Korea: T20 Ministers will Drive #gov20 Worldwide

T20 Ministers Meeting Incredible Success for Government 2.0

T20 Ministers Meeting Incredible Success for Government 2.0

I was heartened to hear during my keynote (goto Login Tourism Speakers) and after at the T20 Meeting in Buyeo, Korea, that nations are taking technology adoption to a new level and will continue to drive it from within their national and local tourism bodies.

The Korean organization was particularly aggressive in pursuing new technology adoption to accomplish a number of tasks:

1)  They have decided specifically to drive Government as a Platform and understand that without it the level of investment will be insufficient to support the tourism industry.  They leverage public-private partnerships in ways I have only dreamed of.  Charm Lee, in leading the tourism organizations for the nation is doing an amazing job.

2)  They applications are forward thinking and full of rich media interactions.  In this app, Korea is far ahead of the rest of the world in brand exploitation, sticky web app penetration and thought leadership.  Create your own personalize itinerary based upon your feedback during an interactive movie?  Brilliant.

And the audience attracted by this event was impressive.  from members of the European Commission, to tourism leaders from nearly every major country on the planet, to the UN, the T20 meeting was an incredible success.

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Oldie but Goodie – Plinth Project Could Guide Future of #ows #soc5

Silence can be a message, what if #ows embraced the 4thPlinth ideal?

Silence can be a message, what if #ows embraced the 4thPlinth ideal?

The #soc5 this week is really #soc1.  I want to highlight some incredible public art that embraces the Social Enterprise ethic.  The One & Other Project by Anthony Gormley in 2009 in the UK really exemplifies the magic that can happen when the Social Enterprise is unveiled.  While it was a 2009 effort, the residue remains online today in significant ways and the current “Occupy” efforts could learn a great deal about how to organize a global resistance movement in a way that embraces their powerful message without the dilution of violence or active challenging resistance.

The project was incredible.  It was a public art project held on the 4th plinth of Trafalgar Square.  Citizens could apply to spend an hour on top of the plinth and they would rotate continually for 100 days in 2009.  They did so in wind, rain and worse and the output was watched by the world.  The interest was immense.  They received over 35,000 applications and over 2400 people took part for their hour of fame.  Flickr and YouTube were active during the event and remain active today.  A community built up over the hashtag #fourthplinth and the experience became a great example of spontaneous organization which creates its own momentum and generates its own organization.

This project highlights the possibilities and the challenges in the social enterprise.  It certainly entails a small amount of risk to the creator or sponsor.  They need to give up the current illusion of control of information in any real sense and enable a democratized version of control.  But the benefits are there too.  By eliminating control techniques, the unseen value beforehand is uncovered.  Much of the presentation was unanticipated.  While some was surely frivolous, some of it was unexpectedly impactful.  And that is the value.  The benefits of the social enterprise are sometimes unseen going in but indisputable coming out.  By accepting the small risk it becomes asymmetrical and the payoff becomes obvious.

 

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Top 5 Social Entrepreneurs and Enterprises – #Soc5

Social Enterprise Revolution #soc5

Social Enterprise Revolution #soc5

I see incredible examples of social enterprises every day.  Both at my job and on the run, the corporate world has not only caught on, but are actively working the social opportunities out there.  Some are good, some are great, a few don’t even come close, but nearly all of them are trying.  I hope to be able to keep the #soc5 coming as often as possible but no less than once per week.  A quick look will show you what is going on out there.  Take what applies to your own enterprise and make your social world shine!

As background recall that the Social Enterprise is an organization that has figured out how to leverage social media to accomplish its strategic goals.  These can be any type of goals be they public, private, non-profit, local, etc.  I will focus on some of the more innovative ones out there, but they need not be new, but should simply push forward your goals.

Submitting them.  You can submit me any ideas you have.  Email me your thoughts, let me know what the organization is, what their goals are and how they leveraged the Social Enterprise.  Its that simple.  The criteria.  Dunno.  Basically, this is my analysis of the effectiveness and innovation in the ideas.  How well they are deployed may be taken into account as well.  Not sure yet :)

So, bring them on.  For now, I will give an example.

Burberry

Angela Ahrends, Burberry CEO, clearly gets the social enterprise.  Not just in theory (although she clearly understands that) but in practice.  She has stated that she does not understand what any company’s business model is in 5 years if it does not embrace social.  It is vital for a company’s chief executive to get it like she does.  But, she doesnt just get it in principle.  Check out burberry.com and get the Burberry image streaming through your devices.  Her leverage of sound, video, imagery to support her brand is magical.  Check out the artofthetrench tab and you will hear it and see it.  Note the tight integration with Facebook and ability to “Upload your trench” directly.  She leveraged Twitter to pre-launch her Runway Collection prior to the show.  Burberry gets that this isnt about simply being on social media it is about deep engagement.  Best example I can think of a Social Enterprise today.

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The New FixingPotholes

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As most of you know I am now SVP of Global and Strategic Accounts for Salesforce. I absolutely love the position as it puts our company at the forefront of radical and sometimes wrenching business process changes for our commercial customers. The dynamic involved is very familiar as I have been preaching about change for decades now and this gives me an incredible platform for which to continue those conversations.

The only slight change is that my focus is the board room and not an electeds office. It is a slight change only because the nature of the shift is the same. As they found out at Netflix and Bank of America, if you don’t listen to the constituents you will lose. Similar lessons in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and soon Syria. The parallels between the public sector and the commercial sector couldn’t be more obvious today. I am proud to be part of an organization preaching about the ability of all of us to embrace that change. To make it happen. To better the bottom line, to grow our economy and to bring our business much close to our customer.

I will be posting now from my own blog, FixingPotholes, without changing the name. The idea remains the same. Pay attention to stakeholder demands. Fix the small issues as they can quickly become large issues. And leverage the cloud as e best possible tool to make the social revolution one in which your customers benefit directly from your involvement.

Thank you all for sticking with me this year and for sticking with me through a much larger revolution in front of us all. As we bring our global economy out of the spiral it finds itself in. As we work as one globe to grow local and national economies. As we bring our customs intimately closer to our business. And we do so at the speed of light.

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Social Enterprises Extending the Influence of the Customer #e20 #socialenterprise

Bank of America Protest

Bank of America Protest

The influence of customers has always been impactful, but never before has it held such immediate returns or distractions in the corporate world.  While companies have long paid lip service to the idea that their corporate world, and strategies, revolved around customers, today the immediacy of social media has called their bluffs in very real ways.

Netflix found out the hard way that customer’s buying preferences and their need to be a part of corporate pricing and offering decisions were far more important than in the past.  In years past, major industrial shifts would be heralded by pricing or offering changes that reflected the latest technologies or industrial approaches.  And while the move to streaming was clearly demonstrated, the pricing changes that were summarily handed out were simply not addressed the way modern media requires.  And a deeper understanding of their customers would have saved the company much public relations troubles and ultimate customer attrition.

Bank of America also stepped into a new world of customer hurt this year when they announced new bank fees for services that customers have long considered a free service and that they considered sufficiently divorced from the company’s costs that a charge was unsupportable.  When they made the move online protest sprung up immediately and ultimately they reversed the policy change.  One customer in particular, Molly, spurred much of the change.

Neither of these moves were large divergences from the way the business world had always worked.  A change in the external environment pushed corporate executives to consider alternative structures for their business and they announced the changes.  The problem wasnt the change itself.  The problem was how it was arrived at and how involved the customers were in the discussion, decision and implementation.  The idea that enterprises have no real way to truly understand their customers is a fallacy.  And the tools that make the analysis possible are also the weapon that shot Netflix and BofA.

If there is one thing that the new Social Enterprise thinking has brought to bear it is that a solid understanding of your customer is no longer an item that is simply “nice to have”.  Rather, it is a necessity in the new world of work.  Imagine a different scenario:

Either of these companies would have had deep Customer and Employee Social Networks in existence so that they could get instant feedback through their entirely democratized corporate structure.  This would have allowed them to receive instant feedback from thousands of users of the service that have a direct stake in the company’s success.  This feedback would have considered the internally understood industrial changes that the companies found themselves in the midst of.  They could have tested waters early in the safety of their corporate firewall.

When they found acceptable and sharable alternatives they could have then extended their efforts by involving their customers and partners directly in the conversations about change.  They could have activated customer groups with an interest in their current services.  They could have included partners in their pricing conversations.  They could have received feedback directly from these stakeholder groups PRIOR to announcing anything.  They could have reconsidered hot topics and included augmented strategies so that they strengthened the partner ecosystem and customer communities rather than destroying them.

The tools to accomplish this already exist.  It would have been calculated risk taking and would have paid off in droves either in avoided costs, increased revenue or both.  The thought that customer intimacy is simply a “nice to have” is absolutely over.  These corporate examples herald a new era.  Welcome the Social Enterprise or die in its wake.

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Miszewski/Microsoft Settlement Update

On August 30, 2011, Mr. Miszewski began work at salesforce.com as Senior Vice President of Enterprise Sales, in the commercial sector for salesforce.com.  Mr. Miszewski accepts this position after having reached an agreement with Microsoft Corporation to resolve all remaining issues in the lawsuit brought by Microsoft against him.  Mr. Miszewski is pleased that this matter has been resolved, and will have no further comment on the matter.

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Albert Camus and Community: #gov20 and #opengov as Rebellion or Revolution?

Government 2.0 as Rebellion or Revolution?

Government 2.0 as Rebellion or Revolution?

I am re-reading, again, Albert Camus’ “The Rebel“.  I’m packing it with me during the next month or so of travel to many corners of the world.  Strangely, I find solace and hope in a man’s thoughts who are sometimes seen as critical of meaning in life, and I concur with others who say he is deeply hopeful and celebratory of happiness and joy.

At the same time I am reading “The Art of Community” by Jono Bacon.  The connections are interesting and as many of you know, I do find compelling meaning in connections from different authors across multiple time periods.  This is one such case for Camus, Bacon and our Government 2.0 Community.

Camus makes an interesting point about rebellion and revolution in the book.  I am not sure I completely agree with his conclusions, but his analysis is interesting when you think about the current debates about Government 2.0.  His point, at least one of them, is that rebellion is an act that does not necessarily have an end goal in mind but is rather an act of passion built up after living in an unacceptable condition for a long period of time.  He points to slavery and ultimate rebellion as an example.  At the point of initial rebellion the activity is a reaction to unjust activity that had been tolerated for too long and as such is absolute and filled with emotion.  While ultimately this becomes an absolute position, it starts with a spark of highly emotional retort.  Which is where I find our Government 2.0 movement today.

He juxtaposes rebellion with revolution.  He places calculated planning and goal orientation squarely on the revolutionary and notably absent from the rebel.  His point about revolution always leading to tyranny is connected to the times in which he wrote.  I am not certain I subscribe to his conclusions but they are worth consideration as we start to deal with the concerns that our movement has no concrete goals, KPIs, measurement or end state.  While the rebellion cannot have a connection to its end state, revolutions do.  Revolutions are meant to replace dominant paradigms, not simply rebel against them.  We certainly need to protect against the potential of tyranny as part of our goal set, but the mood of the community right now seems to be turning toward a need for more ultimate structure, so that we know when we have won (we will see the artifacts we desire – Government as a Platform).

So, what is the connection between Camus and Bacon?  Good question…

In “The Art of Community”, Bacon pens a great point, “There is an important connection here in which imagination and opportunity are close friends.  Imagination offers the mind a vision of how things could be.  If there is a viable path toward this future, we build a sense of opportunity.  If there is no viable path, we enter the world of fantasy.”  I see our current endeavors dominated by imagination.  Folks creating the new world in their heads and talking about it.  Painting incredible pictures of what we could accomplish.  The opportunity side of things is starting to spring up now too, which is great.  As part of that cycle some will succeed, some will fail, at exploiting that opportunity.  We need to be accepting of that cycle and continue to be accepting of both our imagineers and our opportunity seekers as both are necessary to create a true open government revolution instead of simple rebellion.  As some of us paint the picture of the future, others must *show* that there is  viable path.

This is the resolution of the “too much talk, not enough doing” challenge we have been discussing.  We need to have both.  Don’t get me wrong, I do favor the doing side myself (a la Cypherpunks Write Code).  But I deeply understand, respect, and, when I give speeches, channel the imagination side of things.  If we embrace both, we will succeed in building the foundations of a great and global society.  If we fail, it may only be fantasy.

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