Private Label Facebooks to Proliferate in 2008

ent2In 2007, countless corporations talked about building their own Facebook (see Wachovia, for one), while Facebook itself declined the invitation. Microsoft, as usual, careened into the ring from the sidelines with its lackluster Sharepoint offering, which produces less corporate entropy than pureplay Web 2.0 vendors but characteristically is short on features and has a slow development cycle.

Based on the interest I am getting from corporations to help them with strategy for social networks and Web 2.0 and my coverage of Forrester and Digital Hollywood, I predict that enterprise social network vendors will have a good year, but enthusiasts should beware of a couple of traps…

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Public Beta Site Unveiled

The beta is official as of this post, and I am now focused on adding content. I expect the beta period will last for about two weeks. Please expect that you may experience minor glitches in how this site looks, feels and acts, but you should find it to be functional, and I hope any mishaps will not inconvenience you too much.

I have added to the “About page ” as well as a bio page.

Please comment on content as well as functionality and blog features.

Thanks for your interest, readership and support.

Within Striking Distance of Beta

Finally selected the theme and succeeded in wrestling the php to the ground. Too early to declared complete victory, but definitely can see the end in sight. Then will be able to focus on content!

Alpha Release

Got most of the key elements in place, so here we go with the alpha release! Still a couple of nagging mysteries to be solved, but happy with progress.

Inauguration of Pre-Alpha Weblog

This should take shape over the next few days, but right now still struggling with the opaque (at least to me) php.

Economic Outlook for 2008—Executives' Club of Chicago

U.S. Economy Due for Sideways Year—Special Effects by Presidential Election—Uncomfortable Long-term Questions Waiting in Wings

econ_fcast_eec-08The Executives’ Club of Chicago assembled an all-star panel to give Midwest business leaders their guidance for various aspects of the U.S. economy in 2008. Diane Swonk, Chief Economist of Mesirow Financial and Robert “Bob” Froehlich, Chairman of the Investment Strategy Committee, Deutsche Asset Management returned, and the mystery panelist was Jack Ablin, Chief Investment Officer, Harris Private Bank. They broke out their respective crystal balls for 2008, along with comedic effects. The session was brilliantly moderated by Terry Savage, Financial Columnist of the Chicago Sun-Times who didn’t miss a beat and extracted specific predictions from panelists.

Panelists agreed that the U.S. economy would struggle in 2008, but it would move mostly sideways, probably eking out a 1-2% gain for the year after an unsatisfying first half. All panelists predicted that the Dow would touch 14,000 sometime during the year. Froehlich again emphasized the importance of looking beyond the U.S. for investments. Swonk and Ablin were less outspoken but had high non-U.S. allocations in their recommended […]

Year in Review—2007: A Slow Boil Overture to Pervasive Social Transformation

Year in Review 2007—Editor’s Choice of the Global Human Capital Journal

Year in Review 2007: the editor's choiceAs I reflect on 2007 and create strategy for 2008, several macro-trends come into sharp relief, and I believe that some of them might be helpful to you as you conduct your own planning. As always, I focus on emerging phenomena because they are areas in which disruption and discontinuous change are acting on markets, thereby elevating threats and opportunities. Helping leaders to create strategy to manage the risk of unusual market developments is the focus of my consulting practice.

In 2007 it became clear to me that we were entering a profound social transformation that would produce an unimaginable degree of change. Unlike the technology-precipitated change that I’ve been helping people with since the 1990s, technology is shifting to the background now, and pervasive social change is taking the stage. Look for disruption in all areas affected by how people connect, communicate, purchase and collaborate: business, politics, community and leisure. Moreover, these changes are completely global with all the variations that engenders.

I can’t tell […]