Logic+Emotion

Give Before You Get

After recently updating some visuals to my Flickr collection, it occurred to me how much of my precious time has gone into producing these artifacts only to "give" them away (specifically for use of blogging and presentations—I ask for attribution, a link is always appreciated). I've had hundreds of people come up to me and tell me they've used my content to further their business more or less. People have benefited off me. But I've benefited off them as well, as I've enjoyed stimulating career opportunities and even received some help when we needed it.

This is a value exchange—a sort of currency that fuels an ever increasing networked economy.

It's not a perfect system by any means. I often wonder if I did the right thing by sharing so much or if I "monitized" my efforts properly. I don't know the answer to this (yet). But here's something I do know. The concept of providing value to your customers or any constituent is a tough pill to swallow. It takes a lot of effort and there's no short cut. So for a company that wants to convert consumers to customer advocates, you have to give. For the Fortune 500 corporation that wants their employees to collaborate more effectively, or perhaps retain their best talent—you have to give. For the brand that wants to leverage a social system to better market their products and services—you have to give.

And giving is hard. But you have to be prepared to do it if you want to thrive in the network economy. Think about it.

When The Ending Isn't Happy

The picture above is of the Loveless family—Jamie, Chris, and their son Gavin. Ken Burbary alerted me through a private message on Twitter that he was going to try to help the family when Jamie became admitted to the hospital for H1N1 flu. Ken wanted to help the family who found themselves stranded in Florida away form their home in Tennessee in a crisis. In two days, Ken and his network raised over 6 thousand dollars through the social web. In two days, Jamie's situation went from bad to worse and she passed away after developing severe pneumonia (most likely caused by the virus).

I guess I feel compelled to write this for a number of reasons. First, as a human being and parent I'm saddened by the story. Secondly, it hits even closer to home as Ken leveraged similar tactics to the the ones we used when helping another family in crisis. Lots of people said that event could not be duplicated and they were partially correct (I could not duplicate it). But others like Ken who have built networks (and trust) over time can choose to tap them if and how they see fit.

Unfortunately, despite the amazing effort and funds that were raised, this did not end as well as the situation I was involved with. I'm not really sure what else to say except that those who helped get the word out and raised funds did a good thing despite the outcome. And to Ken, thank you for leading the charge. My thoughts (and prayers) go out to Chris, Gavin and their family and friends despite the fact that I don't know them personally. I'm sorry for your incredible loss.

The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of the Rock Star

Here's the thing about rock stars. We make them. Somewhere along the line, someone captures our attention with their combination of talent, ambition, personality and we reward them by becoming a fan. Their music taps our imagination, our dreams and inspires us. We grow up wanting to be like them. We choose to accept them despite their numerous personal flaws which often manifest in public. They represent the best and worst of us—a caricature of the human race that's larger than life. We need them and in some ways are them.

BUT

Rock stars don't represent the reality of everyday life. The unglamorous daily churn of making it through the day does. We all get up, do the best we can, go to sleep and start all over again, all the while hoping that we are doing something worthwhile that will make some kind of difference. Most of us relate to this. We also relate to the idea that much of the time it often goes unnoticed.

So we turn our attention to the rock stars that do get noticed.

And that's that's where we need to keep a bit of perspective. Rock stars fill stadiums, draw crowds, entertain and influence pop culture. Everyday people make the world go round. But might I make a suggestion for the rock stars, the aspiring ones and the every day Joes and Janes who make the world go round?

Do your best to make a contribution.

That's all. It doesn't really matter what camp your fall into. There will always be people who put others on stages and yet others who tear those pedestals down. That won't change. Neither will the fact that we all get up, give life a shot and go to sleep hoping we did something worthwhile. And I'll keep this post short because I have a lot of work to get to. So good luck with your efforts—hopefully you can make a difference.

Nussbaum on Design, Disruption and Innovation

Originally posted on the Dachis Group Collaboratory

Sharing ideas and insights with Bruce Nussbaum, contributing editor at BusinessWeek, is always a pleasure, so it's fitting that he's one of my first round table interviews. Previously assistant managing editor in charge of BusinessWeek's innovation and design coverage, he was named one of the 40 most powerful people in design by I.D. Magazine in 2005. Nussbaum wrote The World After Oil: The Shifting Axis of Power and Wealth, and Good Intentions, an inside look at medical research on AIDS. He has received awards from the Sigma Delta Chi Journalism Society, the Overseas Press Club, and the Industrial Designers Society of America. Nussbaum is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. For more of his thinking and writing, you can read Nussbaum on Design or follow him on Twitter. Photo credit to Alex_Cheek.

David: You've been a huge advocate for the field of design and a believer in what's commonly known as "design thinking." Movements in how people collaborate in an open fashion or trends such as crowdsourcing are positioned to influence how designers think and work. What do you think are the challenges and opportunities for designers as these shifts take place?

Bruce: Crowdsourcing and client participation in design are huge new opportunities that are really exciting.  We now have the technology to engage consumers, learners, drivers, patients - everyone - and make them part of a process that generates new options, services and experiences. Of course, that means "experts" have to give up some control and that includes managers, designers, branders (is that a term?). Yeah, this is especially true in branding where social media empowers consumers to demand control of the brand, brand strategy and, increasingly, the products/services that make up the brand.

David: Business models are being disrupted in real time. You recently shared an opinion on how this affected BusinessWeek. In your opinion, what should a business be doing right now to ensure that they are positioned to thrive?

Bruce: The same forces decentralizing power and participation in media are sweeping business organizations. So we have social business models arising in the same way that we have social media models. I think you guys are pioneering in this area, David. You know, there is a health practice in Brooklyn called Hello Health where young doctors organize their practice around a Facebook platform--maybe it is Facebook itself. I think that's the model of the future for many business organizations. It's beyond flat. It's networked. Changing big corporations to do that will be a huge task. AG Lafley, before he left as CEO of P&G, said his job of just opening the silos there was only 10% done after nearly 8 years. So moving from hierarchical to horizontal to networked is an immense task--but it has to be done to compete in the global economy. I'd guess that one out of 10 big companies will be able to make the switch. Maybe 1 in 20.

You have to be in the culture of your consumers and clients and certainly with Gen Y, that's how they live, that's where they live. It's not just the future, it's like tomorrow.

David: You've written on the topic of innovation for some time providing alternative perspectives on processes such as Six Sigma etc. Has your view on innovation itself changed or is it the same? How do you personally define innovation?

Bruce: Innovation, for me, is invention that generates value for people.  Often that value is monetary and commercial and produces profits, jobs, taxes and economic growth. Increasingly innovation is happening in non-market civic arenas--health, education, transportation, warfare (yes warfare), where the increased value is not necessarily monetary alone but hugely beneficial to the people it effects. The fastest growing field in innovation and design consulting is health care. Yet, there is a lot of money to be saved and earned in that space, but the biggest beneficiaries are patients, doctors and nurses.

David You've recently joined the ranks with many of us on networks such as Twitter. Why did you do it? What have you learned and what in your opinion is the opportunities and or risks that networks provide to the business world.

Bruce: I touched on the importance of networks earlier. They are the crucial building blocks of organization for the future. And hey, they were in the past. Church groups, unions, political parties, block associations--all networks. Just without the technology that binds these days.

I use Twitter to create a human search engine that screens information and links it to me quickly. It is so much better than a mathematical algorithm that doesn't know me. This posse is my information curator.  Increasingly, I wake up in the morning and use Twitter to get my information, not the NY Times or the WS Journal. I rely on my Twitter-mates (don't go there) to put me onto trends way before they show up on data bases. And yes, I also am entertained by them. I hope I give them giggles from time to time as well. And I hope I serve them as well as a curator of information.

David: You've written a good deal about the current economic climate, how we got here and what we could be doing to get out. If you were a CEO of a large business today, what would you do to fuel economic growth? Do you think business leaders can help turn this around?

Bruce: CEOs should have been innovating throughout the recession and need to innovate even faster as we exit it and move toward growth. Every serious study shows that when companies innovate in an economic downturn, they pick up market share vis-à-vis their competitors once growth accelerates. Apple does this so well.

But most executives just cut costs and then find themselves with nothing new to offer consumers when the game changes. I think we'll have a new normal consumer culture  in the next business cycle and companies that figure out the needs and wants of people in that culture will do exceedingly well. Also, Gen Y is beginning to move into the workforce. It has a very distinct culture that very few companies understand. I'm talking different values, behaviors and platforms of interaction and delivery. Those who "get" Gen Y will do well.

David: "Social media" for the lack of a better phrase seems to be on everyone's mind. What's your take on the current state of matters related to this? Where specifically do you see opportunities and what should we as both citizens and members of the workforce be mindful of?

Bruce: "Social media" has evolved to the point where we should drop the word "social." Most media is now networked, engaged, participatory, looped. It's the norm. Social media is where Gen Y live and social media is where aging Baby Boomers are gravitating toward. We are still sorting out the technologies and rules of the game for social media. There are different cultures for different platforms. You have to study these cultures as if they were different villages in different continents.

I see virtually all corporate consumer business, retail, media, education and health moving onto the social media platform. Think Mint vs. Intuit (which just bought Mint). I believe hybrid social media models will develop that integrate the personal with the network. I think one of the next big things will be in cheap, portable video conference systems that link to social media systems that make them much more personal. Let's face it, Skype sucks, especially compared to HP's Halo system but Skype is free and Halo is expensive. So far. A disruptive technology in video conference could make a huge difference in both social media and social business platforms.

I'm hoping that all this will change our political system which has become hugely corrupt. Unlike Asia, where corruption is rampant and fought, we in the US have simply legalized it and call it "lobbying." Social media has the promise of taking power away from the few in Washington and giving it to the people. Yeah, yeah, I know. Be careful of what you wish for. But, hey, this is all good and fun and, yes, important too.

Insights & Opinions From Blogworld 09

Photo credit: Thekenyeung via Flickr

I recently returned from Blogworld 2009, a mix of business, social media and social events which spanned nearly 4 days taking over much of Las Vegas. It was a flurry of activity and got my gears turning—here's a few things that caught my attention:

Sponsored conversations aren't a blogger's biggest concern
One of the panels was dedicated to discussing and debating the notion of "sponsored conversations". To be honest, it didn't clarify much for me and while the recent FTC announcement is worth taking note of, I think bloggers have bigger fish to fry, such generating a quality readership/community in a noisy, saturated market. That said, according to the panel this post is a sponsored conversation and I should disclose that as a speaker, blogworld funded my airfare and hotel stay. Now that that's over with, back to the writing.

Do you believe in life after public relations?
From Ford's Scott Monty (pictured above) to Comcast's Frank Eliason, there were many famliar faces at Blogworld, who frankly deserve to be at any event where all the "social stuff" is evangelized, discussed and debated. They have broken new ground in organizations, working very diligently to do so. I've come to know many of these individuals and consider some of them friends. Though something struck me in listening to Scott Monty's talk; when he was asked if he made any mistakes, he more or less responded that not scaling soon enough was one of them (and he was working on that). In a moment of clarity it hit me that unless companies significantly scale AND integrate social initiatives, the immediate benefit may in fact be good public relations (if you do it right) but perhaps limited to that. I am in no way discounting the value of this—but when thinking about the potential of how a socially calibrated business could operate, it makes me want more. I believe in life after public relations and think the next wave of social will be done at scale in an integrated fashion, somehow directly impacting the bottom line and/or innovating.

You'll never regret building your network
During my presentation, I had just about every tech glitch you can think of. Finally after getting it all working, Mr. klutz (me) kicked the power chord shutting down the computer which hooked up the the projector. There was no way for me to effectively proceed since the talk was completely dependent on visuals. AV had left and I was at the mercy of the audience. I was prepared to go on without slides, but before doing so I asked if anyone from the audience could help. Within a few seconds someone jumped up behind the table alongside of me and after some fancy tech footwork got the system working again. My takeaway? Being a part of a healthy ecosystem means that people will help you when you need it. You'll never regret the time you put into it. On that note, I've shared my slides on slideshare and included them below.

The Value of Visual Thinking in Social Business

Data matters
On the last day of Blogworld I attended Jeremiah Owyang's solo session where he discussed some trends shaping the future of the social Web. There were 3 examples in particular that stood out for me. One was a Volkswagon initiative which would serve you up a vehicle recommendation based on your Facebook data. Jeremiah questioned the validity of this approach when one of his recommendations was a VW Bug, which he assured us would not be his preference. It's clear that tactics such as this are in their infancy. The second was the trend of integrating social sign-ons into Websites. It's a convenience to users but using something such as Facebook Connect in place of something like a traditional e-mail address means Facebook "owns" that data. And lastly, the point of integration was made. What happens when there are multiple systems including social ones mining customer data but they aren't connected? The idea of a social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system becomes something to ponder.

There were certainly much more, but these stood out for me. I shared a few other thoughts on a brief podcast which David Thomas from SAS featured on their blog.

The Value of Visual Thinking

Originally posted on The Collaboratory.

I'm leaving for Las Vegas later this week to speak at Blogworld. I'm on a panel discussing the intersection of social media and brands, but what I'm really excited about is a presentation on Friday where I will discuss the value that visual thinking can bring to any organization. I have a passion for visual thinking. Being able to think visually, break down complex ideas and synthesize them into something meaningful is my forte. It's a skill that has landed me in the company of the smart and capable folks I currently work with. More importantly, I took whatever abilities I had and I gave them over to my ecosystem. In any social system, you always come to the table offering something of value rather than seeking it.

Educating
So what's the value of visual thinking for business? For starters it can help educate, especially if you are launching a new product, initiative or idea. Take for example our own vision for Social Business Design. When I first joined the team, Jeff immersed me in the company vision and I spent several weeks wrapping my head around the idea. During this process, I knew that we would need more than words to communicate such a big idea. One of the first things I did was to begin to visualize what critical elements looked like so that other people would have a "mark" they could file mentally and recall whenever they heard a word such as "hiveminded" or "metafilter." and the image with "yummy." Education is one value that visual thinking has. When I present our ideas on Social Business Design, I display screen shots of websites and social networks, and I watch the audience as they take notes. But when the visualizations of our 4 archetypes flash on the screen, the note taking usually stops and eyes fixate on the screen studying the image and the words. It's almost as if I can see their thought process in action. 

Communicating
It doesn't matter if we're talking about consumers or employees — attention is becoming scarce. If you want to communicate something, you need to capture attention and communicate your point quickly. It doesn't matter if it's email, Twitter, Facebook, Ebay, Youtube, phone calls, or spreadsheets. The average person is inundated by information and doesn't have the time or the focus to sit and watch a 20 minute video or read through your 50 page document filled with nothing but text. The value of effective visuals is to stop someone in their tracks, engage them, draw them in and inform them as they absorb what it is you are trying to communicate.

Training
In the design of business, visual thinking will be key in the design of new processes, systems, and structures. Expect to see the mapping of ecosystems, flows, org charts, social systems and data visualization. All of which can help people understand and get behind change. Visual language can also be an effective training tool as businesses retool and re-equip their employees to compete in blisteringly fast paced environments. Before employees actually perform new tasks, they will have to visualize themselves doing it. I'm a firm believer that visual currency will play a big role in the value exchange we see influencing the business world. But don't take my word for it, in the words of an ancient Chinese proverb: “Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.” Visual thinking equates to "show me", and that's the bridge between telling and understanding — that's the value it brings to any context.

We're not all visual thinkers (though we all have the potential). However we are all visual learners. Don't believe me? Simply pay a visit to any gradeschool and you'll see evidence of it everywhere. "A is for Apple," showing both the letter and a picture of an apple next to it. The cognitive recognition of the image often happens first. A child sees the object, thinks "yummy," learns the word, and when they do — they associate the word

Strength in Numbers

 
The firm that I am helping build is primarily services oriented—which means we'll lead with strategy and won't make technology recommendations until the time is right. That said, we do think there are some good technology solutions which can help organizations become more socially calibrated. In short, if the the right culture, people, and processes are in place—these technologies can help connect the nodes within and outside of your organization leading to a more real time, collaborative and informed way of doing business.

Our current roster of partners will include:



* IBM Lotus Connections - Enterprise Social Networking tools
* Telligent Community Server - Customer and enterprise facing forums, profiles and social networking
* Atlassian Confluence - Wiki-based collaboration
* ThoughtFarmer - Social Intranet Software
* Cotweet.com - Twitter for Business
* SocialWare - Social Media risk management
* Socialcast - Enterprise Dynamic Signal platform
* Photon Infotech - Social Media Framework, Open Source Development
* Bamboo Networks - Custom Application Development and Rehabilitation
* Starpoint Solutions - Telligent implementation and integration

These partnerships are one piece of our delivery capability, which includes developing on top of Open Source tools that are available as well as the integration of web-based services (facebook, twitter, salesforce.com, etc) in to the enterprise right alongside on-premise software. Each partner has committed to work closely with Dachis Group not just during the software deployment, but during the entire consulting engagement where needed

We have a way to go in order to make Social Business Design a reality—and in order to do this right, we will need to partner and align ourselves with other smart organizations that can help deliver upon the vision. And lastly, we are officially out of stealth mode. I've met many of you in person and know that you're working to move your own organization forward beyond tactical social marketing initiatives. If you are really serious about it, now is the time to talk to us.

Dynamic Signals For Business

Consider how business really gets done. A group of professionals agree to meet for lunch or perhaps dinner to discuss the details of a deal. Each of the members of the meeting is in a constant mode of signaling. Their body language, the tone of their voice, the grip of their handshake, their eye contact. These are each signals that we as human beings send to others. Some of us are better at influencing the conscious and unconscious signals we send. Some of us are more sensitive at picking up and deciphering the signals we receive. Body language experts discuss this signal exchange and measure them in "microseconds" because that's how quickly a signal such as blink, furrow or nervous twitch can be broadcast.
Continue reading on The Collaboratory

Social Business By Design 2.0

Social Business By Design

View more documents from David Armano.

If you found some value in the first iteration of "Social Business by Design" you may want to take a look at this current version. It includes double the content including video footage from the Drupal7 open design initiative. Also, you'll notice the slide design has been updated to reflect the current identity system of Dachis Group. There's also additional thinking around business culture and the dynamics between networks and hierarchies. Hope you find it useful.

Eating Our Dogfood: Welcome To Our Collaboratory

I’ve been with our new company for just about six months now and in this compressed timeframe I’ve grown by leaps and bounds surrounded by very capable people who are looking to move the industry forward.  We believe that “social media” (for the lack of a better phrase) isn’t merely the latest communication channel nor a fad but will in fact alter the way business gets done. In order for this to happen, a transformation must take place deep within the organization which manifests itself in nearly every business function. The transformation will result in a business becoming a social business—one that is connected both inwardly and out, and benefits from this in measurable ways. So when it came to our own "Website", our intention was to lead by example. Welcome to our Collaboratory, it’s less a website and more of a digital ecosystem where we will aggregate our collective thinking and engage all levels of participants from clients, to peers to individuals in other ecosystems. 

The first thing you may notice in our Collaboratory is a somewhat unconventional homepage. I’ve talked before about the idea about attention moving from “pages” and earning trust in streams.

This is exactly what you’ll see when you visit the Collaboratory. You’ll be greeted by a living, breathing, visual representation of our activities. You’ll be able to see what we tweet, how we work (we currently use 37 Signals Basecamp and Highrise to collaborate), when we signal internally (we use Yammer) and when and what we blog. You’ll even be able to see when we e-mail and to which organizations we e-mail to. Of course we’ve thought this through and can control what gets shared and how, but the concept is to provide a window into how we operate. It’s a glimpse into our “hivemind” you could say.



The stream constantly updates in real time and makes for less of a homepage and more of a dynamic representation or our organization. 

Other features that our site includes is a calender of events so you can see where we are giving talks and participating within the industry. All content from blog posts to our events can be subscribed to via an RSS feed. The Collaboratory will act as a meta aggregator pulling in all of our content from blog posts, to videos to bookmarks and you’ll be able to share your thoughts on anything that gets posted. Additionally, there has been quite a bit of chatter in the industry about the idea of Social Business Design and even requests that we firmly define what this is. We’ve also written a whitepaper on the topic and have defined it in short as the following:



“Social Business Design is The intentional creation of dynamic and socially calibrated systems, process, and culture.”



Our goal with the collaboratory is to provide a value exchange, This means we are tasking ourselves to provide value to our ecosystem and expect to receive value back. But the exchange is not merely two-way, our hope is that all constituents in our ecosystem benefit from the experience we help facilitate here. This is what value exchange means. The Collaboratory was designed specifically for this—leveraging a Wordpress foundation for rapid content updates and integrating all kinds of technologies which make the stream, feeds and interactions possible. It’s designed to be content rich as opposed to heavy on the special effects, and made to evolve and scale as our needs change. We’re emphasizing substance over flash. 

So welcome to our Collaboratory and feel free to eat our own dogfood along with us. It might not sound glamorous, but we’re counting on your participation as we navigate the course toward creating more socially calibrated organizations. See you in the stream.