Robert Paterson's Weblog

David & Goliath - Making the Very Small Organization Powerful - A Series at the QSC

It is now clear that the many parts of what can be described as Social Media are not merely the fantasies of an elite group of nerds but are a set of excellent tools can help the very small organization - business or NGO or artist etc - to do so much more for less.

An artist of musician can break out more easily - she/he can attract a core of supporters who can act as both an amplifier for their work and also as a sense maker for the scene keeping the artist in context.

A small business can have the marketing and power of a very large one - it can use video online to show what it does, who are the people involved, answer questions - it can use Twitter to follow trends, pick up problems and opportunities - to have the kind of research that a major corporation would die to get. It can use powerful tools to write, present, handle numbers, keep the group in touch that the larger organizations would envy. It can attach it self to a wide range of resources and help.

A small NGO can get its message out, build a powerful support group - it can tell stories that help stimulate change - be more effective for much less money. 

The very small can use these tools to have the power of the very large - for almost no extra cost.

But there is a catch.

Where do you learn this? There are no courses run by the usual institutions.

How also do you get over the fear of the really new?

The place could be the Queen Street Commons and we can get over our fears of the new by helping each other as well as having some experts.

Here is a link to the Queen Street Commons Blog where you can see what kind of place this is.

We will host a series of lunchtime meetings where we will have conversations about how to do many of the things that will enable you to become good at using these tools. Each meeting will have a few people who know a lot but the meeting will also be designed as a conversation. You too will have a lot to offer.

Outside the meeting we will set up a supporting online community where you can try stuff and seek help from the people that you have met face to face.

Our intent is to have not only "teachers" but also people like you who have already put their toe in the water -  fellow explorers who have not got it all solved - people like you who don't have all the answers yet.

With luck you will find an ongoing resource in this group - "go to" experts that can answer a question or solve a problem - confidants - suppliers - new customers - friends.

Some of the topics that we are thinking about might be:

• How to make and use video online
• Leading to how to tell a good story
• How to use Twitter to listen and to influence
• How to use the web - community building - blogging etc
• How to use a wide range of free or close to free tools on the web - from Word Processing to Blogging
• How to create your own "Place" on the web - your TV/radio station - Your Community etc
• Setting up and running networks

We plan to offer these during the lunch hour. The price will be affordable by any individual or small organization.

I have not talked about the details yet because I still have some work to do in staffing and scheduling.

What do you think? Will this help you? Would you like to help.

Going Home - More thought

I posted a first draft of my essay Going Home in February. This week I was talking to a friend, Kashmir Birk about the similarities between the Gutenberg Bible and Social Software and how Social Software may have the same explosive impact on human society and on who has power.

We had what we thought was a huge AHA!

In my draft essay, I had remarked how , as many others have, it was the cheapness and availability of the printed page that made the difference in giving the people the power.

But as we talked this week, a new thought emerged. I had been in a meeting offering a client a web site based on the new technology. A critical part of the new type of site is the use of powerful search rather than a book-like taxonomy. Wikipedia versus say a Government of Canada site - all tabs and navigation.

The client was stunned to understand that the search engine was not only very powerful but free. 5 years ago the search engine would have cost $30,000 and would have been peripheral to the site architecture.

Later the AHA hit me. As importantly as reducing the cost per page, the really huge idea behind Gutenberg was the use of the local language.

Until then not only were books produced by a high cost production system but they were written in this strange code called Greek or Latin that only a Priest understood! Has not technology been written in a language known only to priests? Called Fortran, Cobol or Flash, only the initiated could use it. Now not only are the new tools cheap but they can be understood by the layman.

As with the rise of Protestantism - we no longer need a priest between us and God. The tools will not only do away with much of the IT world/Priesthood but will of course take down their dependents - the monarchs/ large organizations.

Open Office

I am thinking of using Open Office .

Any advice for Apple (me) and for PC(Robin)?

The 3 big things that you wished you had known type of advice is what I need

Thanks - the best advice will get an iTunes gift

A9, Firefox - The web is on the move again

I have been using A9 since this weekend - WOW!!!! For me, linking the search into books, text in books, pictures, movies all in one page is amazing. A9 is especially helpful in the blogging world. I have also downloaded the Preview edition of Firefox.

The web has just made a big move in quality. Here is how the Economist sees this

From the Economist
JUST when you thought you knew the web, along come new competitors to keep things interesting. On September 15th, a new search engine called A9.com was unveiled by Amazon, the giant internet retailer. It repackages Google's search results, but with useful tweaks. Searches not only call up websites and images on the same page, but other references, such as Amazon's book search, the Internet Movie Database, and encyclopaedia and dictionary references. Moreover, it keeps track of users' search histories—an important innovation as search becomes more personalised.

Many had assumed the market was stitched up by Google and Yahoo! (who account for over 90% of searches), barring the expected entrance of Microsoft. Likewise, the market for online music seemed settled: Apple's iTunes is the leader, its main rivals being RealNetworks and Microsoft's MSN Music. Yet this, too, understates the potential for battle. Last week, Yahoo! bought Musicmatch, an online music retailer and software firm, for $160m. Music downloads are now worth roughly $310m annually but are forecast to grow to $4.6 billion by 2008, according to Forrester Research, so there is room for new firms to sprout.

Meanwhile, the most surprising new competition is in web browsers. Microsoft was the undisputed champ, after bundling Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system in the 1990s and destroying Netscape. However, Microsoft's browser is so vulnerable to attacks by online crooks and various troublemakers that the American and German governments have recommended that users consider alternatives. This has been a boon to two small browser-makers, Opera, a Norwegian software company, and Mozilla, which developed the Firefox browser based on an open-source version of Netscape. Firefox boasted 1m downloads within 100 hours of its release on September 14th.

Security has become the main competitive difference. The software of both Opera and Mozilla is considered safer (partly because they have fewer users and so are a less attractive target for hackers). Microsoft's share of the browser market has actually shrunk over the past three months from around 96% to 94%. It is a highly symbolic phenomenon, albeit a modest decrease. Even Google is thought to be toying with the idea of launching its own browser.

Underlying this ripple of competition is the ability of large companies that already benefit from economies of scale to extend into new areas, says Hal Varian, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. That explains Amazon's A9 search service and Yahoo!'s move into music. As for browsers, “Microsoft had a lock on the market and just dropped the ball. Microsoft hasn't provided any innovation in the browser area and they had poor security,” he says. The message: watch your back.

Microsoft Opens Up - The wisdom of crowds - Open Source takes another step

It has just ben announced that Microsoft will make the source code for Office 2003 available to governments

Snip from PC World

Facing growing competition from open source software providers, Microsoft has decided to allow governments and international organizations access to source code for its Office 2003 productivity suite.

The Redmond, Washington, company said this week that it would be offering governments access to the Office code under a shared source license as part of its Government Security Program. The U.K. government has already signed up to see the code, Microsoft says.

The move is aimed at shoring up confidence in the security and interoperability of Microsoft software as it faces stiffer competition in the public sector from rivals such as Sun Microsystems, which has been touting growing support among governments for its open source productivity software, dubbed StarOffice.

In addition to responding to open source threats, Microsoft is also hoping that by allowing governments to lift the lid on Office it can diminish the mounting security concerns raised about its software.

The walls are surely cracking? Not just in redmond - but around the idea that you can have a better product if it is made in secret at corporate HO. We are surely seeing an important day in the life of enterprise where the flow of information will reverse and we will truly learn from the voice and the energy of our clients.

Throwing down the gauntlet. or "You just don't get it!" - The Gospel according to Joe Trippi

I have just finished Joe Trippi's book

WOW!!!

I have been feeling that we are indeed at a point of paradox where a new and better world is in sight just as we see the world of corporate power and alienation at its most powerful.

The new is no longer a theory. Companies such as eBay, Amazaon, Southwest are eviscerating their traditional competitors. Bottom up organizations will replace command and control, where ever it exists - in business, in politics, in government - everywhere. Community will be the organizational structure and where power will reside. Open Source will be the organizational model. The new is now inevitable. For those who lead organizations the time to decide has come. Do you vainly defend the indefensible or embrace the world to come?

Trippi is no theoretical opportunist. He, like Paul on the road to Damascus has been transformed by an experience. Trippi's involvement in the Dean Campaign has taken him outside of the Cave, he can tell us about the new reality as he has experienced it and like all those who have been touched by powerful forces he speaks with a passion and with a power that comes from knowing that he has felt the truth.

His words speak more eloquently than I can:

"In that way, Dean for America is a sneak preview of coming attractions - the interplay between these new technologies and our old institutions. The end result will be massive communities completely redefining our politics, our commerce, our government, and the entire public fabric of our culture.

For ten years, it has been the dawn of this movement. Now it has arrived For years we've seen the Internet as revolution in business or in culture. But what we are seeing - at its core - is a political phenomenon, a democratic movement, that proceeds from our civic lives and naturally spills over into the music we hear, the clothes we buy, the causes that we support.

What this democratizing means for American business is that they have a choice now: embrace a more open, responsive era or make a doomed stance against progress. Cling to the old top down structure, or radically reinvent the way that you do business. The companies that survive, prosper and thrive in this new age will be the ones that respond to the three demands that this movement will make of corporate America:

1. We want business to empower consumers
2. We want corporations to be responsive to shareholders
3. We will only tolerate companies that are good corporate citizens"

""The companies that will thrive - the companies that are thriving - are those that embrace the bottom up nature of the Internet culture. The companies that make the turn will be those that figure out how to empower their customers to have a say in the products that they buy and use.............

I'll give you an example of how this could work.......... Ford Motor Company: the venerable automaker has a slick, nifty looking web site. And it's like watching the most boring television commercial you ever saw. It hardly ever changes. There are pictures of cars, some words, a place you can look at press releases and corporate information. (Yeah, like that it's going to compete with online porn?)

But what if Ford did this: Announce that it is designing a new Mustang and that it wants all those loyal drivers who ever owned a Mustang to help decide what it should look like...... Now what happens when they roll that new Mustang out on the showroom floor? You will have created a community that has something invested in this car and, best of all....... it will actually be a car that the community wants. They'll buy it for 2 reasons. It has the features that they asked for and they already have ownership in it. A group that already exists - intensely loyal and nostalgic Mustang drivers - will form a community and have a home, the Ford website, where they can compare mileage, share service tips and offer suggestions for next year's model.

Compare this to the way cars are unveiled now like top secret weapons. Then, once the manufacturer has rolled out its new car, it has to compete for the attention of the automotive media. And even if the automotive media have given the green light, the company must still buy hundreds of millions of dollars in expensive, scattershot advertising in the hopes that they will accidentally and randomly hit people who are watching Survivor and have been thinking about buying a Ford. Why not have the people who drive Fords come to you? And when they get there, why not let them do something? ..........

We want the power to choose............In every industry, in every segment of the economy, the power is shifting over to us. If you are working for an American company, you get to decide whether you want to be the recording executive who thought he had beaten Napster or the one off trying to figure out how to make money with the iPod....

You get to decide if you are going to keep throwing money at television advertising, a one to many medium that becomes more expensive and less effective with each passing day or if you are going to do what eBay did and build a community around your company.

Because if you are not committed to build the Kodak community, or the Chrysler community, then you are just putting in time until the first mover in your industry does it and takes you out. Then you'll say that you never saw it coming, just like the movie industry won't see it coming when kids start using digital cameras to produce 2 hour movies and distribute the films themselves using broadband.

I who like many of who write about a decentralized and more democratic world work from observation and intuition. JT writes from a visceral personal perspective. He, like Galileo, has seen the new world with his own eyes.

At one level the book is a narrative of the Dean campaign But it is also a prediction of how the now ever more established rules of the networked world will overwhelm the ruling oligarchies.

As a service to those who have not read his book - here are Joe's "7 Inviolable, Irrefutable, Ingenious things your business, or institution or candidate can do in the age of the internet that might keep you from getting your ass kicked but then again might not"

Apple Notebooks - Open Source?

Can you help me?

I think the time has come for me to begin to migrate to Open Source. I really do sense a sea change and am prepared to get dirty and to lose time to learn. Any advice on Open Office and Mozilla and any other tools that I will need to replace the MS stuff.

As a platform, I am also in the market for a notebook. Apple seems the way to go. The IBook 14 incher looks like what I can afford. My last Apple was an Apple II that I bought in 1981. Again any advice? Will the 14 inch IBook be Ok or do I have to step up for a Power Book?

Any general advice?