Random notes from Our Social World in Cambridge, UK.
Ben Hammersley kicked off by stressing the important part isn't the technology, but the social interaction. When tracing the roots of blogging back the enlightenment, he notes that it introduced concepts of science, technology and good manners. Manners were invented by blogging, as the pamphlets were written and read in coffee houses by the same people wearing the same clothes -- if you wrote something rude someone could stab you in the head. He didn't clarify if this risk was present in blogging today.
Today's software has even more of an opportunity to be revolutionary. He explored some of the key attributes such as access to 2.5 billion people instantly, interconnectedness compared to documents and how it is free both as in freedom and beer.
Simon Phipps says that because connectivity has gotten into the soul of society, consumerism has shifted to participation. The second and third order opportunities have arisen in just ten years (compared to a 90 year cycle of philosophy). Blogs at Sun started with a crazy idea, Jonathan Schwartz said why don't you get on with it (now he blogs, if his post is concise it's likely it's been vetted) and otherwise adoption bubbled up without a formal launch. LiveJournal for lab book group blogging and Roller inside the company, Roller for external. Marketing and PR should not be in the hands of marketing and PR. Consumers are having a conversation, if you participate in it you have a chance of making a profit, connected capitalism that is going to change the world.
Tom Coates refused to define Social Software, but talked through all of our favorite examples. He is adopting the wiki way for group editable audio on a project right now in the BBC (30 people can together provide real-world diagnoses of cancer cells with 70% accuracy, btw). I added him to Wikipedia.
Jonnie Moore led us through some chaos games. When understanding Social Software, we are all dealing with our fundamental fear of the the unknown. If everything were completely structured it would all be terribly dull. Started this blog about a supermarket chain to see what would happen and now it has engaged employees defending their company. He shared this great link of Nicolae Ceausescu's last speech.
Lee Bryant talked about tags. Bottom-up emergent sense-making sounds like an interesting sexual position, but it's not. Negotiating shared meaning through tags is protection against hegemonic discourse. Talks about Enterprise Social Software that leverages wikis, weblogs and social bookmarking to create a social layer and bring collaboration back to users. Headshift launched Patient Opinion today, a simply wonderful project which enables medical patient stories.
Loic Le Meur was the first to mention the Long Tail at the event, explaining how a woman started blogging about cooking at the end of the tail and is now part of the fat head and has become a pro. Shows some MT integration with Podcasting. Turns out Loic is also one of the top 10 podcasters on iTunes in France. From now on we will call him Bloic (French law states that if he finds this offensive I would have to remove this comment or be liable). Talked through the Loreal botched French blog and 6A pricing cases of making a mistake, listening to comments and adapting. The European Blogosphere section of his wiki continues to be updated every other day, the International Herald Tribune referenced it as "source: best guess of bloggers."
Lunch on the pitch had some good conversation about entrepreneurship in Europe, Skype/eBay rumors and the changes in the lives of the usual suspects.
Euan Semple talks about the enemy within and the BBC's enterprise use of wikis, weblogs, discussion boards and directories. Kept it very flat, very open and it grew fast: 8,000 discussion board users on a daily basis. Better that water cooler conversations occur openly, even though criticism can be difficult (even for himself when he chose a particular wiki vendor). Blogs picked up when an executive started participating, something far more popular than internal corporate communications. Wiki has 1,000 users with 100 wiki spaces with faster growth than any of the tools. Started with private wiki spaces, increasing use of more public spaces. When BBC staff couldn't participate in a public photography competition people complained on their blog, then Euan suggested using a wiki and they had their own internal contest. Otherwise wikis are being use for more formal communication and projects. These tools are helping democratize the organization, great contributions are recognized. Managers are better off engaging with these tools early, not trying to own them, but be there and participate from the start.
Suw Charman talks about dark blogs, the ones you can't see. There is a big race to be second in implementing new technology. Successful projects have a good reason for existing, identified business need (internal communications, personal KM, etc.). Sometimes a blog isn't the best tool (she said, "as Ross will tell you"). Blogs without a purpose have a tendency to fail. Sometimes an editorial process is introduced within the enterprise (e.g. The Guardian's personal KM use evolved into reporting, but has editorial oversight). Imposing software that does not fit into every day routines tends to fail. Integration with other systems (e.g. LDAP, email) is very important. Because the tool is simple, instead of providing training in a 3,000 page manual, provide them support. Adoption is not the big hurdle people think it is if you have a process to apply it to and invest some time in introducing it to users who can become evangelists. Suw draws a great distinction between visible (e.g. in a meeting) and invisible (working alone) work, supporting invisible work is important for social software as it is part of the norm. We are at a stage where we get what blogging is, but it's hard to measure success. If people use it, are enthusiastic, are bending it for their needs -- run with it.
Julian Bond provides a counterpoint on blog adoption. Pointing out that most internal communications is powerpoint + chocolate biscuits or CC + BCC. In other words, office politics as usual. The geek imperative of giving as much info as possible in excruciating detail vs. hoarding information for advantage. The software may be free, but they don't have the people in house to set it up. For a service provider, 25 meetings and manpower later a blog project for the FTSE100 costs 100,000 pounds. And the customer kicks back and says, "but you said the software is free."
Simon Grice says that identity is at the heart of Social Software. Makes the case for Personal Digital Identity (PDI). Quotes Kim Cameron (Microsofty): A system that does not put users in firm control of their own identity will ... be rejected by enough users that it cannot become universal. An issue 1,000 years old. Solving the identity problem helps solve interaction issues such as spam. Mobile devices are the first true pervasive identity authentication device, provides authentication, messaging and billing; converging global number standard and portability and they all carry a personal data store. He demos how you can leverage mobile identity and location awareness -- and how truly disturbing it is (made me think about LocationTheft, but also how intertwined Open Rights and Personal Identity are). In conversation, Simon Phipps suggest that we copyright our personal data.
One thread of conversation during Wiki Wednesday and Our Social World was about the difference between being an entrepreneur in London and the Silicon Valley. Just a thought during the break: access to capital is not just supply and regulatory and market structure, but an environment where investors are exposed to new ideas socially so they understand risks and opportunities.
Max Niederhofer talks about the youth of blogging and says blogging is like a MMOG, but unlike games they don't have a point to them. It's not solved, it's played. When games are played, rules emerge. Tom Coates didn't buy the weblogs as games thing because the regular world interplays with it, saying that "only in Europe would we justify that it's okay to talk in public."
Mmm...apparently this company is giving free wine to UK bloggers, so Hugh brought a case.
Colin Donald was one of the guys who stopped by Wiki Wednesday. I had to step out for the beginning of his talk. Traditional media is hampered here by legal responsibilities, beyond the broadcast model, they have to spend a ton of money moderating discussion boards.
My turn for a closing talk...
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Jon Prettyman is our development team lead, based in Portland, here caught in repose at Barcamp. Among other things, he was the designer and developer of Peapod, the first online grocer. But Jon has also gained a great deal of experience working with large organizations such as Thompson, Ameritech and the Regence Group. It's been great working with Jon over the last couple of months with his distributed dev team.
Casey West just started with us, lives in Pittsburgh, but has really hit the ground running (while having a new kid!). Casey has been working on Wikiwyg (now runs on IE and Firefox!), including the spiffy new site and other Ajax goodness. Casey is a creator of the JavaScript Archive Network and an active contributor to CPAN.
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