dan mcquillan's List: social media campaigning IS71055A - lecture 5 - social business

• The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense?

• In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example:

                                

  Web 1.0		Web 2.0
  DoubleClick	-->	Google AdSense
  Ofoto	-->	Flickr
  Akamai	-->	BitTorrent
• The Web As Platform

• Much like the "horseless carriage" framed the automobile as an extension of the familiar, Netscape promoted a "webtop" to replace the desktop, and planned to populate that webtop with information updates and applets pushed to the webtop by information providers who would purchase Netscape servers.

    

  In the end, both web browsers and web servers turned out to be commodities, and value moved "up the stack" to services delivered over the web platform.
• Google, by contrast, began its life as a native web application, never sold or packaged, but delivered as a service, with customers paying, directly or indirectly, for the use of that service. None of the trappings of the old software industry are present. No scheduled software releases, just continuous improvement. No licensing or sale, just usage. No porting to different platforms so that customers can run the software on their own equipment, just a massively scalable collection of commodity PCs running open source operating systems plus homegrown applications and utilities that no one outside the company ever gets to see.
• At bottom, Google requires a competency that Netscape never needed: database management. Google isn't just a collection of software tools, it's a specialized database.
• Software licensing and control over APIs--the lever of power in the previous era--is irrelevant because the software never need be distributed but only performed,
• The Web 2.0 lesson: leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head.
• BitTorrent thus demonstrates a key Web 2.0 principle: the service automatically gets better the more people use it.
• Harnessing Collective Intelligence
• The lesson: Network effects from user contributions are the key to market dominance in the Web 2.0 era.
• Blogging and the Wisdom of Crowds
• Now, of course, "dynamic websites" (i.e., database-backed sites with dynamically generated content) replaced static web pages well over ten years ago. What's dynamic about the live web are not just the pages, but the links. A link to a weblog is expected to point to a perennially changing page, with "permalinks" for any individual entry, and notification for each change. An RSS feed is thus a much stronger link than, say a bookmark or a link to a single page.
• RSS also means that the web browser is not the only means of viewing a web page.

• Tom Coates remarks on the significance of the permalink:

    

  It may seem like a trivial piece of functionality now, but it was effectively the device that turned weblogs from an ease-of-publishing phenomenon into a conversational mess of overlapping communities. For the first time it became relatively easy to gesture directly at a highly specific post on someone else's site and talk about it. Discussion emerged. Chat emerged. And - as a result - friendships emerged or became more entrenched.
• In many ways, the combination of RSS and permalinks adds many of the features of NNTP, the Network News Protocol of the Usenet, onto HTTP, the web protocol.
• Interestingly, two-way links were the goal of early hypertext systems like Xanadu.
• Social networking systems like Friendster, Orkut, and LinkedIn, which require acknowledgment by the recipient in order to establish a connection, lack the same scalability as the web.
• If an essential part of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence, turning the web into a kind of global brain, the blogosphere is the equivalent of constant mental chatter in the forebrain, the voice we hear in all of our heads. It may not reflect the deep structure of the brain, which is often unconscious, but is instead the equivalent of conscious thought. And as a reflection of conscious thought and attention, the blogosphere has begun to have a powerful effect.
• If it were merely an amplifier, blogging would be uninteresting. But like Wikipedia, blogging harnesses collective intelligence as a kind of filter. What James Suriowecki calls "the wisdom of crowds" comes into play, and much as PageRank produces better results than analysis of any individual document, the collective attention of the blogosphere selects for value.
• 3. Data is the Next Intel Inside
• This fact leads to a key question: Who owns the data?
• Contrast, however, the position of Amazon.com. Like competitors such as Barnesandnoble.com, its original database came from ISBN registry provider R.R. Bowker. But unlike MapQuest, Amazon relentlessly enhanced the data, adding publisher-supplied data such as cover images, table of contents, index, and sample material. Even more importantly, they harnessed their users to annotate the data, such that after ten years, Amazon, not Bowker, is the primary source for bibliographic data on books, a reference source for scholars and librarians as well as consumers. Amazon also introduced their own proprietary identifier, the ASIN, which corresponds to the ISBN where one is present, and creates an equivalent namespace for products without one. Effectively, Amazon "embraced and extended" their data suppliers.

• Paul Rademacher's housingmaps.com, which combines Google Maps with Craigslist apartment rental and home purchase data to create an interactive housing search tool, is the pre-eminent example of such a mashup.

    

  At present, these mashups are mostly innovative experiments, done by hackers. But entrepreneurial activity follows close behind.
• Much as the rise of proprietary software led to the Free Software movement, we expect the rise of proprietary databases to result in a Free Data movement within the next decade. One can see early signs of this countervailing trend in open data projects such as Wikipedia, the Creative Commons, and in software projects like Greasemonkey, which allow users to take control of how data is displayed on their computer.
• 4. End of the Software Release Cycle
• Operations must become a core competency.
• It's no accident that Google's system administration, networking, and load balancing techniques are perhaps even more closely guarded secrets than their search algorithms. Google's success at automating these processes is a key part of their cost advantage over competitors.
• It's also no accident that scripting languages such as Perl, Python, PHP, and now Ruby, play such a large role at web 2.0 companies. Perl was famously described by Hassan Schroeder, Sun's first webmaster, as "the duct tape of the internet." Dynamic languages (often called scripting languages and looked down on by the software engineers of the era of software artifacts) are the tool of choice for system and network administrators, as well as application developers building dynamic systems that require constant change.
• Users must be treated as co-developers, in a reflection of open source development practices (even if the software in question is unlikely to be released under an open source license.) The open source dictum, "release early and release often" in fact has morphed into an even more radical position, "the perpetual beta," in which the product is developed in the open, with new features slipstreamed in on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. It's no accident that services such as Gmail, Google Maps, Flickr, del.icio.us, and the like may be expected to bear a "Beta" logo for years at a time.
• 5. Lightweight Programming Models
• But much as the web succeeded precisely because it overthrew much of hypertext theory, substituting a simple pragmatism for ideal design, RSS has become perhaps the single most widely deployed web service because of its simplicity, while the complex corporate web services stacks have yet to achieve wide deployment.
• Google Maps' simple AJAX (Javascript and XML) interface was quickly decrypted by hackers, who then proceeded to remix the data into new services.
• Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely coupled systems. The complexity of the corporate-sponsored web services stack is designed to enable tight coupling. While this is necessary in many cases, many of the most interesting applications can indeed remain loosely coupled, and even fragile. The Web 2.0 mindset is very different from the traditional IT mindset!
• Think syndication, not coordination. Simple web services, like RSS and REST-based web services, are about syndicating data outwards, not controlling what happens when it gets to the other end of the connection. This idea is fundamental to the internet itself, a reflection of what is known as the end-to-end principle
• Design for "hackability" and remixability. Systems like the original web, RSS, and AJAX all have this in common: the barriers to re-use are extremely low.
• Innovation in Assembly
• Lightweight business models are a natural concomitant of lightweight programming and lightweight connections. The Web 2.0 mindset is good at re-use. A new service like housingmaps.com was built simply by snapping together two existing services.
• Much as the PC revolution provided many opportunities for innovation in assembly of commodity hardware, with companies like Dell making a science out of such assembly, thereby defeating companies whose business model required innovation in product development, we believe that Web 2.0 will provide opportunities for companies to beat the competition by getting better at harnessing and integrating services provided by others.
• 6. Software Above the Level of a Single Device

• Of course, any web application can be seen as software above the level of a single device. After all, even the simplest web application involves at least two computers: the one hosting the web server and the one hosting the browser. And as we've discussed, the development of the web as platform extends this idea to synthetic applications composed of services provided by multiple computers.

    

  But as with many areas of Web 2.0, where the "2.0-ness" is not something new, but rather a fuller realization of the true potential of the web platform, this phrase gives us a key insight into how to design applications and services for the new platform.

• To date, iTunes is the best exemplar of this principle. This application seamlessly reaches from the handheld device to a massive web back-end, with the PC acting as a local cache and control station. There have been many previous attempts to bring web content to portable devices, but the iPod/iTunes combination is one of the first such applications designed from the ground up to span multiple devices. TiVo is another good example.

    

  iTunes and TiVo also demonstrate many of the other core principles of Web 2.0. They are not web applications per se, but they leverage the power of the web platform, making it a seamless, almost invisible part of their infrastructure. Data management is most clearly the heart of their offering. They are services, not packaged applications
• 7. Rich User Experiences

• However, the potential of the web to deliver full scale applications didn't hit the mainstream till Google introduced Gmail, quickly followed by Google Maps, web based applications with rich user interfaces and PC-equivalent interactivity. The collection of technologies used by Google was christened AJAX, in a seminal essay by Jesse James Garrett of web design firm Adaptive Path. He wrote:

    

   

  "Ajax isn't a technology. It's really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways. Ajax incorporates:

    

   
  • standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;
    
  • dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model;
    
  • data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;
    
  • asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
    
  • and JavaScript binding everything together."
• Interestingly, many of the capabilities now being explored have been around for many years.

• Core Competencies of Web 2.0 Companies

    

  In exploring the seven principles above, we've highlighted some of the principal features of Web 2.0. Each of the examples we've explored demonstrates one or more of those key principles, but may miss others. Let's close, therefore, by summarizing what we believe to be the core competencies of Web 2.0 companies:

    
   
  • Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
    
  • Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
    
  • Trusting users as co-developers
    
  • Harnessing collective intelligence
    
  • Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
    
  • Software above the level of a single device
    
  • Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models
   
    

  The next time a company claims that it's "Web 2.0," test their features against the list above. The more points they score, the more they are worthy of the name. Remember, though, that excellence in one area may be more telling than some small steps in all seven.

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• A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

• Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.

   

  

   

  Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal.
• Companies need to listen carefully to both. Mostly, they need to get out of the way so intranetworked employees can converse directly with internetworked markets.
• Markets are conversations.
• Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
• Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
• These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
• There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
• What's happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called "The Company" is the only thing standing between the two.
• To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.
• • Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.  
  • Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.
• Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.
• Elvis said it best: "We can't go on together with suspicious minds."
• • Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable—and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.  
  • Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own "downsizing initiatives" taught us to ask the question: "Loyalty? What's that?"
• • Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.  
  • Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia.
• • We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.  
  • If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.  
  • We've got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we'd be willing to pay for. Got a minute?  
  • You're too busy "doing business" to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we'll come back later. Maybe.  
  • You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.
• When we're not busy being your "target market," many of us are your people. We'd rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing's job.
• We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

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• I urge you to read and listen to whatever you can find of Dan McQuillan‘s work. Dan is a sociologist, who recently set up the MA in Creating Social Media at Goldsmiths.

   

  Dan talks about the NHS as an organisation that is so big, that sometimes bits of it seize up. The hierarchy is so ingrained people don’t have options – they literally can’t do anything because they are locked down with policies and systems, designed with the best intentions, but that have ceased to be useful. The role of digital tools, Dan says, is to help loosen up these structures, create new ways of doing things, new habits.

   

  There’s a video and notes about Dan and some thoughts of my own about networks and hierarchies in a blog post I wrote earlier this year

• Assemblages

   

  One way of understanding that networks and hierarchies have to co-exist is to look at a sociological idea called “assemblages” – ad hoc collaborations between formal, hierarchical organisations and loose networks.

   

  This diagram – and again it was Dan that introduced this idea to me - represents the assemblage that was put in place around the Haiti disaster. Learning the lessons from Katrina, the Red Cross and the US Navy connected with ad hoc networks using tools like Ushahidi to help them coordinate the relief effort.

• All Organizations Are Social, But Few Are Social Organizations
• Organizations work top down through social interactions structured around the organization chart, or hierarchy. And they work end to end structured around their business processes. These two dimensions — hierarchy and process — shape the way organizations see the world, its challenges and, more importantly, the portfolio of potential solutions to those challenges.
• We see this when people get things done by working in the so-called "white space" in the organizational structure, or by working across the "seams" of a business process. In their ways of working and connecting with each other, they do more than just what they are told top-down and more than what is defined as their job. This is the social dimension.
• Every organization has a social dimension. The challenge is that the social dimension is not accurately reflected in either the organization's hierarchy or its process flow.

• A social organization mobilizes its people — from associates to customers, suppliers and others without regard to hierarchy or position — and their interests, passions, knowledge and experience. Tapping into the collective wisdom of everyone creates a new source of competitive advantage, agility and future innovation.

    

  A social organization is one that is able to address significant business challenges and opportunities through creating this "mass collaboration." A

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• • There is no such thing as a social media strategy.
   
  • There are only business strategies that understand networks.

• “Works in Practice – But Not in Theory”

• In the words of Rufus Pollock, co-founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation, ‘the best thing to do with your data will be thought of by someone else’¹.
• However, Roland Harwood, co-founder of the NESTA spin-off 100% Open, emphasizes that there are in fact at least two ways in which organizations can open up their innovation processes. Roland distinguishes between so-called ‘discover’ and ‘jam’ open innovation approaches.

• A ‘discover’ programme usually starts with a ‘what’ question, such as ‘What is the specific idea or technology we need?’ In this scenario, requirements are written in a formal brief calling for a technical solution or a specific business partnership.

    

  By contrast, a ‘jam’ programme normally starts with a ‘who’ question, such as ‘Who are the potential collaborators we can work with to the greatest effect?’. In this case, there is no clearly defined problem – just an area of opportunity that will be defined in collaboration with the partners identified in this process.
• Or, in the snappier formulation of Yochai Benkler, Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, open development is ‘an example of commons-based peer-production’.
• Quick and effective feedback loop

• Event-based collaboration

    

  The development work carried out in open source projects is sometimes described as ‘event-based collaboration’. This is because all project communication channels are geared towards sharing one’s development activity with the entire project community.
• Scratch an itch and make a better world
• Open source projects, Gianugo suggests, are typically somewhere in between: people contribute both because this helps them ‘scratch an itch’, i.e. find solutions to a problem that affects them directly, and because they feel that by doing this, all the other people involved - and society as a whole - are likely to benefit.
• Come for the code and stay for the community

• In addition, and perhaps even more importantly, they realize that by contributing back they get access to a wealth of community-related benefits, including the opportunity to learn by monitoring the online activity of some of the most respected names in the software world.

    

  Reflecting on his early experience as a developer on the Apache Cocoon project, Gianugo Rabellino recalls how he himself initially ‘came for the code and stayed for the community’.

    

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• All that focus being put on Big Data is all good and well, but ITDMs would be better off focusing on Open Data if they want to increase organisational value. 
• According to research firm Gartner, an Open Data strategy should be a top priority for any organisation that uses the Web as a channel for delivering services.
• "Big data is a topic of growing interest for many business and IT leaders, and there is little doubt that it creates value by enabling organizations to uncover previously unseen patterns and develop sharper insights about their environments," said David Newman, research vice president at Gartner. "However, for clients seeking competitive advantage through direct interactions, Open Data is the solution. For example, more government agencies are now opening their data to the public Web to improve transparency."
• But there's precious little agreement on what constitutes 'open' .  According to Gartner analysts, an informal definition of openness is a level playing field where everyone can play a game that can evolve. There is a positive relationship between the openness of information goods (for example, code, data, content and standards) and information services (for example, services that offer information goods, such as the Internet, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap and GPS) and the size and diversity of the community sharing them. 
• Open data APIs are a lightweight approach to data exchange. Their use is now considered a best practice for opening data and functionality to developers and other businesses. Organizations use APIs to generate new sources of revenue, spur innovation, increase transparency and improve brand equity.
• "The challenge for organizations is to determine how best to use APIs and how an open data strategy should align with priorities," Newman said.
• Gartner says maturing technologies for data quality and data anonymization help mitigate regulatory restraints and risk factors while Open Data APIs provide simple, Web-oriented means for data exchange, and linked data techniques are effective for generating big datasets. 
• Emerging data marketplaces are also places for organizations to open their data." The challenge is to keep the barriers to entry low to enable participation and streamlined processes for adding and vetting data sources.  

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