The Rally Fighter was built for racing in the desert, and after checking out a few other designs I quickly realized that each car was built for specific geographic preferences. Other designs include the The Miami Roadster, The Green Apple (for The Big Apple) and my favorite The Boston Bullet, described below:

For “a city that gives innovation in a spirit of tradition.” The Bullet is Boston’s car, designed for narrow streets and a smooth ride while managing to capture the city’s cultural and ideological heritage.

Local Motors is challenging how new cars are created, holding design contests for each piece of the car from overall design, to the electrical systems, to the interior, to the name. The community prioritizes the ideas and develops those designs that have the most support. My favorite part is that once a full car design is complete, people order them online and the actual manufacturing is done by the new owner. Did you hear that? The new owner builds their own car! With help from the Local Motors team, owners learn how and then actually build an engine, put in windows, craft a brake system, everything! So not only is Local Motors offering designers a great way to collaborate around an exciting concept, they are offering their customers a very personalized experience. Taking the prosumer concept to the next level is no doubt creating a loyal following and a significant group of lifelong customers.

So, what about the major auto manufacturers? Is Local Motors planning to compete with them? How would that work? While the concept is most likely too specialized to ever take off in the mass market, Local Motors is hoping to work with major automakers. They see an opportunity to fill a niche that the major players just can’t fill as it is too cost prohibitive. I anticipate seeing some type of partnership, but given the innovative nature of this company it will most likely be structured like nothing we’ve seen before.

I can’t wait to see what new product development concepts and of course really cool cars come out of this company. As you can imagine the Local Motor’s website is central to its business model, and it is built to keep you interested. Everything from the live shop camera to the design wall to the community and forums are designed to get you thinking, wanting to learn more and maybe even participate. The newest contest launched January 27 and closed February 9 was for a Texas hunting truck described as

a vehicle for Texas that could easily meet the demands of hunters and could adapt depending on the requirements of the different types of game — white tail deer, quail, dove, and javalina to name a few. Essentially, design a base vehicle that could have various modules easily attached to it depending on the needs of the user.

Did you happen to notice how fast this contest is? 2 weeks from launch to close…not bad turnaround time for innovating new ideas. That efficiency is what the collaborative enterprise is all about.

So…what aspects of this model could your company use to improve innovation? What new products or services could be developed in this rapid, community-driven approach? Who among us will jump in and become the next cool car designer? One thing is clear, it will be really fun to watch!

The first clue that something is off comes from the chart they provided. True, when asked whom do you trust as a credible source of information about a company, friends / peers dropped from 45% to 25% (from 2008 to 2010). However, trust in other sources – TV news, radio news, and newspapers – dropped by almost the exact same proportion, from almost the exact same base (i.e. newspapers appear to have dropped from 46% to 26%, for example). The article gets around to mentioning this, but not until the main message they are trying to send has been established.

This indicates two things to me. One, the article deliberately chose to focus on the one part of the story that seemed most provocative – always suspicious. Two, that the question being used does not appear particularly good at distinguishing trust levels between different channels, in terms of marketing. Setting the 2010 data to the side, there is a lot of data out there indicating that tells a very different story than the 2008 baseline (and interpretation) presented. Commenter Kevin pointed towards one such study, from Nielsen, that showed 90% of online customers either completely or somewhat trusted recommendations from people they know. The importance of “recommend to a friend” has been well established, and validated, for many years. But I’ll come back to that in a minute.

A second clue was the interpretation of the quote provided by Richard Edelman himself – that “the lesson for marketers is consumers have to see and hear things in five different places before they believe it.” That type of message could be viewed as great news for people in the advertising business, who can tell clients they need to spend money everywhere to get a message through (cha-ching!). I don’t buy it. My main interpretation of the chart is that it’s very, very likely that many, many customers indicated they didn’t trust any source, in relation to the given question. Hitting these people with messages from many sources they deem uncredible, and expecting that to turn into a message that they trust, is a bit of a stretch.

A third clue is that the chart provided is primarily focused on news sources (i.e. it’s “radio news”, not “radio”), while the discussion is primarily marketing focused. I think there’s a major disconnect there, which ties into some of the discussion above.

I then thought a bit about how I would respond to the given question – and I realized I’d probably fall in the “not trusting any source” camp. But it’s not because I don’t trust opinions and recommendations from friends and peers – it’s because the question is too generic, and notably I don’t really associate it with marketing and purchasing decisions. The reason is simple – while I may know a fair number of people, most of them are fairly busy. If I want “information on a company”  – a very generic request – that I pick out of thin air, I can’t exactly expect them to have it. It’s also likely that what they know, or could find, would come from the company itself (directly or indirectly). In my opinion, the link between this question, and what marketers should be thinking about, is relatively weak.

This led me to a couple more thoughts that I think need to be taken into account here – from a marketing perspective.

First, let’s start from a different question – Who knows you the best? - and provide the same list of options. I would bet my retirement fund on friends / peers winning this contest, and that if someone chose “radio” it’s unlikely you’d let them in your house. I’d also be willing to assert, with a high degree of confidence, that there are many situations where people trust messages, and recommendations, from this group of people over ads on TV, radio, and newspapers – even though this article would have you think differently. I know that seems like a very simple and obvious point, but it seems like it needs to be made here.

Second, take a context specific approach – and think about a question that more closely ties to influence in relation to marketing, or a specific purchasing decision. For example, “who do you trust to help pick a movie?”, or “who do you trust to help you find new fashions?”. It’s very likely that for any question that ties to personal taste, style, etc., the influence of peer recommendations is important. In other words, I many not trust them as a source of information “on a company” , but I will trust them as a source of information for a specific product or service, in a specific context, in relation to me.

Third, such questions need to account for different platforms that are emerging to influence purchasing decisions – particularly the ones that consolidate numerous different opinions (think Flikster, Yelp, etc.). I might not trust any single individual on there (and thus claim not to trust them in response to a generic question), but I may trust their collective opinion if the sample size is large enough, or even a specific individual’s opinion if (say) their reputation score is high enough. Very hard to tease out of a survey – but very important.

I could go on, but I’ll stop there. Overall, I think there are quite a few issues with what this article presents, and how it is interpreted. Did I miss any big ones – or do you think I’m wrong?

6. The world needs better governments.

Some governments in Central America and Africa are just holding on and many are dysfunctional.  But governability is becoming an issue for G20 countries as well.  One leader said the US is on the brink of being “ungovernable.”  One Chinese executive responded thusly when asked to defend his country’s lack of democracy:  “So we should adopt the American system where lobbyists run everything and nothing happens?”

Democracy was still seen as an unstoppable force but in many regions of the world it is becoming stalled, and in some cases losing ground.  Basic democratic institutions are at risk and in danger of failing part due to the economic crisis in poor countries.  The best predictor of democratic survival is per capita income.  In some countries portions of the government have been captured by interest groups. Other non-democratic countries are proving competitively stable and economically healthy.  And the current economic crisis shows that national governments and domestic regulation are inadequate to deal with the challenges of the global economy.   There is also danger of protectionism and isolationism.

7. It turns out the internet DOES change everything

The much-discredited phrase from the dotcom period is not just geek speak.  The Internet and Social Networks were central to many of the discussions here.  The digital age seems to be coming of age.  I participated with CEOs of most of the important social networks in a session called The Power of Social Networks. It got a lot of buzz at Davos.  A few minutes into it the session we solicited questions from Facebook.  6,000 questions appeared in first 2 minutes.

The growing consensus is that new business models are emerging in every industry and throughout society.  I’ve argued that social networking is becoming social production and that a new mode of production is emerging – changing not only how we make software or encyclopedias but physical goods like motorcycles.

Most leaders love that a web company – Google –  is taking on China. The circumstantial evidence that the China-based hacking of Google was conducted by authorities looking for information about activists was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Talking to Google execs I’m convinced they not going to back down.

8. Girls, women and gender. A sea change is underway.

There was lots of buzz about women’s emerging purchasing power, known as the Power of the Purse.  The expected worldwide increase of women’s income by 2013 is $5.1 trillion, which is greater than China’s expected growth of $3 trillion for the same period.

Deep interest in the so-called Girl Effect, i.e., investing in girls offers the biggest ROI in the developing world.  In African countries female illiteracy is almost a third higher than that of men.  But every year of schooling increases a girl’s future earnings by 20 percent.  And by earning more and influencing how dollars are spent, women would acquire a stronger voice in all aspects of their lives.

Although women are becoming stronger financially, they are still very weak politically.  Countries should be more aggressive in finding female candidates for public office, and look outside the regular channels. But increased financial and political power brings responsibility. Woman could be key in refocusing our political and economic efforts away from consumerism.

9.  We need new measures of progress

There is growing agreement that GDPs and GNPs are flawed tools for measuring the health of country, and we should instead emphasize the idea of Gross National Well-Being or something similar.  Just as some companies have moved to “triple-bottom line” reporting for their impact on society, many economists argue that GDPs and GNPs measure activities that are detrimental to society and ignore activities that are beneficial.

A pandemic will increase drug sales and visits to doctors, thereby driving up GNP.  Volunteer work or work in the home is not recognized as contributing to GNP.

There is no lack of research and creativity on this issue, as some governments and academics have developed a wide array of yardsticks to more accurately capture how well and healthily a country is growing.  The key now is to have these new tools recognized as legitimate and encourage their widespread adoption.

10. A new big idea.  The Global Commons.

Like a park in a village we need new global parks in the global village. Some of the global commons areas are well-recognized, such as our atmosphere, oceans and space, but there are less obvious areas that exist, or should be created, such as know-how concerning sustainability

Conventional wisdom says you should control and protect proprietary resources and innovations – especially intellectual property – through patents, copyright and trademarks. If someone infringes your IP, summon the lawyers out to do battle.  That’s often the wrong approach.  Contributing to “the commons” is not altruism; it’s the best way to build vibrant business ecosystems that harness a shared foundation of technology and knowledge to accelerate growth and innovation.

A good private sector example is when more than a dozen pharmaceutical firms abandoned their proprietary R&D projects to support open collaborations such as the SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms) Consortium and the Alliance for Cellular Signaling.  Both projects aggregate genetic information culled from biomedical research in publicly accessible databases. They also use their shared infrastructures to harness resources and insights from the for-profit and not-for-profit research worlds. These efforts are speeding the industry toward fundamental breakthroughs in molecular biology – breakthroughs that promise an era of personalized medicine and treatments for intractable disorders. Nobody gives up their potential patent rights over new end products, and by sharing some basic intellectual property the companies bring products to market more quickly.

One overarching theme at the conference is the confidence that young people have such great potential. Obviously we have a lot of work ahead of us if we don’t want to pass on a deeply damaged planet to our children.  At the final session at Davos, we heard from six inspiring young people on stage on their hopes and ambitions.  There were more than a few tears in the audience.

With the conspicuous exception of global warming, Harper acknowledged that many challenges face the world, but told delegates that the two most appropriate arenas for discussion and decision making are the G8 and the G20.  He described the latter as “the world’s premier forum for economic cooperation.” And each country should be guided by “enlightened self-interest” and a better “attitude.”

But the mood in Davos is that the planet is facing urgent, complicated, 21^st century problems, and we need to craft 21^st century systems to develop the answers. We should involve all of our planet’s best talent in the solution-seeking process, including the private sector, civil society and individual citizens.

Doubtless Harper placed emphasis on the G8 and G20 because this year’s meetings will occur in Canada and he is the Chair. But that doesn’t mean he should be indifferent to the enormous contributions that could be made by others, or closed to the exciting new approaches to solving global problems.

Following last year’s World Economic Forum at Davos, many delegates went on to participate in the Forum’s Global Redesign Initiative in meetings around the world. The Initiative brought together diverse stakeholders to develop fresh solutions to the many challenges facing our small and fragile planet.  Much of this year’s Forum was devoted to discussing the proposals developed by the Initiative.

The Initiative itself was driven by the belief of Forum members that our international collaborative processes are tired and too constrained to meet current needs.  In Davos, the failed Copenhagen global-warming conference was frequently cited by delegates as a metaphor for the inadequacy of existing processes. To be sure, no one is suggesting that nation states do not need to sit down and hammer out accords. But many Davos delegates believe that such meetings, while necessary, are by themselves insufficient to grapple with the thorny issues confronting us.

Davos delegates feel all issues on the global agenda should be addressed in a systemic, integrated and strategic way, and are frustrated many government leaders aren’t embracing this view.

Had Harper come a day earlier, he would have heard French President Nicolas Sarkozy deliver a withering critique of how the planet’s issues are managed today. “From the moment we accepted the idea that the market was always right and that no other opposing factors need be taken into account, globalization skidded out of control,” Sarkozy said. Many systems in the world, including capitalism, were in serious need of reform.  “Each of us must hold the conviction that the world of tomorrow cannot be the same as the world of yesterday.”  A text of Sarkozy’s remarks can be seen here.

While Harper promotes the notion of enlightened self-interest, that got us nowhere in Copenhagen.  . And the irony of Harper’s remarks is that many here think one country with needing a better “attitude” on climate change is Canada. And it is an uphill battle for Canada to turn around its reputation as “the dirty old man of the climate world.”

In fact Harper further damaged Canada’s reputation on this issue, and undermined his approach to global cooperation in a panel discussion after his speech. When questioned about Canada’s position he said that countries needed to take into account the economic costs of being green.  To be sure Canada, as an energy producer has more complex issues than European countries. But some in the audience were disturbed by the remark.

Liberal MP Scott Brison said to me that Prime Minister Harper was “the only leader at Davos who didn’t understand the opportunities for economic growth and jobs in becoming a green nation. Environmental laggards will become economic laggards in the emerging global carbon-constrained green economy.”

Yes the G8 and G20 meetings will be important and they may even make some progress on climate change.  But today there are collaborations involving millions of people, along with governments, private companies and civil society organizations that are actually doing something about climate change. Government leaders need to listen to fresh thinking about how to harness this power, rather than relying on old approaches that have the world stalled.

The venue was a conscripted hairdressing salon that was pressed into service by the Forum as a meeting space.  We were like sardines. But the energy in the tiny room was high.

To recap: The Xchange is a Web-based marketplace where companies can collaborate and share intellectual property which can lead to new sustainability business models and innovation.  Ten organizations have already signed on. The Xchange is the first step in a journey towards more sustainable innovation, and the more companies that get on board, the faster we’ll all make progress.  More info can be found here. http://greenxchange.force.com/

In Wikinomics my co-author Anthony Williams and I argued that we’re living in a world where new approaches to collaboration enable new business models that enable companies to create better value for consumers.  We said companies need a portfolio of intellectual property – some that they own and protect, some that they licence and some that they share.  The Green Exchange is all about achieving that.

Nike began the announcement with a cool video that made it clear that sustainability is not an obligation, it’s an opportunity.  Companies can choose to be ahead of the curve or behind the times.  The goal is to create an innovation community.  No one is “giving away” their intellectual property; the exchange includes a licensing protocol.

“Nike is today committing to placing more than 400 of our patents on GX for research, demonstrating our belief that the best way to stimulate sustainable innovation is through open innovation,” said Mark Parker, Nike president and CEO. “Our hope is this will unleash new innovation to help solve current obstacles to sustainability issues.”

Example: Possible cross-industry benefits of making available Nike’s Environmentally Preferred Rubber. Used in Nike footwear the rubber contains 96 percent fewer toxins than the original formulation. By licensing the technology on GX it could be used in other company’s footwear, or it could hypothetically be used by Mountain Equipment Co-op for bicycle inner tubes. In this way Mountain Equipment Co-op could bring a greener product to market more quickly and cheaply than it could on its own.

Parker explained that initially the company’s lawyers opposed the Xchange.  They felt intellectual property was always meant to be kept under wraps and guarded.  But they’ve all come around to see the value of the Xchange, not only to the environment, but also bring competitive advantage to the company.  When Nike’s patents are put into the commons, any improvements made to the patents will be available to Nike.

Parker said universities are a great source of intellectual property. What is needed – and what the Xchange provides – is a standard protocol whereby IP can bust out from the university and be helpful more broadly to business and society.

John Wilbanks, VP for Science at Creative Commons, said “There is so much duplication of effort and wasted resources when it comes to sustainability. We need to make it easier for individuals, companies, academia, and researchers to collaborate and share best practices.”

This idea of a patent commons came up at another session.  Currently the planet has many commons like the ocean, air and space.  Much of the Web is in the commons. It’s time we added an additional area:  know-how related to sustainability.

Music to my ears.  Evidence is mounting that the world and many of its institutions are stalled and need reinvention — from the financial system, the old model of government, the media, our energy and transportation systems, our cities, the university, science and even democracy. Needless to say, transforming these is a daunting challenge that will require the efforts of many parts of society.

“Global multi-stakeholder cooperation lies at the heart of the Forum’s mission to improve the state of the world,” says Professor Klaus Schwab, founder of the Forum. “We have to rethink our values – we are living together in a global society with many different cultures. We have to redesign our processes – how do we deal with the issues and challenges on the global agenda. And finally, we have to rebuild our institutions.”

Most significantly, our systems for global problem solving are broken. Says Professor Schwab: “We have to look at the Forum meeting in the context of what’s happening in the world … and we see that, clearly, the present system of global cooperation is not working sufficiently. So we want to look at all issues on the global agenda in a systemic, integrated and strategic way, and we want to address in particular the issue of global cooperation.”

While the Davos event is often misrepresented as a meeting of the business and political elite, this year’s 2,500 attendees will again include a broad cross-section of society, with representatives from business, government, the media, science, religion, the arts and civil society.

Nearly half of participants come from outside business, including more than 30 heads of state or government, at least double that number of government ministers, over 100 heads or top officials from international organizations and NGOs, over 200 leading academics, and more than 200 media leaders.  There will be over 30 social entrepreneurs present, and there will be almost as many labor leaders as central bankers participating, with over a dozen representatives from each category.

Like me, many attendees will have participated in the Forum’s Global Redesign Initiative, which began following the 2009 Forum. The Initiative is a multi-stakeholder dialogue addressing many of the challenges confronting our world today. Over the last year we have been developing recommendations to help adapt and improve the structures and systems of international cooperation.

Now, I appreciate that such an initiative sounds grandiose. Is it delusional for the Forum to try and pull off such an ambitious undertaking?  My response: If not the World Economic Forum, then who?

To achieve new models for global problem solving we have to overcome a major obstacle: The world is organized around nation states based on national economies and that is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. The idea of national sovereignty dates back hundreds of years with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. After World War II there were many bold initiatives to create better systems of global cooperation, including Breton Woods, The United Nations, The General Agreement of Trades and Tariffs (GAAT), The Geneva Conventions, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later the World Trade Organization and now the G8 and G20.

But, as evidenced by last month’s UN Climate Change Conference fiasco in Copenhagen, the existing structures are increasingly inept at fixing what ails the world. Contrast the Copenhagen failure to the growing global networks and movement of millions of people motivated to turn back warming.  Evidence that the solution to global problems is not to create some global government.  Rather there are new possibilities on the digital age to create networks involving business, government and civil society.  The Forum is a case in point — a global collaboration that is actually making the real progress in solving global problems on many fronts.  I for one am in!

Some might say this is all just talk and no action.  Wrong there too.  At the 2009 meeting, I participated with Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike, in presenting an idea called the GreenXchange (GX) project to a group of about 80 CEOs of large companies. Over the last year several other companies have been working to incubate this idea and this year at Davos it will be formally launched. My company, nGenera, is supplying the GX’s technology platform pro bono, because we think this idea is so important.

The GreenXchange is a clearinghouse for unpatented innovations (“know-how”), patent pledges, and patent licenses related to sustainability. Companies participating in the GX will be able to make both patented and unpatented “know-how” available for research uses and commercialization on standard and transparent terms and conditions.

Nike conceived the GX because there is too much duplication of effort in sustainability, and collaboration on shared challenges is a proven way to reduce costs and increase innovation. Companies face very similar sets of sustainability challenges — how to reduce resource consumption and achieve greater efficiency — but without the ability to share learning and best practices in response to those challenges, good solutions fail to take hold or make a broader impact. The GX was created to address this problem by making it easy to enable sharing and promotion of industry best practices leading to sustainability, while making sure that credit is given where it is due. The GX will also help reduce some of the barriers separating innovators from entrepreneurs in the sustainability space.

In the short term, the GX will make it easier for companies and individuals to identify, share, and obtain licenses to available technologies. The GX will enable rapid identification of commonalities in technology across industries and in turn identify gaps in available technology. In the long term, the GX will create a clearinghouse of public license offers for entrepreneurial development, innovation, and technology adoption. This is the sort of creativity the Global Redesign Initiative is designed to promote.

Contributing to the brainpower of the Global Redesign Initiative is the Forum’s Network of Global Agenda Councils – over 1,000 experts representing more than 50 thematic areas of international cooperation (e.g. Water Security, Pandemics, Migration). Approximately 3,000 participants drawn from the Forum’s industry, governmental, civil society, academic and media communities provided input.  They were selected as the most innovative and relevant thinkers to capture the best knowledge on each key issue and integrate it into global collaboration and decision-making processes.

I have spoken to many other members of the Councils over the last year.  Most of us were impressed at the high-caliber and sincerity of the discussions.  Our job at Davos will be to not only challenge prevailing assumptions, monitor trends, map interrelationships and address knowledge gaps, but to propose solutions, devise strategies and evaluate the effectiveness of actions.

I’ll be blogging and tweeting throughout to let you know how it’s going.  Stay tuned.

There are a lot of reasons for this success – but the one I want to focus on today is around the strategic use of purchasing thresholds. Like Woot.com, Groupon.com applies a maximum threshold to create urgency for customers – buy now before it’s too late! But the more interesting thing Groupon does is use minimum thresholds - the offer is only valid if enough people sign up.

There are two things that make this interesting. The first, and more obvious, ties to viral marketing. It’s typically hard for a company to “make” a marketing message, or sales offer, go viral. But by putting a minimum threshold on the offer (i.e. only valid if 50 people sign up), Groupon creates a natural incentive for interested customers to promote the offer through Facebook, Twitter, the blogosphere, and other channels.

The second ties to the ability to test price discrimination strategies. In these early days, Groupon members represent new customers for most merchants using the platform. In a typical case, if a company wants to test offering a discount to draw in new customers, they do so rather blindly. If (say) only 2 people take you up on the offer, it probably wasn’t worth the effort – let alone the cost if you have to communicate the message through traditional media channels. The minimum threshold gets around this – merchants can select whatever price / quantity combination makes sense for them, and walk away (without paying a penny) if the threshold isn’t met.

There are many other interesting aspects of the Groupon story I’ve been following in our research (you can read about a couple of other companies I’ve been watching closely here), as well as interesting challenges and opportunities the company will soon have to deal with. Given that Groupon has been so successful in using the Web 2.0 to create business around collective buying (while hardly being the first to have tried), they are definitely worth paying attention to.

Observing and discussing the events of everyday life has been in existence for a long while. In the Mughal courts, Akbar held a Diwan-i-Aam, where the common man was more or less free to put forth their concerns and hear about the rules that governed them. In fact up until, newspapers arrived in the seventeenth century (Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien,1605) reporting and observation were simultaneous and were the purview of the general public.

As journalism grew, it transformed from the crowd and into a specialized, organized collaborative group of people that banded together to report on vagaries of government and the elite.

“A Fourth Estate, of Able Editors, springs up; increases and multiplies, irrepressible, incalculable.” Edmund Burke, French Revolution (1837)

Though it started out as strict reporting of what was observed, it did not take long to transform in to a platform by which journalists sought to cast their own opinions on the events they saw. As they gained freedom from censorship, the ability to cast their opinion, write stories in a fashion that would support the viewpoint they espoused, gave them enormous control of the prevalent public opinion. Gradually this group grew to take on the characteristics of the class they reported on, they became large, resource rich and influential conglomerates.

“in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.” Thomas Carlyle, 1841

Then arose the critics. The public began viewing them with the same distrust that they held for the government and other big businesses. As it became clear that the free media was not necessarily so, the public turned to a new phenomenon, the internet. Blogs such as the Huffington Post sprang up as sources of ‘real news’ and since have grown to cause a serious dent in the readership of the established news media. Blogs, crowd sourced citizen journalism and the abundance of data on the internet gave the public insight and let them form their own opinions rather than have to rely on newspapers.

As it stands, crowd sourced news is here to stay. Now that initiatives have arisen that promote crowd sourced citizen journalism and even provide a revenue stream, this new model can be seen as a way to regain the public’s trust.

More importantly however, the proliferation of these crowd and collaboration centric signals a return to journalism to what it started out a being; common public freely viewing the goings on of those actions that affect them, on a real-time basis with little to no intermediaries to influence their observations.

Going forward, the adoption of community funded websites like Outside.in and Spot.us into the mainstream would solidify this last link and complete the cycle, as it would give a revenue stream while promoting news that is relevant, true and (for the most part) local.

• Web 2.0 & Social computing behavior In many companies this is new ground for employee and technology policy. These policies outline expectations for employees’ communication and behavior when using Web 2.0 technology, not only on the job, but anytime they can be identified as employees of the corporation. Today, everyone with an online presence is in a sense (or may be perceived to be) a spokesperson for the company. Every day brings news stories of people and organizations learning the new rules of the road the hard way, ranging from silly (bad-mouthing the boss on Facebook after you’ve “friended” him) to the serious (discussing product plans or arguing product quality with competitors on online forums). Remember, employees have always had the ability to pick up a phone or send out an email with unacceptable company content. The difference in the 2.0 world is the breadth and speed of the channel. News, true or untrue, spreads very fast. A few years ago Yahoo announced a reduction in the workforce but did not publicly disclose what parts of the organization were affected. However, upset employees posted notes online and it became clear quite quickly what groups were involved. A Web 2.0 policy and diligent use agreement may not have changed the Yahoo situation but it could have substantially decreased the amount of traffic initially posted. Far better to establish some basic rules of the road than to keep learning the hard way, or try to close the road altogether.

• Self-service rights and responsibilities As employees are permitted more control over their computing set-ups, they need to understand the limits of what they can do on their own and the responsibilities they are assuming, especially if self-service extends to hardware purchase, configuration, or service; software selection and maintenance; vendor contracts (e.g., for telecom services); and any facets of systems administration (e.g., backup and recovery). Define what employees must or can do on their own. Also define the flip-side – what they can not do or must seek help with.

• Laptop and PDA configurations This is a more technical policy companion to self-service rights. The approach may vary by employee segment. For technologically adept employees, those who are self-sufficient and really want to manage their computing environments, define the basic standards and protocols that must be met in order to operate with the corporate infrastructure. For those who are technologically capable but not gung-ho, define a limited number of packages (hardware, software, communications) from which to choose. The packages may be attuned to roles (e.g., sales) or work patterns (e.g., road warriors). For those who don’t want the responsibility, a standard company configuration should still be an option.

• Vendor and license management This is another set of adjustments driven by the two points above, self-service and variable configurations. Does the company want to purchase hardware and license software in bulk for the sake of volume discounts, then resell or reissue to employees? Or really get out of the provisioning business and let employees serve themselves, but set up standing arrangements with key vendors (e.g., for discounts in return for guaranteed volume, or for group service plans)?

Of course, most of these policies are not brand new. Many companies are building on existing policies and adding information about new technologies, primarily email and the internet in general. Now is a good time to review your policy set and expand it to include Web 2.0 tools. Chances are you will also need to revisit your guidelines around information, IP, and privacy as well. As the market continues to add new ways of sharing information and collaborating with each other, enterprises need to keep up by recognizing trends early, learning about the implications on their businesses and ensuring that policies morph as quickly as employees’ computing environments do. Click the link to read more about the Redefining Employee Computing study.

1. Over a year ago I was scheduled to speak with 2 executive clients at a large manufacturing company. The purpose of the call was to interview them for a research study our team was conducting on how collaboration tools are forcing companies to redefine their employee computing environments. The problem was that I only had first and last names of the contacts; I had no titles, departments or backgrounds. In this case the set of interview questions were specifically tied to individual’s roles, so I had no idea what question set to use. As is often the case, I was preparing for the next day at 9pm the night before, so I did not have a lot of options. I crossed my fingers and conducted a search on LinkedIn, hoping that at least one of the executives had a public profile. Thankfully they both did! Not only was I able to see their current job titles, I could also see their backgrounds. Based on this more detailed information we were able to adjust our questions, leading to a much more fruitful discussion. This relatively short preparation and interaction not only helped us to gather some great data points; it also helped my company develop a stronger client relationship. BTW: Yes, after the call I did “Link” to both executives on LinkedIn, along with my usual “thank you for speaking with us” message. This is quickly becoming a best practice for follow-up and maintenance of client relations.

2. Just this Friday I was brainstorming with my Manager about ideas for my research on the ROI of collaboration. While I have the bulk of the study completed, I will spend this week pulling together a few more useful examples. My Manager suggested I reach out to a company; we’ll call XYZ Corp., who he had met with a while ago. The problem was that he could not recall the name or contact details of the individual he had spoken with. Fortunately he did know one of our co-workers who might have a contact. While still on the phone I jumped on Twitter and sent her a DM (Direct Message) to see if she had a current contact at XYZ Corp. Within minutes I had a DM back with name, title, email and phone details. The value here was not just in the quick response but in knowing that the quickest way to reach the person I needed was via Twitter, not Gmail, Skype or IM. If she was only a casual Twitter user it may have taken a few days to hear back so the efficiency would have been lost.

3. One last example occurred after “business hours” (does that still apply anymore?). It was late and I was preparing for an early morning client discussion. I had two quick questions that could only be answered by one of our head engineers. I knew that an email would most likely sit until the morning. I also knew that this individual was often on Facebook so I logged in and spent 5 minutes chatting with him. This short interaction provided the information I needed to have a successful interaction with our client the next day.

Have I measured or monetized the time savings, productivity gains or added value of these activities? No, and I have found very few companies that have. However, I don’t think anyone would argue the value derived from these interactions, especially given the quick turnaround required and achieved. The important take away is not how many people you’re connected to, or how many networks you participate in, it’s all about knowing how to navigate each channel to get what you need in the most efficient way possible. It’s also important to note that in some cases the best option is to forgo 2.0 tools altogether and simply pick up a telephone.

In an age of collaboration, check out these back to school musts à la Web 2.0:

Time to pick your course schedule but undecided on which classes to take? Don’t panic…Do log on to http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/.  This popular forum is well known amongst university students and has well over 10 million peer contributions worldwide. You can search through its database of 1 million professors and browse through the collective ratings of past students who have taken his/her class. Profs are rated on a 5 point scale across four dimensions; Easiness, Helpfulness, Clarity, and Interest. And with an added twist, some profs even have the honour of receiving a red pepper badge when rated “hot” by their students. Now you’ll just have to deal with the trade-off of either getting an awesome prof or waking up early for those 7:30 AM classes.

Desperately needing a tutor for chemistry but not willing to pay the lucrative $20/hour rate? eTutoring.org may be the solution to your problems. The site boasts a network of talented peers who help each other either in real-time through web communication (Webcam, Skype) or offline through back and forth conversations. That knowledge is in turn pooled into the forum and recycled to future students, setting up another cycle for value creation, capture, and distribution.

Skipped one too many classes or just sick of taking notes yourself? No problem, just log on to NoteMesh and let your peers do all the work. NoteMesh self proclaims to be the Wikipedia of class notes, creating ingenious wikis for various classes across campuses. Students can upload their own notes, modify and edit existing notes, or simply log on to take a tour. This certainly puts a new spin on collaborative education but will it get you that A in history class? I guess we’ll have to find out…

I’m interested in hearing what your thoughts are on this school kit and if you have any additions to the list

Also, how do think these collaborative tools will impact education in general? No doubt, there will be a shift from traditional pedagogy, but what about other factors such as quality, costs, and incentives of education?

1. How valuable and what are the benefits of Web 2.0/social media tools to military families with love ones who are deployed? Is this a critical necessity, or merely a useful addition to your options?

2. What impact would there be to families, with loves ones who are deployed, if Web 2.0/social media tools were NOT available to military members serving over seas?

3. When communicating with your love ones who are deployed, which social medium do you use most frequently?

The result has been an incredible 230+ comments, many of which are carefully crafted responses telling personal stories.

I thought I’d point out a few of those responses here:

“When my husband first deployed to Iraq in 2002 we used chat with webcam alot. This allowed our son then aged 2 1/2 the chance to see Daddy and communicate with him. For the longest time he was convinced his Daddy lived in the computer. It also allowed my husband to watch our newborn baby grow up and regularily hear his cries. The interaction that the social networking sites allow the soldiers and the families are of utmost importance–it makes the seperation a little bit easier by allowing the soldier a glimpse into the daily happenings at home.”

“Without the social networking tools, the immediate communication will be lost unless they can get a call thru and there isn’t always time to stand in a line and wait to use the phone. The nice thing is they can go to any base or outpost that has internet and get a quick message thru to say “hey I’m ok” when on a long mission or they aren’t back when expected due to problems. I also know of other families that would use the video feature on different messaging software to see their children. I would say there isn’t even a word for the peace of mind it gives parents, spouses, etc to be able to have almost immediate contact with their soldier and Marine.”

“Generationally, we have seen communications methods change in a deployed environment from letter writing, telephone calls e-mail to social media networks, each with accessibility, timeliness and cost pros/cons. The current generation has grown up with the hi-tech / real-time communications options and the previous generations are adopting them. If the tools were not available, I think it would adversely affect morale and possibly lead to decreased enlistment/re-enlistment. Perhaps some partnership can be accomplished between DoD and the media providers to better secure these sites or communities within those sites for military member use.”

“As an ex military member and a spouse whose husband is currently deployed, I say Security and Safety are first and foremost. We personally only use email correspondence and are looking into web cams but are concerned about security of his location. I agree these social networks can be great morale boosters however, if these are in anyway unsecure and can place our troops and/or their mission in harms way then stop them now, no questions asked!!!! Years ago families survived without them and although I know they are wonderful for morale, unless the governement can be 100% certain that no breech of security exists by using these then I say better safe than sorry and we can learn to live without them.”

I’d encourage users to visit the forum and scroll through some of the responses. They paint an amazing picture of how consumer Web 2.0 technologies have allowed those deployed to keep in touch. Through the forum, the DoD was also able to get a feel for what tools are important for families (Facebook and Skype seem to be the most popular) and what some of the risks might be (e.g. a webcam revealing someone’s location). As stated in a followup post, the next steps will be learning how to mitigate those risks and implementing training programs and policies to allow families to safely use social media tools.

Radio: Teenagers do not listen to traditional radio because they are able to listen to online streaming music that is advertisement free and enables them to choose which songs they want to hear.

TV: Most teenagers still watch television but the consumption varies seasonally with popular programs (i.e. Teenage boys watch more TV when it’s football (soccer) season). Advertisements are a turnoff so many turn to internet channels to watch ad free programming. It’s getting harder for youth to find the time in their busy schedules to watch TV.

Newspapers: “No teenager I know of regularly reads a paper.” Most are reluctant to pay for a newspaper and when they do, prefer those that are compact for easy reading on the go.

Gaming: Girl gamers are becoming more numerous. Consoles that enable chat via internet are popular and negatively impact phone usage. PC gaming has no place in the market as it can be downloaded for free.

Internet: Most teenagers engage heavily in social networking. “Teenagers do not use Twitter”

Music: Teenagers listen to a lot of music but are very reluctant to pay for it. Most do not listen exclusively to music but rather do so while multitasking

Mobile phone: 99% of teenagers have a cell phone, and upgrade it every 2 years.

These revelations are not groundbreaking and if you are familiar with our research or Don’s books (Growing Up Digital and Grown Up Digital), you would find uncanny similarities between Matthew’s anecdotal findings and our 8 Norms of the Net Generation.

However, what IS surprising are the reactions that this paper is getting from the business community. Edward Hill-Wood, Matthew’s supervisor, claims that dozens and dozens of fund managers and CEOs have been e-mailing and calling all day. Others cite that this report has generated 5 to 6 times more feedback than the average Morgan Stanley research report. This goes on to show really how large the generation gap is between baby boomers and today’s digital natives. It seems that the impact of an internet savvy generation can no longer be ignored as executives turn their undivided attention towards understanding the Net Gen.

But before taking Matthew’s views for granted, I’d like to point out a few areas of caution. First, the findings are not supported statistically but rather represent solely the views of Matthew and his friends. Secondly, it’s important to take into account the context in which this research was conducted. Matthew is from London, England and being a 15 year old intern at a bank, must come from a solid educational background. In other words, his views may not be indicative of other teenagers… Net Geners in Japan certainly update their phones more frequently than once every two years and I for one do use Twitter as well as read newspapers on a regular basis…

His original definition for web 2.0 was: “Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet – a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects.”

He and collaborators since reduced the definition to the following compact version: Web 2.0 is “Networked applications that explicitly leverage network effects.” Wikipedia defines a network effect as the effect that one user of a good or service has on the value of that product to other people.” The notion being that, as number of people using the good or service increases, the value of it increases – referred to as a positive network effect (with “externality” sometimes being used in place of “effect”).

But, the bottom-line is that “web 2.0” has become a catch-all for a vast range of innovative technologies, processes, services, and ideas. It has spawned a plethora of related and sub-categories, including social media, cloud computing, collaborative applications, software-as-a-service, rich internet applications, enterprise 2.0, and on.

With all of the richness of diversity and five years of history under our collective global belt, nGenera has recently launched a research study to determine what has been learned about the factors contributing to success and failure of web 2.0 initiatives.

And just like the web 2.0 definition calls for, the more people that participate, the more valuable the study will be for everyone. So, please join us in this effort and take the survey. The study director, Tim Bevins, would like to know what you think and will make sure that all participants receive a copy of the management summary when the research is completed.

We hope you join us in sharing what you have learned about those factors that, in your experience, help assure web 2.0 success or, on the other hand, are guaranteed to bring the web 2.0 initiative down in flames!

Don’s post yesterday, “Will universities stay relevant?”, sparked some interesting discussion around the idea that our education system is in crisis. Given Mike’s innovative perspective on teaching, I sent him the article and asked for his feedback. To be clear, Don addressed the university system and Mike’s perspective comes from teaching high school, but I still thought it would be interesting to hear what his experience has been like in the classroom.

With his permission, I’ve posted some of his email response here, which he also published on his blog “Teaching, Technology & More“:

“You must understand that students like yourself are not the norm in terms of being in touch with the digital world and having the passion to use the tools available to them in the pursuit of knowledge.  Most of these students head off to university (and our new inflated grading system is making it easier) with little self-initiative and passion for learning.  I have been using technology in the classroom for 3 years now but I still fall back to the lecture style often because most of my students are not mature enough to embrace student-directed project based learning.

That being said, the first two years of university (as I recall them) are designed to “weed out” those who really do not belong, so to speak.  Although most of my professors in the 80′s and early 90′s used the lecture style, their classrooms became more open to critical thought and discussion after second year.  From what I am told, this is still the case.

Right now, I have reached a point in my classroom where I cannot proceed any further with student-driven methods due to lack of technology and support.  We do not have the bandwidth nor the requisite hardware in place to allow students to develop their critical thinking skills using web based applications.

I sympathize with the universities somewhat.  Many of these professors grew up without technology and are now being pushed to adopt it.  The process will take time and embracing a digital pedagogy does not ensure critical thinking skills will be developed.  The passion for learning must come from the students and that passion is something that transcends generations.

What I mean to say is students, like yourself, who have a passion for learning always embrace the latest technology the world has to offer to enhance their critical thinking skills and understanding of concepts.  The fact that you are using Twitter, etc. to accomplish this is no different than a student in the early 1980′s using one of the first computers to be more productive or a student in the 1950′s using a slide rule to do the same.

We need to work on fueling the passion for learning if we want to produce a generation of critical thinkers.  I try to use technology to inspire students to become passionate about knowledge.  The technology on its own is merely a conduit to critical thinking.  The passion for learning must come from within.”

I argued that is a widening gap between the model of learning offered by many big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital best learn. The reaction on Twitter, mainly from students has been enormously positive. So far two academics have written critiques of my views at the Edge.

However because the Edge does not enable readers to comment, I’d like to know what you think. Please read a summary below and then check out the Edge article and let the world know what you think here on Wikinomics.com.

The old-style lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large group of students, is still common. It’s part of a model that is teacher-focused, one-way, one-size-fits-all and the student is isolated in the learning process. Yet the students, who have grown up in an interactive digital world, learn differently. Schooled on Google and Wikipedia, they want to inquire, not rely on the professor for a detailed roadmap. They want an animated conversation, not a lecture. They want an interactive education.

Students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities are to remain relevant, they will have to change.

Professors will have to abandon the traditional lecture, and start listening and conversing with the students — shifting from a broadcast style and adopting an interactive one. They should be encouraging students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the professor’s store of information. They need to encourage students to collaborate among themselves and with others outside the university. Finally, they need to tailor the style of education to their students’ individual learning styles.

Some leading educators are calling for this kind of massive change; one of these is Richard Sweeney, university librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He says students are smart but impatient. They like to collaborate and they reject one-way lectures. While some educators view this as pandering to a generation, Sweeney is firm: “They want to learn, but they want to learn only from what they have to learn, and they want to learn it in a style that is best for them.”

This is not fundamentally about technology per se. Rather it represents a change in the relationship between students and teachers in the learning process.

In the old model, teachers taught and students were expected to absorb vast quantities of content. Education was about absorbing content and being able to recall it on exams. You graduated and you were set for life – just “keeping” up in your chosen field. Today when you graduate you’re set for say, 15 minutes. If you took a technical course half of what you learned in the first year may be obsolete by the 4th year. What counts is your capacity to learn lifelong, to think, research, find information, analyze, synthesize, contextualize, critically evaluate it; to apply research to solving problems; to collaborate and communicate.
This challenge to the existing order raises a deeper issue — the purpose of the university

“The time has come for some far reaching changes to the university, our model of pedagogy, how we operate, and our relationship to the rest of the world,” says Luis M. Proenza, president of the University of Akron.

He asks a provocative question: Why should a university student be restricted to learning from the professors at the university he or she is attending? True, students can obviously learn from intellectuals around the world through books, or via the Internet. Yet in a digital world, why shouldn’t a student be able to take a course from a professor at another university?

Proenza thinks universities should use the Internet to create a global centre of excellence. In other words, choose the best courses you have and link them with the best at a handful of universities around the world to create an unquestionably best-in-class program for students. Students would get to learn from the world’s greatest minds in their area of interest – either in the physical classroom, or online. This global academy would be also be open to anyone online. This is a beautiful example of the collaboration I described in the book I co-authored, Wikinomics.

The digital world, which has trained young minds to inquire and collaborate, is challenging not only the lecture-driven teaching traditions of the university, but also the very notion of a walled-in institution that excludes large numbers of people. Why not allow a brilliant grade 9 student to take first-year math, without abandoning the social life of his high school? Why not deploy the interactive power of the internet to transform the university into a place of life-long learning?

Share your thoughts here.

Directed by Ivo Gormley, the film explores how the web is changing the many ways in which we can organize ourselves. From a democratic football club where the fans pick the team to a lending service where everyone can be a bank manager, Us Now brings together the leading thinkers in the field of participation and web culture to describe how mass collaboration could change society. As the co-author of Wikinomics:  How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, I was asked by Ivo Gormley to participate.

The UK documentary had its North American premiere 2½ months ago in Toronto.  One of many attending the premiere was Ruby Ku, a self-described 20-something SciBus student at the University of Waterloo.  Ruby was good enough to track down the URLs for many groups featured in the film:

1. School of Everything – a website that helps people who want to learn meet up with people who want to teach.
2. Zopa – a market place where people lend and borrow money to and from each other, sidestepping the banks.
3. Couchsurfing – a worldwide network making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit; participate in a better world, one couch at a time.
4. The People Speak – a campaign to engage young people on the global issues that will shape their future – an initiative from the United Nations Foundation.
5. Slice The Pie – a music financing company that aggregates thousands of people’s opinions about upcoming bands and allows fans to invest in producing albums.
6. MyFootballClub – join members from over 80 countries who own Ebbsfleet United and vote on all key decisions from team selection to financial budgets.
7. Mumsnet – a social enterprise + community of parents sharing their know-hows on the net and meeting up in real-life.
8. Open Everything – global conversation about the art, science, and the spirit of “open.”

It would be great to see the documentary go viral.  If you haven’t seen the film, please give it a try.  And if you like it (which you will) tell as many friends as you can.

If what you’ve heard about Twitter is characterized by headlines like, “Ashton Kutcher challenges CNN to Twitter popularity contest,” I can understand why you’re either tired of hearing about Twitter or simply don’t understand what all the fuss is about.

This article from Ad Age is completely refreshing and intringuing. It reminds us that Twitter is useful for more than simply learning about what Paris Hilton has been doing while on vacation. From reading the article, I am reminded that few people, let alone companies, have been able to see Twitter for its full business potential.

The article describes how Organic Inc. (a leading digital communications agency) has harnessed Twitter as a powerful business tool. At Organic Inc., social networks like Twitter are a critical peice of the company’s recruitment strategy. Around 75% of their online recruitment relies on social networks. More importantly, they are already seeing positive results after about 9 months of increased social network recruitment.

Given that mainstream media has pelted its subscribers with stories that don’t do justice to Twitter’s potential to be more than just a (insert generic, insulting characterization of Twitter here), stories like Ad Age’s look into Organic Inc.’s use of Twitter deserve more of our attention.

Best Buy management understand that the nature of work is changing. It has become more cognitively complex, more team-based and collaborative, more dependent on social skills, more time-pressured, more reliant on technological competence, more mobile and less dependent on geography. A growing number of firms are decentralizing decision-making functions, communicating in a peer-to-peer fashion, and embracing new technologies which empower employees to communicate easily and openly with people inside and outside the firm. In doing so, they are creating new corporate meritocracy that is sweeping away the hierarchical silos in its path and connecting internal teams to a wealth of external networks.

For Brad Anderson, Best Buy’s CEO, supervision and even management in the old sense is outdated. He notes: “The Net Geners we hire have enormous knowledge, unprecedented information, and facility with tools that in some areas is superior their seniors.” So the job of management is more to create the context whereby they can be successful, rather than to supervise them.

Every company should be thinking along these lines.

Contra-Happiness: Feeling Pizzled

You may not know the word, but you probably have felt pizzled before. Actually, you probably have felt pizzled at some point today. Stolze explains that feeling pizzled is an adverse effect of our Web 2.0 world: “People sometimes forget the hierarchy of communication. An example of disregard for the hierarchy is ignoring a face-to-face conversation to communicate digitally. For example, you are having a conversation with someone, but all of a sudden they are looking at their Blackberry, or answering ‘very important’ phonecalls. When the person we are talking to does this we feel pizzled – both pissed off and puzzled.”

Pro-Happiness: The Web as the World Wide Window and a Global Campfire

“In my research nearly all respondents answer that the Web has enriched their lives in two ways,” said Stolze. “The first one being that they consider it their window to the world. There’s no doubt that the democratizing of knowledge has had a positive impact on the way people go through life. From deep thoughts on philosophy to things like finding a restaurant’s phone number or looking up a user review on IMDB. The second reason is that the Web is a perfect place to find people who are like you – to set up a discussion without the risk of being judged by your looks, skincolor or clothes. We are a social species and we have this deep need to be part of a group. The Internet has become the perfect place to gather around this new global campfire.”

 Debateable: We have fewer deep, face-to-face realtionships because of the Web

The other side of the “ease of interaction” coin is concern over the extent to which we carry out relationships online, as opposed to face-to-face. Stolze doesn’t discount this concern: “There is a disconnect between our number of ‘friends’ and the number of deep connections we have. This is called friendship inflation. Simple economic law says that when there is more of something, the individual value decreases.” Stolze does agree, however, that while an abundance of Web 2.0 friendships will cause some of us to disregard the importance of deep, traditional friendships, an equal, if not greater, number of us will use the Web to strenghten existing strong ties and develop new ones. In referring to online communication with close friends, Stolze says, “The best emails are the ones that say: ‘Hey Jim, let’s have lunch this Friday. Same place?’”

Contra-Happiness: Information Overload

The Web provides us with more, and cheaper, information than ever before. Stolze is finding that perhaps we have access to too much information, and that it might have serious negative effects. He says, “We mistake information for inspiration and think more is better. The result is that we spend hours of surfing, lurking for information. If you search Google for the word ‘information’ you get over 3 billion results. Constantly being presented with more information than we have the ability to look through can cause stress, which contributes to depression.”

The Conclusion…

Stolze’s book, How to Survive Your Inbox, will be released, in Dutch, this coming June, but he gave me a preview of the conclusion: “In my research, I found that I was not able to prove, scientifically, that the Web makes us happy. I would say that the answer is no, given my results. What the data does allow me to say is that not being connected to the Internet makes you unhappy. It’s kind of the new hygiene.” 

While too little Web action makes us unhappy, there certainly is a point where, well, too much is too much. Fortunately, Stolze provides guidelines for keeping our Web consumption at a healthy level. Check out his TED presentation on 5 Ways the Internet can make us happier and his answers to my questions on responsible use below.

On Responsible Use

Perron: Does a Blackberry belong in the bedroom?

Stolze: Surely not…Don’t take your Blackberry or your iPhone into the bedroom.

Perron: How do you know when you have reached an unhealthy level of online activity?

Stolze: When you’re Twittering [aka Tweeting] from the bathroom.

-Many thanks to Jim Stolze for his time and insight.

SOBCon stands for Successful and Outstanding Bloggers, so it seems fitting that any promotions for the event take advantage of Web 2.0 opportunities. By targetting the core audience of this event, bloggers, and providing a tangible reward for their participation, I am confident that this type of promotion will be a highly cost effective way of advertising for their event. This is especially true when you consider that the prize is a discounted ticket rather than a monetary reward, and therefore the actual cost of the promotion is likely to be negligible in the face of some good publicity. You might also consider what type of blogger might be interested in this reward and my thought is that respondents who self-select are more likely to be well-connected virtually, and hence the audience for their ‘discount-per-blog’ promotion will likely also be larger and = bigger impact.

Here’s the description provided by the founder of SOBCon:

“Blog your thoughts, share it, link it back to this post, and broadcast it on Twitter (hash #blogitearnit).  We’ll also link to you on the SOBCon blog for others to see and learn. And as a thank you for sharing your story, we’ll send you a special code to take $200 off the $795 FULL conference rate - that’s over a 25% savings!

…

We also know that getting to conferences isn’t always easy, especially this year.

So we are announcing today the opportunity for you to significantly reduce your registration cost for the event.

It’s called the “Blog It, Earn It” discount. We’d like to hear from you about what “The ROI of Relationships” means to you. Tell us why relationships matter. How they affect what you do every day and how you do it. Maybe how you see them changing the face of tomorrow’s businesses. We want to know how relationships and personal connections shape your world.

Blog your thoughts, share it, link it back to this post, and broadcast it on Twitter (hash #blogitearnit).  We’ll also link to you on the SOBCon blog for others to see and learn. And as a thank you for sharing your story, we’ll send you a special code to take $200 off the $795 FULL conference rate - that’s over a 25% savings!

Please act quickly because there are only a limited number of these discounted registrations available. All blog entries must be posted no later than March 7, and the discounts must be redeemed by March 14.”

–

What I like about this promotion, beyond it’s impact, is that it’s transparent in the exchange taking place – in fact it’s almost hard to ignore the quid-pro-quo nature of the activity given its name. I suspect that to many people, this information might make the difference between an unethical viral marketing campaign, and one with the public on its side. Thoughts?

My question for you: if you could have an alternate prize that’s more meaningful to you than the one offered, and which is within the range of reason, what would it be? Money? Items? Reputational rewards?

This reminded me of an article from the Washington Post that appeared last week, “Well Connected Parents Take on School Boards”.   Parents are now using social networking, email blitzes, partnerships with business groups and data access to fight for a wide range of changes.  The battles they fight cover a broad spectrum of issues, such as pushing back school start times or redrawing district boundaries. In atleast one case, parents have even used the web to force changes on grading schemes (lowering the bar for an ‘A’ from a 94 to a 90, in percentages).

Many new parents today have grown up digital, and know how to leverage the web.  But many haven’t.   To quote a source from the article,  ”Schools need to be more concerned about the digital divide than ever before…We don’t want to create two levels of power, those with access to information and those without it.”  Clearly, this divide has the potential to widen the have and have-not gaps.  In the case of redrawing boundaries, for example, it’s very difficult to create a situation where all parties gain.  If the change was created by a computer-literate interest group, it’s reasonable to fear an increased disparity between socio-economic classes. 

As Web 2.0 tools start to reach an increased proportion of our population, there is (understandably) a push to increase citizen input into policy-making (such as Obama’s change.gov). In some instances, there’s even evidence of a movement towards small-scale direct democracy (see England’s “Vote for Your Park” program).

But an increase in collaborative policy-making has to be met by an increase in Web education and public progams to ensure universal internet access.  Reading the papers last week, I was somewhat letdown that in the America’s spending on broadband expansion to rural areas was being reduced in the proposed stimulus package (relative to what was initially proposed).  I think this is a mistake.

Moving forward, I see a wealth of opportunities for increased citizen collaboration in policy-making.  But let’s work a little harder at getting everyone up to speed.

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The full report is worth reading if these issues interest you at all. It’s in beta stage for the next 10 days, so your comments could help shape the future of digital governance in the UK.

Government 2.0 Camp is the unconference about using social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more effective, efficient and collaborative U.S. government on all levels (local, state, and federal).

Government 2.0 Camp will bring together the leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share Government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and collaborate about how to leverage social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more collaborate, efficient and effective government — Government 2.0.

Government 2.0 Camp is the inaugural event of Government 2.0 Club, a newly-launched national organization that creates opportunities for government, academia and industry to share ideas and solutions for leveraging social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more collaborate, efficient and effective government.

On January 22, 2009, Encyclopaedia Britannica president Jorge Cauz announced that they will be releasing new features on Britannica.com that empower users to contribute and edit content. However, all submissions will undergo a strict vetting process, and may not make the cut. As Cauz reported to the New York Times, “We’re not trying to be a wiki – that’s the last thing we want to be.”

Now why would a 240 year old steadfast institution suddenly make such a drastic change in its approach? The answer: the bottom line. Let’s compare web traffic:

Britannica’s Web 2.0 approach isn’t exactly brand new. Back in July of 2008, Britannica launched a new version of its web site that was more interactive and full of new media resources. Members of the community were given an online home allowing them to promote their work and services, publish and share the work that they create outside of the encyclopaedia, and interact with others in the community. The site even features a ‘reward system’ to motivate users to contribute.

I see the reiteration of these ‘new features’ as a marketing ploy to retort Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales’ proposal to review revisions by new and anonymous users before posting them to Wikipedia. This editing change comes after vandals edited the pages of Senators Robert Byrd and Edward (Ted) Kennedy, erroneously stating that both had died. As if Senator Kennedy’s seizure during Obama’s post-inaugural luncheon wasn’t unfortunate enough!

Wales’ proposed new system, called Flagged Revisions, would mark a significant change in the ethos of Wikipedia, which in eight years of existence has become one of the top 10 sites on the Web and the de facto information source for the Internet-using public. Used by German Wikipedia since last May, flagged revisions provides only ‘reliable users’ with the liberty to have their material appear immediately to the general public. Other contributors can edit articles, but their changes will be held until registered, reliable users have signed off on them.

Due to a massive backlash from editors stating that the proposal is unfeasible and unmanageable, Wales is offering a compromise, asking those opposed to the changes make an alternative proposal within the next seven days, to be voted upon 14 days after that.

The convergence of the two processes is, in my opinion, long overdue. Regardless of whether or not the Nature article back in 2005 has been debunked or not is somewhat irrelevant. The point remains – everyone makes mistakes, be they accidental or intentional.

As first quoted by Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism, and later expanded upon by the Farmers’ Almanac in 1978, “To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. The fact that both knowledge bases have come to their senses and have realized that a screening process is necessary is vital to the accuracy of both publications.

The convergence of these processes will hopefully also result in the convergence of error rates. However, if this does occur, and Wikipedia and Britannica will hold the same veracity, why exactly then would I pay to read one over the other? Besides, isn’t researching an encyclopaedia simply a secondary point of research to start from? If I really care about a topic, I’ll continue researching from different sources, both primary and secondary. Britannica’s attempt at finally jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon may provide them with a few more page views for now, but I highly doubt that it will be it’s saving grace.