November 30, 2009

How Web 2.0 is changing the way we work: An interview with MIT’s Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the new book, Enterprise 2.0, speaks with McKinsey’s Roger Roberts, a principal in the Silicon Valley office, in Palo Alto, California, in October 2009.

In the interview, McAfee answers the following questions:
- How is Enterprise 2.0 changing the way we work?
(technology is finally catching up to the way we want to work)
- How do you get this started in an organization?
(deploy tools, talk about objectives, find pockets of energy and signal from the top what you want to happen)
- What else can undermine adoption?
(if they build it, they will come; too concerned with risks and downsides)
- What is the CIOs role in encouraging Enterprise 2.0 and managing the risk?
(in the hot seat to articulate what is going on and how can the company navigate these changes)
- What does this mean for middle managers?
(these technologies are going to greatly reduce your ability to filter information and curtail who you're people are going to talk with and meet with; if you see your job as managing people and that being paramount, these technologies will support you and they will not replace face-time)
- How should companies measure the success of Enterprise 2.0?
(not many are good at measuring investment, companies should think about what they want to happen and select technologies to make this happen best. e.g., intelligence community installed wikis and blogs where people can narrate their work; let people broadcast search, highlighting what you don't know not what you do know)

Video can be viewed here (if the video player is not loading, you can view the interview in its entirety, here:








And the transcript can be read here:
How Web 2.0 is changing the way we work: An interview with MIT’s Andrew McAfee

November 24, 2009

Is it Really About Me? Message Content in Social Awareness Streams

The Abstract as taken from the report: "In this work the authors (Mor Naaman, Jeffrey Boase, Chih-Hui Lai of the Rutgers University, School of Communication and Information) examine the characteristics of social activity and patterns of communication on Twitter, a prominent example of the emerging class of communication systems [they] call “social awareness streams.” [They] use system data and message content from over 350 Twitter users, applying human coding and quantitative analysis to provide a deeper understanding of the activity of individuals on the Twitter network. In particular, [they] develop a content-based categorization of the type of messages posted by Twitter users, based on which [they] examine users’ activity. [Their] analysis shows two common types of user behavior in terms of the content of the posted messages, and exposes differences between users in respect to these activities."

Is it Really About Me? by Mor Naaman, Jeffrey Boase, Chih-Hui Lai

November 16, 2009

The Return on Investment of Social Media

The author of Socialnomics, Erik Qualman, shares several examples of when engaging in social media paid off for a company. Nice overview of social media return on investment and good enough to start the conversation. The team at Fresh Consulting has also shared related thoughts in its Social Media slideshow and its Twitter presentation, what's in it for business.

November 13, 2009

Google Enterprise is talking smack

Strong bold words from Google. I believe such 'productive friction' is good for innovation. Let it continue!

"The Google executive in charge of Google Enterprise is talking smack about Microsoft Office, saying that firms will be able to get rid of the software suite in one year's time ...

Girouard, one of four presidents at Google, said that in a year's time, Google Docs will have a "point of capacity," that will be enough for people to make the switch from Microsoft Office ...

But open formats are what's hot. Young people are used to the way the Internet works. They have access to so much information that it is critical for them to port it to where they want it to be. Girouard says this movement will spread into the enterprise."

Read More

"They have access to so much information that it is critical for them to port it to where they want it to be. Girouard says this movement will spread into the enterprise." Hmmm, sounds like a strong case for 'Collaborative Networks.'

November 10, 2009

Deloitte Center for the Edge: The Shift Index reveals deep and disturbing trends across industries

Working at the Deloitte Center for the Edge in Silicon Valley on the Shift Index earlier this year was intellectually exhilarating. It was exhilarating because the learning was relentless and the rigor of the analysis to build the index was deep.

As testament to the relentless pursuit of new, meaningful ideas, today the Center released the next wave of the Shift Index. Everyone knows things have changed but what John Hagel, John Seely Brown, Lang Davison, Duleesha Kulasooriya, Glen Dong and the rest of the team at Deloitte have done is take these amorphous concepts, such as the 'new economy', and boil it down to digestible, measurable metrics wrapped up in a cohesive, logical story. Take the time to read the report. You will not regret it.

Taken from the Deloitte press release ....

"Now, the Center has released an industry-specific version of its Shift Index, which applies these performance-challenge data to nine key sectors. The new version of the Shift Index provides an introduction to the thought leadership, methodology and data that drives the index’s metrics.

Following that, a cross-sector analysis takes an insightful look at the differences—and commonalities—among each of the nine sectors.

Finally, a series of “deep dive” sector reports offer a clear, comprehensive and sustained view of the deep dynamics affecting each sector." Read More

Consumer & Industrial Products Industry

* Automotive
* Consumer Products
* Retail

Financial Services Industry

* Financial Services
* Insurance

Health Sciences & Government Industry

* Health Care

Technology, Media & Telecommunications Industry

* Technology
* Media
* Telecommunications

You can download the new report in its entirety here.

November 6, 2009

"Working with the Net Gen" ... more quality musings from Kate

In the business world things move so fast it is hard to recognize how much they have changed. Kate, who recently joined us at Fresh Consulting, shares her savvy and witty perspective on what that change looks like, from the inside of a fast-moving, tight-knit, start-up environment. Take the time to read this blog post. You will love it!

"I knew that our company was founded by a younger team. I knew they insisted it was part of the company’s strength for delivering fresh thinking. And over the past few years every so often I would come across articles on Generation Y, so I had a vague idea that there were some new technologies out there…Twitter check. Facebook check. And not to sound like a granny, but (in my own mind at least) I’m not that much older than the Net Generation. Plus I’ve only been out of the technology loop for a few years writing a book. So I thought …how different could things really be now?" Read More on our Fresh Consulting Blog

November 1, 2009

Today PowerPoint ... tomorrow, the world

I was recently asked by a friend for some insight into converting a rich, multimedia PowerPoint presentation into video for YouTube consumption. It is not complex but there are a few options and avenues you could take. Thus, with these suggestions, I recommend testing and experimenting with a few slides that represent the full range of animation, sound and video your PowerPoint contains.

One thing to keep in mind when converting from PowerPoint to a video file is that YouTube prefers the codec MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format, but they will take other formats. Also, the less re-encoding you do, the better. In other words, the closer the eventual video file is to the original, the better.

PowerPoint to YouTube via three options:

(1) First, you could go from PPT to Flash .... then from Flash to Video but that is three steps ...
(2) More easily, you could go from PPT to Video by simply recording your screen OR by using authorstream ... also, within authorstream, they have a nice app that easily embeds YouTube videos in your PPT while maintaining the fluidity of the presentation
(3) Finally, you could convert PPT to Keynote and then using your Mac, use the export to Quicktime option

(once in Mac, you could also use this converter to go from flash to video)

All of this will take some experimentation ensuring that the eventual video file grabs all your video, sound, transitions and animations.

When you decide to finally share, there are private channels that you can customize, like ClipCord, to share the video - you could also use HP's Gabble or Shutterfly. That way you are not public, you are not on YouTube (if the agency and others are concerned with privacy; even though you YouTube you can privately share video) and you do not have to email a big file.

Ultimately of course you would want to take the PPT to the world, and then blast the video using YouTube and all the other sites as indicated below.

Video Campaign Managing


* There are a lot of video sharing sites
* It can be hard to navigate so tools like TubeMogul.com are very useful, read more
* There are other tools like TubeMogul that help manage video uploads, read more

"The best time spent is one invested in others"

What I have learned is that the most rewarding of feelings comes when time is spent invested in others. It's one thing to get a lot done and have a productive hour or day all about you ... it's another to truly mentor, coach, teach, train, help, listen to somebody else. While getting things done for yourself is a tremendously gratifying feeling, and is s simple reality, you will never quite feel fully satisfied with how you spend your time until you spend more time on behalf of someone else.