Unbound Spiral

Another positing from the online converation with Terrence L. Gargiulo and Making Stories A Practical Guide for Organizational Leaders and Human Resource Specialists.

Stories help learning when they stimulate and shape conversation. Stories that are part of a network conversational exchange really accelerate learning. Thus one on one storytelling has no where near the same impact as collective story-making. The latter brings a real sense of ownership and understanding. Some call this "the art of the strategic conversation".
The interest in business story-telling seems to coincide with an increase in uncertainty in the workplace. Similarly as we move to more networked org forms, we need to enrich the pipes (info flows) without overloading everyone with data.

The book Future Search has a wonderful story - timeline exercise in the beginning of the book. It builds a collective sense of where we have come from, our organization, and the world around us. Individuals post their events on the three timelines and three groups typically report back, with a story about the people in the room, and how the organization and world has changed and impacted on us collectively. This rapidly establishes a collective story about the past for any group.

Stories being posed for the future may entertain more debate. One of the reasons I became a passionate scenarist was seeing too many organizations fall over a single vision / story for the future. A story that is too structured limits learning. Successful strategies and stories are often the result of unintended consequences.

Today innovation rules - stories / rapid conversations and learning are an essential part of the prototyping process which leads to markets. Actually, stories don't accelerate learning, "insights" accelerate learning. However, stories may frame the connection that enable new insights.

For example there have been stories around TIVO, online music sharing, satellite, cable TV and perceptions of where they are going. Recently they were reframed --- File-Served TV --- a new vision & direction. Except I doubt this is the end of the story....... That in itself is both refective and iterative.

I'd be interested in the contrast between a world in which story-telling was between cave-dwellers and in today's - tomorrow's highly networked world. Are effective stories synthesized now rather than told? Similarly, is "chat" creating a new framework for the realtime story? What happens if a leader isn't in the "chat" group?

<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/2002/10/24.html#a500">Doug Engelbart on improving collective IQ</A>.
<P>I don't think I have read as eloquent an explanation of what collaborative intelligence augmentation is and why it matters as <A href="http://www.bootstrap.org/engelbart/index.jsp">Douglas Engelbart</A>'s World Library Summit keynote speech <A href="http://www.fleabyte.org/eic-11.html">Improving our ability to improve: A call for investment in a new future</A>. Here are just a few quotes - but I think it's well worth attentively reading every word of the text. And taking time to think about it.</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<P><FONT color=darkblue>...the investment in C&nbsp;activities is typically pre-competitive.&nbsp; It is investment that can be shared even among competitors in an industry because it is, essentially, investment in creating a better playing field. [...]</FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=darkblue>At the C level we are trying to understand how improvement really happens, so that we can improve our ability to improve.&nbsp; This means having different groups exploring different paths to the same goal.&nbsp; As they explore, they constantly exchange information about what they are learning.&nbsp; The goal is to maximize overall progress by exchanging important information as the different groups proceed.&nbsp; What this means, in practice, is that the dialog between the people working toward pursuit of the goal is often just as important as the end result of the research.&nbsp; Often, it is what the team learns in the course of the exploration that ultimately opens up breakthrough results. [...]

Participating in online communities is not only growing easier, the results more positive. Kuro5hin is also more than a weblog. It's been around for awhile and yet today I ended up giving it much closer attention as I considered voting on an MLP posting on the Nickel Exchange, was asked for other help with editing, etc.

Various links took me to SCOOP and you learn quickly about the collaborative media application behind Kuro5hin and other communities.

My journey started today looking for methods improve my MT posting and reporting options. I've had in mind the opportunity for a MT based community. Clearly plausible yet not self-organizing. When one compares Smart Mobs with Kuro5hin it becomes clear how obvious this is. I will be looking at Scoop further.

Kuro5hin.org is a community of people who like to think. This is a site for people who want to discuss the world they live in. It's a site for people who are on the ground in the modern world, and who sometimes look around and wonder what they have wrought.

Scoop empowers participants to play a role in the newsmaking. This is not the only application however. My searching located Eric Hanson andShouldExist around ideas;as an idea exchange. Check out their description Eric's list also proved to me how sharing can close and create new links... Some we don't even know. While looking at his "people" section I found myself linked back to Seb's Open Resesearch. who has a great blog going on knowledge sharing, communities and innovation.

Note:"ShouldExist.org is a non-profit website, founded on the belief that individuals are more successful when we work together through open standards, modularity and decentralized control." His project list also includes others. Check it out.

Part of my interest in the first place was driven by the question posed to me. Should the NICKEL EXCHANGE story be posted? I'm going to watch over the next couple of days. We will be revisiting "Nickel Exchange" for I still believe the next frontier is in solving highly decentralised P2P transactions. Frankly... the nickel exchange looks premature, needs consumer friendly content, and a little more to give it legitimacy. I didn't yet try to see if it works.

Then today Movielink launched. This is the site offered by the movie moguls to provide downloadable movies to American broadband connections. Incredibly slow to appear, you would almost think the site is down. Obviously checking out my system for compatibility. I'm waiting for it to be cracked, then Kazaa movies etc might take on a whole new meaning.

I’m sharing this emergent - thought piece today. I can’t vouch for the approach or the technology. In a nutshell it ’s a speculative identity solution, using a nice metaphor “Circles”, P2P (peer-to-peer) underpinnings and posing an ownership approach that looks like a cooperative. Is it off the wall? Perhaps it can't be done. Objections? Thoughts? Abandon?

IDENTITY CIRCLES CIRCLES enrich and enhance life’s many connections. Whom you know has never been so important. Professional, Business, Community, Friends, creating circles of trust that you control. Now you can be more connected and share what and when you want. In CIRCLES you can discover a whole new range of connections, intersections where you connect for fun, influence, advice, learning. Today’s world is connected. Sometimes for fleeting moments or maybe for a lifetime. We move, we change addresses, our contacts change from year to year. Yet serendipity still strikes.

We meet friends in unexpected places, and find old work or college colleagues when we least expect them. CIRCLES let’s you grow and learn from whom you know. So together we travel many different circles and through many different roles. Collectively we learn we have a lot more to offer, when we don’t always know what we can do for each other. Cooperatively we learn together, individuals can create more value from their profiles that they can individually seeding them at many different destinations. There are valid reasons for public and commerical interests. Under Circles you control access.

So what’s different? Safe and secure in your circle, you are part of a many circles environment that makes up “many trusted circles”. CIRCLES guarantees your privacy and the privacy of your friends. Under Circles there is no more spam. The information is yours alone to share and trade as you wish. Circles is merely a commerical and public broker of information. Tomorrow's Post Office. How is it done? see the extended entry....

You begin by building your profile with your own circle of trust. This P2P based component puts your profile on your PC or personal mobile device (on or off whenever you like). When you open your account you will be required to find three friends to secure your profile and join the network. The friends provide backup (secure keyed) in case your encrypted data is lost. They can’t see your data, however their systems can broadcast for you should you be offline for any reason. (We see something similar in music with Kazaa).

This provides a built in redundancy and back-up using your friends, so you can store all your data safely. Effectively you have a duplicate safe deposit boxes for your key personal information. Your information profile is secured on your PC and controlled – served- only by you. Similarly accounts for family members may be stored there. (Freenet)

Within the P2P network that makes up Circles (think close friends) you can connect with friends of friends (buddylists/Friendster/Ryze Friends). You can look up friends knowing a phone number address or name and request that they add you to your contacts list. As a consequence you will never have to update your address book again. Some connections will also be temporary (eg Child’s sports team parent list). Circles makes these easy.

Within Circles, the Jabber IM solution (?) automatically lets you chat and talk to friends. You can send messages, share files or simply VOIP, while also enabling new conversations and searches to connect with friends of friends. Circles helps those important introductions. Similarly, Circles will keep you private if you don’t want unwelcome intrusions. You control the access to your profile. This becomes even more important as your profile becomes increasingly mobile with you.

We expect many of your current relationship providers will want to expand your profile. For example, a corporate profile (that depending on the company and policies may want to keep public or private) and similarly a health record. As Circles is an Open Source project we expect these profiles to be standardized over time.

While Circles enable you to enhance and grow your network we are also working to create commercial opportunities you profit from while putting an economic value on your attention.

Who Controls Circles, who’s in charge?

Circles approach is to create a cooperative connectivity system. Imagine the post, phone fax and e-mail service owned by you and me. First and foremost you serve your own information. Circles simply provides the enabling and verification service for public and commercial access, those not in your friends list, and all commercial contacts. To activate this opportunity you create a verified contact account at the Circles Common. Correspondingly your employer may open and verify an employee account.

When you activate your CIRCLES account you join our cooperative and are paid for your attention dependent on the commercial and pubic content consumed. (Paypal Account). It’s simple really. Imagine a world without mailboxes at your front door, and yet someone wants to send you a letter or a video or a voice message. Where do they send it? It’s easy if they have your address. It’s hard if you don’t! Economically you can make it cheaper for direct mailers, your key bill providers and others to reach you. When you reduce their costs, you can make money. That way Circles earns it’s transaction fee (Visa) on each delivery. That is the economics of attention. The sender pays, not the receiver.

You participate already, each time you see an add on TV it costs you thirty seconds. With Circles activated it is on your terms and timetable. Alternatively it can be set by your employer for certain hours as part of your “attention contract”. Remember not all offers are bad, and as others learn your interests you are more likely to get information that is useful to you. This goes for the organization as well, (however the organization will be paid for those interruptions).

Similarly, small commercial transactions (eg the plumber, lawnmower, acccountant etc) may request to sign and leave a commercial greeting card. (Think Ryze guest book) Your rating and reference will then be available for other friends etc in the neighborhood. (Xpertweb??)

To fund Circles growth and the market for the information assets you are prepared to share …..

1. Circles Members receive a monthly attention payment dependent on the collective rate schedule as determined from time to time. The rate schedule for personal accounts will be set to recover the costs of your broadband connection over the course of the year based on average participation levels. Thus as a cooperative our aim is to make digital connectivity available and free for all.

2. Each Circles member becomes a shareholder, vesting overtime based on participation. Each member will be deemed fully vested at 60 years of age and must have participated for a minimum of 5 years. Circles will buyback your shares at that time based on the value of the collective income pool adjusted for current vesting levels.

3. Your shares in the coop will represent a “life time” information asset, which after 50% vesting you may sell at any time. This reflects the collective value you have created for the community overtime valued at the point you sell it.

4. We aim to grow the market for your information assets. Our success is dependent on your participation. Once we have basic accounts up and running we will enable opt-in opportunities. We all know one consumer interested in buying a car won’t save much. However, 10000 consumers wanting to buy a similar car could save a lot. Information brokers chosen and acceptable to you can act on your behalf in ways that are not dissimilar to priceline and accompany (now defunct).

• Only you control access to your information.
• Circles brokers introductions and eases personal, social, business and professional exchanges.
• Circles creates a valuable economic asset, that grows with the collective value of shared information assets in the community.
• Circles aims to “connect” everyone on earth digitally, just like the original post and telephone, but this time for free.

Tom Portante and I have held many conversations over the last few months, testing them, working them forward.  He's posts a collection of examples today. It's a little long in this format. Note this.   

"An unintended consequence of all of these possibilities -- once you establish a system that allows e-mail recipients to charge for their attention (by way of a token 17-cent 'postage' rate or some other fee structures) ...

...spam goes away."
There are three good example of how the knowledge innovation boundaries will be stretched. 

You will see the common themes.

• Economics of Attention
• Relationships, trust, circles,
• Personal Knowledge Management

Look more closely and you will see the emergent knowledge sharing opportunities, the benefits of rich profiles, and database technology that with redefine connectivity.  If you were a corporate you may see that as KM is individualised the relationships become more personal.  As the number of relationships grow the organization has new opportunities.  Real links with the outside world have always been treasured. The difference is every employee will add 150 and probably more like 1000. Each of those links will add to brand value.  The organization can once again become / have a conversation..... 

The last observation for tonight.  Is certainly one I've been experiencing today.  Websites for companies appear aggregated - centralized.  Well I've got news.  The new tools are decentralizing, not top down, no one controls all of them.  If you just look at this blog.  It's personal, it uses MT,and all the ecology items I just added add functionality.  Some come with a cost.  The KM field failed to centralize knowledge.  At the end of the day it's knowing 'who' to call.    

I had a delightful session with Duncan Work, Jan Hauser and Mike Dillard just over a week ago.  The conversation opened easily on a subject that included a passion for money, religion, and politics suggesting it can turn online communities into virtual nations --complete with leaders, laws, and citizens. 

Mike Dillard co-authored the article for the World Future Society "The Approaching Age of Virtual Nations":  I'm not sure you can down load it there. (It's fun with nice comments and response.) It was the idea about metamediaries, and consumer power that really got us talking. 

In the article they introduce Lifecast a company that managed to assemble a community of 1.4 million affluent participants.  Their combined annual incomes totalled more that $240 billion, and their documented personal net worth of more that $1.28 trillion.  There's some great stats there. Members flew more that 32 billion milles annually.  Arguably it would range 23rd amongst all the worlds nations. 

What was interesting in Mike's story was this company was formed round the golf clubs and as a result there was an enormous increase in social bonding and information gathering. Lifecast which was set up around a living the club proposition in the end turned off the networking because it's customers the clubs found it was detrimental to doing business.  The members didn't need to turn up for meetings they simply exchanged it online. 

What did they do? (from the wayback machine)

In addition to building and maintaining private, interactive, club Web sites with all the benefits of club news, email and message boards, we give members access to a range of lifestyle-oriented content through LifeCast Features, a selection of Web channels designed specifically for club members and their families.

Club members get stock quotes and weather reports, and the latest news and features from the worlds of travel, sports, finance, and fashion. It's kind of an online magazine for the private club lifestyle, and it's available only to members of LifeCast affiliate clubs.

What couldn't they do.  They couldn't enable or help people to connect between clubs.  That's where there remains a healthy business opportunity and one that requires an appropriate trust engine. 

While writing this I see Britt's been busy on a mass lux meme.   
Escapable Logic Another way of possibly confirming the potential. 

There's an interesting discussion around trust fueled by Pierre's blog and Mr G's follow-up on the Global Trust Exchange. It began with a question "What for?".  Somehow I think some posts are at cross purposes, when everyone could really be eating cake. 

It's not surprising.  Trust is not a simple word to define. Trust is situational, it is also mine.  Do I trade trust? And what's a trust exchange? If we are not sure of motives -- when trust's involved we are even more likely to jump to conclusions.

In a trust vein we looked at adding friends on Ryze.  "Will you be my friend?" and concluded we stopped asking questions like that long ago.  We've learnt that trust has many different faces.  In one instance I may ask you to be a referree on a job.  However, it's still possible that while I trust you with that reference, I may not trust you to cut down a tree.  Similarly I may be happy to refer you but conditions may be attached.

The problem here is in the name GTX not the concept. What's needed are illustrations.  In GTX connections between parties are defined by layers of permission and access.  These are friend to friend and not generic.  The brilliance in Net Deva is in the definitions and ultimately the simple way in which it makes connections, referrals and introductions. while paying attention to affinities and the type of relationship you have. 

Consider Pierre, Joi, William and Mr G.  Pierre asks Joi to be a financial reference and provides "Nickel Exchange details" plus general contact information etc by providing access to a rich profile format on GTX.  Joi is pleased to be a referee and accepts putting the minimum amount of information relating to himself into the system. He adds no further contacts, but over time others contact him, linking their business cards.  Similarly Pierre secures other referees.  For he's learnt that there are connections between us that hold hidden value. 

Example at a networking event or a conference when meeting someone new we cross-reference on books, people, places, and names possible connections pop up.  These are ones we sense might be worth sharing a little of our social capital on and making an introduction.

Now William is in the GTX and is looking for a connection and introduction to the Nickel Exchange. Without GTX it may take forever to find someone who knows his work and may provide an introduction.  With GTX he keys in his request and gets a list back of possible connections.  He's pleased to see Joi is on his list.  Now there are many levels, dependent on all the relationships that each have with each other.  If William is merely an aquaintance of Joi's the next exchange will be very different from finding out one of his partners (Joi possibly) knows Pierre. 

Now imagine you have a plumber come to your home.  On completing the job he asks if you might be a local reference for him - valid for a year. You are pleased with his work.  You say yes.  Now a neighbor is looking for a plumber (of course you don't know this).  Rather than waiting to ask friends they key into GTX, and find there are three people they are connected to via their daughters school class.  Three of them have the same plumber listed by name.  A fourth has a connection to a plumber but the name is not visible.  One parent you know very well.  Rather than calling them you call the plumber direct..... For the plumber has given access to his business details (super yellow page listing) though his trusted business referrals.  It's quite possible that the same plumber doesn't enable the same visibility via his church group.  Although members of his church group may be someone the neighbor could connect with who knows of a plumber. 

The trust issue is more I fear more of context here.  The examples are possible.  It's been done and there's an initial prototype. I've viewed Net Deva and want to see it rolled out.  It deserves further funding.  Ultimately a trust exchange may emerge.   

 Possible applications. 

• An enterprise wants to intiate a socially innovative client service and business development strategy
• An enterprise wants to lower the cost of human capital acqusition, finding new recruits though their network of employees, suppliers and key customers.
• A jobseeker wants to build a network of trusted referrals which will help get a new job and bring more value when newly employed
• A small company links to a multide of professional free agents, their access to talent just went up exponetially.   
• An individual wants to find someone who lived in Holland in 1983.
• A non-profit wants to raise money. They want to direct their volunteers to target specific organizational accounts.  Who best to reach out and approach? What groups could be put together? 
• that's enough for now

The real issues for "this trusted rich profile exchange" is in securing the numbers, ensuring and controlling access, security from spam and simply managing expectations.  In my view there's an organizational / enterprise model and a public model.  Usability must be kept simple.

So has the Global Trust Exchange just been miss-interpreted? Is it the language or the concept? We all exchange information all the time for value creation. See the applications.  The real question is what's the value of your missed opportunities? Can you afford not to experiment in this space.  If you are a large enterprise, a professional networking community or non-profit foundation, Net Deva is a nugget that may reframe how you do business. 

A Wonderful article "Smarter, Simpler, Social".  provides a great introduction to social software.

A few perspective sentences that really grabbed me.  

•  " Enterprise software itself is grounded in out-dated "process thinking".....
• “free online social applications are achieving usage levels and a depth of user engagement that enterprise software purchasers can only dream about....”
•  “the popular model of the value chain is also an engineering concept, derived from expanding the process view to the business as a whole. …
•   closed networks amplifies predispositions….
•  Maintain a healthy level of connections between people so that when and where they need to they can connect effectively with others….

The authors also make a nice point about emergent metadata.---- goes beyond syndication toward synchronization.  ….. Manage personal knowledge according to their own individual perspectives.  This all after starting the piece noting busineses face a crisis

It's the individual area I think I'd like to learn more about.  Maybe it is just a suspicion, but smarter, simpler, social seems to miss out an individual element.  Perhaps it is self evident.  Smarter simpler software at the individual level then enables new opportunities to emerge.  Just like mass customization I suspect the individual has a larger role to play. I’d add the individual is also the customer.

Personal knowledge spaces are very real-time. Expanding real-time PKS will enable more innovation though better connectivity.  Some time back I blogged a short piece PKnF – Personal Knowledge networking Friends.  

A parallel piece --- one that is completely counter-intuitive to most is www.xpertweb.com and what Brit and Flemming are doing.  It’s a new form of knowledge contracting.  It’s time is nearing.  Add to that the capability to hold the library of congress on our key chain, the question may be how we make it much more useful?  

Like many I had a couple of invites to LinkedIn over the last few days.  So my curiosity came into play.  I'm getting a little jaded now.  Ryze, Ecademy, Friendster (there's a financial connection / similarlity) etc.  This post today will force me separately to do an update on Ryze.  There's the plenty of natural speculation out there on how it will grow and do. 

LinkedIn leaves me a little cold from the get go. Utimately, this site will fail not on short-term interest or due to power laws.  It simply doesn't doesn't deal with the gradiations of trust and the number of different connections that are required. 

It seems simple enough profile yourself.  Give lots of industry and CV detail.  The thing is the connections that are suggested in many case don't need all this information to be revealed until the parties are prepared to play. I still believe Ecrush is something to learn from. There's someone out there that's interested in your skills - you both know X do you want an introduction? A lot more privacy and control with this example. 

I notice that Joi has some 232 connections today. What does it mean? What sort of introduction does one get? When the search returns the one with the most connections is that the best link for me?

Some rambling objections and queries:

First it's captured my most personal e-mail address - I didn't get a choice.  Of course it's how my friends and key business contacts find me, but LinkIn has no rights to know me or start a relationship this way.  And now they are dumping invite responses in this e-mail stream.  Yes I've fixed it with a new primary address. 

Now I'm in - I should be spending time credentialling myself.  Where are the models, I only have one friend (at this point) I skip the details, they just wanted one industry (doesn't fit me) and want to know who's here.  When you are new it's hard to learn from others in this system.  Search see some resumes. Will take more time if I'm to be active in here. There is no immediate kick or gratification.  No Ryze like guestbook goodwill. 

It's not very transparent behind the scenes.  There's no photo's, I'm becoming hesitant to send out any invites.  The only people I can think to invite are those I've been experimenting with.  They'll understand I'm on the loose again.  I invite a couple.

Now today there are plenty of great comments on Joi's site.  It does bother me what's happening behind the scenes.  See Kevin Marks. Look at Marc Cantor's comments too.  

What I've not seen are the following questions. 

• How do I link out (get out) of LinkedIn? It simply doesn't allow me to share my information with my contacts in an effective fashion.  For example I might be willing to share Scenario Proposals with key contacts or those I've worked with or for.  I might not want to do it for everyone.  
• This is another "invite" focused site.  Make connections it screams. This may be backwards.  Should you invite or ask for a referal or reference.  Had the instruction been set up this way my network building would already have been significantly different.  The language used is important.  LinkedIn uses "Connections".  Some connections are transitory others are permanent. Connections are different to contacts which we placeholder and categorise differently. 
• Can I change my relationship with my connections? If my perceptions of my contacts change dropping them means they aren't referring me any longer.  How do I change the relationship?  At the moment you can't although you can withdraw an invite. Because it is declarative with no middle ground, we'd have the childish problem Ryze raised at one time but in reverse.  "So you don't want to be my friend (connection) anymore?" 

It's encouraging that investments are continuing in this space.  This one doesn't bring much pleasure or instant gratification to the user.  Still if someone contacts me it might be a real surprise.  My impression may change.  At the moment I'm doing slightly better than the average on connections (4vs3). I expect nothing. 

Summary:

LinkedIn provides an interesting preview for the future of referrals.  It fails to engender joy or excitement, in fact many will be hesitant to use it.  Connections terminology is not consistent with trust and the leader board search that ranks on connections isn't helping things.  It's too closed for my liking.  I know of something better. 

To find Jim McGees post on Trust Security and OD after writing on LinkedIn today seemed appropriate particularly as LinkedIn is a closed system. 

"Humans gain trust by interacting and "getting to know" people. Transparent technologies that make it easy to see what people and companies are up to (in a sense the opposite of firewalls) are what help me trust. I like Reagan's saying: "trust, but verify". It implies that trust requires means for openness, not firewalls and secretiveness." SATN.org: David Reed,

Somehow I think bloggers are opening up perhaps just so we can get to know someone and make some new connections.  Having a degree of broken or incomplete connections is probably ok.  That's exploratory.  We also desire collaboration, that's in smaller groups. 

Jim uses a chart reproduced below created by Bob Keidel of whom I'm not familiar and writes:

Typically we tend to think only in terms of the tradeoff between control and autonomy. His, richer, model introduces a third point of cooperation and suggests that organization design problems can be treated as looking for a spot somewhere inside the triangle instead of somewhere along one of its edges. The trend has been northward towards more recognition of cooperation and, hopefully, away from stale debates about control or autonomy

I'd gone off triangles..... and would like to see the tittles changed to reflect the knowledge organization.  Replace Control, Cooperation and Autonomy with Leadership, Learning and Leverage and we may conclude that innovation and communities of practice go together.  They work when there's the context and discipline to ask better questions.  Which for me is a balance and mixing it up between leadership and frontline understanding - leverage!

What’s Coming? --- Augmented Social Networks:

“Could the next generation of online communications strengthen civil society by better connecting people to others with whom they share affinities, so they can more effectively exchange information and self-organize? Could such a system help to revitalize democracy in the 21st century? When networked personal computing was first developed, engineers concentrated on extending creativity among individuals and enhancing collaboration between a few. They did not much consider what social interaction among millions of Internet users would actually entail. It was thought that the Net's technical” architecture need not address the issues of "personal identity" and "trust," since those matters tended to take care of themselves.

This is a clip from the Linktank paper posted as part of the Planetwork conference.  Like the Smarter, Simpler, Social paper referred to earlier on this blog here it is worth reading.  For me together they provide a useful entry point into thinking about where we are going.  For me these two papers are further warning indicators that reaffirm my belief that radical innovation is being redefined by those that use ASN related tools, within their organizations, CoP's and simply with their circles (business, professional, social). 

I also just re-read a post from my earlier blogging days on Radical Strategy Innovation. (One that gave me some concern at the time for mouthing off.)  Looking at it today and thinking about the tools I've become more accustomed to using and participating in I believe the key messages still apply.  Five points for Radical Strategy Innovation.

1. First organize your lines of inquiry to be network and community centric.
2. Then collaborate to create compelling friction points that give your community "an innovation voice"!
3. Seek out "hidden" connections - collaborative responsive highly connective networks are important to framing the fullfillment of unarticulated needs.
4. Build-in collaborative community skills into facilitating markets - value creation. 
5. (New / revised) Add to the collective and spiritual values -- without them you will have a system rather than a transformation.

Summary:

In a world of increasing hyperconnectivity, how will augmented social networks impact on innovation? Is your current dogma for Radical Innovation collaborative and spiritual enough to make a meaningful transformation?  How will your communities best be served -- strategically and through what architecture to facilitate the change?

All communities need a purpose.  I just liked this as one quick way to think about your knowledge innovation practice.  It's the type of chart one can whiteboard as part of a group discussion.  It's contained in a presentation by Cynthia Typados's for Planetwork Using her 12 principles.  Here is the link to the presentation.  You will have to scroll down to "Social Networking Sites vs. The 12 Principles"....  (Can't reproduce it here or provide a direct link.  Shame really - it is locked in frames). 

Note the importance of idenity and reputation after purpose. Also mentioned was the article "It's not what you know, It's who you know" published in 2000 on FirstMonday." I found it well worth going back and reading. 

We chose the term intensional to reflect the effort and deliberateness with which people construct and manage personal networks. The spelling of the term is intended to suggest a kind of tension and stress in the network. We found that workers experience stresses such as remembering who is in the network, knowing what people in the network are currently doing and where they are located, making careful choices from among many media to communicate effectively with people, and being mindful to "keep in touch" with contacts who may prove useful in the near or distant future. At the same time, "intensional" also suggests a "tensile strength" in network activity; we found our informants endlessly resourceful and energetic in their everyday collaborative activities within their networks.

Emerging Social Networking sites need to think more carefully about their brands. Too much time is spent "engineering" and not enough being conversational telling real stories. Strategic brand positioning is becoming ever more important in this realm. I continue to miss compelling stories on the new sites.

Today I was pushed by a colleague back to take another look at LinkedIn. I've not been growing my network there. My profile lacks detailed documentation. So I found myself playing around there and on Tribes getting a feel for yet another emerging social network. There's also SixDegrees (in beta), and if you are enterprise ready with money you can look at Spoke and Visible Path. also locked in beta. There are others too. Mostly clones.

Ross Mayfield ("The Network is the Market") also provides an excellent technical positioning overview of Tribe and demonstrates the innovative thought going in these offerings. Matt comments here and I'm sure there are others as a vacation means I'm late to the party.

At each one I try and ask myself: "How do we all feel here?" What's the tone? What is the brand trying to convey. Seeing as none of these are yet growing exponentially --- all have failed to get into the millions I suspect core issues remain around branding, functionality and "viral" growth strategies.

For my two cents Tribe is being too structured and planned in its layout and branding. While it is crisp and organized - when I think about my networks I do with feelings, sensations, connections perhaps even trepedations. I also think directory, business cards, phone numbers. If I'm thinking about trading things (something Tribe encourages) then my online experience is dictated by eBay. There's lots of personality in the listings on eBay. That's missing from Tribe. Similarly the book reviews on Amazon are another way of adding color. Ryze does it by using GuestBooks. While guest books aren't endorsements --- they are an informal method of understanding the conversations around people. As such they are useful and can rapidly broker new exchanges.

While I'm on these things... I have a generaly gripe about many of the registration processes. They don't quickly show me while I'm filling things in what others are putting in their boxes. A new registrant is going to be uncomfortable. What are you interests? Many... No be specific..... Human stories - and examples... please!

Then for participation they must be friendly, fun and inviting. If you don't enjoy it --- it won't get done. Tribe might take on Craigslist or take people away from Friendster. I know it still in beta and I bet there are many new functionalities to come. However from what I've seen so far... play, chaos, individuality, is in my view too restrictive.

So I'm going out on a limb.... just before Ryze - rumoured to be readying a relaunch shows its new stripes I'll reinforce that from a brand point of view - Ryze's inelegance is part of it's brand strength. Ryze was clearly created by human hands, the journey of a special person. Its useablity inelegant. Still at Ryze I feel like I own my own page. Ryze's pages often have a chaotic appeal that Tribe in it's current format will never achieve. At Tribe I'm part of a database - the tight pages.. no scrolling. It's an important distinction. Ryze could learn some lessons from Tribe, while Tribe still has to learn some Ryze lessons. Yep they are ostensibly focused at different markets. Still if I was Ryze I'd add their listings functionality.

So... make these brands about people.

Some functional desires in support:

Try SKYPE out. When I've made a few more calls I'll report. If you are thinking about the future of IM, social networks, progressive disclosure, disruptive innovation and thought the founders of Kazaa were smart. This will probably confirm it. Read their Skype discription here. Provides some interesting strategy insights. Wish it would work with my Mac based friends.

Evan caught this:  Skype.  P2P telephony.  From the Dutch developers of FastTrack (the system that powers KaZaA).  In my opinion, this is the first true legitimate application of P2P technology.  Next step:  a pro version with call waiting, voicemail, etc.   I am going to try it out to see if it does provide the quality level claimed.  If you are on, let me know so we can try it out.  Also, I wish they had skins for this so it won't look bad on my desktop (nobody needs an ugly ICQ-like system on their desktop). [John Robb's Weblog]

Are there more business models around P2P? Seems a good time to highlight this emerging research business. BigChampagne is bubbling in the media world. Like Zoomerang lowered the cost of market reserach BigChampagne is the online ethnographer. They simply observe - watching for behavior changes.

In fact, it tracks every download and sells the data to the music industry. How one company is turning file-sharing networks into the world's biggest focus group. By Jeff Howe from Wired magazine. [Wired]

This month, I chatted with Kai Rissdal about the RIAA and BigChampagne, the company that gleans customer intelligence from filesharing networks. (The interview is in RealAudio.) [Z+Blog!]

Hard media is in jeopardy: By 2008, revenues from CDs will be off 19%, while DVDs and tapes will drop 8%. Piracy and its cure -- streaming and paid downloads -- will drive people to connect to entertainment, not own it.

If you are like me scanning for early indicators --- looking upstream from time to time to see what's coming then Skype and Big Champagne are two "signals" that the world may be moving in this direction. When I mentioned Skype to George Por today he kindly referred me to an article by Michel Bauwens, "Peer to Peer -from technology to politics to a new civilization". It was the first time I'd heard the meme "P2P Civilization". I rather liked it. There is further thinking in the "Integrative Style" in this Text Index.

It's all really intriguing. This question of whether and how we should codify relationships with the majority of effort around centralized data solutions, negotiating standards and adoption. I'm thinking there is another route.

Right now Skype has 18869 users online with 240000 downloads. That is more than any of these social networking tools Ryze, Ecademy, Linkedin, Tribe etc.. have ever had on concurrently. The founders negotiated no standards they are simply providing a phone system that works. See Cnet and the quote below.

Let's tie the interesting discussion on relationships and social networking software that's emerged over the weekend to whats happening with Skype. The discussion started with Liz Lawley here and then a great perspective by Danah Boyd here and Matt Mower adds more here. Summed up in Marc's blog as well where he says.

However if Matt knew what it took us to even broach the subject of multi-granularity to the RDF camp and get it expressed in FOAF, he'd know that you gotta walk before you can run. Since everyone's concept of 'friends' is this binary yes or no sort of attitude, it has repercussions across all sorts of issues: user experience, profile interchange, the semantic web, ecommerce and multimedia personalization.

Whether it be for a foundation of federated social networks, enhancing one's digital lifestyle aggregation or as a basis multimedia personalization - putting identity into CONTEXT is what it's all about. Identity doesn't work as a stand alone concept - putting folks into a frenzy about privacy and security. It only works - when it's put into some real-world context.

I fully expect people to leave AIM, Yahoo and MSN for Skype. Skype's already carrying a profile. It could be made significantly richer and I'm sure progressive disclosure could be enabled quickly. My question is what access do I want to enable. My buddies and buddies buddies? Those that have read or linked to my blog? Sure! The doctor's office, dentist etc. Yep. Then those that perhaps I don't know but are prepared to provide a verified profile, including those verified to contain no adult content. Concurrently with these lists we have an emerging phone system that may be linked to our knowledge assets. Why can't Google and Technorati be linked to Skype? If Technorati can search Skype blog urls and match with owner names... then we would accelerate exchanges. It could easily be made smart (online or offline) and provide a notification!

Thus blogging / knowledge assets would also have a Skype contact number capability and whether they could be reached now or if they are offline you could offer a notification service perhaps even using Skype that so’n so is now online. Potentially you could make this a Technorati call. You become the call forwarder thus brokering the intro. Ie this person has linked to your blog and is available to talk to you. Similarly when I send a trackback pin, should I have an option to ping Technorati that I'd be willing to talk to the pinged author? There's a lot that could be done here. I imagine Feedster too could start searching online Skype users and link back to retrieved postings.

Similarly I'd like someone to tell me quickly how I add an additional input section to my comments like the e-mail address that enables a Skype callback. Be a lot easier to thank people that way!

Kazaa co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom have a new target: the telephone industry. They've launched Skype, which they claim is the first Internet phone service to use peer-to-peer software. In just its first week of availability, 60,000 people downloaded the free Skype software. Other voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, such as Vonage or Free World Dialup (FWD), needed several months to attract the same level of interest. Tech News - CNET.com

Separately, where there has been some negative blogging around the Eula and possible future charges keep the following in mind. First it is now proven and could be duplicated. Second this is a global phenomena and any charges will have to work accordingly. Lastly, real disruptive change happens when the cost factor means the new product is 10 times cheaper. That can only happen if everyone get online. Pressure your friends and I bet more than a few new businesses emerge.

Via Marc see the Abstract Dynamics posting on Friendster.check it out.

I don't really understand Adrian Scott at all.
... the Ryze thing... what's with this new logo... LIKE WHAT????
This is exactly what we've been talking about. Branding and Social networks. You know the YASNS. Well caution. Don't jump the gun. It's not finished. Yeah. just first impresssions? Really give them to me. Thought you would never ask.

Well sire it looks a little awkward, bits of the old design intact. No come on now I really want your opinion. Well then I'm really really disappointed. In fact I'm RED with it. DANGER DANGER. That's no sunrise honey... it's the morning after an A-bom. Are you sure you have thought this though? Is it gut or analysis? What's with the colors? It hard to tell. Presume they will play with the left and drop the duplication. Sort of looks like they are short handed. Was this really a good investment in the community. All I wanted was some features. Not a strip bar. There's

no sense of art in a place where artisans play
no sense of personality in a realm of personalities.
no sense of canvas when everyone paints
no sense of action when everyone chatters
no sense of our place just structured space.

Jeez when we talk about branding we talk brand personae and oh high and mighty I see red. I see the red devils work here. Just when I was hoping to get a break from that stinking light blue-grey. You know... White, with spashes of orange and yellow! We were once an innovative community, transforming networks, connecting not red for the hunting.

Wonder if there was a budget for it. Careful, be analytical now. Yep I'm certain it is totally out of synch with what RYZE stands for. Hey do you remember that Ryze research, the few focus groups... the quotes from users, the group on Serious Play sort of kicked it around. Can you remember that far back. Yes sir. It's in my blog --- before categories. Look them up if I must. Shared some with the Ryze folks too. Hmmmm... Check my recollections! Thinkthe comments are on representative. Could the community have changed that much?

Oh man those guy must need a party. Where are Mixers in all this? Where the Guest idea? Didn't you feel like you used to own your page? Yeah I did. It was the first of the soft human profiles. I'm wondering where my home will be now. Gosh what next? A Friendster faceroll? I used to welcome you to my space. I'd check out your guestbook. When you were on my page you were visiting and then I'd go home to the house that Adrian had built for all of us. Dam I can't find the mixer on the beach. Ever been to a Mixer on the beach? Nope but I bet they happened. You sure you are not just mouthing off. Nah.. well maybe. Bet you got a trip to the Bahamas.

Where is the fatal mistake? The evil of the ways? Oh it's coming to me. Yep that's it. the fatal mistake. the emphasis till now on the left was navigation. Holy Crap Batman you mean it has been Amazoned. Yep sure do Robin. Alfred has the lesson. The emphasis on the left was navigation ... . by trying to go left to right with the oversized new indexing tabs... outlined and shadowed... he's usurped my identity.... Scotty's stolen my page. You sure? Yep pretty sure. Before graphically the header wasn't so strong. Now the header and the RED logo are stronger than my name and picture. Oh come now. pack up that frustrated marketer. Go back and whistle techie tunes.

No way I got to get me a link to that touchy feelie research. Now where's those quotes> Yep here it is consumer research? What's it say. Probably said Ryze was refreshing, tickled the parts other sites didn't reach. Was Adrians thing for his friends. Look like maybe he sold out.

The new stuff? Says RYZE first --- ME second. What was the brief? Oh probably make the community more professional looking. You have any recommendations? Is there a strategy? Is there a business model? Ryze could have had it all.

A smart community is allowed to weigh in on developing its future direction. Scotty's Red Ryze saw follow-ups; "followed up last week with "Ryze - don't let the sun go down". Maybe it was just late night fun. I was temped to let it go until I learned Dina had asked the question in a couple of Ryze networks. So here's the scoop (selected comments are hardly a sample). However the Ryze Logo change is a wonderful illustration for others around which a community forms. Just possibly it will help the team at Skype think though the "community" opportunities they have and the implications for creating an open dialogue.

I like this application of Feng Shui. I'd never thought of it that way before. Not everyone comes at a logo or a community with the same perspective.

From the fengshui point of view, on a page the element that occupies the topmost left corner is wood. the element colour being green. the colour red symobilises fire, which is totally destructive of wood. its not suitable at all.

However if the red logo was positioned in the centre ie. top centre of the page, it would help since the element for that portion is fire, element colour being red.
I will not be surprised if the majority feel uncomfortable about the red in that corner. try changing it to green or blue. it would definitely be more soothing. Full Quote link
Sandhya Advanii

If I were behind the RYZE scene - I would run a contest -
What should our logo look like ? Let:s see your Stuff...BRAND US!
...submissions have a dedicated posting page where WE the peeps get to VOTE.........

RYZE wins all around... they get free graphic design, test market a winning logo that WE voted into being, create an internal buzz that moves them up a notch on the " what can we do for our members" tip, deliver a non-verbal message everybody wants to hear, it's YOUR community and last and most important - all the creatives who submit their work "Get Noticed" - which is one of the reason we are all here. Full Quote linkRosetta Stone

My take on Ryze is that it was the Craigslist of networking. It's not all fussy about site design, and more about function. I think this logo, and the whole direction is caught in the middle. If you want to be simple, then don't have a logo. If you want to build a brand, then do a GOOD logo. Certainly, with all the talent on this community, there had to be someone out there who could have done a compelling logo that's easy on the eyes.
Full Quote LinkMarc Lefton

"As some of you may be aware... Ryze is doing the implementation in phases - thus what you see now is perhaps 15% of the GUI we designed. Obviously, few of the IA or GUI improvements have been made and the visual ID is (clearly) not completed and/or representative of any sort of "brand building" efforts."

David follows up today with another detailed posting Skype P2P VoIP App: One in a Million?
"If they don't screw it up with a confusing and overpriced subscription service, Skype could possibly become one of those extremely rare apps that comes along and truly changes communication and networking on the web." David also puts a stick in the ground on pricing. I'm not sure I agree either in the global context or the method. What's important right now is the appropriate business expectations are created. Skype may well have launched with more "noise" than expected.

What I do want from David is his method for signaling whether Skype is online or offline on my blog. Come on David share! They will want it on Ryze pages and on Ecademy.

In the early reviews some emerging features are being missed.