How students use social media

The last 3 years I've had the honor to give a guest lecture to a group of around 30 students. They are in their 2nd year of college. The class they are taking is about ‘consultancy’ and I was asked to share my consultancy experiences in the intranet and enterprise 2.0 field. I really enjoy lecturing for and discussing with them. They hardly have any feeling for working in mid-sized or larger organizations. They really keep you grounded by their straight-forward approach to projects and problems. This year I used a case from one of my clients, described the case and asked them to ‘solve’ it. How would they address the client’s assignment? I thought it was a lot of fun and we had a lively discussion about it.

Trends in social media use

But what I wanted to share with you is which social media they use and how they use it. The previous years I also shared these numbers with you. I think it gives an interesting insight into social media usage patterns. The group is quite small so we can’t jump to conclusions. (More research on this topic can be found here and here.) But it does give a small indication of where things are heading.

The numbers
First let me give you the numbers. I basically asked them which social media they are using, if they use just have an account, only consume info or post & consume info. Here’s the list:

• Twitter: 18 have an account, 14 use it to consume tweets, 2 actively use it for interaction (read and post)
• Facebook: 24 have an account, all use it for interaction
• Hyves (Dutch social network): 16 have (had) an account, nobody uses it
• Google+: 2 have an account, 2 use it for reading, nobody for posting
• Snapchat: 9 have an account, 7 use it for posting and reading
• Whatsapp: 24 have an account, all use it actively
• LinkedIn: 14 have an account, only 2 use it actively
• Instagram: 14 have an account, they use it every now and then
• Pinterest: 2 have an account, they use it every now and then
• Foursquare: 1 has an account and uses it actively
• Youtube: of course almost consume video, only a few post video's every now and then
• Blog: 5 have blog, 5 read other blogs and 2 blog actively

What students say about social

I also wrote down the remarks they made about the platforms:

• Google+: don’t see added value
• Snapchat: fun to use and not pervasive (vluchtig)
• LinkedIn: only for resume, not used for groups
• Pinterest: hardly any users, only girls, for inspiration
• Instagram: like the fact that it’s mobile only
• Blog: had to blog for a class, so actually everybody has a blog. Only 5 blog regularly. One used it to share insights related to the company that he owns and for linkbuilding. Another used it to share his passion about his hobby (music).

Patterns in the numbers

I’m fascinated by these numbers. I like the practical way they talk about using and choosing the platforms. It also shows that some of the platforms are clearly not for students but for employees. LinkedIn is hardly used, but I’m sure they’ll use it much more to find a job and when they have a job. Another think that strikes me is how Twitter is used to consume not publish information. They follow people they look up to and Twitter keeps them up to date on their lives.

Comparing these results with last year's I see the following:

• More students actively use Twitter compared to last year.
• Instagram is more popular than last year, but not very popular. The same goes for Pinterest.
• Google+ is hardly used
• Whatsapp wasn't mentioned last year and now use by all students.
• Facebook remains a core social tool for youngsters.
• LinkedIn and Foursquare show the same level of engagement among teens.

Your ideas

I’m curious what you learn from this list. And if you interact with youngsters and student, do you see the same or different patterns?

My notes from the Internet Trends 2012 Update

I find Mary Meeker's reports on internet trends very interesting. They're packed with interesting data and insights. I've been following her work closely. She recently published an updated overview of 2012 and I thought I'd share my highlights with you at the end of this year.

sheet 9: stunning slide showing shipment of iPads, iPhones and iPods over 10 years compared. This slides is old(er), but it just underlines the interesting times we live in
sheet 10: You thought the ramp up of Apple products is huge, well Android ramp up is 6 times that of iPhone
sheet 12: 30% of US adults own a tablet, less than 3 years ago that was 3%
sheet 17: mobile advertising is growing rapidly; $0.7 billion in 2008, $19 billion in 2012
sheet 18: 24% of online shopping was done via tablets on Black Saturday, versus 6% 2 years ago
sheet 20: we are in the midst of a huge change powered by new devices + connectivity + UI + beauty. Meeker highlights the effects for the pc, photography, phone, knowledge, navigation, news, note taking, content organization, magazines, cash registers, lending money, idea building/funding, recruiting, product design, etc. market (and we are still in "spring training", Meeker says [sheet 58])
sheet 24: very interesting overview of the market share of Microsoft compared to others. Used to be 96% and is now just 35%.
sheet 61: I like how Meeker digs deeper into the consequences of the internet by addressing what it means for our space, time and money and how we balance these
sheet 77: Meeker mentions markets that still can be opened, such as the time spent in cars and watching TV, education and healthcare.

And here's her complete slidedeck:

2012 KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Is our web slipping away?

Sometimes I read a post that really gets me thinking. Anil Dashes' recent post 'The web we lost' did it this time. I think reading the full post is well worth your time if you're interested in where the web is headed. Two fragments from the post triggered me the most:

We've lost key features that we used to rely on, and worse, we've abandoned core values that used to be fundamental to the web world. To the credit of today's social networks, they've brought in hundreds of millions of new participants to these networks, and they've certainly made a small number of people rich.

But they haven't shown the web itself the respect and care it deserves, as a medium which has enabled them to succeed. And they've now narrowed the possibilites of the web for an entire generation of users who don't realize how much more innovative and meaningful their experience could be.

(...) 

The first step to disabusing them of this notion is for the people creating the next generation of social applications to learn a little bit of history, to know your shit, whether that's about Twitter's business model or Google's social features or anything else. We have to know what's been tried and failed, what good ideas were simply ahead of their time, and what opportunities have been lost in the current generation of dominant social networks.

One of the things I really like about the web is that I know what it was like before the web was there and became so important in our lives. I can also remember the first steps 'web 2.0' brought us and how thrilled I was (and still am) about the next version of the web. After years in the internet and intranet version of the new web, I too am wondering if we're loosing it. I understand Dashes points to business models and what existing services are doing (building walls, cutting off integration opportunities based on RSS, etc.) as reasons for loosing the web. However, I wonder if we should ask even more fundamental questions. Web 2.0 and social media was about refinding our voice. More and more I see the services that helped us refind our voice are becoming less human (walling their garden, changing privacy settings, etc.). They're going against important statements from The Cluetrain Manifesto. And I see less and less people blogging and starting deep conversations (although I must say this is one of the reasons I love Google+). Monetization of services has become more important than the core values of the new web.

Or aren't we loosing it, but are we just getting started? Is it that the early adopters have to slow down and understand that the majority is just starting to understand the concepts and tools of the new web?

Just when I wondered if Dashes would share his ideas about rebuilding the web we lost, he posted his ideas. They are good ideas, even though they're focused on technology, design, funding, business models and the like. These could be good starting point, but as I just mentioned, I wonder if this cuts deep enough to really bring back the web we lost. What do you think?

UPDATE (5 minutes after publishing this post): My friend Ana Silva recently blogged about this topic as well, pointing to Dashes' post and other related posts.

Social Students?

What social tools are young people using? As a (internal) social media advisor for several companies I'm very interested in the answer to this question. So, when I get a change to talk for students, I'm honored, but also very curious what they will tell me.

Recently I was asked to guest lecture for students at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. It's the university I went to years ago. I was asked to share my experience with using social media concepts and tools inside organizations. I basically used a shorter version of the slides I use for my guest lectures for a college, but spent more time on the conceptual, philosophical if you will, side of 'social'.
I also asked them which social tools they use and why they use them. What did they say? Here's what I learned (there were 40+ students attending my lecture):

• None use Google+. Why? Nobody/none of their friends is there.
• All except 3 use Facebook. The 3 that didn't use FB, just didn't see the value of using the service.
• None of the students blog. Some said they didn't because they thought nobody is interested in what they have to say. Some said they wanted to but didn't have time.
• There are no Hyves users in this class (Hyves is a Dutch social network).
• 75% uses Twitter. Most use it to consume information, not publish/share it.
• They know Foursquare but don't use it.
• All have a LinkedIn account, but don't use it. It's for after their student-life.

Interesting, I find. It's pretty different from the usage pattern I collected while lecturing at a college. To me the most worrying answer is the one about blogging. At college and university hardly anybody blogs. I usually point to my blog and tell them what it brought and brings me. I hope that inspires them...

What's worrying to me is the reason why they don't blog: because they conclude what they think and would share is not interesting to others. And these students will be paid to think in the future. Wouldn't it be great if these young people would share their thoughts with us? I think so and hope they will in the future. The big question is: how do we get them to share?

Re: Which social media do millenials use?

Recently I had the privilege to give a guest lecture at the Hogeschool Arnhem & Nijmegen (college-level) about Enterprise 2.0. Just like last year I asked the students which social media tools they use and why. I like asking them this question, because it gives me some insight in adoption rates of tools and usage patterns.

Last years results can be found here. I'll share this year's results below. Of the 24 students I had in my classes:

• 24 have a Twitter account, 6 actively use it and 2 others only consume tweets.
• 24 have a Hyves account (Dutch social network, comparable to Facebook), 1 uses it actively and some go there every now-and-then.
• Facebook is clearly taking over Hyves, with 20 accounts in the classes and they use it actively. 14 only consume Facebook updates.
• Only 2 have a Foursquare account and use it actively.
• 6 have a Google+ account and none of them use it.
• LinkedIn: 16 have an account, 5 use it actively.
• They all have to blog for these classes. Only 2 already had a blog before classes.
• Instagram is not used actively at all, just 3 have an account.
• Pinterest is a bit more popular: 6 have an account and 3 update regularly.
• MySpace: 2 accounts, no active use, but some said they might go back now that MySpace updated it's look and feel.

Pretty interesting, don't you think?

The Dutch social network is even less popular than last year. Everybody has gone to Facebook. Most say they use Facebook to stay connected with friends. They don't follow brands there, they follow and interact with friends.

I'm surprised by how little Twitter is being used. I asked them why, but they couldn't really tell me. One said it had to do with open vs. closed. Someone else said: more of his friends are on Facebook than Twitter.

Just like last year LinkedIn is not used much. They'll use it when they grow up... ;-)

Pinterest wasn't even there last year, but is getting some traction from these youngsters.

Google+ is not used at all. Most said they don't see the added-value compared to the current toolset (Twitter, Facebook).

Blogging is stable: last year 2 blogged before they had to blog for this class. This year there were 2 as well. Same goes for Foursquare.

Finally, it's interesting to hear from the students some will give MySpace a new go after the UI update. They really pay attention to the way things work and what they look like.

What do you think of these results? What should we be learning from these numbers?

My Highlights from the Digital Workplace Trends Report 2012 by @netjmc - part 1

There's one great place to go if you want an overall update on the intranet and digital workplace state-of-the-art and that's Jane McConnell's yearly Digital Workplace Trends Report.

Just like in previous years I read the report and would like to highlight parts of the report for you in two posts. In another post I'll reflect a bit on this year's findings. I hope this will trigger you to buy and read the report for yourself. There's much more in the report than I can write about here.

From intranet to digital workplace

This year more than 400 organizations participated in Jane's 6th survey. The title of the report shows how much development there is in the intranet landscape. We are moving from intranet to digital workplace.

And Jane has been documenting this trend for several years. I think this year is the first year I hear more people talk about the digital workplace than intranet. Of course this broadening of the scope of Jane's survey and report also brings along some difficulties (for Jane...). The digital workplace is a much bigger topic than intranet.

Fragmented digital workplace

The intranet was mostly about the traditional internal digital publishing platform with static content. The digital workplace collects all the online, internal content and applications a knowledge worker needs to get things done. The report shows only a small number of organizations has a central, uniform digital workplace. Most have a fragmented landscape, consisting of separate tools.

Still can't find anything

Search is still horrible. Hardly any organizations are happy with their intranet search. Leading organizations pay much more attention to improving search. Users are frequently polled to test search results, search patterns and data are analyzed, and functionality, like tagging, is added to improve search.

Concerns

Information security is a concern for many companies with respect to the digital workplace. As is the quality of information. Other concerns are the influence of the social platforms on the company's structure and culture, and multi-linguality.

Enterprise 2.0

More and more companies are rolling out internal social media. Usually this is set up next to the existing intranet and is integrated into it over time. On the other hand only 8 % is working on organization-wide deployment of internal social media. The data seems to show that bottom-up roll outs are stagnating. But still 50% of the respondents is investing in this area. As you would expect podcasting and social bookmarking are used the least internally. And ‘prediction markets’ (although they were popular some time ago) and ‘gamification’ (now very trending, for sure on the Web) are not mentioned at all.

Internal social media ROI

What most organizations get from internal social media is well known. Improved knowledge sharing, recognition and location of experts, etc. Cost reduction and faster market penetration is not mentioned a lot. As is improvement of and integration with business processes. The report does show that successful internal and external adoption of social media are related.

Intranet in the field

I really enjoyed the section in the report about 'intranet in the field'. Some organizations shared how they use their intranet to support employees in the field, working directly with customers. Those employees could connect to the internal company and ask questions, consult the internal procedures, etc. This topic relates to mobile intranet. I'll share the mobile trends in the next post.

So, do you recognize the above-mentioned trends? What do you think are the most important Digital Workplace trends? And, what are the biggest challenges for organizations with respect to their (future) intranet?

I'll post part 2 of my highlights in a couple of days.

Have a nice weekend! :-)

State of the Blogosphere 2011

How is the blogosphere doing? Several post have been written in 2011 about it being dead. At the beginning of the social media revolution everyone was told to start blogging. Now, most think microblogging is enough, it seems. Twitter has become a popular why to (micro)blog. And other types of blogging are showing up, like Posterous and Tumblr. As well as photo blogs, like Instagram.

Since 2004 Technorati publishes an overview of the State of the Blogosphere. Recently ‘The State of the Blogosphere 2011’ was published. I’d like to share a summary of this interesting report with you (as I’ve done in previous years).

Who are the bloggers? 

4114 bloggers were surveyed for this report (about 3000 less than in 2010). According to the research 75% of the bloggers are 25-44 years old. The level of education of blogger is high, mostly college and university level.

Technorati distinguishes four types of bloggers: hobbyists (60% of the respondents), part-time and full-time professionals (18%), corporate (8%) and entrepreneurs (13%).

Blogging patterns

The majority of the bloggers has been blogging for at least 2 years. It is remarkable that all bloggers maintain more than one blog. 60% of the respondents blogs up to three hours per week, the rest (40%) blogs more. 13% say they spend more than ten hours per week.

The majority of the participants blogs 2-3 times a week. Professional full-time bloggers blog more often. 26% says they post at least three times per day.

The general trend among bloggers is to spend more time on blogging than in 2011 and to post more often. When bloggers decide to blog less this is due to, just as last year, spending more time on other social platform and especially microblogging.

Blogging and business

What is the influence of blogging on brands? This year blogs are listed as having the most influence on brands. Compared to 2010 this is a huge leap forward. As a second and third brand influencer friends and other social media are mentioned. All types of bloggers are asked regularly by brands to blog about their product or service. Even though most bloggers think that companies find them less professional, compared to traditional media.

A remarkable finding from the survey is that blogs are still considered to be most influential under consumers when they look for recommedations about products and services. Facebook is also influential, but less than blogs. Twitter’s influence has also decreased in this respect.

Blog inspiration and success

To find input for blogposts, most bloggers tap into social media sites (21 uur/week). Bloggers don’t watch a lot of TV.

Professionele bloggers measure the success of their blog by the number of unique visitors and financial gain. Hobbyist measure success by personal satisfaction. 70% of the bloggers blog to share experience and expertise with others. Another way to measure the success of a blog is if it has been quoted in traditional media. 36% of the bloggers say their blog has been quoted.

An interesting fact is most bloggers don’t want advertisement on their blog, although most bloggers admit they do not have enough readers for advertisers to be interested in advertising on their blog.

Blogging and other social media

82% of all bloggers uses Twitter. Under professional bloggers almost all use it. Hobbyists have about halve as many followers on Twitter as professionals. Professional bloggers have around 1000 followers. In most cases blogposts are automatically published to Twitter.

89% of the bloggers has a Facebook account. Setting up separate Facebook pages for your blog has increased by 15% in the previous year. In most cases the blogpost is not automatically posted to Facebook.

More than 6 out of 10 respondents uses Google+. The reasons to use Google+ are comparable to Twitter and Facebook: promoting your blog and finding interesting links. As with Facebook, automatic publishing of blogposts to Google+ is not done often. 

The participants find Facebook and Twitter as most-effective to publicize a blog. LinkedIn comes in 3rd place.

Wordpress is the most popular blog hosting service. 51% of the participants uses it. Blogger en Blogspot are popular as well (21% en 14%).

Blogging and mobile

A nice question was about the impact of tablets and smartphones on blogging. 45% said they use more pictures and images and 43% said they write shorter posts because of mobile.

Questions

You can read the whole report online. Have you read it? If so, what were the most remarkable findings according to you? And what’s your vision on the future of blogging? Is it doomed, as some say? Or does it have a (certain) future? 

Note: This post was also published in Dutch on FrankWatching and Teed.

Internet Trends 2011 and on

There is one presentation I love watching every year. It's loaded with data and just sets the agenda for the coming year. It's Mary Meeker's talk at the Web 2.0 Summit. You can watch it here:


 And find the slides here.

As I said, it loaded with data and insights. I'll highlight just a few. Striking is the international growth of the internet. It's definitely not the US-only in the internet. And Africa and South-America are continents to pay attention to.
Another thing is the speed of adoption of new communication technology is increasing, even in recession.
The speed of adoption of the iPhone was fast compared to the iPod, but just look at how quickly the iPad took over the market.
The next big thing according to Meeker? Everything that has to do with our ears; Sound/audio. And, of course, the continuing growth of mobile.

Join the Digital Workplace Survey by @netjmc

How do you evaluate your intranet? There are lots of ways to evaluate. Interviews with users, intranet analytics, internal polls, scan by a consultant, etc. Participating in an international survey is another way.

For this reason I'd like to advise you to join Jane McConnell's Global Web Workplace Survey. By participating you get access to the survey results containing a huge amount of information about intranet trends but also the state of affairs of intranet in the world. Last year 440 companies participated. It would be great if even more would participate this year!

Just to give you an idea of the survey results, check out my posts about the survey reports of the previous year. As you see the survey questions can be used to evaluate your intranet. Did we miss important features and/or trends? And what are other intranet managers doing that inspires us to do so as well? Jane also collected some statements from participant here as well.

So I hope you will join, it's worth your time. Please leave if a comment if your are.

The Netherlands: The Social Networking Country

Pretty proud to be Dutch: The Netherlands Ranks #1 Worldwide in Penetration for Twitter and LinkedIn. Impressive numbers.

The State of the Blogsphere 2010

Wow, sometimes it takes forever to get a blogpost ready for publication... This is one of them. Sorry for the late post about 'the State of the Blogosphere 2010', hope you enjoy it anyway.

I've been blogging what I learned from the SotB for a couple of years now. Technorati's report on how the blogosphere is doing is lengthy and rich. To my knowledge it's the largest piece of research on the blogging community. They started back in 2004. Besides collecting general data about blogging, this year's focus is on the female bloggers.
Blogs are in transition, they say. The line between blogs, microblogs and social networks is blurring. Mobile blogging is the key trend this year. Based on the results of the survey and interviews they see great optimism about blogging. More and more blogs are generating revenue, more frequent blogging and more blogs are planned and more and more people say the go-to resource for news will be blogs. The trust in mainstream media is dropping.
Hobbyists remain the backbone of the blogging community (65%). And again the blogging community is shown to be a "highly educated and affluent" group. The report also shows bloggers consume lots of information, mostly through reading.
About 60% of the bloggers spend up to 3 hours per week on blogging. 40% puts more time into their blog.
Compared to 2009 the hobbyists are updating their blog less. In general updating is done much less on a daily and more on a weekly basis. This is mostly (63%) due to family and work commitments (did bloggers get better and more busy jobs?!). 30% said it was due to shift some communication to microblogging and social networks.
Bloggers that blog about their work/company say they have greater visibility in their industry, also leading to prospects and sales.
Just about 80% is using Twitter (not all! - 34% of the non-users don't understand the service, they say, others use Facebook instead) to promote their blog, share links and keep up with news and events.
Facebook and Twitter are seen as the most effective platforms to market blogs.
A small increase can be seen in mobile blogposting (24% in 2010, 20% in 2009). I'm really curious if this number will go up faster with the iPad market penetration.
Really interesting is the fact that social media sites are outpacing search engine optimalization as widely-used marketing tools. Only "38% of bloggers use SEO".

Interesting quote by Barbara Jones: "I see Twitter and Facebook as two very different applications. Facebook is like a backyard barbecue, mostly friends and family. I see Twitter as a cocktail party where you have the ability to pop in and out of conversations and make relationships."

One thing I miss in this report (and I've mentioned this before) is some hard numbers about the number of (active) blogs and the number of new (active) blogs.

Let's see what 2011 has in store for blogging! For now, my question to you is, do these trends relate to your blogging practice? Are you blogging more or less? And what tools do you use to promote your blog?

Mobile Intranet

Mobile and the mobile web is huge. Lots of the discussion about mobile and the mobile web is about mobile and the Internet. Until recently not much attention was paid to the implications of mobile for the intranet. But this is changing rapidly. More and more interesting posts and reports are being written about mobile intranet.
One of them was published not to long ago. It is written by Martin White and is titled 'Focus on Enterprise Information Mobility'. This is a first paper giving an overview of what's happening in this place. It summarizes and structures lots of information about mobile enterprise. So, if you want to get up to speed on this topic, I encourage you to read it.
But let me give you some highlights from the report:

• The GMSA Mobile Congress has a Mobile Enterprise track for the first time this year (March).
• "Enterprise mobiliy" usually refered to some employees using their cell phone and/or connected devices remotely. This has changed. Enterprise mobility now presents itself as "a pervasive and ubiquitous mesh of software, middleware and hardware requiring seamless integration, state-of-the-art user interface and pristine security." Security is "the elephant in the room".
• "A mobile strategy is not the equivalent of making your web applications accessible via a mobile device."
• Surveys show that more than 50% of the companies are working on or planning mobile deployments. Many based on the iPhone or iPad. The biggest reason not to deploy just yet is security. Business Intelligence is a big driver for enterprise mobility. Other reasons are: productivity/speed, and the real-time enterprise.
• White shows that most are not strategic about mobility. The intiatives are hardly tied to business goals and processes. This is surprising, I find.
• Employees give their employers very low marks for their mobile strategy. Most don't have a strategy and/or guidelines.
• Intranet information architectures will change drastically. There is little point "in providing access to all sections of the intranet." Also the mobile intranet challenges us to think about our user. White gives an overview of the user segmentation VDC provides: road warriors and executives, mobile office professionl, etc. Don't give them all the information, but the information they need to get their job done.

This is a first release by White about making the internal company information mobile. I'm looking forward to White's future publications about this topic!

But for now I'm wondering: is your intranet ready for mobile? If not, are you getting ready for mobile? Please share your thoughts!

Cascading Change: Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things into Motion by John Hagel @jhagel #sbs2011

Next talk (no slides!) by John Hagel about Cascading Change: Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things into Motion.

We are moving to a world of increasing returns. This world is very different from the world we were in, the world of decreasing returns.
This movement can be typified by moving from business as stock to flows. Stocks was about: build up knowledge, protect it aggressively and capitalize on it. But in a world of excelerating change, these knowledge stocks rapidly diminish in value. (Except for companies like Coca Cola.) New opportunities are in the area of knowledge flows. And this is where social tools come into place. Not only used insides companies but also over institutions. There are even more values between institutions than inside them.

Some say we should move fast here. But Hagel's approach is: move slowly so they trigger cascades and are sustainable over time.
Social software adoption approaches:

• bottom-up, starting in teams
• deploy it in a section of the business
• massive deployment, social software for everyone (it's a must-have item)

What's missing here? The systematic link to metrics that matter. If we roll out social tools in a more targetted way, it will really matter to the organization as a whole. (Hagel doesn't imply the above-mentioned adoption approaches should never happen. His point relates to what will matter on the long run.) This usually also changes how social media is seen (as most think it's not for business and purely for fun).

Hagel also stresses current and future business will be about exception handling. And social tools fit better on exceptions than other IT.

He points to the idea, implementation and effect of the SAP Developper networks as a good example of what he means. Sustained performance improvement by reputation and relationship development.
Relating to this example, it was started at the edge of the enterprise. That's where new stuff begins and has growth potential. That's where social software can have the greatest impact. It can be used as a change catalyst. Social software is more than technology.
They also focused on metrics that matter. For instance the number of calls they got to the call center. So they tracked those numbers. Pace of adoption of the SAP software was also a metric.

Finally Hagel also states social software unleases passion. Social software integrates passion in profession.

UPDATE April 6, 2011 Added pictures, updated links and corrected text.

Humanize through Social by Tony Byrne @tonybyrne #intra11

What is the future of intranet technology? Looking at the cheap social tools, what should intranet teams invest in? And what does mobile mean for the intranet? These were just some of the questions Tony Byrne addressed in his keynote at the Intranet Conference (Congres Intranet).

Byrne advised the audience to focus on a light-weight application architecture for the intranet. Lots will change in the coming years and is changing. Making the architecture lighter will give room to respond to new technology, changing business and user needs. One central intranet platform is not (going to be) enough. Make sure the elements and functionality of the intranet can be clicked together and mixed. Organize for mashups.
Another theme in Byrne’s talk is the social layer. We should add a social layer to the intranet. Make the technology more human through social. Integrate the elements of social everywhere in your intranet, like tagging, commenting, social networking, location, etc.

Byrne also addressed the trend that more and more companies are allowing employees to bring their own devices to work. BYOB, ‘bring your own beer’. He warned this could lead to a lot of complexity for companies in the IT services area. How do you manage the combination of all the devices and the different corporate applications. This is even more the case if companies are trying to develop their own mobile applications, are rolling them out and would like to maintain them. If you want to develop for mobile devices go for the web (use HTML5). The web will win, says Byrne.

A history of Social Networks - Open always wins

Techcrunch ran a very interesting series of posts about the history of social networking. They were written by Mark Suster (@msuster). I think you should go ahead and read all the posts, but I'll pass on some highlights here to get you started.

Marks posts are about the “6 C’s of Social Networking” – Communications, connectedness, common experiences, content, commerce & cool experiences (fun!). He stresses that social networks exists before they were hyped in our time they just work better now "and there are more people doin’ it." And a bit further on: "Yes, social networks of 2010 have much better usability, have better developed 3rd-party platforms and many more people are connected.  But let’s be honest – they’re mostly the same old shit, reinvented, with more people online and trained.
But less considered is the fact that the success of the Web 2.0 companies versus the Web 1.0 ones were enhanced because they coincided with hardware that allowed us to capture more content instantly – namely images and video – otherwide Web 2.0 might have been a lot less differentiated."
He relates back to the beginning of internet and AOL. "The funny thing about AOL is that while you dialed up to the Internet, the goal of AOL was to keep you locked into their proprietary content and thus earned the classification of “walled garden” because they kept you inside AOL." From AOL he goes on to show how closed and open social networks has been successful or not. "The lesson was learned over 30 years in Silicon Valley: you create ecosystems where third-parties can innovate and thrive and you become the legitimate center of it all and can tax the system later.
He closes off with social networking trends he sees (- I only list a few of them):

• Social Networking is becoming mobile "and that adds new dimensions to how we use social networks.  The most obvious change is that now social networks become "location aware.""
• Facebook is our social graph and will be so for the next decade, Mark says. He goes on to say Facebook with make our social graph portable or we'll move to new networks. Because "nobody exists in one social network." He thinks public and private network will be more separate in the future.
• There will be lots of focus on privacy in the future.
• Social networking will mix with everything we do. "As our social graph becomes more portable I believe that social networking will become a feature in everything we do."

What really struck me in these posts is that it shouts out: Openness always wins on the long run. Do you agree? This is the case in mobile, but also in social networking (tools).

Two other nice quotes to think about:

• "Twitter is much more.  ... in a nutshell it is: an RSS reader, a chat room, instant messaging, a marketing channel, a customer service department and increasingly a data mine."
• "When you’re on Facebook you’re not on the Internet—you’re on the InterNOT."

The State of the Internet Operating System by Tim O'Reilly

This is why I love the blogosphere! And it proves the blogging is not (just) for dummies and show-offs. There's some real deep thinking and interesting interaction going on on blogs. Need proof? Read this post by Tim O'Reilly about 'The State of the Internet Operating System'. What a great piece! It gives a very interesting and inspiring overview of what the Internet is now and what it can do. Here are some highlights if you're still nog interested in reading it all:

Ask yourself for a moment, what is the operating system of a Google or Bing search? What is the operating system of a mobile phone call? What is the operating system of maps and directions on your phone? What is the operating system of a tweet?

Interesting questions, eh?! O'Reilly goes on to take a look at the competing Internet Operating Systems or The Information Operating System. An Information Operating System because:

The underlying services accessed by applications today are not just device components and operating system features, but data subsystems: locations, social networks, indexes of web sites, speech recognition, image recognition, automated translation.

O'Reilly goes on by deeping out these elements of the web. He also relates back to his paper 'What is Web 2.0?' in which he analyzed 'how the Web as Platform was going to be dominated by data services built by network effects in user-contributed data'. One thing he didn't stress as much then was that the data would increasingly be contributed by sensors. (As he wrote in his paper with Batelle about WebSquared).

He finishes his post with a couple of big questions:

Might an operating system of the future manage when and how data is collected about individuals, what applications can access it, and how they might use it? Might it not automatically synchronize data between devices and applications? Might it do automatic translation, and automatic format conversion between different media types? Might such an operating system do predictive analytics to collect or locally cache data that it expects an individual user or device to need? Might such an operating system do "garbage collection" not of memory pointers but of outdated data or spam? Might it not perform credit checks before issuing payments and suspend activity for those who violate terms of service?

My short answer is yes, I think it will. We are seeing and making it happen.

Rupture - Are You Ready for the 21st century?

Nice video by Michel Cartier titled "Are you ready for the 21st century?" (Found via Luis Suarez on his blog - thx!)

Are You Ready for the 21st Century ? from Michel Cartier on Vimeo.

Intranet in 2020 #intra10

4th keynote at Intranet 2010 by Peter Hinssen.
Will intranets be around in the future? 4 fundamentals:

• content (old, put stuff somewhere)
• intelligence
• knowledge
• collaboration (newer, share things)

The trash bin is not used a lot in IT.
We are drowning in information but are starved of knowledge - John Naisbitt. Is information still of strategic value?
Paperless office
Consumerization of IT. Leading to new behavior wrt information.
Information behavior is key. It's moving quicker than hardware development.
Digital is the new normal. We are half-way there. Let's take this to the limit.
It's not information overload, but it's filter failure. Show me your folders and I will tell you who you work for.
The depth of information will go to infinity. The price of information will go to 0. Privacy, we will live in a fish-bowl society.
Patience is also going to 0. Users don't want to fill things out again and again. And the internet will be real-time.
Now reflect on this, what does this mean for intranet (teams).
The new rules:

• zero tolerance for digital failure (Gmail down for 3 hours... Big problem, even on CNN. It had been up for 8 years...)
• Constantly better isn't necessary. Good enough is enough. Refer to Skype and mp3 and Blueray and netbook. But it may not break. Speed is more important than perfection.
• Total accountability. No more hiding. No complete control. Refers to Xobni.

Rethink your intranet using these rules.
Information behavior changes faster than information systems!!
Think about lifecycles of information.
Think about metadata (find things back, refers to Lakoff).
Where do you solve it? Don't focus on the display, but also on the warehouse.
Information doesn't work anymore. Not structured, unstructured, etc etc. It doesn't improve the quality of information.
Make the jump from information to intelligence. Relevance, types of content, reach of information and quality of content. An enterprise portal is not the solution, even though the CEO will buy into this.
But position your portal. How is it positioned, bottom up-top down, personalization, information architecture, etc. Refer to explorelimits.com.
It's very simple. Intranets are change processes. It's about information attitude, the future of the organization. Be proactive!