june 2008

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It was very interesting to see the panel discussion at #pubcamp Sydney last week - the topic was "How media companies are dealing with the challenges of this new world - including traditional media, online media and hybrid ventures," the moderator: Mark Jones (Filtered Media); and panelists: Kathy Bail (Fairfax), Jackie Blondell (Hardie Grant), Stuart Clarke (homepageDaily), Ben Gerholt (IDG), Tony Kenna (Abundant Media), David O'Sullivan (Media Publishing / itechne).The panel pretty much argued that editorial processes of traditional media is good and holy, that blogs are often poorly written and that most new media is not edited properly and is done by people who don't know how to write. I remain confused as to why bad writing is so scary, there is so much of it in the newspapers & magazines everyday.The stance taken by the panel really seemed to polarise the audience and the twitter backchannel went berserk.It is ironic how the participants in the traditional media have lost sight of their own historical roots in citizen journalism. News media has been taken over from the early heady days, where news media advocated radical social change (like getting the kiddies out of the coal mines or universal male suffrage), by corporate entities (mostly men in suits or the Aide-mémoire

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I love the whole web 2.0 philosophy and the idea that we can break down organisational barriers and make workplaces better places for people to create and innovate. But an earlier series of comments by Nick Gonios got me thinking how this kind of grass roots change can occur in organisations.Having spent the better part of my adult life in large corporations and working on large projects I can see why the web 2.0 philosophical approach to things is a good idea. But what I am still trying to understand is how organisations can be open to adopting this kind of approach, and how we as individuals can help this to occur.Think about the characteristics of larger organisational structures. They are generally hierarchical and often there is high power-distance between staff and management. It is interesting to think about the *social networks at play within in an organisation since this is what really determines which memes get traction.

• Which way does information flow?
• Who does information flow through?
• Who talks to and with who?
• What forms do the formal & informal communications take?
• How do new ideas enter? Who's allowed to bring them in?
• Who has permission to do new things? Is that permission formal or informal?
• What kind of people (roles, gender, departments, etc) are allowed to push boundaries?

These types of questions are critical to work out the organisational boundaries for change. Why? Because memes are catching and you catch them from the people you hang out with. If your meme is to become ascendant then people who influence the power structures of the organisation need to catch your meme. Thus for guerrilla change agents enterprise social network mapping is a critical tool.It is clear to me that change within an organisation must be Aide-mémoire

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I wonder which communication tools people prefer:By Carruthers via Aide-mémoire

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One interesting thing about teaching accounting students at the university is that I get to ask them what they think about various web trends that I follow. It's nothing formal, more of a straw poll or temperature check. But it still helps me to understand a more mainstream view of current web trends. This is important to help me stay grounded since many of my friends are uber-geeks who are definitely Aide-mémoire

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This post is from from my other blog here

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"Do you ever get the feeling you don't really understand where the Web's heading (let alone this Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 you keep hearing about) or that it's leaving you behind? You're not alone. The simple fact is no one really knows for sure or has all the answers. So, what can I do about it? Come along to "PubCamp - The Web 2.0 Media Day - A Conference and Unconference" -- a free event about the future of media on the Web -- and get some group therapy for dealing with this precocious teenager and its seemingly limitless potential."Lots of interesting speakers (including little ole me) - list hereThis #pubcamp event is on in Sydney on Wednesday 18th June at 3pm at the Marriott Sydney Harbour Hotel, 30 Pitt St, near Circular Quay. More info: www.semanticmedia.org/pubcamp/By Carruthers via Aide-mémoire

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This post is from from my other blog here

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Great new Oz IT event calendar by Mick over at Pollenizer.To add events, invite pf44opfb12hherild7h2pl11b4@group.calendar.google.com By Carruthers via Aide-mémoire

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I had seen this clip on YouTube ages ago but recent thinking made it relevant again when a friend shared it on Facebook. As discussed recently we unleashed tremendous power with hypertext and enabled hyperconnection. But this clip reminds me that we also changed the nature of information and how we can use it. Web 2.0 has moved us beyond the hierarchical view of early web days (as in the old directories like Yahoo!). Now we can use non-hierarchical techniques to connect up previously unconnected data and add meaning to it, thus turning it into new kinds of information.Think about how we create meaning for a moment. We take a piece of data, add some more pieces of data and connect them to together somehow to create information. The connections that are made create new meaning out of the old meanings inherent in the individual pieces of data.The creative act of making connections is empowered by the internet and thus we are able to connect over vast distance. And the distances that we can now connect over are not merely geographic. They are power distances, social distances - for the web is crashing hierarchies. For example, I now routinely connect to people who were once inaccessible to me by virtue of their: (a) geographic location, i.e. far away from Australia; (b) power distance, i.e. their importance in the world; (c) social distance. We share ideas or memes and thus create new meaning for each other. Interesting times indeed ...Hat tip: Hans De KrakerBy Carruthers via Aide-mémoire

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This is one of the things that reminds me of how much Star Trek and Star Wars have informed my technological dreams. Here, in late 2007, Cisco demonstrates an "On-Stage TelePresence Holographic Video Conference". It's billed as the "World’s first Live Holographic Video Feed from California, USA to Bangalore, India". Cisco CEO John Chambers, was on the stage in Bangalore and ‘beamed up’ Martin De Beer, the Senior Vice President of emerging Technologies, and Chuck Stucki the General Manager of TelePresence, live from San Jose, California. This is the beginning of the next generation of unified communications and telepresence. W00t! No more long haul flights from Australia to other far away places.By Carruthers via Aide-mémoire

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