Wikinomics

Gin, sitcoms and the debate over the cognitive surplus

Denis Hancock — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:26:41 +0000

Clay Shirky gave a speech at a Web 2.0 conference a few weeks ago that made an entertaining connection between societal transformations in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th century, there was a sudden shift from rural to urban life that was so wrenching that scores of people needed to drink heavily to cope - gin as the critical technology for the industrial revolution. Only after the “collective bender” did people wake up and build the “institutional structures” we associate with the industrial revolution today - he lists libraries, museums, democracy, broad education.

As you could probably guess from the title of this post, Shirky then claims that the sitcom is the 20th century equivilent of gin. Underlying this argument is that shortly after WW II a whole whack of people suddenly found themselves with a lot of free time - something they’d never had to manage before. In turn, they panicked and watched sitcoms for 50 years or so. He then goes on to effectively argue that, as a society, we are coming out of the collective “bender” - of 200 Billion hours a year watching TV in the U.S. alone - to use that “free time” for something more productive. The age of participation.

I don’t want to go too much further into his details then that, but rather stay at this level and focus on what is becoming one of the more interesting questions of the day. (more…)

Dilbert Mash up: May 16th

Denis Hancock — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:01:44 +0000

Check out all the mash ups, and the original of course, at Dilbert.com.

Nothing goes unnoticed in the world of the web

Ming Kwan — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:09:19 +0000

Although this story happened a week ago, I thought it was a great example displaying today’s interconnected world, where, nothing goes unnoticed. So when three managers at a local Tim Horton’s in London Ontario decided to fire Nicole Lilliman - a single mother of four - for handing out one $0.16 timbit to a regular customer’s crying baby - the news exploded in the media.

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Wikinomics in the Blogosphere

Will Dick — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:47:44 +0000

Highlighting some of the places that Wikinomics is appearing in the blogosphere.

The Connected Republic has announced a wiki discussion of Government 2.0, using seven principles that they have developed as a starting point.

The Cambrian House Idea’s Section has a post by DaveH who is looking for help on his new open source loom project.

Gordon Crovitz of the Wall Street Journal discusses our Government 2.0 Project.

The South African Business Report writes about Cape Town University’s application of Wikinomics principles.

Blogger Carl Dowse has posted an old video clip of Don speaking on BBC Newsnight.

Blogger John Pana talks about the pre-internet use of Wikinomics principles by Richardo Semler when he revolutionized Semco.

Charlie Huenermann, from Utah State University, questions the motivations of participants on open source projects.

RISMedia puts Wikinomics on their list of top 25 books corporate America is reading.

Emma Wallace, Director of Social 8, a management consultancy specializing in Enterprise 2.0, recommends Wikinomics as a tool to convince the uninitiated of the benefits of mass collaboration.

The Parable of the 3D Poster

Caleb Love — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:00:40 +0000

Have you ever looked at one of those strangely patterned posters with the hidden 3D picture inside? You know, the ones you stand in front of for five to ten minutes crossing and uncrossing your eyes to see the hidden tropical island, bunny, or house your friends are describing to you. Well, I was the fourth grader who could never quite pick out more than just blobs in the pattern. I still remember that day in eighth grade when I looked up at my English class wall and instead of little squiggles I saw a whale in the sea. It was a great day. (more…)

Dilbert Mash up: May 15th

Denis Hancock — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:57:17 +0000

See the original at www.dilbert.com.

The problem with blogs

Naumi Haque — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:23:27 +0000

I was having dinner last night with Nokia’s Business Capability Manager, Matthew Hanwell. We got to talking about blogging in the enterprise and Matt suggested that the real problem with blogging was the term “blog.” It sounds too geeky and doesn’t convey the business value of the technology. It’s a nomenclature issue; “thoughts” is a much better way to sell it, says Matt. Perhaps if we simply asked companies and employees if they wanted to share their thoughts or ideas online they would be more amenable to the idea of corporate “blogging.” It’s a good point. What organization would want to hamper idea sharing? What employee would pass up the opportunity to share their thoughts?

Rich people have fewer friends

Naumi Haque — Wed, 14 May 2008 04:36:02 +0000

I was doing some background research for an upcoming project on social networks and came across an interesting paragraph from a paper by renowned sociologist Mark Granovetter (“The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited”). The core of the argument (in the paragraph, not the paper) is that people develop strong social ties to those similar to themselves and since there are fewer individuals in the upper strata of society, those at the top have fewer close friends.

“‘Peter Blau has suggested that since the class structure of modern societies is pyramidal, and since we may expect individuals at all levels to be inclined toward homophily—the tendency to choose as friends those similar to oneself—it follows that the lower one’s class stratum, the greater the relative frequency of strong ties. This happens because homophilous ties are more likely to be strong and low-status individuals are so numerous that it is easier for them to pick and choose as friends others similar to themselves.’ A literal interpretation of this comment would lead us to expect upper-status individuals to have large numbers of weak ties, since there are so few others of high status; it would further follow that many of these weak ties would then be to others of lower status, since the latter would be so numerous. This conclusion does not accord with ethnographic accounts of upper-class life that stress the importance of strong ties to other members of the upper class. But it does suggest why the upper class must invest so much in institutions such as private clubs, special schools, and social registers; the effort to maintain a network of homophilous strong ties is more difficult here than for lower strata.”

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eBay and Craigslist = a failed marriage?

Dan Herman — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:19:12 +0000

The New York Times recently ran a great story / interview with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark in which he addresses some of the issues arising from eBay’s lawsuit against the company. eBay bought a 28% stake in the online classifieds site back in August 2004, a purchase that seemed to line-up much better with the online auctioneers core strategy compared to the ill-timed purchase of Skype. But eBay wasn’t content to stop with Craigslist and bought Marktplaats.nl later that year, launched Kijiji in March 2005, and rounded it all off with the purchase of Gumtree a few months later.

And while these latter three acquisitions all focused on the European market, in July of 2007 eBay decided to extend Kijiji into the US and Canadian markets, thus representing a direct challenge to Craigslist. The move was a bit strange given the dominance of Craigslist in the US and has led to a rather acrimonious relationship between the two companies. As a result Craigslist is trying to buy back its shares from eBay, and in a recent lawsuit filed against it, is accused of trying to minimize eBay’s influence on the company. Newmark’s response: “Sadly, we have an uncomfortably conflicted shareholder in our midst, one that is obsessed with dominating online classifieds for the purpose of maximizing its own profits.”

And therein lies the perceived disconnect between the MO held by the folks at Craigslist and the profit-seeking orientation of eBay. (more…)

Priming the blogosphere…

Dan Herman — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:14:54 +0000

Despite the hype around government agencies that have begun blogging, I’m not a huge fan. Quite a few government agencies (especially in the US) have started them but, in my opinion, very few do a good job at creating something other than a new medium for press releases. A blog that doesn’t acknowledge the responses or comments that it attracts is doomed for irrelevance. Luckily there’s a couple of government agencies are using blogs to open up real, two-way communication channels between their staff and the citizens they serve. The best of the bunch being the Transportation Safety Authority’s Evolution of Security blog.

I made these same comments last week at a presentation I did for the 2008 Government Web Managers conference and made specific reference to the blog hosted by the US Office of Citizen Services and Communications, Gov Gab. It’s a good first step in terms of providing reliable tips on service-related issues but I noted that what they might want to do is take a page from the TSA and ask their readers what the big ticket items they should be addressing are.

Low and behold they’ve listened (!) and today they’ve asked US citizens to tell them what they want their blog to address. So here’s your chance to get them to listen and focus on your ideas, complaints and concerns - so join the conversation here.

Interviews with Innovators by John Udell

Denis Hancock — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:19:02 +0000

I just wanted to provide a heads up to wikinomics readers about a great resource on the web they might not know about - the “Interviews with Innovators” series by Jon Udell, available on the ITConversations Network. I must first note that all of the interviews are in audio file format, which I generally find annoying (I greatly prefer text files that I can scan through), but this is one of those cases where the content can be worth the time commitment. To quote the site itself, Udell uses the conversations to explore:

a wide range of issues at the intersection of technology and society. These conversations are sometimes deeply technical, sometimes broadly social, and frequently both. They always aim to connect the dots.

As of today, the most recent (and the one I’m listening to right now) is an interview with Lucas Gonze reflecting on how we all discover, share, and experience music in the digital age. Others of interest include Deepak Singh (co-founder of Bioscreencast.com) discussing the Web 2.0 in science, Tim Spalding (founder of LibraryThing.com) on a social catalog for book lovers, Carl Malamud (a 4.5/5 star rating!) discussing online access to Public Information, and particularly Adrian Holovaty, who recently launched a site modelled after ChicagoCrime.org called Everyblock.com- hyperlocal news and data across a variety of cities.

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From Wikinomics to Government 2.0 in the WSJ

Don Tapscott — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:27:39 +0000

For those that might have missed it, I just wanted to give a heads up on a Wall Street Journal article posted yesterday by L. Gordon Crovitz: From Wikinomics to the Government 2.0. This is a very exciting area of development, and we hope to collaborate with all of you in the future to revolutionize the way that government works. While you’re at it, you may want to read about five of the things I have learned about collaboration.

You too can be a rocket scientist

Alan Majer — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:08:09 +0000

Let me preface this post with a warning - rockets are dangerous. Please be extra careful if you even think about experimenting with them. Now onto the fun stuff…

With the exception of solid fuel model rockets, actual rocket engines have been out of the reach (and budget) of most DIY’s. However, there’s an older rocket technology called a pulse jet engine which is making a comeback amongst do it yourselvers. It was first invented by Germany and used in their notorious V-1 rockets (buzz bombs) in WWII. One reason they’re popular today is that they can be built with no moving parts. Here’s more info on how they work.

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Software Now Understands English; Next Up: Love

Jeff DeChambeau — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:07:52 +0000

Yesterday, The Globe and Mail had a piece about a new company that’s trying to change the way we search online:

SAN FRANCISCO — Powerset on Sunday unveiled tools for searching Wikipedia that use conversational phrasing instead of keywords, marking the first step of its challenge to established Web search services such as Google.

Powerset’s technology breaks down the meaning of words and sentences into related concepts, freeing users from always needing to type the exact words they want to find. (more…)

Dilbert Mash up: May 13 2008

Denis Hancock — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:59:04 +0000

Click on the Dilbert tag below to see past mash ups on this site… or go to Dilbert.com to see the original and all the other mash ups that have been done.

The GTA IV Hood, a google powered wiki mashup

Brendan Peat — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:42:03 +0000

The latest addition to the Grand Theft Auto series hit store shelves just about 2 weeks ago and has enjoyed enormous success. The game smashed previous sales records set only a few months ago by Halo 3 and has recorded well over half a billion dollars revenue. “Official figures released yesterday by publisher Take-Two Interactive show the game blew past already-high industry analyst expectations, bringing in some $500 million dollars in first-week sales.”

In the GTA game players navigate around a ‘fictional’ city (based on NY in the latest edition) and complete a variety of tasks. In the past the one of the challenges of GTA, outside of the traditional story line, has been discovering all of the little tricks and secret missions in the game. For GTA IV however the latter has become infinitely easier. The reason being there has been an an explosion of activity on the GTA IV “google powered wiki mashup” or Grand Theft Auto Hood. IGN has created a site that allows gamers to do a number of things which include navigate Liberty City using google maps, tag points of interest, missions, vehicles, secrets etc…, collaboratively develop a gaming guide in a wiki and interact with other gamers in the forums. Top contributers are identified by the number of edits the make to the site and the number of things they ‘discover’ in the game.

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Web 2.0 Companies - building relationships to build brands

Denis Hancock — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:20:52 +0000

Ad Week had a great article by Brian Morrissey go up today called “These Brands Build Community: How these web 2.0 companies build good relationships to build their brands.” Here a few choice quotes from the piece (the one from Kalmikoff is my favorite - just managing parameters is a great way to think about wikinomics strategy):

“We think our brand is going to be different because we want people to feel there’s a real person they’re connecting with, whether it’s when they call us or through Twitter or any way they come in contact with us” - Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, and probably the only CEO who gave away shoes via Twitter this week.

“All we do is try to respond to what users are asking for. That’s how we set our priorities. Users aren’t asking us to run ads, so it doesn’t come onto our radar.” - Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist

“By choosing to invest in consumers over advertising, Google is a living example of a deeper truth: The future of communications as advantage lies in talking less and listening more.” - Umair Haque, Havas Media Lab Director. Check out the bubblegeneration blog.

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The Collaborative Experience Economy

Denis Hancock — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:34:33 +0000

As part of my research on next generation customer experiences, I was re-reading a great book by Pine and Gilmore called The Experience Economy. It was chapter seven that particularly piqued my interest, notably the section on the four forms of theatre - platform, matching, street and improv as they laid out in figure 7.1 (I have quickly re-created it in the link below).

four-forms-of-theatre.ppt

The basic idea I am building towards is that wikinomics and collaborative experiences is about moving more and more of the business away from platform theatre and into improv - with street and matching theatre being steps along the way. But before getting there, some background on each is required.

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Wikinomics and the future of education

Anthony D. Williams — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:54:10 +0000

Last week I gave a keynote at Case Western Reserve University, as part of the President’s Symposium on Collaborative Technology and the Future of Education. I’ve posted my slides on slideshare.com and I’m working with the event organizers to make the video of my talk available here on wikinomics.com.

The event was organized by Lev Gonick, Case Western’s CIO and a trailblazer in educational innovation. Check out Lev’s blog for an amazing compendium of breakthrough projects. Among other things, Lev and his team are introducing the use of QR codes across the campus — to the best of my knowledge they are the first North American college or university to do so. According to Lev, “The codes are found everywhere from transit stops, where students can scan them to see when the next bus would arrive, to applications on Facebook and MySpace, to the student newspaper where QVC recently began rolling out its own marketing campaign with Mobile Discovery.”

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Dilbert Mash up: May 12th

Denis Hancock — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:24:00 +0000

You might have to read Ian’s post on the Dumbest Generation to understand this, but it’s like jerk store - everyone except Mike gets it. As always, you can see the original on the Dilbert home page.

The Dumbest Generation? Have your say.

Ian Da Silva — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:26:03 +0000

I must first acknowledge my personal bias on this topic…

As a member of the Net Generation research team at nGenera (and a member of said generation myself), I am a firm believer in the tremendous accomplishments and potential of the Net Generation (those born between 1977 and 1997). So, I must say that when I first heard of the upcoming launch of Emory University English Professor Mark Bauerlein’s book: The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30), I was quite intrigued.

While I cannot yet comment in-depth on the quality of Bauerlein’s research or the content of his book, I want to highlight the book’s launch this Thursday (I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy), and I also want to give our Wikinomics readers the opportunity to weigh-in with their opinions on Bauerlein’s thesis here. Bauerlein will also be addressing your questions here, this Wednesday at noon. (more…)

The (blogging) gang’s all here

Mike Dover — Sun, 11 May 2008 02:25:49 +0000

Next week, I’m delighted to moderate a panel that includes some of my favourite bloggers…and Denis. Also featured on the panel are Mathew Ingram, Anastasia Goodstein, Leigh Himel, and Sean Moffitt. I’ve added all the links to the blogroll on the bottom right of this page.

Here are some interesting recent posts from each. Mathew teaches us an important lesson about “accepting changes” before sending your business plan to a VC. You know, to avoid the people you want money from to read stuff like:

“Segal used to work for Microsoft so skip the name dropping, save it for the afternoon meeting, they are clueless about Redmond.”
“When you talk through this point on your slides, make Chanukah jokes, he is Jewish and will get them”
“I’d delete this section since we don’t have these features on the roadmap and haven’t figured out how to code this unless you believe the investors won’t catch this.”
“VCs are typically stupid when it comes to this section so be prepared for a dumb question blizzard.”

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Dilbert Mash up: May 10th

Denis Hancock — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:46:48 +0000

Someone just hacked my bank account …me

Alan Majer — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:46:38 +0000

Ok, personal banking information is about as private as it gets right? Wrong. Turns out, bloggers like this, this, this, this , this, this, this, and this are sharing their personal finances and net worth with anyone who cares to read about it. For example, the author of the The Money Blog posts a bar chart of their net worth on every page of their site ($257,939 as of May 9th, 2009 in case anyone was curious).

It’s one thing to share information about what music you’re listening to via a widget, but would people really use a widget to display financial information? Well, 23% of people are apparently interested in having a widget that could display the current balance from their bank account.

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Wikinomics in the blogosphere

Denis Hancock — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:15:48 +0000

A few of the places where wikinomics is popping up in the blogosphere:

Would you hire a social media strategist? Part 3. This is a really great report from Kevin Lim, a doctoral student at the University of Buffalo. Just take a trip around his site, it’s worth it.

Are behind the firewall social networks doomed? by Gia Lyons.

PBS, Higher Education, and Museums on the TellHistory weblog.

Time to wake up by the Real Estate Zealot.

Connecting wikinomics and Buddhism by Jeff Zeiders.

Facebook and hooking up by Tullian Tchividjian.

Some things I’ve learned this year by Derek Sivers.

It’s getting crowded by Bob Sprankle.