Social Sofware: Media Lab on Mass Innovation

BusinessWeek’s Stacy Perman interviewed Frank Moss, the new head of MIT’s Media Lab about his vision for the Media Lab as it enters its third decade. As expected, lots of talk about the entrepreneurial and “socieletal business models.”

You talk about education and the bottom-up effect that millions more people will play in societal advances. How do you see this unfolding?

We will undergo another revolution when we give 100 million kids a smart cell phone or a low-cost laptop, and bootstrap the way they learn outside of school. We think of games as a way to kill time, but in the future I think it will be a major vehicle for learning.

Creative expression (is another area). No longer will just a few write or create music. We will see 100 million people creating the content and art shared among them. Easy-to-use programs allow kids to compose everything form ringtones to full-fledged operas. It will change the meaning of creative art in our society.

We are already seeing early signs of it in blogs. The source of creative content is coming from the world. That revolution will go well outside of the written word to all forms of visual and performing arts.

BusinessWeekline Online Interview

URL: www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060308_265883.htm?campaign_id=bier_sm”>http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060308_265883.htm?campaign_id=bier_sm

Persistant Chat: Time is right to try group chat

We’ve been using a free trial of the the new Campfire group chat software the past week after being encouraged by this post from Lars Plougmann’s Mind This about the rise of ‘persistent chat’ (in particular Reuters Messaging and 37signals’ Campfire).

For a team of users who have specific topics (or project subtasks, etc) to discuss/explore it makes good sense to use a tool like this to reduce email clutter. Campfire is browser based and archives the chats in a simple, intuitive manner. Rooms are created for specific topics and documents can be uploaded for sharing among members. Guests can be invited (and granted access) to a particular room for a limited time (they cannot see the earlier transcripts) and this access expires or is revoked. There are a few other simple rights/functions that are available (inlcuding off-the-record chats using ‘locked’ chat rooms that are not archived) but overall it follows the simplicity/usefulness formula of other 37signals products (like BaseCamp and BackPack).

If you have a project, or some shared interest you want to expore with a few others, give it a spin (it’s a 30-day free trial). If you upgrade to a monthly account (starting at $12 and going up to $49, based on the number of members chatting simultaneously and storage space) the transcripts/etc are saved in the new paid account (nothing is lost).Campfire: http://www.campfirenow.com/index.html
37signals: http://www.37signals.com/

Featurism, Featuritis, and Feature-Creep

Besides simultaneously gathering requirements for an ambitious “hack” of an soon-to-be-orphaned proprietary platform and helping consultants settle on the scope of a sparkling new “Next Generation” information platform, I have the pleasure of sitting across from two high-motivated client-services coworkers who are on the phone for a large chunk of each workday, talking to clients about their web sites and how they do or don’t (and sometimes should and could) work.

These guys are without a doubt “customer-focused” and I’m proud to work with them in my role as a project manager (besides they’re good fun too). But due to the nature of our company (and its the history) they frequently are in the awkward position of trying to provide their services (experience, expertise, etc) to reluctant client stakeholders who in fact display little “stake” in the undertakings.

Effective mapping of features/functionality to business objectives has always been a challenge in the fast moving, technology-drunk, Internet business environment. ROI was “discovered” sometime in the 2nd half of 2000 if I recall my consulting days correctly, but it was mostly used as a club against organizational opponents or as leverage to suppress prices.

Anyway, I want to engage with my client service companions and others with a dialogue about “feature-creep” and the management (and mapping) of features to clearly articulated business objectives. For them it may seem to be a “whose job is this anyway?” when they advice and experience falls in deaf (or distracted) ears. As a project manager I can at least enjoy a “legalistic” pursuit of how features/functionality map to business objectives, and specifically make the case for a weighing of features to revenue opportunities,

Luke W makes a good comment (from his perspective as a information architect/experience designer) on feature-creep and how it’s a phenomenon that won’t go away anytime soon (there’s plenty of “guilt” to go around).

“An effective interface design not only meets user needs, but also
achieves business goals. The problem is that there is an endless pool
of user needs to meet (“wouldn’t it be cool if…”) and business goals
are always derived from a “grow or die” mentality. As a result, our
products continue to grow and each redesign of a software package
brings more features (frequently driven by new technologies).”

But he correctly points out there is almost opportunity here (beside an opportunity to fine-tune your ranting) to revisit our users (clients, readers, etc) to better understand when and how they may use new features:

“….we need to think in terms of frameworks and flexible designs that can
grow or change as technology and user needs change; and, perhaps most
importantly, we need to form mutually beneficial relationships with
marketing, product development, and business units (that means aligning
our goals and learning the language of other disciplines). After all,
it’s when these considerations are in alignment with user experience
strategies that great products get made.”

Interface Design Labors: Feature-Creep

Luke W’s Functioning Form

Yahoo’s Social Media Pyramid: Big oops?

Recently Bradley Horowitz from Yahoo published a pyramid model of social media that generated a lot of comments. (see his blog Elatable) Essentially it’s a classic pyramid with creative production and participation descending from the apex – as the peak is the most creative/productive of content, followed by tiers of lesser ‘productivity’ and participation, until you arrive at the base which is passive and just ‘consumes’ the content created or manipulated (content that has been ‘participated’?) from above. Seem sort of common sense (“for every one creator there’s ten synthesizers and one hundred consumers” and that big broad base looks nice and stable!).

Anyways – here is a nice counter argument (Yahoo’s counterproductive pyramid) from Greg Yardley’s yardley.ca blog.
“It’s telling that the social media Yahoo’s bought doesn’t fit Horowitz’s own pyramid – del.icio.us and Flickr don’t demand that participants create, but they’re designed to encourage creation at rates far higher than one in one hundred or even one in ten. There’s no huge body of del.icio.us users out there that browse around the service but don’t have accounts – if you ‘get’ del.icio.us you’ll create an account and add bookmarks. Flickr browsers are also disproportionately Flickr account holders and Flickr community contributors, compared to the users of bigger services – otherwise, what’s the point?”

Lots of good stuff to read in both the post and in the comments.

Welcome to b2blogic – a place for sharing news & ideas

When you are an active reader, something like 233 feed subscriptions at last count, you may find you have a real need to share your discoveries. And when you in the information business (whether it’s described as “content” or “data” or “B2B publishing”) it makes sense to ‘give back’ or share your discoveries and enjoy the iteration of ideas.

So after decades of ‘niche’ publishing, offline and online, I’m starting yet another venture (decidedly low impact) to engage those around me. Please feel free to ask questions and comment on anything you read here, or make suggestions for items and ideas you think should be covered.