraordinaire Laurel Papworth!

Also see the original release from Hitwise for more interesting insights, such as the fact that Twitter delivers 10x more traffic to financial institution websites than it did a year ago, suggesting that Twitterers are saying either nice or bad things about banks.

Effective governance unleashes the creative potential of Web 2.0 in the business

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IT Business Edge has just published an interview with me on IT governance for Web 2.0 technologies, a topic I’m spending considerable time on in my consulting work with major organizations. The complete article, Set Policies to Unleash Creativity with Web 2.0 Tools, is available on their website, and the interview is reproduced below.

Hall: Just to make sure we’re on the same page, how do you define Web 2.0 technologies?

Dawson: Basically, they’re technologies that use mass participation to create value for the business. They can be wikis, blogs, social networking, social bookmarking, mashups and other tools, but [the term] also involves the underlying architecture behind those tools.

Hall: So what would IT governance for those tools look like?

Dawson: I look at governance in a broader context as having a full understanding of potential risks, potential benefits and having set-off structured policies and procedures where any risks are minimized and benefits are maximized, with a high degree of transparency and accountability for executives and other people in the organization.

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Renai LeMay’s ZDNet blog increasing coverage of Australian start-ups

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The flourishing Australian start-up scene is about to get yet more coverage. Renai LeMay, having returned to CNET (now CBS Interactive) as News Editor from a stint at the Australian Financial Review, has set up Bootstrappr, a blog covering Australian start-ups.

Below I have put his guide to getting coverage on his blog – an extremely rare instance where I respond to a request for coverage, since it’s in a good cause :-)

So far excellent coverage of the Australian start-up scene has been provided by Vishal Sharma’s startup blog. I was one of the judges on his Startups Carnival earlier this year. Vishal has also just announced he is considering writing a book on Australian start-ups, which I think is an excellent idea.

Of course I also compile the annual Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications list, which appeared in BRW this year, and which won’t appear again until around May.

Just the last 3-6 months have seen a real shift in technology entrepreneurship in Australia – there is far more activity and a higher level of sophistication. It’s great to see.

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Four great visual representations of the social media and Web 2.0 landscape

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People often ask me how I keep track of everything that’s going on in Web 2.0 and social media and make sense of it all. The most important single tool for me is creating frameworks. The many frameworks I create (e.g. Future of Media Lifecycle, Future of Media Strategy, Trend Map 2007+ (with Richard Watson) etc. etc.) are all primarily to help me organize in my mind what’s going on. They then allow me to readily understand new developments as they emerge and how they fit into the landscape.

The release of the Conversation Prism last week made me think it’s worth providing a quick review of visual frameworks for the social media landscape.

The Conversation Prism is intended to evolve over time based on changes in both companies andchannels, which is a great idea, given the other landscapes below are static, and my framework in particular is ageing and needs rework. Another cool idea would be to provide animated frameworks that show the development and disappearance of different companies over time.

Recently I have been trying to make sense of some of the recent changes in the landscape, particularly about how the primary platform is shifting from the social network to distributed conversation. Even before the Conversation Prism came out I had decided to work on a new framework that will incorporate my latest thinking on this – hopefully out in the next couple of months!

Here are the four most interesting landscapes of companies in the social media world that I’ve come across.

Conversation Prism (August 2008) – Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas.

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New SEC guidelines: blogs can be used for investor disclosure – CEO blogging to surge?

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced new guidelines (available in the next week or two) that will recognize the role of blogs in disclosing investor-sensitive information to the public.

Back in 2005 I wrote an update on the situation at the time on investor relations and blogging, and in 2006 I delivered the keynote at the Australian Investor Relations Association on the Future of Investor Relations, and wrote about SUN Microsystem’s CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s initiatives for blogging to be a recognized form of investor disclosure.

The SEC appears to be moving ahead at a swift pace, despite cries from some, particularly in the news release business, that the old system shouldn’t be changed. In fact the comments below from SEC Chairman Christopher Cox come from a podcast, transcribed by IRWebReport:

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Web 2.0 and human resources – who should drive Web 2.0 initiatives in the organization?

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The UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has recently launched a discussion paper titled Web 2.0 and human resources, designed to help HR professionals to understand what Web 2.0 is and to contribute to organization’s activities in the space.

The paper is built around the key elements of my Web 2.0 Framework, which they nicely attribute me for, though also brings in a number of new elements, and wraps up with three case studies, including Pfizer’s Pfizerpedia, UK government departments’ use of forums, and T-mobile’s use of social networks for recruitment.

As I see and work with many organizations grappling with how to respond to and take advantage of Web 2.0, one of the challenges is that there is no one obvious place in the organization where these initiatives should reside. IT, HR, marketing, strategy, risk management and other functions all need to be involved, and the reality is usually none of them individually have the capabilities to successfully drive the full breadth of the potential across the firm. In successful organizations, often individuals who implicitly understand the issues help to define activities, and very importantly communicate across the wide variety of stakeholders.

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How Web 2.0 creates value

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Below is the sidebar I wrote in for BRW‘s Web 2.0 feature, accompanying our Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications list. The reason I was most pleased about getting the list into a mainstream business magazine is that it is a significant step in getting the broader business community to understand the value and transformative power of Web 2.0 (or whatever you want to call the participatory web). While the geeks and early online adopters are swimming in this world and engage in continual conversations with each other about what’s happening, it is critically important that the messages spread beyond this community. That is central to what I’m trying to do.

Another sidebar in the report written by Technology Editor Foad Fadaghi on Start-up challenges is available online (though that’s all – the rest is subscriber only :-( ).

Web 2.0 for business

The many applications of Web 2.0 in business include increasing employee productivity with collaboration tools and better access to information, gaining insights into consumer attitudes and behaviours, engaging customers in personal relationships and providing personalised customer service.

Web 2.0 for consumers

Some consumer uses of Web 2.0 tools are to communicate with their friends and family, find out what products and services others have liked and manage their lives more effectively.

Web 2.0 for creators

Creators of art, video, photos, music, writing and more can share their creations, collaborate with others in developing them and get rewarded for their creativity.

Web 2.0 for investors

Through Web 2.0 start-ups, investors can access the fastest growing sector of the economy, establish low-cost trial ventures and reach global markets.

Web 2.0 for innovation

Web 2.0 tools help innovators to collaborate across boundaries and connect their ideas to the global marketplace. They are central to Australia’s integration into the rapidly growing hyper-connected economy.

Review of the Top 100 web apps launch, event, and coverage

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Some quick thoughts on the Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications launch and event last week:

* Everyone seems to have had a good time at the launch event – I certainly did! A great bunch of people

* For me the primary reason to create the list and get it into BRW was to help link the tech entrepreneurial scene in Australia with business. I think that mainstream business is starting to recognize the many ways Web 2.0 is extremely relevant and important.

* This space is – I hope – at some kind of tipping point where it has reached critical mass and will surge from here. Expect plenty more activity from me and others in helping this along.

* The big themes that came out of the panel discussions on the day for me were about the role of these kinds of applications and entrepreneurship in the economy (see also link to Elias Bizannes’ thoughts below).

Will be back soon with some thoughts on what we can learn from the list about the global Web 2.0 space.

Online event coverage:

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I belatedly enter Twitterland – participating in a cross-section of human conversation – this is true “micro-messaging”!

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I set up my rossdawson Twitter account this morning. I know I’m very late to the party, but will now be exploring this space.

I’ve followed Twitter and its peers from the beginning as well as I can as a non-participant. My attitude has always been that my primary online presence is my blog – everything flows out from that. I don’t have enough time to write anything near as much as I’d like on my blog, so I felt that starting to Twitter would take away from the little time I have to devote to blogging. I do have a very intense schedule almost all the time, with major events, speeches, and deadlines succeeding each other in rapid succession, on top of a stack of travel. I consider it my top priority doing my client work and events as well I possibly can, and while creating content is a core activity for me, it can’t take over other things (for now).

Clearly momentum has built over time in my intent to get onto Twitter, and have been playing with the idea for a while. I actually decided to get on after last catching with Shannon Clark in a San Francisco café earlier this year. He told me that Twitter was at the center of his life, and gave a compelling description of the benefits to him in being across and in the conversation.

However I’ve been so busy that I never quite found the time to get it going. I’ve certainly been active on FriendFeed, and using tools such as AlertThingy in fact has given me much of the functionality of Twitter, in allowing messaging across my activities, following Twitter feeds, and responding on FriendFeed.

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