Category Archives: social networks

Morning Star in Nederland

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logo-new1Afgelopen week is Paul Green Jr. van het self-management instituut (link)in Nederland geweest. Samen hebben we presentaties gegeven bij een aantal organisaties. Self management is een organisatie model bedacht door Chris Rufer van het bedrijf Morning Star in California (link). In 1995 heeft hij alle managementlagen in het bedrijf afgeschaft. Iedereen heeft het recht zich overal mee te bemoeien, mag zelf bepalen welke investeringen gedaan moeten worden en niemand is de baas (nou, de eigenaar als het echt niet anders kan). Ik ben daar vorig jaar op bezoek geweest, het verslag daarvan kun je hier vinden.

Mijn deel van de presentatie bestond uit de veranderingen in onze maatschappij die maken dat organisaties op zoeken moeten naar nieuwe organisatiemodellen. De hierarchische structuur past steeds minder bij deze tijd.

ProjetX Haren: wat is er echt gebeurt?

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Zoals iedereen heeft kunnen zien is er onlangs iets gebeurd in Haren. Grote vraag achteraf is: hoe heeft dit zo kunnen gebeuren en wat is de rol van sociale en traditionele media in het uit de hand lopen van een “feestje”. In onderstaande slideshare zijn alle gebeurtenissen op een rij gezet: wanneer is de berichtenstroom op sociale media op gang gekomen, wanneer speelde de traditionele media een rol.

Sociale media in verkiezingstijd deel 1

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In samenwerking met Upstream en Coosto gaat Marketingfacts in aanloop naar de Tweede Kamer-verkiezingen in september regelmatig aandacht besteden aan de rol van sociale media in de verkiezingsstrijd door politieke onderwerpen te monitoren. Marketing en politiek hebben tenslotte veel met elkaar gemeen: beide gaan over het goed overbrengen van een idee. Vandaag de kick-off.

In 2004 hebben sociale media voor het eerst grootschalig hun intrede gedaan in de politiek. Howard Dean, presidentskandidaat in 2004, was de eerste die internet en vooral tools als Meetup.com actief gebruikte in zijn campagne. Joe Trippi heeft daar een zeer lezenswaardig boek over geschreven: “The revolution will not be televised”.

We zijn nu acht jaar verder en sociale media zijn niet meer weg te denken in de politiek. Interessant is dan ook hoe de sociale media de Tweede Kamer-verkiezingen van 12 september a.s. zullen beïnvloeden. In de komende tijd zullen we op regelmatige basis een analyse maken over:

  • waar twitteren politici (eerste en tweede kamer) over en hoeveel, wat is de trend
  • waar twitteren politiek actieve twitteraars over (definitie is een politieke term in de bio) en wat is de trend
  • welke politieke onderwerpen worden in het algemeen op sociale media besproken en wat is het sentiment. Hierbij richten we ons vooral op een aantal grote politieke onderwerpen (woningmarkt, pensioen, Europa, zorg, bezuinigingen). Continue reading →

What are friends for

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One of the interesting aspects of Google+ is the concept of Circles. The idea is that in real life you have different circles of friends to whom you communicate differently. There is no single you but there are several you’s that are a bit different depending on the context. Most people act a   different towards their boss, their old university friends and towards familiy.

There is however one aspect missing that I think will turn out to be crucial to it’s succes: uncertainty.

Friendship is by definition two sided. It does not have to be symmetrical (meaning you both feel the same towards eachother) but at least there is to be some level of reciprocity. Most group of friends consist of a small group of people that have a high level of reciprocity and close bonds in their relations to each other. Around that group there is a larger community where the level of reciprocity is not consistent for the whole core group. They are sort of in the group and out of the group at the same time, depending on who you ask.

This foggy definition of a circle of friends is something we as humans need since we deal badly with rejection. This lack of Transparancy makes it possible to create blurry edges for people to feel in while in fact they are only partly accepted. This blurry edge however does create a gradual path for people to move into the circle step by step. This is something we probably all recognise from our own experience, especially during school.

Because of this transparancy in Circles what you end up with is the relationships type in LinkedIn where everyone is a friend since it is too confronting to reject someone as a friend. And when everyone is you friend than no one is.

So unless Google is able to build in a combination of reciprocity and bit of vagueness in circles my prediction is that it will not succeed. If they (or Facebook) does succeed in modelling how friendships works in real life than that social network will win the battle. Because, aren’t we all looking for friends?

 

The future is old

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We all know that in our western societies we have an age problem. We have more and more elderly and less and less young people. In many ways this is an achievement of our societies (who does not want to become old) but it poses us for new questions. When we get old, who will do the work needed?

You can calculate that in 2025 the workload per employee that takes care for elderly people will be twice as high. I think that is one of the challenges we have for the next decades.

ICT will be one of the means to deliver an answer to this challange. ICT to increase productivity (like care from a distance) but also ICT that gives more control to people so they can take care of themselves (e.g. with social media).

Last week we started a program focused around these two types of potential for ICT in the elderly care. In this program we bring together people from healthcare organizations, universities and companies (www.health-lab.nl). During this kickoff we had around 50 people of management level together.

One of the interesting discussions we had was about the role of commercial companies. My statement is that we need commercial companies to grow from all kinds of well meant pilots to mature markets. Only in a mature market there will be technology available for everyone and not just in a subsidized pilot. In this discussion it was clear that in the world of care there is some tension between commerce and care. I hope with the Health-lab program we can lower the barriers between these worlds.

 

Personal, very personal

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Personal

This morning I wrote about social networking and all the good things it may bring us. Stay in contact, meet old friends and things like that. After that I received this email from plaxo. One of my freinds, John will have his birthday on December 14th. Nice to get a reminder (I am terrible at reminding things like that) but where will this bring us? My first idea was: hey we could automate this and send the card by itsel so you will never forget another birthday. I can imagine being called by a friend: He Martijn, thanks for your card. Me: What card, what for?

I wonder where this will lead us …

And John, in case I forget: happy birthday …. :-)

Sticky

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MeIt is amazing how fast social networking is growing. Every time I am giving a presentation I always ask my audience how many people use one or more social networking sites like Facebook, MySPace, Hyves, LindedIn or another. Since a year this percentage is growing from 20% to more than 70% nowadays. I think especially business oriented sites like LinkedIn made social networking more “salonfähig” than before.

Social networking is I think an area where the idea of “the rich get richer” is especially true. After all, once you have many customers you tend to have more people sending invitation and there is more chance that people send invitations to you. One would expect that only some big sites remain and that newcomers have a hard time growing.

Therefore it is surprising that a new one, Plaxo, is really flooding my e-mail box. Many contacts have send me an invitation. After 10 invitations I decided to take a look, make an account and start using it too. I was a bit weary for this since using lot’s of sites is awkward, I thought.

But I must say this is a sticky one. Firstly they are very easy to link to your existing social networking site like LinkedIn. Secondly they use something they call “pulse”. On plaxo you can fill in the blogs you write, the photo sites you use and all other exhibitionist’s methods and they are shown in a log to all your contacts. This resulted in several comments on the photo you see above, I did not realize that it would be shown to all (welcome to the world of total transparency). Before I wrote about small world networks. One of the effects I see by using Plaxo is that you can see that lots or your contacts make contact with people you also know (and since you see this in the “pulse” you immediately connect to them too …).

One of the interesting developments in social networking is OpenSocial from Google, used by Plaxo too. Google failed miserable with Orkut and other social tools they developed. So they decided to create an API that makes it possible to integrate all social sites in an easy way. And thereby minimizing the advantage you have by having lots of members since everything integrates easily. And thereby minimizing your disadvantage when you have failed miserably in creatign you own social site. You have to admire them…

Knights in Licra 2

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PS This is the link to their site, this is the link how to contribute money, this is the link how to contribute money and energy and here they explain why you can be 100% sure that all money will end up for research.

Knights in Licra

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Sometimes you do things that energize you. Sometimes you meet people that, through their drive and energy, lift you up and give you energy. Even wish you could do more.

As Telematica Instituut we are working together with the people from Alp D’huZes to improve the life of people with cancer. About two years ago some people, among them Coen van Veenendaal en Peter Kapitein, started to think about ways to improve the life of people with cancer. Peter has been diagnosed with cancer in 2005. Their goal is to become the largest sponsor of the KWF, the Dutch cancer fund. Their means: by cycling up and down the Alp D’huez paid for by sponsors. Not once but six times in a row. The first year they gathered € 350.000. The second year, 2007, they cycled up and down the Alp D’huez again with 140 people, 7 times in a row. I think something you can only do when you are really motivated through and through. This year they gathered more than one million euros for the KWF. The project we are setting up with them is to monitor and support people with cancer after treatment. Since cancer more and more becomes a chronic disease it is becoming important to support the people that live with cancer. Sport is a good way to feel better and stay active. Goal is to activate people by improving the communication between the patients and people treating them through, amongst others, virtual communities.

It is not just the fact that they are crazy enough to go up and down a considerable mountain but it is the drive and energy they have to accomplish their goal. On the mountain and towards the companies that sponsor them. Listening to their stories I think everybody feels compelled to contribute. The motto is “giving up is not an option”. Heroes…

All people are created equal, but some make a difference.

Are you linkedIn?

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new improved semantic webI think we all know the sorry feeling that we lost track of people we knew and worked with in the past but lost sight of. In the past it a was always very hard to find them again. Since some time now there is a new social network called LinkedIn. The idea is that you can find people by name and that they themselves keep their profiles up date. Meaning you can find them on their current e-mail address.

By using it I already found some old friends from the places I worked, colleagues, customers and partners. It even integrates into outlook and recognizes people you may know from all the old e-mails you have sent (I have an archive of all my mails from 1997 and on)

This linking to each other creates an interesting web. You can normally see the acquaintances of other people and and have a look at their network. Potentially you can get an introduction for people you wish to contact. One of the other interesting features is that you can pose a question that others can try to answer.

It seems to be growing explosively, especially in the Netherlands…

I think one of the reasons it works is that the identity of the people involved is (on average) accurate. People are who they say they are. After all, the network is also meant for finding real people and real jobs. So there is no use in providing false identities. I am really curious in how this network is evolving. Another interesting aspect is that the network that people build based on their role is becoming more their own instead of their employers. This may create a feeling of independence (which is a good thing in my book). Potentially the added value for the users is much bigger than it is in networks like facebook since it keeps track of how your career evolves after graduation.

I sent them an e-mail to find out if it is possible to get (anonymously) their data on the linkages between people. This of course is a small world network but it is interesting to find out what kind of people are the connectors, what is the average separation, and so on. I have not yet received an answer…

You can find me on linkedIn .Laughing