Finally managed to get my idea of a series of Masterclasses off the ground here; the first one is next week and will be facilitated by Dr. David Lamond and is on the subject 'Community, and what it means to Emerald'.

I'm a little apprehensive about this. I hope it works but I'm not sure what I even mean by saying 'works'. I guess there should be Actionable Outcomes - things that can be done that can be subsequently measured but in my heart I think this would be to miss the point. I have managed to get together a number of senior staff for the afternoon and this in itself is quite an achievement - time is precious (and costly) so I'm sure on a management by measurement basis something tangible needs to emerge.

Actually I'm hoping that the session becomes much more conversational and comes to be regarded by those present as a means of sense-checking and learning from each other about what is meant by 'Community' from the perspective of their part of the business. I think if this was to happen, and we arrive at a common understanding and a sense of where community sits in the overall view of the business then that would be a good thing. I also believe that much of the really valuable outcomes will occur in people's heads and that if they take something away with them that is internal and new, this is as much (if not more) valuable than a collective set of Actions and Deadlines.

This is an important distinction and one that I've come to value after experiencing knowledge cafes (David Gurteens are really good) which are a more open approach to discussion and peer learning. Too often there is debate (or the defense of one's view and ideas) rather than discourse, which I hope is more open and conversational, and this session is designed to be the latter.

Still, not sure how it will all play out. I hope people enjoy the day, I think if they do that then with David's leadership something very useful and longlasting will come out of it too.

This is extracted from my ReadWriteWeb feed. Timely since I'm hoping to introduce broader concepts of community and the changing nature of our relationships with our customers. The video in here great!!.

Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, and former Forrester analyst, has recently launched her own company, the Altimeter Group.  This week, she gave a keynote at the Social Media Marketing Summit 2008, San Francisco. Known for her commitment to social media, and belief that marketing and advertising are fatally flawed, Li started with a Google search on 'Comcast'.  The ninth result is a YouTube video titled: A Comcast technician sleeping on my couch. 

"This is why social media is so important," Li said, "this YouTube video recorded by 'Brian' resulted in the Comcast brand going down the toilet. You must understand that the power is now in the hands of consumers."

 

Sponsor

Marketing is Changing

Marketers today are caught up in a jumble of buzzwords that mean very little.  It's a confusing time, but to get the marketing right, you need to start thinking about relationships first.  "It's not about selling something anymore; that might be the end result, but to get there, you need to work on the relationship."

One of Li's favorite videos (below) shows the disconnect between advertisers and customers.  "It really captures how advertisers see the world, and how consumers are asking for a divorce."

So, how is marketing changing?  What are best practices and pitfalls?  How do you even start?

When creating your social strategy, Li recommends a four step process:

1. Who is your audience?

2. Very clear goal

3. Action plan

4. Tools, tactics, techniques

Determining Your Audience

To help you determine your audience, you need to consider their level of participation, and classify them according to how they use social technologies.  Are they:

Non Active

Watchers: 52% of online users have watched YouTube, 42% have read blogs, 19% have downloaded podcasts

Sharers: 29% have used social networking sites, 28% have tagged online content, 21% have shared online content that they created

Commenters: 32% have rated a product, service or person, 30% have commented on a product, 22% have commented on newsgroup or site

Producers: 12% have created or worked on a blog; 11% have remixed content.

Curators: People that have edited a wiki - moderated a forum

Once classified, you can use that information to start building your community.

For instance, if your target audience is moms, you don't approach them as producers; they're not going to be at that level.  However, studies have shown that moms are more likely to comment than any other person online because they value the thoughts of others and want to share their thoughts. 

Be Very Clear on Your Target Goal

Set up an action plan. Much like at a dinner party, before you start talking, listen first. Find out what people are saying about you by using various online monitoring tools.  Li uses Google blog search and Twitter to search for her brand online. 

Once you determine what is being said about you online, you can take it to the next level and do something about it.

Companies That Utilize the Social Web Well

According to Li, some companies that use the Social Web well are:

Oracle

Prior to running Oracle Open World, Oracle changed its home page for two weeks.  The page asked for consumer feedback; community involvement was important enough to interrupt the normal flow.

H&R Block

When H&R Block realized selling was no longer working, they created a page on FaceBook to provide tax advice. They don't say "come and do your taxes with us," on FaceBook; they only offer advice.

Comcast

Frank Eliason, Director of Digital Care for Comcast Cable uses Twitter to look for people talking about Comcast, 'tweets' them, and offers to help.

Skittles

Skittles has a page on FaceBook called 'Mix the Rainbow'.

It's created a spark and now the community is interacting with one another.  The company occasionally steps in with light and fun comments; never with sales talk. 

A recent series of messages on the Skittles wall:

Derek says:  Is it just me, or does there seem to be too many orange ones in the bags now?

Skittles says: Derek despite what you or the Internet may think, we can assure you there is no orange skittles conspiracy - red on the other hand...

Starbucks

Starbucks asks for suggestions on how to make the company better.  If you provide a suggestion, Starbucks CIO will discuss the idea on the site; it's not just a black hole that suggestions go into.  He explains the back end - or what has to happen on the technical level before they can implement the idea.

Wal-Mart

While most people cringe when they hear about Wal-Mart's many failed attempts to get involved with their community online (think The Hub, Across America, FaceBook), Li gives them kudos for continuing to try when others may have given up.  Look at 'Check Out' Wal-Mart's latest offering; it took them a long time to get there, but now, this really works.

All of these companies are closing the loop.  The traditional firewall separating customers and companies is falling away; no longer is it an 'us' and 'them' mentality; it's now a 'we' mentality.

How do You Get Started?

The best way to begin is to go out and meet some revolutionaries.  Talk to them, ask them what's worked and what hasn't.  Take inspiration from them.  Realize you cannot do this alone; go and get help.

Li's disappointment with the advice she has seen on the Web has inspired her to begin the Altimeter Wiki, a list of consultants, social media boutiques, PR agencies, and interactive media agencies.  Li encourages people working in the space to add their name, "there are no judgments at the moment, but there will be in the future."

Recommendations on finding good help:

• Find groups that are focused on relationships, not campaigns
• Find agencies that are using social media successfully themselves
• Ask whether they commit resources to continued learning and training
• Ask whether they make mistakes (Li guarantees that if people are doing this correctly, they will make mistakes)
• Do they have respect for, and are humbled by the medium

In summary, Li walks through the "nitty gritty" details of the action plan:

• Who needs to buy in to the plan?
• Who will 'own the community?
• What's the right level of engagement (corporate vs. audience vs. product)?
• How will we deal with negative comments and customer service issues
• How much should we spend?

And her final tip?  "Realize that you will have to give up the fallacy that you have control."

Discuss

Extracted from the IWR blog, October 7th, 2008

Companies must exploit the wealth of customer data, says Gartner

By Tom Young 07 Oct 2008

 

The private sector will need to engage with social media to attract customers, according Gartner, which estimates that more than 60 per cent of Fortune 1,000 companies with a website will connect to or host some form of online community by 2010.

 

Doing so will give companies access to a wealth of customer data and help the organisation to focus on customer needs, the analyst firm believes.

"A key benefit of establishing a community is the amount of information an organisation can gain about its customer base, which can be used for short-term and long-term customer relationships," said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner.

 

But Gartner predicts that more than half of companies that set up an online community will fail to establish a beneficial purpose, ultimately eroding customer and company values.

"Companies will be challenged with what applications to use, who ultimately owns an application and with the management of socialisation itself, from measuring success and mitigating negative interactions to sourcing and cultural restraints," explained Sarner.

 

This pitfall can only be avoided through careful consideration of social sciences and awareness of customer needs, according to the analyst, as well as proficiency in game design to create highly engaging and highly relevant environments.

A quick posting to record some thoughts on this extremeely useful and personaly satisfying day.

The OU hosted an event organised by the South East Leadership Academy yesterday on the value of Communities of Practice and Leadership. The day was split it two halfs; the morning for presentations from Ettiene Wengner, Nigel Paine and the team at LEAD in Lancaster University. The afternoon we broke into groups and discussed what CoPs meant to us, the issues and challenges surrounding their growth, adoption and so on. We returned for a panel session in which the breakout group questions were put to the panellists. All very good stuff and I enjoyed it enormously!

Met some very interesting and knowledgeable individuals, but the highlight for me was meeting Ettiene! And, he asked me to share my own story with the rest of the audience during the panel session! Don't laugh but I feel like the first guy picked for the footy team! In your face, £$%$£ [name removed for privacy reasons] –

Very interesting discussion on the nature of tension, conflict and the management of personal agenda in horizontal communities along with some practical insight and advice. A good day.

Have to go and prepare my own big day for Emerald now. Dr david Lamon will be here soon to help me facilitate a company wide conversaiton on the value, indeed the very idea of, community and what it means to su and to Publishers. I'm looking forward to it very much.

 

 

 

I've been thinking a lot about how to foster more successful Communities of Practice (CoPs) and Interest. A couple of key questions emerge:

How can I make my community of practice truly effective?
How can I prevent my network becoming a "notwork"?

Communities of practice (networks) lie at the heart of successful knowledge management in most organisations. They are the lifeblood of informal exchanges of knowledge. Typically, communities go through a series of stages as they develop. This article, drawn from a best-selling knowledge management fieldbook by its author, identifies the key steps involved in creating and sustaining a successful community of practice, providing practical hints and tips for every part of the lifecycle.

The guidelines below are drawn from the book "Learning to Fly - Practical knowledge management from leading and learning organisations" by Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell), and sets out a number steps to launching, energising and sustaining communities of practice (networks) in an organisation.

1. Planning Gather together a list of potential participants. Use referral - ask individuals if they can recommend others in the organisation who should participate. Consider a broader membership to introduce diversity. Would your network benefit from having members NOT closely associated with your domain of interest - to bring in a different perspective?

2. Decide: go/no-go Check for duplication or overlap with other networks/groups, verify the need for the network and make a clear go/no-go decision. Is the scope realistic, or is the subject area too broad for a single network? Take some soundings from potential members and consider splitting to form two or more sub-networks if appropriate.

Getting started

3. Hold a face-to-face start-up workshop Ensure that this includes a social activity to build relationships and trust. If most of the interactions are likely to be via e-mail or telephone, it is important to build relationships face-to-face.

4. Draft a "charter" collectively Develop a simple "charter" which may include:

• the rationale and scope for the network,
• the key roles (facilitator, sponsor etc.),
• the expectations in terms of people's time commitment (do members need help in securing "air cover" from their managers?),
• a "code of conduct" - how members will work together, and key processes/tools,
• a sense of "what success looks like", and any appropriate KPIs. (but avoid over-burdening a network with measures at the early stages of its growth)

5. Consider tools for support Check the available tools and their distribution across the members, particularly for a network which crosses organisational boundaries.

6. Appoint a facilitator The responsibilities of the Network Facilitator, some of which, in practice, may be shared with others in the network, may include:

• organising network meetings/teleconferences;
• maintaining network distribution lists;
• owning and ensuring the maintenance of shared information/knowledge resources;
• monitoring the effectiveness of the network, and stimulating and prodding network members when appropriate;
• acting as a focal point for the network, both internally and for those outside the network

Note - a network facilitator need not be the "subject expert". Far more important is the ability of that person to involve and include others, and to work behind the scenes to keep the network "on the boil".

7. Set up an e-mail distribution list and send a launch e-mail Establish an e-mail distribution list for your network comprising the potential membership names identified. This should facilitate further communication. The Network facilitator should be identified as the owner of this, and can add or delete people from this distribution themselves. Send an initial e-mail to kick off the dialogue.

Building momentum

8. Seed the discussion with some questions Establish the behaviours by asking a question on behalf of a member with a particular need (have the members do it themselves if possible). In the early stages it is important to demonstrate responsiveness. The facilitator should be prepared to pick up the phone and press for answers behind the scenes.

9. Publicise the network What communications media exist within your organisation? Can you write a short news article in a relevant internal or external magazine which describes the network and its aims?

10. Advertise quick wins When you get answers to questions, or the transfer of ideas between members, celebrate and make sure that everyone knows

11. Monitor activity... Monitor the discussion forum/Q&A effectiveness:

• Frequency of contribution,
• Frequency of response.
• Number of unanswered questions
• For larger networks - number of joiners/leavers

12. Maintain connectivity Schedule regular teleconferences, summarise successes, develop a list of "frequently asked questions" and a shared team space/website.

Renewing commitment

13. Refine the membership For large networks, send an e-mail to existing members reminding them to let you know if they would like to be removed from the list. Better to have a smaller group of committed members, than a larger group with variable commitment.

14. Maintain face-to-face meetings Consider an annual face-to-face meeting to renew relationships and introduce any new members

15. Keep the focus on business problems Continue to solicit questions and answers - publicise more success stories.

16. Review performance How is the network performing in relation to its performance contract, mission, KPIs? Are there still regular examples of success stories?

17. Test commitment Don't be afraid to threaten to "switch off" the network and test the response of members. People will soon object if they strongly believe in it!

Is it time to "sunset" your community? Or to reinvent it? Consider Options Decide for the future:

• Continue?
• Celebrate & close?
• Redefine the deliverables/scope?
• Divide into sub-networks?

Conclusion

Launching and supporting successful communites of practice is one of the most effective ways to sustain your investment in knowledge management. It takes thought and effort to get started, but with the right people, and the steps outlined above, they can bring KM to life in any organisation.

Into the second day of Internet Librarian 2008, here in Hammersmith London.

To be honest I'm not sure what to make of this event. I suspect this has more to do with my lack of deep familiarity of library and librarian processces, roles and challenges. Which is why I'm here.

With the exception of a (packed) session yesterday afternoon – more on this to come – the sessions appear to be an exchange of productivity tips and a kind of show'n tell of links and favourite sites that the speaker hopes the audience will find useful too. A lot of the library created software is aimed at the library user and it's imaginative stuff and probably very innovative. However, I'm left with nagging feeling that these tips, tricks and innovations are designed to impress other librarians. It doesn't look very intuitive to me and I humbly suggest that if looks complicated to me then it will appear horrible to most library users. It's a shame I think. The audience are clearly passionate and intelligent and experienced but their budgets don't strike me as large and the work is so isolated and unco-ordinated that even the best developments are doomed to obscurity. Which brings me back to the ealrier point.

In the panel session yesterday (Future Library) there was much lamentation and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the lot of the librarian. They've had (and continue to receive) a pretty raw deal it turns out and they're probably right in many respects – I don't know, I've only been in this sector for a few years. The point was repeatedly made that librarians need to stick together and tell those beastly publishers EXACTLY what they want!! Geez, I thought they were going dash out find a publisher and lynch him to satisfy their sense of injustice.

Thing is, the guy was right – librarians should tell publisher's what they want. Generally speaking it's the only way stuff improves, including publisher web databases, platforms and designs. Yay, Go librarians! You tell them in no uncertain terms what you want – trust me, it would make my job much easier.

In topic terms Web 2.0 and eLearning commands a lot of track time here. Like every other sector Librarians are still figuring this out actually if anything library usage of social media tools and web 2.0 is behind that of other sectors I've become familiar with. Not sure why this is yet. I wonder if it's cultural? I mean why else would they appear to be so enthralled by netvibes and ning. Perhaps Social Media just doesn't sit well with what it is to be a librarian, which seems to about classfication, preservation, control and authority – guess that will get me lynched too.

One of the reasons I've always believed that Social Media/Web 2.0 and elearning were particularly well matched was the fact that there exists sound pedagogical models that provide a theoretical and rounded underpinning of the use of the technology – Behaviourist is replaced by Constructivist, or Connectionism models of learning; some of which I think would have been difficult in a pre-web 2.0 world.

I can't honestly say the same for librarianship. Admittedly this statement is uttered by someone with a pretty scant (read as v. Poor) knowledge of librarianship but I'm not sure that in practical or theoretical terms there is a suitable model that neatly dovetails with the social and personal nature of the tools. If the models and frameworks are missing then it's just tinkering with new tech for the sake of it isn't it?

Back home briefly after a very interesting day in Belfast.

The British Computer Society (BCS) today created a new Specialist Group, the eLearning SG. Led by Dr. James Uhomiobi this promises to be the kind of SG I tried (unsuccesfully) to launch a few years ago - I'm so pleased for James that he's been able to pull this together, I think it's a very important development so I was delighted to accept James' invitation to attend the official launch.

I must say that I was also pleased to meet Brig. Alan Pollard a name I kinda knew from DII(F) days a few years ago; among many others today - looking forward to catching up with the elearning blogs that I was introduced to inlcuding Michelle Gallen's at Liquidelearning.com. Should be fun!

And to bed... kind of. Looking forward to getting picked up at 3am for flights to Genoa for the AGM of the European Learning Industry Group (ELIG). Again, should be a very interesting and enjoyable few days but I remember now why I got out of the consultancy game! Miss my own bed and home comforts too much - sob!

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Getting ready to return to the UK after what has been a very enjoyable couple of days in Sestri Levante, a gorgeous italian village on the Ligurian cost south of Genoa.

Giunti Labs has been our host and organiser this year for the European Learning Industry Group AGM (22^nd) and the Digital Education Content Marketplaces (DECOM 2008) conference and workshop.

I don't really know where to begin; I think these have been two of the most singularly useful conferences I've attended for a long time. The quality of the audience and the speakers was extremely high so the subsequent opportunities to network and to have extremely interesting conversations with decision makers and persons of influences was tremendous. The content was of an equally high standard and the design of both days allowed for quite a bit of interactvity, group work and conversation on a chosen stream.

Day 1 was the AGM of ELIG. ELIG is positioning itself as the leading voice of the European Learning Industry which really is as broad as the title suggests – representation from Academic institutions, content providers, learning consultancy firms, system vendors, publishers, EU agencies ensured a diverse a range of views as it was possible to get in one room and I think ultimately that is the real value of the group, and the event itself. A couple of things stand out I think – ELIG as a group includes organisations that pursue very different agendas and hold quite conflicting ideas, particularly those around Open Content/Access. This issue alone caused much debate and from my perspective it was very valuable indeed to have a forum where contentious notions of Openness could be discussed frankly and in safety – and I think it worked to a degree. The question of openness is a very nuanced and complex one and this is sometimes not expressed when organisations espouse the moral force for social good that they believe Open Content almost certainly is. This in my view is too simplistic and fails t take into account a whole range of issues including quality, authority, credibility, relevance, preservation, sustainability (in particular), accountability and perceived value – that's just of the top of my head. The fact that there were a number of publishers present helped advance the debate around Openness and helped some organisations to adopt a less naive and a richer view of the question of Openness. This is my hope anyway. ELIG have an important task here to help manage the conflict and tensions of such a diverse group.

The ELIG event was much more than that however, but more later.

DECOM2008, hosted in Giunti Labs stunning coastal HQ, was an equally fascinating and enormously interesting day. The opening presentations from Fabrizio cardinalli, David Worlock and Judy Brown were real highlights for me, not because they were so very new – my own views were very much echoed by the presenters – but because my Chief Exec was in the room and it's nice to have him hear it from someone else – another Chief Exec helps!

This was another very diverse day and allowed for group breakouts in the afternoon to discuss any one of ten subjects on offer. I was pleased to report the findings of our table to the audience and to talk at some length about the future value of Community, social tools and the unbundling of content on the web. The question of Openness was raised again and the assumption always is that as a publisher I'm dead against it – however it's easy to point out some of the different approaches to Openness – Open software, no problem (InTouch is built on Open Source software since we believe building communities is a better use of our time not creating new software), Open Content – what content? User created content I welcome very much. I pursue a 3 C's strategy with InTouch (community, content and context) and UCC is an important part of that approach. UCC adds real value to Editorially created content (ECC) and in fact isn't new. We tie ourselves up in knots with this and it's not that tricky really – all content has spawned UCC however in the past it may have taken the form of conversation, annotation, notes and reviews (Quill pen, ink and parchment). So it goes on the web and we now call that UGC or UCC. I'm relaxed about that content – it's a natural expression of interaction with content and people and can help guide people to make informed decisions about content and communities in terms of relevance, trust, quality, ownership, perspective and agenda.

I'm very grateful to the organisers, Richard Straub at ELIG and Fabrizio Cardinalli (Giunti CEO) for arranging such a stimulating couple of days. It's not often such a diversity of insight, experience and perspective is assembled in the same space and to have the opportunity to challenge and to be challenged on some very important issues is very rare and correspondingly valuable. Thanks guys.

This piece, from Simon Caulkin at the Observer, seems too timely and relevent to not post here. I suspect there's a few more wringing their hands over how we arrived at this current crisis - the Listserves are full of conversation over this.  

Simon Caulkin: When it came to the crunch, MBAs didn't help

It's not just in finance that the inquests have begun. What part have the business schools and business academics played in the implosion of the world's banking system? That was the question posed in a letter to the Financial Times last week by Nottingham University Business School's Professor Ken Starkey.

Hedge funds, private equity, investment banking, venture capital and consulting - the high priesthood of financial capitalism - were overwhelmingly MBAs' preferred job destinations, he noted. Now the schools needed to 'reflect on the role of the MBA and MBAs in the carnage of Wall Street' and consider 'how management education has contributed to the mindset that has led to the excesses of the last two decades'.

This isn't the first time that theory and theorists have been called into question. Three years ago the London Business School's late Sumantra Ghoshal caused a furore by writing that business schools did not need to do a lot more to prevent the emergence of future Enrons; they just needed to stop doing a good deal of what they were doing already.

But the questioning takes on a fresh urgency as the crises grow bigger. In this context, the issue is not just the implication of economics-dominated MBA courses in practices that are now seen to be unsustainable. 'There seems to be no sense of history,' Starkey complains. 'How come we haven't learnt anything from Enron, the dotcoms and Long Term Capital Management?'

Trapped until now in a stampede to emulate the American model, business schools elsewhere need to step back and see how they could, and should, frame the issues differently, he says. The Holy Grail is not to turn them into professional institutes (as two Harvard professors proposed in another FT article the same day) but the more modest one of 'doing better social science'. They should move away from unquestioned US positivism and the dominance of neo-classical economics towards a broader perspective allowing insights from other areas, including history, literature and art.

Could it happen? Starkey is not the only one who senses an opportunity for the market to move in a new direction. The 'elite' business schools are doomed to remain locked in increasing competition for a (presumably) shrinking pool of apprentice masters of the universe. But for others, says Professor James Fleck, dean of the Open University Business School, Europe's largest, the time is ripe to go beyond the fake certainties of the Anglo-American version, with its emphasis on analytics and separate functions, to develop a more inclusive, less lopsidedly right-brain approach to management.

Most of the world is not well served by the structures or assumptions of financial capitalism. If we could lift our eyes from the financial chaos, Fleck argues, we would see that the world is at the start of a huge technological upswing. As a consequence, there is terrific, unsatisfied demand for people to manage this innovation in ways that benefit more than a tiny financial elite. Management, in the sense of 'making a difference', could be the enabling technology of the 21st century. Who better placed to undertake such a project, and rethink the intellectual underpinnings of capitalism, than European business schools?

Many would welcome such a move. At Leicester School of Management, Professor Martin Parker notes that, though long submerged under the 'there is no alternative' discourse, an undercurrent of resistance to the market managerialism of the past 30 years has always subsisted - and not just in the public sector (where, duly adapted, it has ironically been practised with terrifying thoroughness). The surprising rage and venom hissing through the blogs commenting on a recent Economist leader about bankers' pay show just how deep it runs in the private sector too.

Little of this surfaces in formal management research, however. Analysing 2,300 articles published in prominent journals in 2003 and 2004, Parker and two colleagues found business-school researchers overwhelmingly concentrating on narrow technical questions rather than the larger social and political issues - the environment, war, workers' rights, the distribution of wealth - which business has signally failed to provide answers to. While the piece, ('Speaking Out: The Responsibilities of Management Intellectuals'), pre-dated the financial crash, in one sense it reinforces it - underlining that in terms of what academics actually publish, little seems to have changed since Enron, or even the dotcoms.

The underlying question, says Parker, is whether business schools can contribute to the solution rather than the problem. One way of doing this, he suggests, would be to reformat themselves as 'Schools for Organising' that can teach and learn from a multiplicity of different forms - 'and do not simply reproduce the ideology of people called managers'.