Here’s a great quote that came to me from a GLG newsletter:

In less than 5,000 days, the Web has gone from the linking of a few computers in a lab to satellite images of the earth at our fingertips. Today, the Web has 100 billion clicks and 55 trillion links and carries 2 million e-mails per second. There are 1 billion PC chips in use, 65 billion phone calls made per year, and 600 billion RFID tags being used. Every second, we move the equivalent of half the Library of Congress across the Web. All that in less than 5,000 days.

So what will the next 5,000 days bring?

In the same inbox I just received an invitation by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle for the Web 2.0 Summit taking place in San Francisco Nov 5-7th. So what’s next indeed..!? Hopefully I’ll find out at the Summit and share it with you.

Bruce

Intranets, which  are basically employee-only websites, can be a key utility in how today’s knowledge workers operate. Not very many companies use Intranets well. Some have integrated basic features and applications such as boardroom booking and connecting to HR tools (vacation requests, benefits, etc), fewer have forums and surveys for polling feedback, and fewer still have created venues for capturing corporate knowledge and project spaces where teams can collaborate together.  

Enter Web 2.0. 

One of the most amazing things that Web 2.0 technology has done is focus on user-centered design – making it easy for a lay-person to use technology effectively. There is now an incredible array of solutions available which are designed to be both versatile and easy to use. 

Versatile? They are either open source and full of APIs to connect up to all sorts of other systems (single sign-on, user information, etc). 

We’re heralding the age of corporate software productivity tools that are no longer restricted to desk-top applications. Seems obvious doesn’t it?  If so, why can’t most organizations figure it out… 

It’s fairly straightforward – you see the the architecture, models, and technology exist in the Web 2.0 space. Web 2.0 has created an “architecture of participation”, allowing individuals to both create and communicate with each other under an organizational umbrella. (ex. Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, Blogs, etc). 

However most Web 2.0 has been externally focused. Most organizations are still trying to figure this piece out – how to engage with their external audiences in this new interconnected world.  

Well, the the same problem exists internally for every organization – Web 2.0 defines the technology and capability of enhanced collaboration – but how to use it internally? 

The foundation exists, so to build onto this architecture of participation requires a CULTURE of participation. This is the missing component. Business 2.0 has not yet quite caught up with Web 2.0. 

Enhanced communication + productivity tools + social connection — requires —> a culture of participation 

Web 2.0 is about being collaborative, consultative, and feedback driven. That is the kind of work environment business needs to evolve to. I wonder what this means to the traditional hierarchies, management layers, and divisional organizational charts that exist in every business today. 

I always thought the term “divisions” was well used… divisive and separate – can org-charts dissolve? Horizontally across divisions or vertically down management layers? Or both? 

I wonder what business 2.0 will look like…

This was a talk given by Clay Shirky at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco (April 2008). I was in the audience, it was brilliant. Basically it describes how gin lubricated humanity’s transition from 7-day a week work-survival mode into the 5-day week industrial revolution. Now that people had free time on their hands… what will they do!?

Here are highlights from my notes, but the best parts I wasn’t writing or Twittering, so below my highlights is the link to the full transcript.

Where are we finding all this new “extra” time for playing with Social Media sites (Facebook, etc)? Well… “Human’s now have a cognitive surplus that TV has been masking for 50 years..”

We spend “200 billion hourrs of thought per year in the USA watching TV”. Or to put it another way “now that we have a unit, that’s 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television…”

Web 2.0 is developing an “architecture of participation” - best, and most succinct Web 2.0 definition yet, this is quoted from Tim O’Reilly actually, so he gets the cred.

“The physics of participation is much more like the physics of weather than it is like the physics of gravity. We know all the forces that combine to make these kinds of things work: there’s an interesting community over here…those people are collaborating on open source software. But despite knowing the inputs, we can’t predict the outputs yet because there’s so much complexity.”

“… someone working alone, with really cheap tools, has a reasonable hope of carving out enough of the cognitive surplus, … enough of the collective goodwill of citizens, to create a resource you couldn’t have imagined existing even five years ago.”

On speaking to a TV producer about World of Warcraft, “I could see what she was thinking: “Losers. Grown men sitting in their basement pretending to be elves.” At least they’re doing something. Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don’t? Yeah, I saw that one too….However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, from personal experience, it’s worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter..”

Traditional media was about consumption, the new paradigm is about consumer consuming, producing and sharing; so if it is “targeted at you but does not include you, it is by definition broken.”

Transcript:
http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

[addendum] Video:

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/04/web2expo-clay-shirky.html 

Here is my third proposal that went in to speak at the Web 2.0 NY conference taking place in Sept-08.

What do you think? Which of the last three do you think will draw the most interest? (see the last two posts for the other proposals)

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What do a 19^th century Italian economist who accidentally defined a pseudo-law of nature, a post World War II American statistician who is responsible for today’s dominance by Japanese car manufacturers, and the 80’s poster boy for glam rock Boy George, have to do with Web 2.0?

Better yet, how can these diverse individuals help your organization leap frog the competition, create consistent and constant innovation, and drive your marketing so hard and fast that your operational people hate you?

So many questions! Come, listen, and participate. I may not have your answers, but I do have tools for you to use to come up with your own. Learn lessons exemplified by popular Web 2.0 successes (and failures).

Who should come: you are a bricks and mortar organization selling products on shelves, you are selling services at the boardroom table, you are a non-profit raising awareness, you are a pure Web company trying to manage its meteoric success, you are a corporation trying to find new ways to be nimble. Everyone can take something away and apply it immediately to their organization.

This talk can be personalized to use the audience to provide examples of how Web 2.0 success principles can be applied to your organization. If you’re interested in having me personalize the talk for your organization, please email me ahead of time with your organization’s background and I’ll see if I can fit you into the presentation. Take advantage, this is free consulting!

Tags: Business Strategy Innovation Audience Participation

Technical expertise: Low

Here is my second proposal that went in to speak at the Web 2.0 NY conference taking place in Sept-08.

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Total Mash-Up Web Design and Development

There is no point in starting from scratch anymore. This talk will show you how to create a web architecture for your organization that takes advantage of world-class applications. Mash and grind up together the best the web has to offer to create an enterprise class web presence so you can spend your budget on content and marketing instead of re-creating the wheel.

These websites:

• Are fully scalable; they will grow as your organization’s needs do.
• Are easy to administer – they are designed to be user friendly.
• Allow you total flexibility over design, layout, look and feel.
• Are Search engine friendly.
• Are primed for all sorts of marketing tactics.
• Can be constructed iteratively; get pieces up as you need them.
• Are cost-effective to build and design.
• And much much more!

Your project can range from a simple small business web page to major corporate rollouts supporting client log-in support, customer service ticketing systems, e-commerce, fund-raising, and many other applications.

Stretch your budget and impress your stakeholders – come and learn how to mash and grind at Web 2.0!

Here is my first proposal that went in to speak at the Web 2.0 NY conference taking place in Sept-08.

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People are Googling your organization and keywords related to what you do. Are they finding you? Once they find you, they Google you to learn more about you from other sources. What are they finding there?

This talk is about building more (higher quality) traffic and ensuring that traffic converts through establishing the expert presence with a golden reputation.

Your reputation is priceless – don’t let it be left to chance. Experts are respected, experts who are validated and recommended by others, receive more business. It’s that simple.  The perception of your online reputation is critical and you must learn how to take ownership of it.

Learn how to use on the Internet to dominate search engine rankings for your keywords and your organization’s name at the same time.  This talk will expose the powerful concepts of Web 2.0 – where giving more means getting more – to market your site. You will learn how to position your organization as an expert in its industry/sector and dominate search engine visibility using wikis, blogs, forums, social bookmarking, and other Web 2.0 sites.

Who should attend: Corporate, Start-ups, Government, Non-Profit, and Small and Medium sizes Businesses; any organization looking to the internet for marketing and communications – that’s you!

Tags: SMO, PR 2.0, SEO, SEM, Authority Engineering

Technical Expertise required: Low