Tech | | April 06th, 2009
If you take a look at my home page, you will notice a widget in the right column. It is a new service I am trying out called IdeaScale. It is essentially a personalized suggestion box, pretty much the same thing Dell is doing with IdeaStorm.
Here is the Read/Write/Web review of the service.
My intention here is mainly to road-test the service to see if it can be a viable tool in the “Community Partnership Development” toolbox. Test it out for yourself. Vote on some ideas that are already there, or ad your own ideas about Decision 3D.
Tags: crowd sourcing, ideascale, wisdom of crowds
Tech | | March 24th, 2009
For years companies have created customer bundles based on age, ethnicity and gender on the assumption that if a group of people share some physical attribute, they must all think and behave similarly. In the distant past, maybe that made some sense. Today it doesn’t.
This is not to say that groups of people cannot think and behave similarly. A group of people that share a common interest or objective is called a community, not a demographic segment.
There are many distinctions between a community and a demographic segment. Let’s look at a few and consider why the continued use of demographics makes less and less sense in today’s connected society.
Interests vs. Attributes
By definition, a community is created based on shared interests. If a company can identify a community whose shared interest is relevant to the company’s objectives, you have a nice hand in glove fit. Here is a self-defined group of people that are already talking about something the company wants to learn about.
On the other hand, a demographic segment based on attributes, is just a random heap of people that will have a variety of opinions on any given topic.
Many vs. Single
By definition, individuals can only be associated with a single demographic group at a time. It is kind of hard to be “35 – 44″ and “45-64″ at the same time. The problem with this is that if your interests and opinions differ from the majority of your “Group”, then you have essentially no input.
An individual’s opinion can be represented many times by being affiliated with multiple communities.
Choice vs. Defined
People choose to be a member of a community or not. It is their choice to engage and be heard, or not.
As a demographic statistic, you are defined by a characteristic that has nothing to do with your thoughts or opinions, and you have no option but to be affiliated with a specific group.
Engage vs. Research
Companies are looking for information from groups. Gathering information from a community is a rather straight-forward, and cost-effective process. Simply join in the conversation the community is already having. A company can just listen, and obtain significant understanding. Actively engaging in the community conversation yields even more benefits.
Getting information from a demographic group is a tedious and expensive process; focus groups, surveys, etc. Once you gather the data and process the information, you only have a snapshot in time, that is probably already out of date. To maintain current data, the process needs to be repeated over and over again.
Emergent vs. Stable
Communities are emergent, meaning that they form spontaneously as necessary, and disappear as the need diminishes. This means that when you find a community, it is by definition active, full of energy and ideas.
Demographics are nice and stable. Men are men, women are women, a nice straight-forward way to collect data. IMHO this leads to a false sense of security about the information you collect, because there is an underlying premise that stability connotes meaning, and therefore is good.
Current vs. Unknown
Because of their emergent nature, communities inherently deal with what is current. Discussions are about current events; conversations address current issues.
A demographic group has no center, so there is no focus of discussion, or even a discussion for that matter. The group only exists in the data tables of the demographic researchers. The only conversation among the “group” is one that is forced and artificial, in settings like focus groups. So what do you really know?
Conclusion
This all reminds me about the old joke that asks why do dogs lick their (well you know) …because they can. Why do companies collect demographic data … because they can, not because it provides the best insight. I believe that all the nice structured data collected in demographic research provides a false sense of security to company decision makers, and ultimately does a disservice to the company’s stakeholders.
Engaging with communities is new, it feels soft, non-analytic and not very comfortable to company decision makers, but in the long run it will lead to better decisions and yield better results than over-reliance on demographics.
Tags: community, demographics, REWIRE
Tech | | March 12th, 2009
Sharepoint: Good or Bad
Thomas Vanderwal just posted his long awaited commentary on Microsoft Sharepoint. It is an intriguing and insightful reporting of what Sharepoint users have reported to him over the past couple of years. In a nutshell, Thomas’s final commentary is that Sharepoint does some things well, just don’t call it social software. In his own words:
SharePoint does some things rather well, but it is not a great tool (or even passable tool) for broad social interaction inside enterprise related to the focus of Enterprise 2.0. SharePoint works well for organization prescribed groups that live in hierarchies and are focused on strict processes and defined sign-offs. Most organization have a need for a tool that does what SharePoint does well.
The post prompted a rebuttal from Bil Simser. Bil’s main counterpoint is built around the idea that though Sharepoint is not excellent in all areas, it does integrate all of its functions, which is a plus. In his words:
SharePoint is a lot of things and like a lot of “suites” it does a lot of things pretty good. Some pretty good, some great, some not so great.
Bil goes on to discuss how a best of breed approach only shifts time and expense over to the integration side as opposed to initial development of an overall enterprise system.
Focus on Requirements Definition
The underlying thread in both of these posts is that understanding and delivering user needs and requirements is paramount in delivery of any system. For any organization to begin a conversation about what information technology it needs with a discussion of the technology itself is a recipe for failure. The discussion of solutions must begin with a clear definition of business objectives. The discussion of technology should be the last link in the chain of conversations.
Maybe Hugh says it best:
Tags: Collaboration, gapingvoid, requirements definition, sharepoint, Social Technology Tools, thomas vanderwal
Tech | | March 03rd, 2009
I had an interesting exchange today on Twitter with Valdis Krebs, an acclaimed expert in the field of Social Network Analysis (SNA). I have known about SNA for a while but have never studied it in depth. As I am developing the product offering for Decision 3D, I am coming to the conclusion that SNA will inevitably need to be part of that offering, but I still don’t think that SNA is the core of Decision Due Diligence.
In my mind Decision Due Diligence has more of a personal feel than you get from an overall network analysis. The process specifically accounts for the emotions and behaviors of the players, or nodes in SNA jargon, along with the actual mechanics involved in passing information between nodes. So the importance of links, from a Decision Due Diligence perspective, is to a large degree self-contained. On the other hand the importance of links in SNA is a function of where the link exists with respect to other links.
Upon reflection, I think the two approaches are perfectly complementary. If you can understand the dynamics of a specific link as well as how that link fits into the larger system, you have a powerful tool for understanding information flow within an organization.
As I was working on this post, the term Social Connection Analysis (SCA) jumped into my head, and I think that is the right label for the concept I am addressing above, and the thing I was trying to address with @valdiskrebs in the twitter exchange you see to the right. Where the core of SNA is understanding the aggregate of all the connections in a network, the core of SCA is understanding the specifics of any one connection within the network.
Tags: decision due diligence, sca, SNA, social connection analysis, social network analysis, Valdis Krebs
Tech | | March 02nd, 2009
Social Network Analysis (SNA) can be a powerful tool for helping organizations solve operational problems. HR Executive Online just published an article that gives some great examples of how this is the case. Decision Due Diligence, the process developed by Decision 3D is based on many of the principles defined by SNA. The fundamental point is that understanding how people connect is critical to being able to improve how an organization operates.
From the article:
Social-networking analysis, or SNA, focuses on the mapping and measuring of flows of knowledge and information between people, groups or organizations. In other words, it’s a sophisticated and useful evaluation of the company grapevine.
If you think the approach discussed in the article may be worth looking into further, you may also want to look at our approach.
Tags: HR Executive, Scott Westcott, SNA, Valdis Krebs