Turning Ideas into Action (3) - From Conversational Blogging to Jazz Communities

Ok ... here it is ... Stuart has made a call to action, starting a fire so to speak, using my favourite metaphor for blogging ... From Conversational Blogging to Jazz Communities.  He talks of a 'brain' cooperative, a 'band' of bloggers in the area of KM as starters, with the potential to offer a collaborative service that can pay through a membership fee structure. And with the potential then for consulting services. His vision : 

"Our Challenge is to link blogs in a way that retains independent thought while creating a jazz community. A blog based info accelerator helps us engage with information, conferences, CoP's in a different way. We can being to face up to the 365/7/24/60/60 world. Our connections help us do it. They are skills that are worth passing along and providing to others.

Let's consider creating an environment for "paid" membership with a BAND of people that enables them to become better connected, build new relationships and stay on the leading edge of learning even when they simply don't have the time. Blogging is a natural for the "listening post", the early warning radar, and for scanning upstream. I've been able to identify for some time an emergent blogging community that could do this in the KM area. Sales and Marketing topics are less clear, while in the last few weeks I've finally found some additional "futures" blogs. "

This 'band' or panel could be extended to many areas other than KM ... research is one area that comes to mind .... with access provided for members to thought leaders through conversations and encounters, and the potential for deeper studies that may be required, for a fee. 

Hmmm ... sounds terrific ... am interested ... and perhaps am one of the many bloggers thats believes blogging can pay !   

Lets take this forward Stuart into a business model that really works !

Next steps ?

 

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Turning Ideas into Action (2) - Corporate Blogging

Some neat rap on corporate blogging ...

Rajeev Sharma, a doctoral student at IIM Bangalore makes some neat suggestions on how to get corporates blogging. 

"Blogs can be used by the Product/Service develpoment department to gain information about the market perception and what consumer wants. Example: Microsoft employees are actively seeking information which can be used for developing their new OS - Longhorn. Now how much company was ready to pay for this information (without using the blogs) is the value that can be attributed to the use of blogs"

I like his 'afterthoughts' too  … on meeting customer needs and on ‘usability’ of software and its implementation within a context.  Thanks Rajeev - will put in these thoughts into my proposal.

And Rob asks :

"I wonder. Can you package and sell a tool that will destroy the command and control system to the command and control system?  .... Can you package or sell a product that will overthrow this system? They will never buy. So what do we do Dina? I think of disease or Homer. True viral marketing where we infect part of the system with a small virus that slips in under the immune system. Or Homerically we find a larger unit and describe blogging in non threatening terms so that the Trojans drag the horse inside their own walls."

Rob, i think we are yet to find the right approach. Perhaps the ideal is a combination of both. 

While conventional wisdom would make me tend towards virus or disease - with small infections and injections at regular intervals, with the hope that it snowballs.  Yet i do feel it will be most effective if combined with the Trojan Horse approach. And there are lessons in this metaphor ... it is only when the Trojans really got 'into the minds' of the Greeks that they could come up with a solution. More, they 'slipped' it in using a Greek idiom - a statue of a horse. And made it irresistable in its 'packaging'.

So first steps would be to really understand the organisational culture (and examine all the nuances of 'command and control' for that specific organisation), figure out employee needs from a KM system or communications system, and examine current KM and communication systems in place.

Just thought i'd share this little exchange i had with Stuart around this topic - it helped me articulate my thoughts better :

Dina : what do u think ... virus/disease .... or trojan horse ?
Stuart : i think both - a good strategist would do both if he had the option and the resources - however the strategist with little resources who wants to change the world will unleash viruses for they cannot even mount trojan horses
Dina : thats the ideal isnt it - infect small groups who can then snowball
Stuart : so yes infections
Dina : and at the same time - slip in the torjan horse once u understand existing systems
Stuart : if one is going to help and organization its not really helpful to use terminology like command and control Dina : right .. don't criticise it - infact understand it well and work with it
Stuart : snap
Stuart : it is simply friction, which enables more creativity, which snowballs
Stuart : and that may just freeze out the old command and control lines

A two-minute conversation on IM - turning ideas into action ...

Stuart has also blogged a list of references for corporate blogging and social software.  Its an interesting compilation - has diverse views and is from many sources.  

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