More Echo Chamber stuff from "Wikinomics" -- I'd appreciate some "how do I get there from here" advice.
I continue to like this book. But it is sort of like hearing your own voice. I think what I need is something to balance this out.
Below is an example.
"Suggestions included:
- Give users access to raw content such as interviews as a means of providing greater transparency and accountability.
- Provide tools and become a platform for user-generated rather than firm-generated content.
- Redisign all content to be a conversation rather than a corporate monologue.
- Treat advertising as content too.
- Use new distribution forms, including peer-to-peer networks.
- Adapt content forms and schedules to user demands.
Actions speak louder than words, however, and few of these ideas have been championed."
That's because it's easier said than done. Existing processes, and the mind sets that made them, don't just take a bow and pass quietly out the back door.
Anyway, six weeks till show time. In early April we release an improved version of Tagspace (no limits on what can be tagged) an explicit recognition system, and new beta versions of forums and the Microsoft corporate blogging platform.
Just betas -- minimum viable releases and all that. But they're all integrated, and eventually every one of them will include a publicly available API (REST api's btw). By the fall we expand the capabilities of those services and add a few new interesting things. Central to the plan is community control, community energy, community direction, community creativity -- we're just here to deliver the platform that lets people be successful in whatever way they choose. Our services are designed to offer the possibility of unanticipated outcomes. No doubt, it's the best thing I've ever been a part of at Microsoft.
But then the corporate machine grinds on, and we've been re-orged. Time will tell whether this will be a good thing for us and the latest generation of web2.0 services from Microsoft.com, a bad thing, or no thing at all. As a generally optimistic guy, I'm living the good thing bet. After all, this whole social network thing has gone from fringe to center stage in the few years that I've been involved. Jeez, there's even a book called "Wikinomics". Surely, surely, the cards are stacked in our favor. They just have to be.
