Guest Post- Measuring Shared Engagement
Posted using ShareThis
9.24.2008
Culture Makes Me Think of Yogurt
I'm at KMWorld in San Jose, and I'm back in the virtual world of tightly focused conferences. We are all amalgamating, mindsharing, groupthinking, groking, and otherwise wrapping ourselves to each other with shoelaces. It's a warm, not to say sweaty, experience. BUT, though shared language can create shared culture, one, single irritating point of disagreement can stand in the way of the whole cult experience. And I'm stumbling over one. An irritation, I mean.
"Oh, that's culture," a speaker will say, dismissing any idea of being able to help with the problem.
"I'm here to figure out what to recommend, but I guess it's all culture, after all," a participant will sigh.
I'm starting to hear a door slamming shut whenever a speaker or questioner invokes the name of culture. And here's my problem. Well, first I need to say that I agree with what's being said -- it is all culture. But that's not the door closing -- that's the actual assignment: Change the Culture, or nurse the change along, at least. If it were just setting up programs, creating policies, implementing software, it would not need a person of your caliber to drive. Are you a change agent or a potted plant?
Culture is also not a good word for "it". It suggests that culture is a type of disease (or a yeast, perhaps) that some companies catch and others don't. They all have a culture. They are all different, so it's not black or white -- and in any culture, there are ways to accomplish tasks of value to the company -- or the company will be very short-lived.
So I don't think of the question as whether or not the company's culture is receptive to user-contributed content (for instance), but I think of it as "How does the company handle new ideas?" because that's the question that's worth answering -- and the answer will show you what you need to do to be successful.
Even the most hide-bound, heirarchical, military-industrial, old school company has a way to process new ideas. In some, the digestion process can take longer than you want to remain an employee, but believe me, inertia is such that even after you leave, the idea will continue to percolate along. For this kind of timescale, a speedy, realtime, knowledge capture system may be over-engineering. Maybe a nice wooden box next to all the North side elevators would better serve the purpose.
But it's not a shut door -- more like a long road.
"Oh, that's culture," a speaker will say, dismissing any idea of being able to help with the problem.
"I'm here to figure out what to recommend, but I guess it's all culture, after all," a participant will sigh.
I'm starting to hear a door slamming shut whenever a speaker or questioner invokes the name of culture. And here's my problem. Well, first I need to say that I agree with what's being said -- it is all culture. But that's not the door closing -- that's the actual assignment: Change the Culture, or nurse the change along, at least. If it were just setting up programs, creating policies, implementing software, it would not need a person of your caliber to drive. Are you a change agent or a potted plant?
Culture is also not a good word for "it". It suggests that culture is a type of disease (or a yeast, perhaps) that some companies catch and others don't. They all have a culture. They are all different, so it's not black or white -- and in any culture, there are ways to accomplish tasks of value to the company -- or the company will be very short-lived.
So I don't think of the question as whether or not the company's culture is receptive to user-contributed content (for instance), but I think of it as "How does the company handle new ideas?" because that's the question that's worth answering -- and the answer will show you what you need to do to be successful.
Even the most hide-bound, heirarchical, military-industrial, old school company has a way to process new ideas. In some, the digestion process can take longer than you want to remain an employee, but believe me, inertia is such that even after you leave, the idea will continue to percolate along. For this kind of timescale, a speedy, realtime, knowledge capture system may be over-engineering. Maybe a nice wooden box next to all the North side elevators would better serve the purpose.
But it's not a shut door -- more like a long road.
7.21.2008
Twitter Hits Max -- Snuck Up on You, Didn't It?
Twitter, my darling, my jo -- has maxed out its capacity. Clearly, the zoobs are becoming adopted for all their many uses. I think Twitter is like a shopping bag -- it can be used for anything that needs a holder for transportation - but the thing transported can't be bigger than the shopping bag -- well, duh. And I enjoy hearing that the character limit is too small. It's a perfect size for an efficient blast of update -- a small haiku, a greeting, a show of emotion, a tiny short story. Its size makes it quite perfect, like a bonsai tree. It must be created without sludge or puff or bows or any of the other politesse of prose -- it's been interesting to find that most news items contain about a Tweet's worth of actual information. We all do a lot of wading through material that's only there to establish the writer or to validate the form in order to get to the actual material of interest. Do you remember the newsletter/broadside called The Bottom Line? It was early print Twitter. I gotta find a copy just to show you -- it was riviting reading, and it took about a, well, a couple of minutes to read. I love Twitter, and mostly watch and follow (and track, when it's working) -- I went through some withdrawal when through a churn in my handhelds, I lost the ability to send tweets -- also hampered by my company's (happily) short lived ban on Twitter on company machines. Twitter actually subs for blogging for me much of the time. and Thank God for that... 
(Later) Full disclosure -- Twitter returns and offers this status message:
But, Twitter, shouldn't your status updates also comply with the 300 chr limit?
Checking Out Twine
I'm trying to figure out how to link a tagger to an aggregator. I've been trying with Twine, but it's no good because the feed isn't exposing items to the reader -- I'm trying Grazr. Of course, I've also tried the standard one...I'm sure I'm being silly -- I should just use the tagger interface, but I'm not seeing what I need from the ones I've been trying...Let's try this: http://www.twine.com/twine/11b3y6x7k-1bs/internal-twine#
4.24.2008
Web 2 announcements
Okay
Microsoft announces Mesh - a peer to peer data and media sharing network pitched to households - though Gates vision ... (Oddly IBMish) Mozilla announces mobile meets web platform a new type of fox. Everyone announces ubiquitous APIs. Yahoo announces social elements on all services - and open strategy - opening all google services to developers. A sandbox with rules. The unification of all social user profiles (Finally). Standardizing API behavior. Yahoo is great, but it's the execution of last year's vision. Depending on developers to build the world. Oh, wait, now he's announcing the social embedding. Rewiring Yahoo? That is news.
Microsoft announces Mesh - a peer to peer data and media sharing network pitched to households - though Gates vision ... (Oddly IBMish) Mozilla announces mobile meets web platform a new type of fox. Everyone announces ubiquitous APIs. Yahoo announces social elements on all services - and open strategy - opening all google services to developers. A sandbox with rules. The unification of all social user profiles (Finally). Standardizing API behavior. Yahoo is great, but it's the execution of last year's vision. Depending on developers to build the world. Oh, wait, now he's announcing the social embedding. Rewiring Yahoo? That is news.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)