Yesterday, Newsweek posted a web exclusive, Revenge of the Experts, delineating and heightening the debate over the value of user generated content. The subtitle reads:
The individual user has been king on the Internet, but the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward edited information vetted by professionals.
The article goes on to challenge the exclusive role of mass collaboration and begins to define the growing role of experts in generating trusted web content.
My gut is that we need both and we should begin to think through better ways to integrate the two. However, to start, we need to look at the PURPOSE of the content we are looking to generate and evaluate the factors that would produce the best outcome – which always varies on the basis of being “free, perfect, and now”. In each situational context, we can make decisions based on a common set of factors that can be weighed and traded off as we consider the options we have to produce the best outcome within the constraints that are in front of us.
For instance, if I need to quickly understand the stats behind the Patriots recent championship seasons, it might make a lot of sense to ask the web where I would probably get a get an accurate, fast, and cheap response. On the other hand, if I am looking to understand the genuine subtleties of the relationship between Iran and the U.S., it would behoove me to engage some educated perspectives of history, politics, religion, and culture to weave an intricate but delicate understanding.
This leaves us with the need to define the factors for evaluating content and/or its the process of its development. My guess is that there is plenty of existing thought on this topic. For instance, the framework would need to consider facts and the accuracy thereof, opinion and the diversity of perspective, and context and the narrative of the times or specific situation. Once we identify these factors, we can begin an educated dialog on how to balance and integrate mass collaboration with professional expertise and focus – possibly for both the content and the process of generating the content! Who knows, we might be able to have a 1+1=3 result for both Web 2.0 and E2.0 applications.
What are your thoughts? We would value your comments on this topic and any references that you might be willing to share.
Showing posts with label experience co-creation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experience co-creation. Show all posts
Friday, March 7, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Getting Value from the Masses
This week, I noticed the blog post by Scott Gavin [Enterprise 2.o Evangelist] sharing about the recent release of Ubuntu Brainstorm.
Ubuntu, the user friendly Linux distribution, launched Ubuntu Brainstorm this week. Inspired by IdeaStorm from Dell, the Ubuntu community can now suggest ideas and vote online. Its goal is to have a better idea of what Ubuntu users would like to see in upcoming Ubuntu releases.
As a user you can add your ideas or vote for your preferred ones, add comments and see their implementation status. The best and most popular ideas quickly rise to the top and can be creamed off for inclusion in future releases.
Upon reading the post, my mind immediately jumped to some unresolved questions about the ultimate utility of these online sites for engaging customers in co-creative efforts. Armed with this question in mind, I jumped online to refind an article that I had only recently stumbled upon by Wired author, Ryan Singel. In his article, “The Wiki That Edited Me” (Sept 7th, 2006 - WIRED), Singel recapped his experience of putting a draft story of his out on a Wiki site for mass contributions and edits.
As to the outcome, he says, “Certainly the final story is more accurate and more representative of how wikis are used.”
He asks rhetorically, “Is the story better than the one that would have emerged after a Wired News editor worked with it?”
“I think not”.
“The edits over the week lack some of the narrative flow that a Wired News piece usually contains…”
This outcome was my exact expectation. I didn’t expect mass collaboration to provide a narrative flow fitting for Wired! I did expect it [mass collaboration] to deliver accuracy and perspective to the topic – as it did.
Our challenge is to figure out how to bring “focus” and “narrative” to the value-added benefits of mass collaboration. I realize that this language may be too traditional but?!
What are your thoughts? How do corporations get optimal value from E2.o mass collaboration?
Ubuntu, the user friendly Linux distribution, launched Ubuntu Brainstorm this week. Inspired by IdeaStorm from Dell, the Ubuntu community can now suggest ideas and vote online. Its goal is to have a better idea of what Ubuntu users would like to see in upcoming Ubuntu releases.
As a user you can add your ideas or vote for your preferred ones, add comments and see their implementation status. The best and most popular ideas quickly rise to the top and can be creamed off for inclusion in future releases.
Upon reading the post, my mind immediately jumped to some unresolved questions about the ultimate utility of these online sites for engaging customers in co-creative efforts. Armed with this question in mind, I jumped online to refind an article that I had only recently stumbled upon by Wired author, Ryan Singel. In his article, “The Wiki That Edited Me” (Sept 7th, 2006 - WIRED), Singel recapped his experience of putting a draft story of his out on a Wiki site for mass contributions and edits.
As to the outcome, he says, “Certainly the final story is more accurate and more representative of how wikis are used.”
He asks rhetorically, “Is the story better than the one that would have emerged after a Wired News editor worked with it?”
“I think not”.
“The edits over the week lack some of the narrative flow that a Wired News piece usually contains…”
This outcome was my exact expectation. I didn’t expect mass collaboration to provide a narrative flow fitting for Wired! I did expect it [mass collaboration] to deliver accuracy and perspective to the topic – as it did.
Our challenge is to figure out how to bring “focus” and “narrative” to the value-added benefits of mass collaboration. I realize that this language may be too traditional but?!
What are your thoughts? How do corporations get optimal value from E2.o mass collaboration?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
E2.o enables Business Design Innovation
This is my inaugural post as the facilitator of both the E2.o theme of the TalkDIG blog and of the upcoming DIG conference in May, 2008. I must say it is such an exciting time to be talking about information and decision-making. The plethora of technology available to us is unprecedented. And the opportunity that it allows for new management thinking is confounding.
Revolution?
Simply put, I think that we have the makings for management revolution! And I side with the writings of gurus/consultants Eric Beinhocker, Lowell Bryan, and Gary Hamel who each tout (from my vantage) the possibilities available to those organizations that embrace a more evolutionary approach to business markets and a more "social" approach to management (my words).
The E2.o theme of this blog will be all about exposing and sharing the business information available to our companies in such a way that more eyeballs, and therefore smarts, can be harnessed toward innovating products, innovating customer experiences, and ultimately innovating all aspects of business design. The future is one of co-creation with people inside and outside our organizations - and we have the ability to encourage this trend using the information and Web 2.o tools currently available to us.
Prepare those Minds
Remember the saying by Louis Pasteur, “In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind.” Well, if we believe that the business climate is chaotic, then we better make sure that our people have prepared minds to detect and respond to their environment. I will go as far as suggesting that we pull out the texts of Stafford Beers on cybernetics despite the US nationalistic taboos that he might incite. I think he was on to a new paradigm of management many years ago. But enough said, I’m excited to be sharing my thoughts on E2.o and I hope that many people with more smarts and experience than me will join the dialog so that we can all grow and learn as a community.
***
George Veth bio - I have been consulting to large companies in the domain of Business Intelligence, Corporate Performance Management, and Strategy Execution for 15 years. Over a year ago, I left my consulting post and have just recently joined a startup, BigTreetop, which is looking to spur on Experience Co-creation in small and medium sized businesses. The BigTreetop (Web 2.o) platform is created to enable your favorite local businesses to share their plans and questions with their community in order to leverage the experiences and insights of their customers and partners to continuously evolve to the current needs of the marketplace. We’ll see!
Revolution?
Simply put, I think that we have the makings for management revolution! And I side with the writings of gurus/consultants Eric Beinhocker, Lowell Bryan, and Gary Hamel who each tout (from my vantage) the possibilities available to those organizations that embrace a more evolutionary approach to business markets and a more "social" approach to management (my words).
The E2.o theme of this blog will be all about exposing and sharing the business information available to our companies in such a way that more eyeballs, and therefore smarts, can be harnessed toward innovating products, innovating customer experiences, and ultimately innovating all aspects of business design. The future is one of co-creation with people inside and outside our organizations - and we have the ability to encourage this trend using the information and Web 2.o tools currently available to us.
Prepare those Minds
Remember the saying by Louis Pasteur, “In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind.” Well, if we believe that the business climate is chaotic, then we better make sure that our people have prepared minds to detect and respond to their environment. I will go as far as suggesting that we pull out the texts of Stafford Beers on cybernetics despite the US nationalistic taboos that he might incite. I think he was on to a new paradigm of management many years ago. But enough said, I’m excited to be sharing my thoughts on E2.o and I hope that many people with more smarts and experience than me will join the dialog so that we can all grow and learn as a community.
***
George Veth bio - I have been consulting to large companies in the domain of Business Intelligence, Corporate Performance Management, and Strategy Execution for 15 years. Over a year ago, I left my consulting post and have just recently joined a startup, BigTreetop, which is looking to spur on Experience Co-creation in small and medium sized businesses. The BigTreetop (Web 2.o) platform is created to enable your favorite local businesses to share their plans and questions with their community in order to leverage the experiences and insights of their customers and partners to continuously evolve to the current needs of the marketplace. We’ll see!
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