Government as Network

Just got back from a strategy session for the $786 billion stimulus package signed into law yesterday in Denver. Anyone who has any sense of how these things work knows that most of that money will be wasted. For instance, the Washington Department of Ecology has to allocate $1 Billion in a month, a freakin' month. That agency is not prepared to effectively distribute those funds.

On the hand, that's ok, the entire point of the stimulus package is to just get something moving in the economy again, even if its sloppy, the economy needs liquid capital to prevent it from grinding to a hault. On the other hand, it begs the question, who is prepared to know how to effectively distribute those funds? Who will determine the best projects, the best coalitions, the most reliable or promising businesses?

The President clearly wants these funds to be leveraged to promote emerging industries and companies, how does our society evaluate those actionable opportunities and convert them into lucrative and meaningful American enterprises?

I see two default frameworks currently on the table, the government contract bidding/grant system, and the standard venture capital model. Both have their limitations, and neither provides an off-the-shelf process to help society obtain the kick of quick, efficient, and innovative solutions we need out of the stimulus package.

Its clear that command and control institutions are experiencing a global epidemic of failure that knows no bounds. In a time of crisis, many managers, business, and public servants devolve to conservative frameworks to sustain existing operations, this is a mistake. I'll get more into that question in an upcoming post, but fundamentally we need to figure out how to not waste this goddamn money while also not reinvesting in inefficient and destructive systems that led us to this brink.

How do we rethink the relationship between industries, corporate networks, governmental agencies, as well as NGO's and non-profits to realize the best solution and maximize efficency?

Where do new models of information tracking and knowledge management enter the equation? and reputation? and project management? and crowdsourcing? The answer resides in our understanding of Network, how we map it, how we visual it, and how we actualize it. I'm afraid the people with the purse don't have nearly as good of a map as they need right now, how can we help?

Who's Making Money on Social Information/Media?

In an effort to learn more about who is making money and who isn't in the world of social information/media, I'm putting forth a list of the business models that I've come across. They are:

• Sell Enabling Technology (e.g. IBM Lotus, MSFT SharePoint, Yammer, PBWiki; Radian6)
  
• Provide a Transaction Platform and Take a Cut (e.g. EBay; SecondLife)
• Sell Real World Schwag (e.g. Threadless)
• Sell Digital Schwag (e.g. Facebook Gifts)
  
• End User Subscriptions (e.g. Everquest)
  
• Sell Access to User Data (e.g. Facebook; Radian6)
  
• Charge for Access to the Users (e.g. Advertising; Polls; Etc.)
  
• Sell Consulting/Learning Services (e.g. Social Media Consultants; Social Media Publishers (e.g. Forrester); Social Media Conferences)

Are these right? What other models are there? Which models are the most profitable? It seems that to some extent all of these - with the possible exception of Charging for access to users given the scale/cost base required - are viable primary business models.

Posted via email from samirsingh's posterous

Medpedia and Incentive to Author

Just learned about a site called Medpedia.com that is intended to be both a deeper dive than Wikipedia provides on a medical topic and infrastructure for social networking, group forming, and discussions in the medical areas. The site is well organized and divides messaging and interfaces for laypersons, medical professionals, and organizations. For example, every article has a view in "Plain English" and a view in "Clinical" language that clearly draws the line between laypeople and those familiar with the medical vernacular.

Of special interest is that Medpedia has taken the stance that it presents an authorship and professional development opportunity for doctors and biomedical professionals. For example, see the various ways they are building recognition into their system and messaging.

This is a site to learn from.

Rip, Mix, Learn

Intriguing article from the Guardian on Education 2.0. The discussion centers around the intersection of social technologies and education and proposes that students may (actually, already are) constructing their own learning experiences from multiple, previously disconnected networked digital environments. An example cited is that in one week Open University saw more than 2 million downloads from its offerings on iTunesU, 87% of which were from outside the United Kingdom.

"I'm betting most of them have been downloaded by US students studying at American universities," says Peter Scott, director of the OU's Knowledge Media Institute. He predicts that students will soon be mixing their higher education experiences from resources all over the world, choosing to study at Harvard, say, while listening to lectures from Oxford, taking part in discussion groups at the University of Mumbai, and sitting exams somewhere entirely different.

Visualizing Co-Creation

Courtesy of IBM Watson Research Center's Collaborative User Experience Group, this is a visualization of the edits to the Wikipedia entry on 'Evolution'. Different colors are different contributors and the height reflects the word count. Seems like a piece of art to me.

Social Media and Gaming Mechanics

Great slide below by Amy Jo Kim. It describes the intersection of that which makes gaming addictive and social media. She defines game mechanics as "the systems and features that make games fun, compelling, and addictive." Those are:

1. Collecting - Impressive Collections = Bragging Rights (think 'Connections' on LinkedIn); People want to complete collections (only X more to go...);
   
2. Points - Game points from the system and Social points from other players; Redeemable points drive loyalty; Leaderboards drive player behavior; Levels punctuate the game experience and open features.
   
3. Feedback - Accelerates mastery and makes it fun. Social feedback drives engagement.
   
4. Exchanges - Implicit or Explicit
   
5. Customization - Of characters and interfaces

Gaming is also influencing Social Media with the following trends, according to Kim:

• Accessible
• Recombinant
• Syndicated

Here's the presentation:

Fun in Functional 2009

View more presentations from amyjokim. (tags: social media)

UserVoice: Collaborative User Feedback

If you haven't heard of UserVoice and you develop anything online, you're in for a treat. UserVoice is collaborative product feedback done right. I'm using it at GradShare and can't say enough about how it's helped us engage users and prioritize work. They offer a bunch of service levels but you can get the basic level for free and if you have a logo image handy it takes about five minutes to get a branded instance up and running.

I'm thinking about using it internally to gather and rank feedback on questions I have but their privacy options so far require you to know a priori (pre-send) who you want to contribute (e.g. participant email), which isn't realistic in large organizations.

Boundary Objects

Came across a great concept while reading the article embedded below. The concept is the 'boundary object', which seems to have been around for a while in cognitive science. The basic idea is that in order to move beyond the limits of the individual mind to create successful collaborations, we need to create externalizations of our thinking and work that others can interact with much as we interact with our own thoughts internally. By externalizing our thinking in the form of a boundary object we also gain the potential to get critique and feedback from collaborators with differing skill sets. In other words the externalization acts as a common boundary with which multiple people can interact. The result is a synthesis of new thoughts, insights, and ideas framed around the boundary object.

Interestingly enough, this post is itself a boundary object!

Transcending the Individual Human Mind

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Academic Work collaboration

Social technology in large companies boosts productivity

There's not any data cited in the video below to back it up but the take away is that large multinational businesses can benefit from inclusion of software that supports connections between employees. Main themes cited were the importance of transparency, expertise identification, and associated productivity gains. Video is about 2 mins.

Is it worth it to give your personal information to Change.gov?

I just came across the Citizen's Briefing Book on Change.gov and was all ready to participate when it asked me for the following information in order to register:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email
• Zip Code

Their privacy policy says that they track IP addresses and then has the following little ditty:

It is our general policy not to make Personal Information available to anyone other than our employees, staff, and agents.

Doesn't that mean the entire government of the United States? What's a citizen to do if you don't want to have your personal information known but you want your voice heard and your right to participate? Or, more simply put, is it worth it to give your personal information to Change.gov?