ETHER

Networked Individualism, eTrade, and Prediction Markets

Thanks to EA Griffith for alerting me to the Pew Internet Study "The Strength of Internet Ties". Indeed EA it is reassuring to see more than a decade later what we observed in the day-to-day of managing PRODIGY bulletin boards, and as the Pew report states:

"The Internet and email aid users in maintaining their social networks and provide pathways to help when people face big decisions".

While the Pew study is persuasive that "the Internet helps build social capital" and Barry Wellman's concept of "networked individualism" prevails, more interesting to me these days is watching these forces transform business processes and organizations.  eWeek, January 30, 2006 carries an intriguing interview with eTrade CIO Greg Framke about:

"Getting rid of its Sun Solaris infrastructure and moving open source up the stack saved eTrade millions of dollars and changed how the company approaches development. "

What we learn is that moving to an open source platform also caused eTrade to change the way it develops software to the modular, collaborative approach that Linux pioneered.

Friday, February 3, I attended the KMCluster Prediction Markets Summit in New York city. Hats off to John Maloney for an extraordinary showcase of the ways organizations are capitalizing on "networked individualism" and using Prediction Markets technology in applications ranging from predicting LCD TV futures, to the spread of the Avian flu, or global risk (at the 2006 World Economic Forum). A sample of Prediction Markets applications is available at NewsFutures ( a platform provider), including the Yahoo TechBuzz Game and news story outcomes.

While the Pew Study helps us understand a decade of "the strength of Internet ties", it's clear from the experience of people like the eTrade IT group and the pioneers of "Prediction Markets" gathered at the KMCluster event, that the Internet's impact on social and organizational change is just beginning.

~ja

Everyone's An Expert: Essential Seth Godin

Like Nancy White, SQUIDOO's arrival diverted my time although unlike Nancy I succeeded only in exploring what it takes to create just one "lens".  Congratulations Nancy on your efficiency in creating lenses and also observations about early adopters "snatching" lenses and will they be maintained? How long I wonder before we see lens topics for sale on eBay? 

Seth Godin's ebook "Everyone's An Expert" is worth downloading and reading to be informed, challenged and entertained by observations including: 

"Searching online should really be called poking online."

"in fact, before you get it, before you discover the meaning, there is no right answer."

"The first version of the Web was about using computers to assemble clues."

"The second version of the Web is about enabling people to share meaning."

The "Everyone's An Expert" thesis is especially interesting in light of the New Yorker piece by Louis Menand 2005-10-05 reviewing Philip Tetlock’s book, “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?”  In describing the book's lesson Menand writes:

"The accuracy of an expert’s predictions actually has an inverse relationship to his or her self-confidence, renown, and, beyond a certain point, depth of knowledge. People who follow current events by reading the papers and newsmagazines regularly can guess what is likely to happen about as accurately as the specialists whom the papers quote. Our system of expertise is completely inside out: it rewards bad judgments over good ones."

Will SQUIDOO impact our perceptions of who are the experts?  I'll be watching.

~JA

Structural Holes Enrich Social Architecture Symposium

November 15 I made the pilgrimage to Boston for the Corante Berkman Center Social Architecture Symposium. I've enjoyed reading the reviews. While there were nuggets in the presentations for me the gold was in the event's "structural holes".

i. Lunch with Estee Solomon Gray, co-author with John Seely Brown of the prescient 1995 article "The People are the Company" published in the first Fast Company magazine. The issues and trends they identified a decade ago seemed important but missing context to the Symposium discussion.

ii. Conversations with energetic entrepreneurs building the next generation of software tools, Attensa, and social networking content sites, Gather. While I didn't speak with Seth Goldstein I'm intrigued by his new ventures, AttentionTrust.org and Root/Markets.

iii. Discussions that may have happened if more of the Symposium advisor list were present. Nancy White has revealed the reasons for her absence.  John Hagel was unfortunately ill. Having just discovered Hagel's latest working paper written with John Seely Brown, I was looking forward to his perspective.  As co-author of NetGain that encouraged a generation of ambitious but unfortunately false numbers in Internet venture business plans, and Networth that foretold the rise of "infomediaries" (perhaps including Seth Goldstein?), Hagel if ahead of his time is always worth reading.

iv. The conversations that could have flowed from more audience participation.  Consider that representatives from both IBM and Microsoft, companies leading the way in adopting blogs for changing brand perception and greater corporate transparency, were in the audience.  What might we have learnt from them about how social tools are transforming organizations?

v.  The presence of other leading, rigorous thinkers about the impact of social tools on the economy and society.  Deborah Elizabeth Finn's report of Yochai Benkler's Networked Economy presentation reminded me of his thought provoking presentation two years ago at the Multiples of One conference. Organizers Kate Erhlich and her colleagues did a fabulous job of gathering forward thinkers and innovators for a rich conversation pointing to trends that are still emerging. They even solved the problem of ensuring dialogue in a traditional lecture theater. Using the MIT Media Lab's "talking ball" (including a microphone), literally allowed the right to speak (and be heard), to be passed around the room.

Thank you Corante and the Berkman Center for a wonderfully thought provoking Symposium, if not necessarily in the ways you envisioned.

AOK, "Authority Management" & Dave Hawthorne Digging for What Really Is

ETHER Advisor Marcia Morante nudged me to read the flurry of thought provoking postings emerging from Jerry Ash's Association of Knowledge Work discussion regarding knowledge management failures around Hurricane Kristina.  All deserve reading and anyone interested in any aspect of knowledge management and knowledge sharing is encouraged to join.

In a post today Dave Hawthorne argues that regarding Katrina the issue is not "Knowledge Management" but rather "Authority Management". For those without access to Dave's AOK post here is a nugget:

"More often than not I think we are talking about Authority Management rather than Knowledge Management.  People "know" a great many things that they don't act on; that they ignore. The organizational question is not about whether or not someone has the knowledge they need, but whether or not they have the authority to act, and whether that authority is based on their awareness of the context in which they act, and whether they have knowledge of its alignment with the intent (purpose) of the organization, perhaps that's the "holon." Everything else is instrumentation and we can build that."                  -David Hawthorne