To celebrate the 10th anniversary of LinkedIn, people are uploading presentations about what they were doing 10 years ago. I co-founded and incorporated Socialtext during the same month. This is one of the first presentations I gave about the company back then.
2. #10years
To celebrate the 10th
anniversary of LinkedIn,
people are posting what they
were doing 10 years ago to
SlideShare with the tag:
10years
3. #10years
10 years ago I co-founded Socialtext
And what follows is one of my first
presentations about the company, to
the Highlands Forum in DC
Now I work at SlideShare, and I’m a
lot better at presentations than
this…
5. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
Problems
• People are not participants in today’s
systems
• Today’s systems overload people with
communication
• Lost power of people as intelligent
agents and editors
• Social capital in organizations
6. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
Getting smart people to participate
• Ease of use
• Ease of ownership
• Make it social
• Make it socially rewarding
7. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
Power of social filtering
• Weblogs turn people into editors
• The social connections between weblogs
distribute information in an emergent
network
• The best information and expertise rises
to the top
8. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
The Blogmap Project
• First Social Network Analysis of an online
community over time
11. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
A New Kind of Enterprise Software
Traditional Approach
• Focus on "knowledge
content" separate from
people
• Add-on activity -- add
metadata; fill out forms
with resume expertise
• Artificial intelligence --
ineffective technology
• Top-down, inflexible
ontology, workflow and
process
Connection approach
• Make it easy for people
to express ideas and
build connections
• Links create an emergent
network
• People provide
intelligence
• Makes people and
information easier to find
• Continuous improvement
of collected knowledge
and wisdom
12. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
Result of Traditional Approach has Created a Corporate
Email Crisis
• 50 emails/day/person
– (IFTF/Pitney Bowes, 2002; Cavanagh, 2002 )
• 100 emails/day in email intensive companies
– (Microsoft 2001)
• Volume growing 30%/year
– (Gartner, 2001; Cavanagh, 2002)
• 70 % employees are overwhelmed by volume
– (Franklin Covey, 2001)
• Hours spent on email is approaching 4 hours/day; invading
personal time
– (Cavanagh, 2002)
"It's a management issue," says Cavanagh.
"If you're getting 50 or more e-mails a day,
you're spending four hours a day just doing e-mail.
That means it's no longer a productivity tool."
13. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
What’s a Weblog?
• Chronological view of an individual or
group's efforts, writings, opinions
• Example: doc.weblogs.com
• Focus on what's new and what's news
• Common elements include a sidebar
with persistent links, plus ever-changing
content
14. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
What’s a Wiki?
• A collaborative online workspace, easily
created and edited by its participants.
• Example: Wikipedia free encyclopedia
• View by time or browse through
relations between pages
15. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
Weblogs in Organizations
• Benefits
– Easy to publish - one-step, no formatting, no coding
– Avoid email overload
– Social network provides emergent information
discovery
– Personal voice, rich information -- not just a resume
database
• Applications
– Product marketing/management - voice of the
customer
– Researcher/sales engineer -- voice of the expert
– Community of practice -- voice of the learner
16. Highlands Forum 4/3/03
Wikis in Organizations
• Benefits
– Weblogs are transparent publishing; wikis are
transparent collaboration
– Just type and link -- one-step
– Same feeling as a whiteboard, for people who aren't in
the same place at the same time
• Applications
– Collective reasoning of teams
– Staff-project meetings
– Project planning -- "front porch" to project; goals, not
rat-holes
– Living knowledgebase