Enterprise 2.0 and B2C Web 2.0 Show Serious Traction—But Social Sticky Wickets Remain—How to Trust?
 The Social Networking Conference (SNC) was an excellent place to check the pulse of Web 2.0 adoption from customer and provider perspectives. Producer Marc Lesnick explained in his opening remarks that, in the months preceding this conference, corporations had knocked on his door asking to get involved. His Ticonderoga Ventures had held several SNCs over the past few years, and it had been largely the purview of social networking start-ups and their facilitators. This is a very apt indication of the enterprise adoption predicted by my State of Social Networking Forrester coverage and 2007 Review.
SNC SF 2008 took place July 10-11, 2008 at the UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay Conference Center. It was a focused conference that balanced start-ups’ and enterprises’ innovation—with a dash of perspective from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Social Networking Watch’s Mark Brooks. On the enterprise side, GE’s Grewal and GM’s Denison covered the enterprise 2.0 and B2C Web 2.0 perspectives respectively, while the U.S. Air Force’s Adkins presented nascent cross-boundary collaboration in […]
Reexamining “Content” in Light of “Conversation”
 Web 2.0 is redefining content on the Web, and Duo Consulting’s and Content Wrangler’s Web Content 2008 Chicago, convened at the UBS Tower on June 17-18, 2008, was a rich opportunity to check in with the Web 1.0-Web 2.0 mashup. Embedded within the legacy concept of “content” (text, pictures, audio, video, etc.) is that few people create it and many people consume it, which is obviously less true with every passing month.
Something else is happening on the way to the forum, too: opinions about content are gaining more attention than the content itself, according to Day One keynote Dick Costolo. If so, where does that leave people who “manage” content? There is a whole ecosystem of professionals and vendors that manage content according to Web 1.0 rules, and many of them were here, sharing their visions and tactics for embracing Web 2.0. Day Two keynote Jerome Nadel provided a clue: a shift in emphasis to design: since “users” are creating the opinion content through their “conversation,” I’ll hazard that a key part of […]
Knowledge Economy Unfolds via All Things Digital-Social—Wearing Passion and Personality on Your Sleeve
Discerning Web 2.0 from Web 1.0—Ron May Gets Comeuppance as Happy and Successful
 Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, financiers and professional services folk descended on Loyola University Chicago’s Lewis Hall 29 May 2008 for “Tech Conference,” TechCocktail’s first ever day-long educational event. Founders Frank Gruber and Eric Olson served an effervescent yet heady elixir of heart-to-heart war stories, lessons learned and strategies by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, lawyers, accountants and an executive coach.
Since attending TechCocktail 1 in July 2006, I have promoted the periodic TechCocktail “meetups” to everyone who will listen as the place to learn about and connect with Web 2.0 players and technology in Chicago (elsewhere now, too). Frank and Eric have created one of the most worthwhile groups and communities in the city and were recognized in the ITA’s Citylights this year. Their first conference was both high value and quintessentially Web 2.0: speakers were open about what had worked and what hadn’t. The program was well balanced, organized and entertaining. There were considerable lessons for […]
Leveraging B2C “Social” Networks for Real Enterprise Advantage—Flashbacks to Web 1.0—People in Bars
 Pan in, circa 1998, and enterprises were beginning to doubt the conventional wisdom that had prevailed during the past three years, namely that “the Internet” was a Silicon Valley fad that would blow over with nary a whimper. It was “for kids,” it didn’t merit adult attention—none of these “businesses” were making money anyway. You can’t be serious, how could a money-losing online bookstore affect GM? It looks silly to read these words today, but that’s only because we know what happened. Here I will suggest that we are on the cusp of a similar shift with Web 2.0 and social networks, I’ll outline an approach you can use to consider your adoption strategy, and I will recommend tactical things you can do right now to leverage LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Del.icio.us and others.
Since 2006, my consulting work has encompassed strategic and tactical sides of Web 2.0 and social networks and, in 2008, I launched a tactically-focused service, the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn, which helps global enterprises to use LinkedIn for process innovation. This has provided the […]
New Exit Strategy for Mature Manufacturers—Acquisition by Asian Firms shows how process excellence can inject new vitality into ailing manufacturers.
 Picture this: you are the CEO of a venerable manufacturer that has been besieged by price pressure, increased imports and high capital costs. Revenue has been barely edging up, and profits have been negative three of the last five years. You have had to lay off a significant portion of manufacturing personnel, many of whom had been with you more than a generation.Your ship is still taking on water despite best efforts, and you do not know where to turn.
This was precisely the situation of several U.S. firms that took the unusual route of selling themselves to Indian firms that turned the companies around very quickly by applying sophisticated process and management expertise. In many cases, local employment increased because the companies became much more competitive. Here are two examples:
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Web 2.0 Pureplays vs. Enterprise Vendors: A Real Battle compares the value propositions of Web 2.0 pureplays and traditional vendors.
Dennis Howlett, writing in the Irregular Enterprise on 19 March, made the case that enterprise IT just didn’t get social networking and start-ups were going to make some serious hay by bypassing IT and selling right into the business. He had also included a YouTube video in which CIOs commented on the question, “Is Enterprise 2.0 hype or happening?” which provided some light-hearted snippets about a profound subject. There was some valuable information in the post, but I found that it was approaching the issue from within the old paradigm (“battle on two fronts”), and therefore largely left money of the table. I’ll peel the onion here, so get ready to well up.
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IBM Drives Enterprise Adoption of Social Networks with New Enterprise Adaptability Practice offers reportage on the launch of IBM’s enterprise adaptability practice
Shades of Web 3.0—The Googlization of Knowledge Management—Resetting the Adoption Clocks
 Tuesday IBM announced a new services practice, “Enterprise Adaptability” services, which aims to help global companies realize a quantum leap in workforce agility and collaboration by facilitating their adoption of social networks and Web 2.0. As predicted in the Year in Review—2007, social networks and Web 2.0 are being embraced in the enterprise B2B arena this year, and this announcement shows that adoption is right on ahead of schedule. Enterprise 2.0 is reaching the mainstream, and companies that do not aggressively adopt enterprise 2.0 will experience serious competitive threats within three years.
IBM’s announcement validates enterprise social networking, but more significant is their rationale for launching the practice: their clients are struggling with adjusting to the Knowledge Economy, globalization and decreasing margins, and Enterprise Adaptability prescribes collaboration and innovation to cure legendary agility gaps. As explained below, Enterprise Adaptability smells like breakthrough, although it’s barely out of the oven. To look behind the curtain, I caught up with […]
Web 2.0 Impact on 2008 U.S. Presidential Election Declared Minimal at Executives’ Club, but cantankerous subtext hints at possible monkey wrench—democratic race in spotlight.
 The Executives’ Club of Chicago fielded an expert panel to brief Midwest executives on Web 2.0’s current and likely impact on one of the most watched U.S. elections in recent history. Marie Cocco, a renowned political columnist, Peter Greenburger, Director of Google’s Elections & Issue Advocacy Team, and Alan Webber, Senior Analyst of Forrester Research brought to bear diverse perspectives on the question at the event, which took place at The University Club on January 31, 2008.
They produced a logical conclusion, namely that Web 2.0 was a force in the making but that it would probably not be a decisive factor this year. The session was graciously co-hosted by Communications Committee Co-Chairs David Prosperi, Vice President Global Public Relations, AON and David Blake, Publisher of Crain’s Chicago Business.
As usual, I will share my notes of speakers’ remarks before adding my between the lines analysis and conclusions. As an […]
Year in Review 2007—Editor’s Choice of the Global Human Capital Journal
 As 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 […]
Edison as Mashup Artist: Combining Discipline, Process and Intuition
 Innovate Like Edison is a must-read for anyone who wants to thrive in the “flat world.” Had it been written in the 20th century, the book would have been applicable to R&D leaders, and it would have been a nice-to-have for business and government leaders. Innovation was the place kicker on the team during the Industrial Economy because companies created value through efficiency (refining continuous processes), and innovation is about discontinuous processes.
In the 21st century Knowledge Economy, however, innovation is the linebacker. Customers merely expect world-class efficiency, but it rarely differentiates. Innovation is now a core competency at most levels of every organization.
The problem is, the authors explain, is that very few people are innovation literate, and they don’t know how to practice it practically. As I’ve written extensively, business innovation failures are over 95%, and most new products fail at high rates. We must reposition innovation as a linebacker, and that means understanding it differently and treating it differently.
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