Particularly disappointing was Scoble’s self-confessed, web-enabled obsessive-compulsiveness and apparent delight at finding new ways to feed it. Rather than seek help for what most would consider a disorder it appears he finds all the solace he needs in a similarly unhealthy physical attachment to his computer. I could be wrong but it just struck me that way, very odd.
If you want to cut to the chase, here’s the video…
An interesting post on Social Media Explorer‘Deconstructing Second Life’ questions the value of Second Life based on a review of the virtual world’s demographics:
The demographics show 8.5 million users, but only 561,000 of those are “active.” While nearly 40 percent of the active ones are age 25-34, only 26 percent are from the United States (with Brazil a distant second a 8.5). The numbers show 57 percent of active users are male…
The sweet irony of unrequited love for my efforts to understand the recursive nature of blogs has not reached the point at which I realize my efforts might be better spent researching something else.
One of the benefits of chasing your tail is that in the process there is so much interesting stuff to discover and think about, all wonderful distractions from the bitter irony that if I am ever successful in my quest I’ll finish up kissing my ass good-bye.
And so I discovered Dr. Richard Barbrook who recently published what looks like a smashing book, Imaginary Futures. I am setting this aside to study more closely because the thesis is fascinating and there is something about the overall feel of the thing that resonates with me, something retro maybe?
I came across a new social network called projectstars, yet another killer startup. The site touts “blog for stock in the largest enterprise business blogging network” as if to suggest the potential payoff for participation might be worth the absolutely mind-numbing prospect of having to fill out yet another blessed profile first.
As I begin to look at SlideShare for all its virtues as a medium to both communicate and optimize content I am reminded that everything we publish brands us. The challenge then is to create content that is at least as good as the best.
Dion Hinchcliffe posts Enterprise 2.0 as a corporate culture catalyst and raises some interesting points that serve to remind me that this has to be one of the most extraordinary periods of history to be a change agent or involved in business with an All-things 2.0 orientation.
However, I have yet to find something equally substantive to read that addresses the more fundamental issues of how to create an environment in which Web 2.0 applications and social media can be adopted when the underlying management style, corporate thinking, vested interests and technology are typically All-things 1.0. Perhaps I should look harder.
Tom Davenport who is referenced in Dion Hinchcliffe’s post writes in Why Enterprise 2.0 Won’t Transform Organizations on Harvard Business Online. He suggests that organizational hierarchies and the centralization of power within larger bureaucracies will thwart the aspirations of advocates who would advance the agenda for a flattening of traditional models but offers no thoughts on how to reverse this dystopian — and likely accurate — view of the future. Rather Tom Davenport asks, “Is Enterprise 2.0 a way to create more democratic organizations?”
Well, to my own question — how to facilitate adoption of Enterprise 2.0 in the face of prevailing convention — and Tom Davenport’s tease regarding the creation of democratic organizations, quite frankly, I don’t know. I do think social media enables a vanguard of activists — agent provocateurs, intraprenuers and “radical transparencists” — to force rapid and irreversible change by deploying technology and widgets and things to oblige accountability, transparency, authenticity and responsibility.
The question then is, how many are there willing to lay it on the line for an ideal which may never profit them directly? For sure, they will more likely be crucified than promoted to positions of “power” and influence. Historically, the vanguard and avant-garde have been the culture catalysts but rarely the beneficiaries of social change.
I don’t see social media and mashups in of themselves changing that much about how corporate culture is catalyzed, do you? Maybe it will take an Army of Davids and then some. Or is that wishful thinking too?
Comebacks...