Manage To Change

Bad Words

Are these bad words?

• Conflict
• Power
• Discriminate
• Manipulate

Are words ever bad?

Have any more candidates for the list?

Web 2.0 Expo: Sessions from Day 2

Highlights from three of the sessions I attended today at the Web 2.0 Expo: 

User-Generated Censorship
Annalee Newitz, wrote an article in Wired, I Bought Votes on Digg, to illustrate how people can manipulate social networks. 

In today’s session, she contrasted the wisdom of crowds with their potential destructive nature.  Annalee went through several sites (Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, and Wikipedia) illustrating that clear rules, quick follow up, and easy ways for users to filter content (preventing them from “stumbling on to content that upsets them”) can prevent unwarranted censorship.

Web 2.0 Product Management: Optimizing Metrics and Viral Growth
Dan Olsen’s session on Web 2.0 product management was likely the most comprehensive and tangible session I’ve attended.  The only problem was that there was no way to take notes fast enough to keep up with him!

Dan spoke about how the lines between product management and marketing have blurred since many products are spread virally, by the customer not by marketing and sales.  On Facebook, for example, it’s your friends, acquaintances, and colleagues that get you to join, not the Facebook marketing department (if there even is one!).

Most of the presentation was concerned with how to define, measure, analyze, synthesize, implement, and impact metrics to increase ROI. 

If I hear that he’s posted his slides on his website, I’ll let you know. 

Every product manager should look at them!

The Next Generation of Tagging: Searching and Discovering a Better User Experience
This session was fascinating.  Kakul Srivastava, product manager at Flickr, discussed how combining user tagging with finely tuned algorithms can result in “inferred tags.” 

Inferred tags make it possible to disambiguate tagging (know that Washington means Washington DC and not the state, the president, or the mountain). 

How often tags are used (identifying “hot tags”) or if there are spikes in usage or searching helps identify breaking news or items of interest.

The Hardest Part

It seems like writing is just like most things, the more you do it, the easier it is to do.

The less you do it, the harder it is to get started, to be consistent, and to feel as though you have anything to say.

...and the more likely you are to be redundant!

Powerlessness

I was in line to get bagels last weekend.

Half of the people on line wanted individual bagels – just a bag with bagels in it.

I suggested to the person behind the counter that perhaps they should have a line for people that just want bagels.

She looked at me funny, smiled, and then helped the next customer.

The woman on line in front of me said “She doesn’t have the power to do that.”

WHAT?

Of course she does! She has a mouth doesn’t she?

She can make a suggestion, can’t she?

She can also start asking people on line if they just want bagels all by herself too!

Sure there are instances when we lack real power or authority.

But, I believe that we think we lack power far more often than we actually do.

What do you think?

SIIA Day 1 & Tom Glocer Keynote

Yesterday marked the beginning of the SIIA Content Division’s Information Industry Summit. In order to keep up with the flow, I’m posting my notes and highlighting other blogs that are commenting on the presentations.

The keynote speaker this morning was Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters. PaidContent.org covered his presentation in detail, but here are some additional points.

According to Tom, the following forces are shaping our industry and determining what the media company of 21^st century might look like:

• Personalization of media - the increasing ability to receive the content we want.
• Two way pipe – busting the content creation and distribution monopoly previously enjoyed by publishing companies.
• Social networking – allowing upstart competitors to disrupt media giants.

His premise (with the stated goal of being provocative) was that the economics of the information industry make consumer media companies ill-suited to be public companies. The pace of change is rapid and the investment is large with payback occurring only over the long-term. It’s hard to reconcile long-term payback with the short term financial view of public companies.

However, Tom believes the economics can work in professional publishing. Professionals will pay for content. Why?

• Professional publishing deals with must have information and software.
• An individual’s professional reputation and millions of dollars in value are at stake.
• Often the professional’s employer or a third party (the client paying an attorney for research) pays the information bill.
• The professional is looking for the right information and doesn’t want an excess of information (they value a trusted filter).
• Information can be delivered precisely at the moment and in the format that fits a professional’s personal workflow.

Of course Thomson/Reuters plans to fulfill these needs!

Other SIIA presentations yesterday included:

From Content Matters by Barry Graubart: After the Froth: How the Financial Markets Will Affect Information Companies.

From The AppExchange Blog by Clara Shih: B2B Social Networking at the SIIA Information Industry Summit

From PaidContent.org:

• Interview with Caroline Little, CEO WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive
• Old Media versus New Media, a panel discussion with Ken Auletta, Author and Annals of Communications Columnist, The New Yorker; Michael Barrett, EVP, CRO, Fox Interactive; Jim Kelly, Managing Editor, Time Inc.; and Alan Patricof, Founder and Managing Director of Greycroft Partners.

Depressing or Re-assuring?

I haven’t posted in several weeks.

No posts. No links. Nothing new.

Yet my Feedburner subscriptions, page views, and unique visitors each decreased by less than 8%. Why?

The biggest reason: Google (or more accurately, search).

Roughly 85% of my traffic on a weekly basis is from search. For example, I wrote a post on passive aggressive behavior more than a year ago and it still gets hits every day.

The remaining traffic is from community. After years of meeting people, making friends, and meeting colleagues, some people come by to check in and sometimes to say hello.

Now I don’t write for the statistics. I like to share experiences, information, and observations and then hear what others have to say. I do this to learn.

For me it’s reassuring that my stats stayed pretty constant. It showed me that 2 years of effort (my blogging anniversary is February 6^th) has paid off with some success in the search engines and, much more important, a network of fine friends and colleagues.

But I wonder…

Do you know how people find you on the web? Do you know what they’re looking for?

Why are you in it? Is it paying off?

It’s nice to be back.

Forgive me if I’m a little rusty…

Are we on the same page?

Communication, while the single most important contributor to the success of any change, is the hardest part to get right.

Most people understand the mechanics of communication but we can miss some of the foundational concepts that make communication more successful.

Communication is bi-directional.

Even if we’re trying to “sell” an idea or a project, it won’t be sold by a series of decrees made without opportunity for interaction.

By listening, we develop relationships and refine our understanding. We also build trust. Without trust there is no effective communication.

Communication is informal before it becomes formal.

Informal interactions are what make formal communication effective.

People are more candid one-on-one and in smaller groups and informal settings.

At minimum, strong influencers and those who are exceptionally knowledgeable about organizational history, happenings, and politics should be consulted about ideas before we communicate en masse.

But most important, informal communication is critical to building relationships.

Communication effectiveness increases as relationships develop.

As we get to know people (and organizations), we can revise our approach to account for how they process information.

Understanding our motivations, stress level, preconceived ideas, and biases helps us construct messages more clearly. Learning the motivations and biases of those around us enables us to evaluate their reactions more accurately.

Communication is continuous.

Even if a message has been communicated, refined, validated, and communicated again, we’re not finished.

Circumstances and perceptions change. Busy people forget.

Communication is like a marriage.

Communication is most successful when each party attempts to fully consider the viewpoints of the other.

Focusing solely on our own objectives risks misunderstanding, resentment, and damaged relationships.

And even when those around us aren’t willing to consider our views, we’re not absolved from considering theirs.

It all comes down to how committed we are to making it work.

Connections and Respect

Tuesday night was dinner and a movie (a pre-release screening of Juno) with John Dodds. John is a blogger so I get to tell you about it (although he won’t let me publish his picture – I asked).

Wednesday morning Benjamin Ellis treated Liz and me to brilliant conversation and breakfast.

All week I’ve met interesting and intelligent people from businesses with which I work, have worked, would like to work, or simply admire.

But, the etiquette is different.

No one has ever told me, but I know:

It is good form to publish references to bloggers that you meet and mostly bad form to do the same with professional colleagues or business associates.

It makes sense. They’re different groups with different needs and expectations.

What’s the point?

If you’re like me, you may find yourself participating in many communities in varying ways and at various levels of involvement.

In order to respect these connections, we need to know where we are, who we’re with, and how we should behave.

We must always be ourselves, but there are shades of intensity, degrees of transparency, and wholly different topics of conversation that become relevant depending upon where we are.

While we have decided to cross the lines and participate in many communities, the members of those communities may not feel the same way.

We’ll only be welcome as long as we remain sensitive to that.

Why go to conferences?

London Online started today.

I stayed on the exhibit floor and met with colleagues, clients, and many other interesting people. It was a productive day.

London Online is one of two conferences I attend where I don’t register for the conference itself. I plan meetings and browse the exhibits when there’s free time.

It seems that the learning I previously experienced at conferences has been replaced by doing, reading, and interacting with smart people.

Conferences are a place to meet those smart people.

The connections made there are far more valuable than the curriculum they offer.

Why do you go to conferences?

Which ones do you think offer the best learning opportunities?

Compliments: Are they all about you?

Some people love to get compliments. Others hate it. Still others don’t hate compliments, but they’re uncomfortable receiving them.

They don’t know how to react.

Interestingly, the reason some feel uncomfortable is because their focus is on themselves and how the compliment makes them feel.

Perhaps they’d be more comfortable if they understood that their feelings are secondary.

Compliments are a gift.

And, like any gift, our reactions can impact the giver. 

If you’re someone that finds it difficult to take a compliment, try moving your focus from your feelings to those of the originator.

A good friend of mine says “Thank you for saying that” when she’s not sure what to do. I think that works well.