Collaboration is a discretionary activity. People have to want to share ideas and work together. It can be catalyzed, but it can’t be mandated – and, to that extent, it requires re-thinking many of our organizational assumptions and leadership practices.

Many of our ideas about organizations and leaders were formed at a time when the primary operational challenge was one of getting people to perform tasks consistently and reliably. We leveraged best practices to achieve a uniform approach. We required that everyone be present in the same place and time, in some cases to get the work done, but at a minimum to allow us to gauge performance by watching in-process activities.

But more and more of the work that differentiates our businesses today depends on divergent or creative activities. Our challenge is one of creating environments that encourage people to become engaged, to take initiative, invest discretionary effort in a wide variety of collaborative activities, and, as a result, develop new approaches and ideas, provide extraordinary customer service, or ramp productivity. Think of this challenge as one of setting the stage, creating an environment that engages players from multiple constituencies. It is a “pull” rather than “push” approach to achieving business results. Continue reading…

I was recently interviewed on BigThink.com about risk management.  In the short video above, I explain why the financial services industry needs more than just an injection of fresh capital and tweaked regulations.  We need to rethink the industry from the ground up and apply the principles of wikinomics.

If you are not familiar with BigThink.com, here is how the site describes itself: “Through an ever-expanding platform of knowledge content, including in-depth interviews with the world’s leading experts, Big Think is a vital hub for important information to help you function, and succeed, in a rapidly changing world. In keeping with our belief that crucial information should be freely shared, discussed and debated, we have developed a full menu of tools to engage, disseminate, and subscribe to uniquely powerful content. Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, Digg.com, Delicious, Google Reader, Vimeo, YouTube, a personal blog, Tumblr, or any application with an RSS feed, Big Think allows you to share bright ideas with the wider Big Think audience as well as your personal cadre of lively thinkers-quickly and easily.”

How intriguing is it that social media and online sources are scooping more mainstream news outlets? Maybe they are the new mainstream?

As a child of the 70’s and 80’s, The MTV Generation, I can’t help but be shocked and saddened by the passing of both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson yesterday. MJ’s music in particular was and still is a large part of my life and it feels as though my childhood died just a little in the last 24 hours. That said, what I found interesting was the way that many found out about Michael’s death and the controversy surrounding report sources. CNN losing a scoop to TMZ? Per the Los Angeles Times, when asked about its Jackson coverage, CNN said: “Given the nature of this story we exercised caution.” It seems that while all of the “major” news sources were going with reports of MJ being in a coma, a TMZ blog broke the news of his death which was quickly picked up on Twitter and Facebook.

Wikipedia fought with people making modifications to Michael Jackson’s profile and eventually took down the site to disallow the numerous reports of Michael’s death? “ONCE AGAIN, HE IS NOT DEAD, JUST STOP,” wrote one of the editors who deleted Jackson’s date of death.

It was only 11 short years ago that Diana, Princess of Wales sudden death was being reported and covered 24X7 on every television station across the globe. Had theTMZ Blog, Twitter or Facebook been around, how much sooner would we, the public have known? Would it have mattered if we knew 20 minutes or 1 hour before “official word”? Could Diana’s death have garnered the same response? Tributes popping up in minutes,Flickr graphing MJ tracks played per hour, Twitter and Facebook profile pictures being changed to memorialize the deceased, “What’s Your Favorite MJ Song” – posted by many, apparently I’ll Be There by the Jackson 5 is winning by a landslide according to @dannymasterson.

Per The LA Times, Twitter activity measured over 5,000 Tweets about Michael Jackson at its peak, causing some, including myself, to have issues logging in. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone stated in an email “We saw an instant doubling of tweets per second the moment the story broke,” Stone wrote .. “This particular news about the passing of such a global icon is the biggest jump in tweets per second since the U.S. presidential election.” The power of social media is obvious.

Of course given the nature of social media tools and the ease of accessibility to anyone, it does provide an easy channel for rumors to start. Shortly after the Michael Jackson death was reported, rumors of Jeff Goldblum’s demise were rampant. Twitter post by @KevinSpacey “Jeff Goldblum is alive and well. I just spoke to his manager. Stop these stupid rumors.” So how much can we believe and when is it OK to “jump the gun” just to get the scoop? The quick reaction from celebrities and others on Twitter seem to support the case that social media is in general fairly self policing. The ease of access not only allows rumors to spread quickly, but also to be squashed just as quickly, often by the person directly affected.

Bottom line – Social media tools are just that, media, not just for reporting and verifying news but for supplying an extended community that allows for quick sharing of news AND views. These are the channels that allow the masses to learn from each other to express sadness, joy, accolades and criticisms.
RIP to all the famous faces we lost this week – Ed McMahon,Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.

My question to you - How did you hear about Michael Jackson’s death? 1.0 or 2.0

Today my colleague Ian and I spoke with a few folks from the Government of Portugal about their initiative to equip all school-aged children with internet enabled computers. While this initiative is very much noteworthy (see Don’s post below), the setting for the meeting itself made a significant impression on both of us.

We used a Cisco TelePresence system which is basically a conference room with a wall of screens so that you can see who you are meeting with. The ultra fast internet connection ensures that the video is clear and that there are no latency issues. The effect is impressive as you are able to conduct a normal conversation (including eye contact and body language) with people sitting half way around the world.

Following the meeting Ian and I talked about how systems such as Cisco’s TelePresence could boost productivity by making at least some business travel unnecessary. With my interest in sustainability I also started to think about the impact of collaboration technologies such as telepresence on the environment – in particular the possibility of cutting down on emissions generated by cars and planes.

In fact this impact has already been calculated by a team from WWF which developed an interactive tool to illustrate the potential. The team calculated the CO2 savings from the use of IT collaboration tools instead of air travel or commuting. The numbers are significant – in North America alone the impact of replacing some business travel could yield up to 2 Mt in CO2 reductions (equivalent of taking over 800 000 off the roads). The savings jump to 13 Mt (5.5 million cars) if employees are allowed to work from home instead of commuting. The numbers speak for themselves – collaboration tools such as telepresence can have a significant positive impact both in terms of work efficiency as well as environmental sustainability. The hope is that adoption of these technologies is rapid enough to make a difference in the near future.

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President Obama already knows that the nation’s schools are failing a large number of young Americans. One-third of all students drop out before finishing high school. It’s a terrible record, and it’s even worse in inner city public schools, where only half of African-Americans and Hispanics graduate from school. This is not a legacy that would make anyone proud: More young Americans on a proportionate basis drop out of school today than at any other time in our history.

This problem is undoubtedly complicated, but one of the reasons why many American youth are unmotivated and not learning well is that they’re bored in school. They’re grown up in a fast paced, challenging digital world, with the Internet, mobile devices, video games and other gadgets. They watch less television than their parents did and TV is typically a background activity. They are a generation doesn’t like to be broadcast to and they love to interact, multi-task and collaborate. Yet, when they get into the classroom, they’re faced with stale textbooks and lectures from teachers who are still using a nineteenth century innovation, chalk and blackboard.

American classrooms need to enter the 21st century. Thousands of teachers agree. Earlier this year, several important educational groups urged the president and Congress to spend nearly $10 billion to improve technology in the classroom, and ensure teachers know how to use computers most effectively. Continue reading…

It’s been 5 years since Tim O’Reilly coined the phrase web 2.0 for a new O’Reilly Media conference that framed the momentum and put a name to the current wave of post dot-com innovation.

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!