Bertrand Duperrin's Library tagged language →  View Popular, Search in Google

"In March 2010, CEO Hiroshi Mikitani (HBS MBA '93) stood in front of his employees at online retail giant Rakuten's Tokyo headquarters and dropped a bomb: all 7,100 workers would have two years to become proficient in English—the "language of business"—or risk demotion.

"I was simply astonished," said an engineer interviewed after the announcement. "Many Rakuten employees are allergic to English."

In a company where just 10 percent of all workers at the time spoke English, Mikitani's move was radical and divisive. He even coined a term for the conversion: "Englishnization.""

french english language change humanresources communication collaboration stress anxiety

"It took IBM 25 scientists and four years to program the computer to understand the language used in jeopardy, select and store the necessary knowledge (if could not be connected to the Internet, federal regulations — ever seen the movie “Quiz Show”), and have it learn the rules and regulations of the game – in addition to train it to play the game. Four years, 25 language scientists.

The problem to be solved is far larger than your customer service implementation, right? Right? Well, this is where the lessons learned come in – if you take the time to analyze the results…"

ibm watson language customerservice constrains learning

"IBM a donc brillamment relevé le défi de battre les champions du jeu télévisé américain Jeopardy avec un système informatique. Watson, c’est son nom donné en souvenir de deux prestigieux Pdg qui ont marqué la vie de la compagnie pendant plusieurs décennies, s’est largement imposé face à ses adversaires. Fort de ce succès médiatique, Big Blue peut désormais envisager de nombreuses applications commerciales ? Il a déjà conclu un partenariat avec les départements médecine des universités Columbia et du Maryland pour développer une solution de diagnostic médical."

ibm watson healthcare naturallanguageprocessing contentanalytics analytics language decisionmaking

"Is Web 2.0, despite all the hype, really just a crock?

It’s a question that, ironically, is the subject of heated debate at the moment. The irony is that Web 2.0 is a lucrative “sweet spot” in an otherwise traumatized global economy and battered business environment.

Web 2.0 is undeniably hot. Just Google “Web 2.0” or check Amazon for the plethora of books on the subject (including one by me, and another forthcoming). Walk into any luxury hotel lobby these days and you’ll likely bump into a self-proclaimed Web 2.0 guru.

Maybe that’s the problem. Critics claim that Web 2.0 is an over-hyped flavor-of-the-month techno trend that has flung open the gates to a stampede of management evangelists and marketing hucksters flogging their Kool-Aid. Web 2.0 recipes, say critics, are big on marketing nostrums but short on measureable results. In short, where’s the beef?"

enterprise2.0 evangelization guru marketing2.0 government2.0 government marketing web2.0 culture language change bureaucracy hierarchy

"I was recently asked for one word that best describes the skills needed by community managers. My answer was ‘translation’ – community managers sit at the nexus between various groups both within and external to the community. Translating – not in the traditional sense of translating different languages – but in the more complex sense of translating the same concept or decision in to the language used by various groups is core to gaining support, resolving conflict, and communicating effectively to groups of people over which the community manager has no direct authority. But that’s my perspective "

community management sense translation language

"It seems to me that English (or Chinese) are going to be replaced as the must know language. Tomorrow, we need to learn to talk to the machine. Technology skills will be basic skills for the future blue-collar or white-collar worker."

technology automation language knowledgeworkers contribution productivity leadership googlewave bots problemsolving

Social networking theorists like to debate whether and how much cultural differences impact the way people respond to and interact with social networks.*

Some, for example, argue that networks such as Facebook mainly reflect and accommodate values and norms prevalent in Anglo-Saxon cultures (U.S., UK, Canada, etc.) — which explains why they’re much less successful elsewhere.

socialnetworking culture intranet language

Challenges in building virtual communities

In reflecting on the experiences accumulated to date by companies seeking to build virtual communities, I’d like to focus on four challenges:

communities virtualcommunities language skills integration organization organizationalbarriers ROI returnonattention returnoninformation ROS returnonskills socialsoftware collaboration metrics benefits