I attempted to use Storify to compile some tweets about JCrew's stores launch in Canada and the backlash from its customers about the higher prices in Canada. Here is the "Story"
Monday, August 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Dot Whatever - Some Thoughts on the ICANN Announcement
In what may be the biggest development concerning Internet address spaces to date, this week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced its plans to approve new top-level domains (TLDs) to expand the current set of domain suffixes like .com, .net, .org, as well as country code suffixes (such as .ca .us .uk). A request can be made for any custom suffix that you desire, and can afford to pay for.
At $185,000 a piece and a 200-page application for approval and $75,000 maintenance fees, there are significant barriers to owning your desired top level domain, but this won’t stop the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google and Coca Cola to register a multitude of suffixes for their products and services. For these large corporations that already spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on defensive tactics to register domains just to prevent others from using them, we can expect to see a further increase in their spend on TLDs that are closely linked to their market offerings. There will also probably be a surge in registration requests for generic suffixes like .cars and .systems in a bid to command a greater mind share leading to superior brand equity. Unfortunately, such tactics will remain out of reach for the smaller players who won’t have the resources to register the same site for every conceivable TLD.
From an end-user perspective, it will be a difficult and tricky road ahead for ICANN to create awareness around these TLDs. Most businesses and end users still operate in a dot-com-centric environment, and even previous attempts to augment the .com TLD with others like .biz and .info have been rather unsuccessful. Additionally, the introduction of multiple domain suffixes can result in a relatively flat namespace configuration as opposed to the current hierarchical structure of domain names, and this can lead to confusion among end-users. Ultimately, a search engine might be the best bet to get to the end-user’s target website. While this goes somewhat against the TLD expansion philosophy, recent research shows the importance and use of domain names to be already diminishing as larger proportions of end-users use their browser search bars to seek website addresses of their online destinations, either by directly typing in the business name or by conducting a generic term search. So an argument can be made that actual site addresses and domain names are becoming less relevant with our increased dependency on search engines.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The 8Cs of Enterprise 2.0
While business use of social media has flourished over the past few years, there still is a hesitation on the part of many small and medium sized organizations in adopting enterprise 2.0 tools. I usually get asked about my recommendations for such firms who are interested in getting started with enterprise 2.0 but don’t know where to begin. Based on a recent conversation with a CIO of a medium sized enterprise, here are a few suggestions that I provided. While writing this blog post, I’ve tried to categorize my recommendations a little better into what I can refer to as the 8Cs of Enterprise 2.0.
1. Content:
Most people I’ve talked to already know the importance of good content, but it’s always worth repeating and emphasizing again. My own research on social media has shown high quality information to be a very strong predictor of use of these tools. Whether it is structured or unstructured content, it needs to be readily accessible, relevant to the person who needs it, and current and accurate to be of practical value. In the context of collaboration, if your employees trust the information to be relevant and useful for analysis and insights, they are much more likely to use the tools that you provide them to collaborate using these tools.
2. Context:
I’ve seen my fair share of enterprise 2.0 evasion due to a lack of context with the use of technology. Organizations need to train and encourage users to associate as much context as possible with various knowledge resources as they create and use them over time. For example, an up-to-date index of files in a document management system and discussion posts in an online forum tagged with the correct labels can help improve the use of these systems considerably. Similarly, having tools that create visibility into what their colleagues are working on can be beneficial to a workgroup’s collective functioning.
3. Connection:
Efficient Connection tools are needed by employees to link with others across the organization and leverage the knowledge and expertise of their colleagues. Interactive employee profiles, org charts and company directories are a good starting point for this, but organizations can look at streamlining their knowledge flows by integrating these databases with other applications such as email, messaging services, and approval workflows.
4. Communication:
Suitable Communication tools should be in place to enable employees to send and receive information in a timely fashion. These tools need to go beyond enabling simple consumption of content and allow individuals to create their own content and personalize their preferences for receiving updates from various sources that are relevant to their jobs. In addition to email and messaging applications, tools such as blogs, microblogs, newsfeeds and notification spaces provide a useful starting point for communication functions.
5. Collaboration:
Collaboration tools are required to enhance organizational productivity by providing platforms that enable constructive knowledge sharing and information synthesis. Organizations have experienced success with employing tools such as wikis and community discussion forums, and many have also explored the crowdsourcing applications such as ideation platforms, polling, and surveys that facilitate convergence on strategies and actions (more on this next).
6. Convergence:
In my mind, a major reason why organizations struggle with the use of social media tools is that these tools are primarily used as a medium for divergent conversations around issues and concerns, and settling on specific decisions is often tricky. What needs to be understood is that collaboration is more than discussion. It’s also about converging on actionable conclusions to enhance the decision-making capability of the organization as a whole. Toward this, tools and applications such as polling, surveys and ideation platforms can support and facilitate the collective intelligence of the participants, consequently ensuring greater value from collaborative online interactions.
7. Control:
In addition to building the digital toolbox for social media, organizations also need to develop a governance model that supports their enterprise 2.0 strategy. In the initial stage, organizations can set out guiding principles for the use of social media by communicating their technology use objectives to employees. This may be followed by more formal policy training on issues such as the types of information that may or may not be shared through social media, and policies on the management of personal data and the organizational brand.
A caveat about controlling the use of social media is to ensure that you don’t go overboard. Certainly, some oversight and policies are needed, but excess regulation can also discourage users from open discussions. The key is to foster organic growth of social media use in the organization while trying to curb the adverse effects associated with the unseemly use of these tools.
8. Culture:
Perhaps, the most difficult issue to address in the effective institutionalization of enterprise 2.0 is the that of fostering an open culture and a collective mindset that is conducive to collaboration. By leading by example, higher management needs to set the tone for experimenting with new tools and ideas and welcoming innovative attitudes. By encouraging information sharing and rewarding group efforts rather than individual problem solving capabilities, organizations can help overcome problems associated with knowledge hoarding. A culture of trust where employees feels secure and encouraged to propose new ideas and take collective ownership of successes and failures can provide an effective scaffold for the adoption of enterprise 2.0.
There probably are a couple of more recommendations that can be listed here... I can probably get up to 10 Cs if I think hard enough... but these were the top of mind during my talk. Please feel free to share your opinions and comments.
1. Content:
Most people I’ve talked to already know the importance of good content, but it’s always worth repeating and emphasizing again. My own research on social media has shown high quality information to be a very strong predictor of use of these tools. Whether it is structured or unstructured content, it needs to be readily accessible, relevant to the person who needs it, and current and accurate to be of practical value. In the context of collaboration, if your employees trust the information to be relevant and useful for analysis and insights, they are much more likely to use the tools that you provide them to collaborate using these tools.
2. Context:
I’ve seen my fair share of enterprise 2.0 evasion due to a lack of context with the use of technology. Organizations need to train and encourage users to associate as much context as possible with various knowledge resources as they create and use them over time. For example, an up-to-date index of files in a document management system and discussion posts in an online forum tagged with the correct labels can help improve the use of these systems considerably. Similarly, having tools that create visibility into what their colleagues are working on can be beneficial to a workgroup’s collective functioning.
3. Connection:
Efficient Connection tools are needed by employees to link with others across the organization and leverage the knowledge and expertise of their colleagues. Interactive employee profiles, org charts and company directories are a good starting point for this, but organizations can look at streamlining their knowledge flows by integrating these databases with other applications such as email, messaging services, and approval workflows.
4. Communication:
Suitable Communication tools should be in place to enable employees to send and receive information in a timely fashion. These tools need to go beyond enabling simple consumption of content and allow individuals to create their own content and personalize their preferences for receiving updates from various sources that are relevant to their jobs. In addition to email and messaging applications, tools such as blogs, microblogs, newsfeeds and notification spaces provide a useful starting point for communication functions.
5. Collaboration:
Collaboration tools are required to enhance organizational productivity by providing platforms that enable constructive knowledge sharing and information synthesis. Organizations have experienced success with employing tools such as wikis and community discussion forums, and many have also explored the crowdsourcing applications such as ideation platforms, polling, and surveys that facilitate convergence on strategies and actions (more on this next).
6. Convergence:
In my mind, a major reason why organizations struggle with the use of social media tools is that these tools are primarily used as a medium for divergent conversations around issues and concerns, and settling on specific decisions is often tricky. What needs to be understood is that collaboration is more than discussion. It’s also about converging on actionable conclusions to enhance the decision-making capability of the organization as a whole. Toward this, tools and applications such as polling, surveys and ideation platforms can support and facilitate the collective intelligence of the participants, consequently ensuring greater value from collaborative online interactions.
7. Control:
In addition to building the digital toolbox for social media, organizations also need to develop a governance model that supports their enterprise 2.0 strategy. In the initial stage, organizations can set out guiding principles for the use of social media by communicating their technology use objectives to employees. This may be followed by more formal policy training on issues such as the types of information that may or may not be shared through social media, and policies on the management of personal data and the organizational brand.
A caveat about controlling the use of social media is to ensure that you don’t go overboard. Certainly, some oversight and policies are needed, but excess regulation can also discourage users from open discussions. The key is to foster organic growth of social media use in the organization while trying to curb the adverse effects associated with the unseemly use of these tools.
8. Culture:
Perhaps, the most difficult issue to address in the effective institutionalization of enterprise 2.0 is the that of fostering an open culture and a collective mindset that is conducive to collaboration. By leading by example, higher management needs to set the tone for experimenting with new tools and ideas and welcoming innovative attitudes. By encouraging information sharing and rewarding group efforts rather than individual problem solving capabilities, organizations can help overcome problems associated with knowledge hoarding. A culture of trust where employees feels secure and encouraged to propose new ideas and take collective ownership of successes and failures can provide an effective scaffold for the adoption of enterprise 2.0.
There probably are a couple of more recommendations that can be listed here... I can probably get up to 10 Cs if I think hard enough... but these were the top of mind during my talk. Please feel free to share your opinions and comments.
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