ETHER

WSJ Online 10 years: The Attention Economy

Recommended reading today is the Wall Street Journal Online's special feature celebrating 10 years of WSJ.com.  The articles are mixed but thought provoking is  "Pundits Discuss the Internet's Future", an exchange between Vint Cerf and Esther Dyson. Topics addressed include "mobility", increased Internet ubiquity with less "visibility", turning to trusted sources faced with "information glut", and "IPTV".

Dyson's comments about the "attention economy" captured my attention. She writes:

There's a lot of, er, attention being paid right now to the so-called "attention economy." Indeed, O'Reilly [Media Inc.] subtitled its recent (March) Web 2.0 conference "The attention economy." It even featured author Michael Goldhaber, who wrote about the concept some 14 years ago for my newsletter Release 1.0.

Dyson goes on to argue:

But Mr. Goldhaber's thesis is far more radical, and people aren't really paying ... attention yet. It's that attention has its own intrinsic value, independent of money. People go on the Web in search of attention; they don't want to give it as much as get it. People judge their own worth by their number of friends (Friendster) or fans (MySpace) or business contacts (LinkedIn). They may tell you that they're seeking business success, but oftentimes they seem to value contact lists in the thousands for their own sake.

The topic of the "attention economy" is especially interesting when considered in light of the changing economic models Yochai Benkler describes in his recently released "Wealth of Networks".  Digging deeper into Goldhaber's case for the "attention economy" is worthwhile, especially reading the Introduction to his March 8, 2006 slides. He talks of caterpillars and moths, and argues for "the more ethereal-seeming mental currency of attention."

~ Jenny Ambrozek

eMint, New Text & a Pilgrimage to the BBC

Growing up in Australia the BBC is revered. And when one's introduction to new media and online is Teletext captioning and Prestel standard Videotex at the Australian Caption Center, visiting the BBC offices was making a pilgrimage. Thanks to Lizzie Jackson for providing that opportunity with an eMint gathering at the BBC offices in London March 24.

While I thought there were interesting initiatives in the U.S., (especially in the evolving practice of social networking), this is nothing compared to the energy around innovative uses of new media technologies for customer engagement and citizen journalism visible in the U.K.  The following may not be new to you but were to me.

Text to Screen- Burgeoning use in live events.  Tamara Littleton, eMint Chair and expert at moderating text messages to allow audience participation while protecting the brands of event organizers, provided a demonstration.  Digging into text-to-screen uses on my return I found the Live 8 Ticket lottery, (the fee charged to text and participate was a donation), broke all text messaging records even before the concert.  Texting and display on screens during the event was also big. The BBC published samples of messages sent to its Meryick Park Big Screen during the Live 8 conference.

JigSaw UK- An initiative of FutureScape, a new media research consultancy, to provide a central resource for emerging digital media in the U.K. Co-founder Colin Donald provided a briefing.

New Media Knowledge- Knowledge sharing group supported by the University of Westminster including the opportunity to discuss "innovation" over beer.  Offers a rich events schedule including an online community building workshop with Lizzie Jackson. 

The BBC- Never to be underestimated BBC R & D continues to find interesting means to involve audiences.  Keep watch for their developments in applying image analysis, computer vision and tracking technologies to broadcasting. 

Home Office Interactive Services Moderation Guidelines- A cross industry project team toiled to publish, December 2005, official moderation guidelines to protect children online.

A Financial Times March 27 story describes "London is thriving as it takes on the global competition". Meeting with eMint members at the BBC confirmed the "explosion of talent, expertise and energy" the FT story describes. If you have any interest in managing online services and trends, eMint membership is highly recommended.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

iVillage Turbocharges NBC Universal Online

Another historic online industry moment today with the announcement that NBC Universal is acquiring iVillage, a grassroots Internet brand, that grew out of AOL's Greenhouse project under Ted Leonsis.  The Wall Street Journal article notes the iVillage deal is another in a string of mainstream media acquiring successful online brands:

In the last few years, New York Times Co. bought hub About.com, News Corp. bought social-networking site MySpace and Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online as well as the print Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, purchased financial-news service MarketWatch site MySpace and Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online as well as the print Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, purchased financial-news service MarketWatch- WSJ

The press release and webcast are available under the corporate information section of the iVillage site.  The webcast lead by Beth Comstock, President of NBC Digital Media, is recommended listening as they describe the value of iVillage as "one of the nation's most successful online destinations for women", and their expectations for its contribution to NBC's digital strategy. In the words of the press release:

With this acquisition, NBC Universal will engage millions of loyal iVillage users, a community which mirrors a key demographic of the NBC Universal audience - women. Every part of NBC Universal, from television and film to home entertainment will support and drive iVillage forward. From this platform, NBC Universal will chart the next generation of digital content development and enhance user experience

For those who may have thought online "community" is dead, the value of a passionate, loyal, connected audience as iVillage has created is clearly alive and well at NBC Universal. In the webcast Beth Comstock's words include:

"..compelling content and finding engaging destinations.. marry community with content..  proprietary content and a way to engage users and advertisers.. turbocharges what we do.."

"programming and community.. experiences wherever technology can take it.. videos, community.. "

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

Podcasting, Advertising & Social Architecture

If there was any doubt podcasting has arrived as a new publishing medium listening to veteran public radio broadcaster Tony Kahn at the Corante Berkman Center Social Architecture Symposium in November 2005 was persuasive.  It was no surprize then to recently discover Podtrac billing itself as the "Podcaster-Advertiser Connection".  Their widely reported December study on podcasting demographics is interesting in labelling podcasting as "a year old" and pointing to podcast listener demographics moving from male early adopters to a "more even balance between the genders" (CNET). (I note Tony Kahn's excellent "Morning Stories" podcasts are sponsored.)

I was reminded of the value of podcasting listening to Jenny Attiyeh's Thoughtcast.org interview with David Weinberger, Stowe Boyd and Chris Nolan. Jenny's experienced interviewing for me provided better answers to the question: "What is social architecture?", than did attending the Corante Berkman Center Symposium where the podcast was recorded.

In the Thoughtcast David Weinberger talks about the Internet's potential for architecting social change.  I thought about his observations listening to a FamilyTechTalk newscast by Larry Magid and Anne Collier. These two very dedicated and experienced old and new media journalists are working together 'stand alone" (Chris Nolan's term), using the latest in new media self publishing tools, podcasts and blogs, to educate families about safe use of the Internet. Small evidence of the positive social impact of the Internet organizers of the Social Architecture Symposium imagine and discuss in Jenny Attiyeh's Thoughtcast?

The Digital Decade and Learning in Organizations

ZDNet has great coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas including a video excerpt from Bill Gates' presentation describing the digital future.  I found the real time virtual collaboration experience Gates paints for the end of the decade especially interesting in light of the Jay Cross article on Workflow Learning Gets Real to which ETHER Advisor Kiki Mulliner alerted me yesterday.  We've had many conversations about trends in online learning and the increasingly real time, chunked experience this is becoming. I wonder how long before we see the technology vision Gates paints adapted to real time, collaborative learning in organizations?

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

Does blogging improve job performance?

So many sources. So little time. 

The July 25 Network World crossed my path this week  The page 41 article "Start Planning for the nanorevolution" alerted me that "Nanothechnology is entering the telecom and IT field, so start learning about it now."

It was the page 70 story "Why you blog" including profiles of 2 bloggers that I read twice.  The common thread it seemed is how blogging enhances work life. For James McGovern "it's the perfect place...to take a cirtual step out of his office and get a reality check."  For Stuart Berman "a big believer in horizontal thinking, where ideas don't have to about network engineering to help him improve his work.

Now I'm curious if there are any research studies more formally validating positive benefits of blogging on job performance.