Book Review: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

It's quite annoying to find out that groups make better decisions than you can as an individual - but a very powerful thought. However, the groups need to be diverse, independent and decentralised (so that may exclude a few crowds I can think of...)

We are essentially cooperative beings and meld our behaviour around that of others. One of the examples in the book is how crowds flow in shopping centres, how we move on staircases etc. We do all this even when there are no explicit rules. Mind you, as someone who regularly travels to the US from the UK I know what it is like to accidently move against this flow when I forget to walk on the "right". So maybe there are more socialised rules and logic than the author makes explicit.

One theme in the book which did appeal to me was the notion of the difference making a difference. While it seems inefficient, having a diversity of ideas seems to allow meaningful differences of ideas, especially at the early stages of decision making - and this is important. Groups also need to be able to distinguish good ideas from bad ideas and having more to choose from helps.

There is some helpful work about distinguishing the difference between situations which are easily defined by a single answer, such as the weight of an ox, and those which are more co-ordination problems, such as traffic manageemnt. Co-ordination problems come when all individuals want to go their own way. Here the wisdom of the crowd sound a lot like complexity science and simple rules and I wasn't totally convinced of all of his arguments. However, they were interesting.

A thought provoking book which much more to say that the few bits I have mentioned here.

The book's website is here http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/ where there is a lot of detail and audio to download.

Book Review: New Age of Innovation; Prahalad & Krishnan

If you're interested in large scale change and innovation then you'll find this book fascinating. On the one hand it felt like there was nothing startlingly new to me yet on the other it was neatly put together in a readable way that made sense.

A key premise is the current trend of personalisation and how value is based on the unique experience we all want. The authors refer to this as N=1. Current technology drives this, social networking, web 2.0 etc. How can we co-create value with our users and consumers? What are the challenges with managing who owns the knowledge? All good questions. They also suggest we need to make the most of collaborative networks, electronic and face-to-face, be flexible and ensure scalability. I liked the section on scalability and in my mind there is more in here than what they covered. This is a key element and is also linked to their second premise.

The 2nd key premise is the one that resources need to be global and they use another little formaula: R=G. Here they suggest the issue is that access to resources is more importnat than providing products; namely it is the solutions that matter rather than the kit or pieces. I think I agree with this. Again, scalability comes up.

They mention social movements and how they figure in the process as well as organisational transformation. There was nothing much new in the organisational process other than the context of the infomrational technology infrastructure - well, that is rather new and for some people rather perplexing.

If you've not yet engaged with Web 2.0 and new technology then this is definitely worth a read.

Book Review: Groundswell by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff

The authors define a groundswell as “…a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions”. mmm that sounds like an important thing to know about if you think you're a traditional institution, or if you think you're breaking new ground, or if you're a consumer wondering why you're starting to feel left out the loop.

What I liked about the book was the examples and case studies. Usually I skip these, however, I foudn these ones riveting reading. Who needs thriller novels when the business world presents us with such chaotic and roller coaster events. Fabulous.

I also found the way the book was constructed and organised to be very helpful, especially when faced with a disconcerting topic. Far from being disorganised, the underlying structure helped get the message through.

Read this book and it will move you on from thinking about "all we need to do is have the odd blog and a fancy web 2.0 website" and get you into strategising about your social media presence. I have always been convinced that social media is not just for the youngesters and this book has all the examples and conceptuals models to help you create some of your own thinking for your business to prove it is for everyone.

The book has, as you would expect, a great website. http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/index.html It is good to see them practising what they preach. They have a blog and there is also a social media profiling tool you can download and use.

I'm not one for giving 5 stars to a book, but this one deserves it. I might just read it a second time.

Why one to many is not a large scale change strategy

Large scale change is about the numbers.  If part fo your strategy for large scale change is to develop or use networks to communicate your message then you need to understand the mathematics of networks.

If you don't know about Sarnoff's Law, Metcalfe's Law and Reed's law - then watch this video, which if nothing else, explains why broadcasting messages is low impact. It's 10 minutes long but hang in there - it's the best explanation I've heard for a long time.





The numbers:
Sarnoff: 1 message to 20 people: network score of 20

Metcalfe: Email and telephones connect humans and help small groups form: because everyone can connect to everyone, the potential is 20 x 20, meaning a network score of 400.

Reed: the value of the network is exponential in social networking, going beyond the establishing communities.. So it's 2 to the power of 20 which is 1,000,000.

Reed's Law is about scale.
Social networking matters.

Implementing social media is more than dabbing in a few fun technologies

Technology is really exciting - for those who get excited about it. But technology is useless unless it connects with those who use it. There's the obvious stuff about it needing to be easy to use. But there's also the need to any technology that puts "social" in its marketing blurb - to be just that - social.  And then there's the need for the organisations that want to jump onto the social media bandwagon to make sure they are doing so with thought and concern rather than a random set of activities they can tell everyone they are "into social media".

Here are five sets of questions to ask yourself if you're wanting to involve social media in your business:

1. Why social media and not any other strategy or technique we and our customers are used to?
2. What do we expect to happen? What is our intention? 
3. How will we, and our customers, keep moving with the times as new technologies become available? 
4. To what extend are we building on what works? Does this matter?
5. What policies and legal concerns do we need to take into account?

Oh, and I'll add one more, just in case:

(i) How do we define social media?

Social Marketing Podcasts from the Open University

I had a proud moment when listening to Michaela Firth via iTunes talking about Social Marketing. She is really a leader in this field and I'm glad we've shared coffee and brownies over the last ten years. The Open University has a series of podcasts that I recommend to anyone working in the field of trying to spread behaviourally related  good ideas to a wider audience.

Social marketing - Audio

by The Open University

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Description

Have you ever wondered how marketing techniques have been used to promote positive social change? In a series of lively interviews, Professor Gerard Hastings of the Institute of Social Marketing, faces questions from members of ISM-Open (the Institute of Social Marketing at the Open University Business School) on issues such as the ethics of social marketing, branding and advertising, and the morality of shocking or scaring people into changing their behaviour for the better. This material forms part of the Open University course B324 Marketing and society.

Social marketing	View In iTunes
What is social marketing?	View In iTunes
Critical marketing	View In iTunes
Ethics and advertising	View In iTunes
Evaluating social marketing programmes	View In iTunes
Ethical brands	View In iTunes
Ethics and social marketing	View In iTunes

New Tools Wiki - a stunning set of resources

The newtools workshop wiki is the most amazing set of resources I have come across for months - and those of you who know me well know that I don't use "most amazing" very often. I'm at a loss for words on how to describe it so you need to go and have a look for yourself.

Be prepared to spend some time exploring it...

Learning networks or social movements? Which is best for large scale change?

I'm not sure there is a specific answer as to whether learning networks or social movements are best for large scale change.  However, my personal preference is for learning networks and these are my reasons:

1. learning networks connect the people who are interested in solving the problem, and they do so in an interactive, participative and empowered way. In comparison social movements have the image of someone wanting to make something happen and in manipulating the joining in process and to an agenda they have set.
2. learning networks are about the exchange of information, discussion and both personal and group learning. Personal behaviour may change as a result of learning about something new from within a peer group. When a group discovers new knowledge and feel the creative process of doing so, they may become quite committed to then implementing changes.
3. learning networks can be direct and specific. They can be topic based or professional grouping based.
4. there is a sense of an output with learning networks. Social movements are useful in that they are purpose driven, however, learning networks to me are more concrete, pragmatic and easier to associate with outcomes and results.
5. we know learning networks work in healthcare while social movement theory is in its infancy. I am a proponent of using the existing knowledge we have to best effect.

This doesn't mean social movements are not useful, rather that I am sceptical about their ability to deliver results, especially when we know learning network can have an impact.

There is an excellent paper on Learning networks for sustainable, large scale change which is worth a read. 

Social media kits: CDC as a good example

Whatever your position on H1N1 swine flu, there is no doubting the news spread fast across the world.  Many change programs would like to emulate this type of activity; it is the Holy Grail of large scale change.

The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) in the USA is an excellent example.  I challenge organisations to respond as quickly, thoroughly and extensively as them.  In the case of H1N1 they didn't have a vast amount of planning time, though I suspect they had some contingency plans in place, to come up with a range of social media / social marketing tools.  So the first point to note is these were available almost instantly.  No waiting 2 - 3 months for a communications and marketing department to negotiate with an IT department following the meetings of the Change program division etc.... in order to get something done.

Secondly the CDC appreciates and understands the value of social media in getting messages out and helping them to spread, hopefully quicker than the virus they are focusing on.  Their H1N1 swine flu social media page  has:

• widgets; a whole variety to suits your own needs
• mobile information
• buttons
• online videos
• podcasts
• ecards
• rss feeds
• twitter link
• image sharing
• as for social networks you can find them on Facebook, mySpace, DailyStrength

Using social media is not the only way to communicate.  However, well done CDC for showing the way, probably breaking some rules in the process, and demonstrating to laggardly public sector organisations and departments how social media can be of value and no great sweat to implement.

Social Movements 2.0; summary and links

I’ve been spending time mulling over the intersection of offline and online when it comes to social movements. Here are a few of my favourite online references to the online perspective.

Vanessa Mason explains how social media is changing the way we think about social movements. She suggests we are moving away from the emerge->coalesce->bureaucratise->outcome->decline process. She lists and describes some defining characteristics of social media’s effect on social movements:
1. linkages between offline and online activity are essential
2. technology facilitates change by reducing costs of resource mobilisations
3. supporters have the ability to tell and publicise their cause’s stories, needs and goals
4. social media enables greater transparency into the political process
read more about this view here: http://vanessamason.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/social-movements-20/

After a brief description of the world’s first virtual strike in 2007, “The Nation” provides a detailed view on what Social Movements 2.0 is about. They refer to Clay Shirky’s brilliant book “Here comes everybody; the power of organising without organisations” and explain the five reasons why electronic social space is revolutionising the concept of social movements.
1. group formation
2. scale and amplification
3. interactivity
4. destruction of hierarchies
5. cheapness and ease of tools
To read more about this go to http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090202/smith_costello_brecher


For examples of social movements on the web and an interesting perspective on a new role – the social internepreneur, then read Alberto Masetti-Zannini’s post http://blog.vita.it/theunreasonables/2008/08/05/the-rise-of-the-social-internepreneur/



Add a comment here if you know of other key Social Movements 2.0 resources, post and links.

Blogging best practice policy checklists

Over the last few months I am meeting up with groups and organisations who want to dip their toe into the social media soup yet are concerned they have no policy or ground rules for staff to do this. Why do they want to blog - well, various groups and different answers. However, a continuing theme amongst all of them is in finding a way to reach out to others to share their experiences, news, views and opinions - often about products or services they are working with. They are seeking new ways to enable others to learn about and adopt their prodycts and services.

A good place to start when developing your own strategy is

a) avoid reinventing the wheel

b) use existing checklists and guidleines such as those provided by the blogcouncil http://blogcouncil.org/disclosure/

c) be brave and know the genie is already out of the bottle and know that success is in how much you let go rather than how much you control

Using Twitter in Healthcare

If you need to get a message out quickly and provide receivers with the mechanism to comment and to spread the message onwards, then www.twitter.com may be useful for you. Maybe you want fresh links to medical journal highlights, healthcare policy changes, knowledge management, patient opinion - whatever - there is a raft of formal organisations on Twitter as well as 3 million+ other users. Twitter is a free micro-blogging system that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based messages of up to 140 characters in length.

Another blogger has created an excellent list of 140 things to do with Twitter in healthcare. To see Phil Baumann's list go to http://tinyurl.com/8tzwvz

If you have an example of Twitter in Healthcare then please leave a comment in this blog.

Social Marketing Campaign Diagnotic Tool Free Download

Download the tool for free from http://tinyurl.com/9gajn3

So you’ve decided to to use a social marketing approach? You may already have
drawn up plans for your campaign. The purpose of this tool is to provide you with a
checklist where you can run through some key aspects and assess your progress.

When to use this tool:
When starting a campaign; it will help you think through all the steps
When plans are already drawn up; you will have the opportunity to reflect and test before you start
When you have already started; you can check your progress against the items in here and assess where you may need to carry out some
additional work on a contingency basis
When you have completed; the headings in this tool provide you with the basis of an evaluation

How to use it:
􀀵 Calculate your scores
􀀵 Make notes
􀀵 Hold discussions
􀀵 Reflect
􀀵 Act on any changes you think may be necessary

The tool covers
1. How the campaign is defined
2. How the problem is defined and understood
3. Choice of comunication strategy
4. Implementation system

Examples of social media to spread good practice in healthcare

I often get asked for real examples of what some people feel is theory only - basically, how are healthcare organisations using the variety fo social media possibilities to help creat/capture knowledge as well as transfer it / enable change. There are many of these - you can do your own searches and find things specific to you. I have listed below a few interesting ones:

a) Facebook: South Central Health Authority in England has an organisational profile on Facebook. Anyone can become a fan of the organisation (a novel thought in itself!) and then through Facebook - as a fan - I receive details of its public health campaigns (photos etc) and I have also been targetted through Facebook to answer a survey (which I then passed on to some of my Facebook friends).

b) at http://www.trainingpod.co.uk/ is an example of a hospital using audio podcasts to reduce training costs

c) Derby hospital in the England is handing out iPods preloaded with video instructions to their Radiology students as a means of enhancing the textbooks and the learning process http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7780647.stm

d) A good example of a wiki is one supported by the National Library for Health (UK) which is focused on developing support materials for the commissioning process http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7780647.stm ANyone can log in and add their twopennyworth and experience.

Social media is a practice not a theory...

Social marketing for health: new resources

The "how" of spreading good practice is what is so difficult. One of the methodologies suggested is that of social marketing. I was pleased to see the English Department of Health using this strategy and openly promoting it. In some new documentation mostly around supporting public health initiatives, this strategy is made obvious. At the same time they have published a leaflet on "What is Social Marketing" and I commend this to general readership. I know they have worked jointly with the National Social Marketing Centre http://www.nsms.org.uk/public/default.aspx on producing it and it does make a great deal of sense. Succinctly written it sets out how social marketing is different from commercial marketing. I also like the way it still sets the expectations for measurement - something that tends to be forgotten in some social marketing programmes.

You can download the social marketing document and associates policy documents at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Choosinghealth/DH_086106

I also find the National Social Marketing Centre website very useful as they make available many presentations on social marketing and a variety of other resources.