The Conversation Group

The next Facebook

Ted Shelton — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:35:00 +0000

Randall Stross offers some useful insights on Facebook and on the phenomena of the "network effect" in his latest NY Times article, "Getting older without getting old." But he misses the easy one when he writes

Industry watchers constantly scan the horizon for a challenger that could displace Facebook...

The most interesting thing which we should all reflect on in our businesses is the rapid emergence of Facebook from nothing to 50 million users in 2007 to over 400 million in early 2010... and how a bunch of kids have rapidly transformed the business landscape with an idea backed by a little bit of software and the Internet. And how this is happening over and over again in every industry.

The "next facebook" is the wrong question to ask. We should be asking, what is the idea that is going to blow up all of our own preconceived notions of the way our market/industry works and how can the "network effect" be used to create the next amazing transformation? What should you be doing right this minute to change the way your company is connecting with customers, creating value in the marketplace, and changing the way business gets done?

The "next facebook" will almost certainly not be anything like facebook - it will be a new insight into the way in which the Internet removes barriers to our collaborating and co-creating meaning in our world.

Geoffrey Moore on Innovation: Video

Ted Shelton — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:07:00 +0000

At the end of last month, on October 27th and 28th in London, TCG helped the Symbian Foundation host a conference on the future of mobile. Almost 3,000 people attended this dynamic event, held at the Earl's Court exhibition center. On the second day of the event Geoffrey Moore spoke to the audience about what Symbian should be doing and how Nokia and the other members should be participating in and benefiting from the Symbian Foundation. The slides and a video of his presentation are now available. Geoff makes an excellent set of observations useful for every company about the role of innovation in your business and what you need to be doing to compete:

Geoff Moore at SEE

View more presentations from tshelton.

Geoffrey Moore at Symbian Exchange and Exposition from Ted Shelton on Vimeo.

The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth

Ted Shelton — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:54:00 +0000

I was speaking with someone last night who was attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Francisco who was complaining about how Microsoft has managed to achieve remarkable success with their SharePoint product despite being inferior to start ups like Jive. He then asked if I was attending E2 to which I blithely replied "no, I don't really care about the technology wars." Which is true but incomplete. The more complete answer would have been, "technology is merely the medium we move through in order to get the really interesting things done."

And technology is increasingly a ubiquitous and all encompassing medium.

If businesses were people, technology would be the air they breath. Communications, data collection, decision making systems, etc -- everything a company does is mediated by some kind of technology and this is only accelerating. As more and more information is collected the need for systems which help us use this information become ever more essential.

The most effective companies will be the ones that have the most effective information systems. So I am really not worried about Microsoft wasting people's money with SharePoint -- the companies that use that technology will suffer the consequences. And the businesses that understand the geek-centric reality of 21st century business will succeed. Over time companies like Google, Amazon, and Akamai will teach us to use really good technology to build our businesses. Even Microsoft is beginning to understand -- how do you think Bing works? On Linux servers run by Akamai of course.

So I won't bother with "enterprise 2.0" which has become a writhing pit of technology vendors trying to insult our intelligence with ridiculous claims about their products, and instead I will continue to focus on real business problems and their solutions, safe in knowing that ultimately the best technology will win out because it will create the most value for the smartest companies -- that is, the geek shall inherit the earth.

Will Your Tribe Change The World

Ted Shelton — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:28:00 +0000

Watch this TED talk video of David Logan on tribal leadership and then look around your own organization. What stage are you and your co-workers operating at? Stage 2 where you hate the world? Or "stabilizing at Stage four", like Zappos? Or are you at Stage 5 and changing the world? And what can you do to move your organization up this ladder?

Tribes are a critical organizational model that we naturally adopt, whether explicitly or implicitly, in our interactions with others. Understanding tribal behavior and working more directly on improving our tribes is key to developing high performance organizations. And if David Logan is right, it might also be the key to changing the world.

Social networks, corporations and ambivalent purpose

Haydn Shaughnessy — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:42:27 +0000

My Sunday mornings are currently spent catching up on John Hagel and John Seely Brown’s Shift Index work. Though this concept is not directly in their work I would like to air it – the ambivalent purpose of social networks in business. To all the people I am linked to in LinkedIn, at least for a while, I used to say, so how can we help each other? How can I help you? What will you do for me? I never got a constructive response to those questions.

Here is why organisations are better than networks.

First, in passing this morning I read JSB and JH’s comments on the large organisation:

Only 20% of people are passionate about their work, and the least passionate are likely to be working in large organisations.

The fear is large organisations end up staffed by people who really don’t care.

My feeling about large organisations is their future lies in being platforms that organise people in any way that leads to sustainable revenue. JSB and JH see it slightly differently:

“We believe big institutions will become more relevant than ever–once they focus not just on efficiency but on providing platforms for individuals to systematically experiment, learn, and innovate. As scalable learning replaces scalable efficiency big institutions will become more appealing to talented individuals.”

I like the idealism in that statement but as a knowledge worker I educate myself, by and large. It gives me advantages to do it that way. And I am increasingly inclined towards greater degrees of individualism.

And yet, I like organisations. I like them for this reason:

“….the second reason we believe that large-scale corporations will remain a prominent feature of our professional landscape: because they will be best positioned to develop and support scalable, long-term, trust-based relationships. Think about it. Even the most accomplished networker supported by social networks like Facebook can develop only a limited number of trust-based relationships. On the other hand, a large institution could scale these kinds of relationships far more rapidly and broadly than any individual could.”

Yes, this is what makes me an organisation man. The fact that they provide a short cut to trusted relationships. And relationships where a revenue purpose might emerge without ambivalence. Ambivalent purpose is one of the big snags with social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook – really guys I want to be linked to you not because I admire that profile but for business purposes and that is both enough and worth while.