As I continue my study of how collaboration tools are providing value in the enterprise, I keep coming back to the fact that much of the real value comes from the knowledge the user has about which networks and channels work best for what. Five years ago, you knew that reaching a particular VP was most efficiently accomplished via telephone, reaching a specific sales person worked best via email, and that one Director contact would react only when you could catch her in person. Today, the channels to connect with people have grown tenfold with tools like Skype, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Yammer and many others. While this creates the wonderful ability to maintain and reach a broader network of individuals it also creates a more complex web of networks to negotiate. If not used appropriately, the efficiency gains one might expect from collaborative tools could actually add to your workload vs. making you a more productive and efficient professional.

Social Media is nothing we can hide behind. It exposes us in areas we didn't know we even had areas. I wanted to introduce you to what I call the "coffee shop syndrome" of Online Social Media:

Remember those times we skived off from school pretending to be sick so we could have a day off. Remember then how your parents would tell you "well if you're too sick to go to school you're defiantly too sick to go to the shops." You tended to agree only because if someone from school saw you out and about they would wonder why you were not in class. Well the coffee shop syndrome relates to this concept but I just wanted to set the scene offline first.

"The Coffee Shop Syndrome" relates to our level of Emotional Intelligence and how we act upon these skills in the world of Online Social Media. Remember that Emotional Intelligence refers to how often we demonstrate certain behaviours.  It's a set of skills that define how effectively we perceive, understand, reason with and manage our own and others' feelings.  It's all very well believing we demonstrate a high level of EI but if we don't have an outward display of this behaviour then others may have a different opinion!!

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I felt compelled to write this post in light of the recent Twitter crazed support of the most popular reality show in the history of Australian TV, MasterChef. Something fundamental was uncovered for me and it relates to a change which we are all going to have to face up to. Twitter is crossing boundaries and these are quite serious ones indeed which Media companies such as Channel 10 are going to have to face up to.

The MasterChef final went to air on the East coast of Australia at 7:30pm last night. It was only to be aired two hours later on the west coast of Australia when it would be 7:30pm there, due to the time zone difference. MasterChef, during the series, gained a massive following on Twitter. If you don't believe me do a search in Twitter on #masterchef and see for yourself. The series for many who use Twitter was made that much more special when shared with new and old friends alike on the Twitter Social Media platform. The advertisement breaks for once became useful as Tweets spun between the lounge rooms of viewers. This is entertainment and we will see this concept grow and grow.

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With regards to authenticity in the Tweetspace: Earlier this year on the 5^th of March there was an earth quake in the Melbourne region which shook everyone a little as it's not a common occurrence. Tweets started to steam out about the occurrence and our local vetted ABC radio/TV channel which has a Twitter account @774melbourne followed it furiously trying to get the "right" story and doing a good job of it. The size of the tremor was being reported as 5+ on many accounts and this was starting to become official. A month earlier there had been a quake a few thousand km away in the pacific and people who were Googling "earthquake Australia" were in their haste seeing the size of a quake as 5.7 . Chinese whispers took this into the Tweepspace and I heard people talking about it in town the following day giving this statistic. There had been an Earthquake on the 14^th of February near Fiji which measured 5.7 and from what I can gather the two occurrences were being linked. The actual size of the quake in Melbourne was 4.6

Following on from this another story: On the 18^th of march @Wolfcat from the The ABC (Australia) was asked to present how Twitter had been used during the devastating Australian Victoria bushfires to locate lost loved ones and deliver critical information to those under threat. @Wolfcat had established and oversaw the Twitter channel for this part of the ABC. He was not given long to present and asked the audience to please understand that he could not give it its due in the short time he had allocated to him. Instead he would present on the Earthquake which occurred on the 5^th of March and how the ABC had operated in order to feed the relevant information out to the Tweetspace. It was really interesting as he explained how he had developed a method of establishing the Epicentre of this seismic event based on his mapping of the regions the relevant Tweets were coming in from.

As is happening more and more during seminar sessions there was a Twitter Tag #v21 which the audience were including in their Tweet threads out to their followers to keep on topic. I was sitting in the audience and started to feel the room shake while @Wolfcat was explaining all this. I immediately blamed it on a strong black coffee I had had during the break and having missed lunch earlier. Low and behold the streams of Tweets from outside the room started to come back in on the #v21 that there had just been another Earthquake. More and more tweets came streaming in and the session room started to buzz with this massive coincidence. http://tinyurl.com/n7nsx5  .

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Knowledge Solutions is investigating the Emotional Intelligence aspects of Micro-blogging (MB) tools like Twitter and other Social Media software. We are running courses which help companies profile themselves and their staff to see what if any Social Media will best suit the organisations Culture and that of their staff.

We have heard a number of arguments as to what the initial perception of Twitter is and why some People take to it like a duck to water and why others simply dont. Twitter (MB) can be used well and also really badly depending on how it is introduced to participants. I wont go into how to best introduce it here suffice to say that unless some time is spent in defining the aims of the tool and the derived benefits in context, adoption and successful uptake will be impacted.

There are so many aspects to this simple to use tool which are so useful however still perceived as a waste of time to those who don't understand it. There are also a huge amount of so called experts who bang on and on about the pure marketing benefits. If you had never seen or used Twitter before and someone said to you, Twitter is all about getting your product out there and getting loads of people to follow you so that eventually they will buy that product, would it appeal to you? You may give it a go but participation wouldn't last long with such a blinkered one sided commercially focused view which is bound to fail. However if someone was introduced to the Micro-Blogging world as understanding the relationship building, finger on the pulse, community focused, collaborative, Knowledge Management, Self Service aspects of the tools it would paint a whole different picture.

We need to reduce the clutter and clarify and educate about the protocols around the use of the tools in order to lower resistance.

I found the following snippets so interesting I had to republish them. You can find more on the http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/ site. It all points towards the uptake in the Relationship Economy and the future of the New Web with its Interactive technology. 

1. Web 2.0 technology takes center stage at Gartner CRM Summit: According to expert Paul Greenberg, the customer experience is now the key differentiator in the business ecosystem. Web 2.0 technologies like blogs, wikis and social networking sites are changing the way companies interact with their customers and putting the customer experience center stage. Gartner recommends companies looking to improve the customer experience get started with Web 2.0 as soon as possible.

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[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je5gnqkE_AE 400x400]

Physical conference events are becoming more and more sophisticated and I remember realizing this when I attended one situated in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles which was impressive for a start. I had intended during the first coffee break of the day to meet with the information manager of Pfizer Europe. As I exited into the break rooms of which there were many I was greeted by a representative in a black suite who was part of the conference coordination team. He asked me who I would like to meet. He had a headset on and as I let him know, he was immediately relayed information as to which table the Information Manager of Pfizer  was taking a biscuit off at that precise moment and took me across and introduced me to him. This to me was the height of coordination and service.

Now let's step into the virtual world for a little while should we. I was privileged enough to attend a evening seminar (Knowledge Management Leadership Forum in Melbourne) this week where the speaker (Helen Mitchell from CPA Australia) had Project Managed the development of and coordinated a conference session on Second Life. Now for those of you who are new to the virtual world, Second Life is a whole "other world, " which exists in Cyberspace. It's a world portrayed much like our own where you are represented as an Avatar which can walk and talk(though your headset) and interacts with other avatars, who are real people sitting at computers, pulling the strings with their keyboards. A seminar in Second Life has chairs and stage along with all the wonderful other things we take for granted when we attend such an event, all taken care of by the Event Coordinator and a vast behind the scenes team. These things we take for granted are plants, seating setup the colour of the carpet and the room, backdrop and much much more. In Second Life this all has to be built from scratch after you hire the land to build it on or you could hire the venue at a lesser cost. There is a massive amount of detail to consider if you were to build it yourself so once again there are software development companies who do it for you on specification.

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Thank you to the wonderful people who attended the half day workshop we ran yesterday at the Mecure Harbourside on the Esplanade in Cairns. From the reviews it looked like you all enjoyed it and I already had Gabi calling me this morning using her Mobile phone through her VOIP provider using http://www.fring.com/

Please remember to register on our website if you would like to be notified of such events by Knowledge Solutions.

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On the British Computer Society "Count Pixel Game Blog" today http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConBlogEntry.574 it mentions how Microsoft is redesigning the XBox360 to play catch-up with the run-away success of the Nintendo Wii.  And just what has been so successful that they are having to enhance the 360 with? - the interactivity, the designing of your own avatar Mii's which has appealed to the online community of "gamers" who have transcended any specific generational demographic.

 I love this story of the success of the Nintendo Wii, (must be something about being British and always supporting the under-dog). During development of this next generation of consoles,  the computing press were extoiling the virtues of the next super-power-house graphics and processing chips being installed in the Sony Playstation and the XBox, Ninetendo was being written off as a has-been, their GameCube hardly seemed in the same league as the all-conquering Playstation 2 and Xbox. But Nintendo was first and foremost a company that made games, and not a behemoth that had its finger in many pies.

So when this underpowered (by comparison), little white box with a funny infra-red control system hit the markets, without Hi-Definition disk, with low resolution graphics,  it was effectively dismissed by the competition,  until it was realised that it was outselling them at least 5 to 1 at some stages, and there are STILL waiting lists for it since Nintendo itself admits it was surprised by its success and can't keep up with demand.

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This is the way of the future in our lives as we know it. Back in the mid to late 90's we did see a spate of broadcasts to launch new software products. Not sure if many of you got to see Bill Gates Launch NT but it was a similcast and we all stood in awe. Well we can do that on our desktop now and with the advent of VOIP and Open Source technologies like DimDim we can do it for free.

http://www.dimdim.com/aboutus/dimdim_blog.html

We obviously need to get used to the Social implications which are brought about by such mediums and we will trip up along the way. No one needs to be ashamed not to have used a particular technology. I often do broadcasts to board rooms where the organisers have never done this before. I have a standard e-mail template which I now send out which sets out step by step what needs to be in the room. Often its still better to dial into countries where the broadband is not that broad so to speak and only use the Internet for the presentation but that will all change in the future.

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