Year: 2009

Future of social media from Social Media Convention

Published September 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Blogging at 20? The future and potential of social media

Panelists:

Kara Swisher,Wall Street Journal

Dave Sifry, Technocrati

Richard Allan, Facebook

Nigel Shadbolt, University of Southampton

Chair: William Dutton, Oxford University

If social media are the defining advance of Web 2.0, whereby the network-as-platform enabled users not just to download content but to create it, tag it and share it, what will the next decade hold? Many of the social media businesses whose tools we rely on have yet to make a profit, whilst concerns about privacy, security and possibly even dignity suggest that our online habits may have to change. The technology press has for some time been heralding the oncoming arrival of Web 3.0, as an era where the web gets ’smart’, and research on the developing semantic web suggests that this is no idle prediction. But what will happen to social media in the interim? Will the next ten years see our fascination with blogging, wikis and social networks replaced by a re-focusing on the enhanced informational capacity of the Web or will we continue to Tweet?

Richard Allan. Increasing pressure to regulate. EU took broadcasting rules and applied to internet. When video hs TV like power – it will attract attn of regulators. We want to tak our identity with us – crunch area. Can we let ppl let us develop identities – regulation of identity is an attractive issue for governments. Increasing power of audience.

Daily reach Facebook in UK 9m by 0.5 hr.

Bill Dutton. In US, want anonymity.

Richard Allan. Germany, like pseudonyms. Some sites might want identity cards.

Nigel Shadbolt. Public data should public. Delighted Facebook is promoting portability. Somebody at Google -Data Liberator.

What can be predicted – space and place will be more exquisitely defined. Will be revealed by digital behaviour.

Social norms. Do we need regulation. Let’s have some very clear info about where our info is and we must held ppl accountable or misuisng it.

Question.

?? Strategy for governments. Need data. Lisbon – top-down.

Richard Allan. Next few years. What mashups could you build? Find a loo – Satlav. Get data out of local authorities. Make data freely data – at every local govt.

Kara . .. find Starbucks.

David. Urinary Liberation Front.

Nigel Shadbolt. Need to be able access data. Some inadevertently handed over. Rail timetables.

David. Legal proceedings.

Nigel Shadbolt. Each jurisdiction will have different view of what is a public good.

Question.

?? Who controls, for example, our language preferences. Who will control this in future?

Kara . .. Google.

Dave. .. easily fixable. Geo search. Area of enormous innovatin. Who tracks all that. Commonly available. Genie out of bottle.

Kara. .Google holds back results in China, by requiremetn.

Richard Allan. Geo location is covered by law in Eu.

Kara.. .. computer driven body parts.

Floor/Kara animals / kids – 2 blocks off.

Bill Dutton. Privacy and surveillance. Also issue of quality. Are social networks going to enhance quality or not in your area? Or sideshow.

Nigel Shadbolt. Purposive social networks. What can you keep private? Challenge to build networks with scientists. Interesting engineering to share data. Quality? Next year – most papers in chem.eng will be in Chinese. Data is published with paper.

Kara….. no downside. Scientists collaborative and competitive. Silos. New media is of quality and getting better – take quality and ethics and embrace speed. Do excellent work online and still of high quality.

Dave…. better and be worse. Think through consequences of speed.

Richard Allan. Comparing apples and pears. Comparing content and conversation. Framing doesn’t tell us about quality anymore. We can make wrong assumptions about what we are looking at.

Nigel Shadbolt. Internet . . didn’t persuade Americans to believe in natual selection.

Question

?? Business model scalable to univeral access. Richer, younger, better educated are on line. Will we increase real life differentials?

Kara . .. distribution of technology in States. Universal access. Facebook has turned profitable. Google more profitable than Oprah – did I get that right.

Bill Dutton. Social accountability for small groups of users.

Question

x hours of YouTube – people becoming illiterate. . ..

Kara . . think video, screens.

Touch it, move it.

Richard Allan. Video will distribute President Palin.

Nigel Shadbolt. Empowers illiterate.

Dave…. Had videos for years…. won’t replace multi-modal

Kara . . 4 year olds expect screens to be touch screens

Dave . . . What will be on top today, will not be on top then.

Nigel Shadbolt – silicon will be meat…. lifestyle data …. big

Richard Allan – serious movement of refuseniks

-end-

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Academics begin by dismissing the democratic potential of social media and end there?

Published September 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Social media, so what? Assessing the impact of blogs and social media

Panelists:

Stefan Niggemeier, BILDblog

Evgeny Morozov, Georgetown University

Matthew Hindman, Arizona State University

Richard Allan, Facebook

Chair: Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon, Oxford University

Theorists such as Yochai Benkler have suggested that the accessibility and inherently social nature of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, social networking and wikis mean that we might expect them to enhance our democratic freedoms through the opening of new channels for debate and collaboration. Academic research suggests that such new opportunities have not been equally taken up, and that in many areas, new social media are simply being used by old ‘elites’. At the same time, blogs and social media are having significant effect in enhancing accountability and transparency, particularly in repressive regimes like Burma and China. This session will ask whether we should be so quick to dismiss the socially egalitarian and politically democratic potential of social media or whether there might equally be more mundane but significant social impacts which have so far been ignored.

Missed beginning with internet problems. People kicking the benches. Photographers blinding us with flashes. No work getting done here.

Evgeny Morozov: From Belarus – some countries getting more democratic. Some activists and NCG’s becoming more effective.

Impact of internet – what about people who are not activists. All political forces are using it. Can find connections of dissidents online. Access doesn’t make people aspire for democracy. [Why should it? Technological determinism?] Says refrain from technological determinism? [Straw man?]

Richard Allan: Potential vs reality. Political practitioner. Audience had left the building. Political class optimistic. Cyberutopia just that.

Apps that allow ppl to have ongoing deeper relationships beyond challenge-response of a blog. Afffordancies from a political view.

Early social media : pubs (bars) online. Bars develop a specific character. Talking to the same people. People could come in but don’t.

Now: Festival. Arrive with like-minded people but reach out and meet new people and discover new ideas. At a Festival, we spend time in the music tents not the side shows. But side shows can arrive and develop novel connections. Entertainment also still trumps politics. Can we use social media to expand our networks in novel ways.

Matthew Hindman: Access, openess, public sphere – most people say there are low barriers to entry. Monopolies -high fixed costs, low variable costs. Economics on internet are far less forgiving. What has Google spent on intrastrucutre on R&D. By end of 2010, Google will have cost more than the Manhattan project. Web has many new niches but saturate quickly. What is cost of Amazon? In any established niche, fixed cost are very high. Choke points.

Who uses the technologies – may onto existing . . .

Democratization – messy business – no technology can make all the values better at once. American public sphere currently very exclusionary – gatekeepers different but disproportionately male, white, highly educated. Internet does not reach people who take their lunch pail to work.

Marketplace of ideas is more ferocious than ever – imperfect ways of addressing.

Deliberation vs coordination.

View of BO campaign -networks ran centrally rather than distributed. Disintermediating politicians.

BO won Ohio with much more effective statistical targetting & political history – won in Republican areas of state. Done by elites.

SGB:

Unintended consequences. Most important unintended consequences.

Stefan Niggemeier: Use tools to own end. Use for spam or evil things. Don’t think in UiC. To start internet company can be difficult, but so much easier to be heard. Know it doesn’t happen all the time.

Matthew Hindman: Traditional media you will be heard. Publish on internet you may not be heard. You do not have to ask permission -you need to catch the attention of a big blogger. Many possible patrons but still need one. Some groups are not on line – trade unions and conservative religious not on line.

Production more open but filtering is not more open. [push pull issues here??]

Evgeny Morozov. Social media helps repressive media – selective about response.

[Some give and take by panel as I am distracted by media problems again]

Matthew Hindman. Example.

Question

?? Take focus away from minority -technologies exacerbate divide. 96% of Africa no way of expressing themselves.

MT: Mobile phones in Africa. Half of Africa can be reached by cell phone.

Richard Allen. Less interesting in library and more in conversation. Advantages of being part of conversation (yes or no)?

BBC: Blogs, crimes and national security.

Evgeny Morozov. Sharing information on cyberattacks. Need discussion of cyberviolence. Govt is going pursuing national security agenda – most done by individuals for non-criminal reasons.

Question.

?? Synthesis – social mediators – what I can do on line? Seeing emergence of new intermediation. What do people do with what we do online?

Question.

?? Unintended consequences. What do panel think about real time public scrutiny has affected public debate?

Answers: ? Citizen expectations that we would move toward direct representation – Richard Allan prefers representational politics. EM – healthcare debate – 70% discuss myths and then media comes in. [ confused – Palin talked about death panels to win not to be accurate].

MH clearest result of real time scrutiny has bee higher polarization. Opinion transformation has been transformed.

Would you improve debate by seeing Twitter stream? Stefan yes.

Question.

?? Politics is tired in UK. Polis on line has been failure. Is discussing social media a smoke-screen? Is overestimating social media undermining social media?

MH. Cable news – most people started consuming less news, some more news, distribution changed. Lower voter participation [cause and EM: effect?]. Inequality about what people know about politics. Politics is small part what we do online .25% [demographic s?]

EM: Slacktavism.

Richard Allan. Is what you are saying on line immediate and significant when they engage? Electorate are smart. Voters ignore politics when it is not relevant. Not tools and issue.

Closing . . .

Very ragged. Restless meeting struggling with intermittent internet.

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Scientists ARE using social media

Published September 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Parallel Session II: Making science public: data-sharing, dissemination and public engagement with science

Panellists:

Ben Goldacre, Open blog

Cameron Neylon, Bad Science blog & Oxford University

Maxine Clarke, Nature

Chair: Felix Reed-Tsochas, Oxford University

Journals and peer-reviewed publications are still the most widely used channels through which research is disseminated within the scientific community and to a broader audience. However, social media are increasingly challenging the supremacy of editors, reviewers and science communicators. Blogging about science has become a new way of engaging ‘the public’ directly with researchers whilst researchers are increasingly using blogs within their own academic communities for peer-review purposes. Panellists will give their perspective on how social media have changed the nature of the scientific debate among scientists, and how they have impacted on engagement with the public understanding of science.

1. (Observation last night.) Two of the panelists list their blog as well as their academic affiliation. But are they academics too? Or borrowed for the occasion?

2. Missed opening remarks as struggled with weak internet connections here.

3. Now Cameron Neylon. Scientist – using social media as his lab notebook. No peer review. Ppl could steal data. But could [crowd-source] review. Then discovered other scientists using social media to “do science”. Maxine Clarke of Nature said few scientists use social media but it is a rapidly growing community.

Exp – publicize details – ask people to take mmts.

Describing typical 7 year cycle of a research project.

Who funded the prizes (journal subs) for students. Completed project in 6 mo with invited paper and publication. Much more efficient.

Questions

FRT: How much has interaction changed?

Ben Goldacre. Journos often get issues wrong and dumb down issues. Does journo science news inform people with science degrees who work in a variety of roles? Blogs can be niche (mindhacks on neuroscience and psychology). Imagine 2000 science blogs with 500 readers each talking to 1m people.

Royal Society Prizes for science books recently – 20K in prizes an more in admin – books selling 3000 copies only. Science Minister [google the spat] – committees have no new media experience.

Blogs encourage us to be clearer and sounder about what we write. Link culture. Journos don’t want you to know they’ve copied and pasted from a press release. Cited an example of not checking primary sources. We link to primary sources.

FTR: [Will blogs kill science journalism?]

BG: Old science journalism is dumbed down for us. We need a patchwork with better stuff for people who are informed.

FTR: Danger of sloppy journalism. But issue of quality and trust.

BG: Journos say internet is undistributed mush. Need to learn to use internet. Easy to tell when something is [rubbish]. Lots of dodgy stuff everywhere. Want more and let the street [filter].

Maxine Clarke: As editor, don’t equate blog in that way. But likes blogs and interaction. Nerdish quality – correct – find niche. Look for Open Lab.

BG: Disintermediation – 70% of science words on BBC Radio 4 are spoken by scientists themselves. Shepherded and coached to be clear – but speaking. Look at Radio 4 for examples.

Cameron Neylon. Abandon term public – don’t distinguish between public and scientists. Engage people with the scientists. Let people contribute to science – even be authors.

BG: Interdisciplinary communication. Semi-professional communication promotes . . . Need a place between newspapers and journals.

FTR: Will social media allow us to differentiate public?

Cameron Neylon: Arrogant and lazy toward non-scientists. Need not to be [snobbish]. Get support for funding.”public

Questions

Dussledorf: What keeps scientists from using Web2.0?

BG: Younger people use Web2.0? Get RAE to reward unmediated engagement with “public”. And pay or allow people to split jobs.

Maxine Clarke: Generational issues for journals like Nature. Friendfeed heated discussions about science.

Camero Neylon: Only just starting to explore social media for public and for science (see Friendfeed). New things are high risk strategies and they keep high risk behaviour for science. Won’t be taken seriously if you are out on a limb. People who are using Web2.0 are trying to get a tenured position. Some senior ppl involved. But 10 years in – more cautious.

BG. Use blogs as [scribble-pad] in lost cost threshold.

Question

❓ Time to read academic reports. Likes Nature for summary. Few Twitters using service. How are inst. like Nature making money out of it.

Maxine Clarke. Highlights from Nature very popular. Making money isn’t a serious concern for making money online – still experimental. Lack of time – Nature Network – some blogs to work out problems but also just about lab life. Social not about scientific work itself. Scientists are cerebral – therefore enjoy blogs.

OII: Fighting against moral panics? Rapidity of moral panics in journo. How does peer review play into process? Blogging about something published is out of step with production of work – time gap huge.

Cameron Neylon: 6.5bn spent on science. 80% of cost is peer review – count peer review ideas by 95%. Small proportion of important ideas – use traditional methods. Straight out of instrument and blogged if need for instrument.

Ben Goldcre. Peer review is best of bad lot. What is a scientific publication. Document of record. Methods and results to be published. Different types of publications. Need to recognise two types.

Maxine Clarke. Peer review increases quality. 95% of biological papers are rejected and some passed on to other journals. Cited a journal that publishes online with peer reports – need tagging system.

FTR – audience separating production and differentiation. [lost question]

Maxine Clarke. More journals publishing peer reviews and opening up articles for comment. People tagged by subject. People don’t comment. Scientists conservative – assessed by publications. Power issues inhibit comment.

FTR- can social media change scientific debates.

Maxine Clarke. Widgets in newspapers to follow conversations – find hard to follow. Nature also makes txt accessible in “accessble” format. Conversation too fragmented.

Cameron Neylon. Publicatation is too high risk to be the place to innovate. . . online material not indexed by medline. Conversations in different part of research cycle.

BG: Structural issues. Draw strands together about topic – can it be open. Wiki-professionals – micro-credits for helping on something.

Maxine Clarke: Micro-attribution is growing topic. Av no authors is 6. Some consortia iare 100 or so.

Can contributions be attributed to you – technical issue.

FTR: open source modes of science. Triggers of open source science.

CN: Science is the great open source endeavour. What can we do that is useful? If cannot be replicated and cannot check details, not science.

Bill Dutton: Peer review publications – wrong place to look. Other phases of research process – lot going on. Less collaboration less at publication, high status, older people.

Maxine Clarke. [Internet playing up]

Question: Radio 4. Book only sold 3000 copies. Wonderful to have well written science blogs. Few ppl capable to of writing good science blogs. Problem is not quality but problem of selling stuff to consumers.

Ben Goldacre. That’s why good

Lost a bit here – Said Business School’s internet connection is scribbled.

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Pithy comments from Social Media Convention, Oxford University, Session 1

Published September 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Social Media Convention, Oxford Institute, #oxsmc09

From weblogs to Twitter: how did we get where we are today and what are the main impacts to date?

Panelists:

Dave Sifry, Technorati @dsifry

Bill Thompson, BBC @billt

Bill Dutton, Oxford University @billdutton

Nigel Shadbolt, University of Southampton @nigel_shadbolt

Chair: Kathryn Corrick @kcorrick

Although the dates of the earliest ‘weblog’ are a matter of some debate, the majority of their growth in popularity has arisen over the past ten years. What are the most important milestones in that process of evolution, and what are the factors that have shaped the successes and limitations of social media? Why (if at all) should we expect them to have an inherently democratising or egalitarian effect? Each speaker will be asked to conclude by identifying the most significant ways in which they think that blogs and social media have had any social, political or economic impact.
Dave Sifry

1. Web as library vs web as conversation. What are people saying about me? [Technical issues].

Question from chair: real-time search?

Search interfaces vs filter interfaces [*]

Bill Thompson.

2. Social media is not yet taken-for-granted but what has changed is that “I am no longer in charge”. Permission is no longer need. The internet is a facilitating service. A new literacy is developing. Innovation is possible because we have removed the requirement to ask. We are waiting for the last 5bn to join the 1bn online.

Bill Dutton

3. Constant reinvention of the internet day-to-day but it has always been social. Email is the core application: social and under your control. 98% of people online go their to use email. 2007 17% of Britons over the age of 14 used a social network. 49% today. 22% [?] have created a blog and younger people are the most likely to have done so. Technology reconfigures how we communicate with people. Reinforce existing social networks. But we also meet new people. 35% of internet users have met someone on line that they haven’t met before and many have gone on to meet them in person.

20% of newly married couples met their spouse on line.

Social networks are competing with search engines for referrals. [?4 sources : adverts, real, social network, search ?]

Nigel Shadbolt

4. Thirty years ago, it was easy to have a sense of overview of the internet. The web demonstrates the unreasonable effectiveness of data. When we have scale, remarkable emergent things happen.

AI has become augmented intelligence.

Semantic web: infrastructure that is document-centre to something that gets behind into the data.

Why can’t we anticipate this stuff? Why are we disarmed by what emerges. See “Websites”. Cannot understand cause and direction. Why did blogs take off? Social interaction scale allows things to take off. Self-publication has always been there but pings and trackbacks seem to underly take off of blogs.

Why are we mopping up descriptively rather than anticipating what is to come?

Social media have an exquisite balance between enough features and sufficient? How is this designed? Or is it simply, Darwinian “try and discard”?

Social media activity in China varies from here [? details].

How do large scale structures like Wikipedia become stable? And will they pay for increasing amounts of oversite?

Or do societal structures emerge anyway? Does the web support extremism? Or do people get pushed into the most influential part of the space? Battle for our attention.

Kathryn Corrick

5. Web is social. Got more exciting as it got cheaper. Reinvention and continuity. Emerging and augmented intelligence. Problems: How do we find out what is interesting? How do we find out what is interesting in China and Africa?

Questions

6. BT (non-twitterer): Chinese urls will be come available. Do we need to learn Chinese? Bill Thompson: the internet will translate? The real issue will be our cultural expectations about what is interesting and what we will pay for.

Nigel Shadbolt: Massive areas of the internet not available to us. Spanish network is different. “Bido” the Chinese search engine searchs material that Google doesn’t cover and includes micro-blogging. We have good translation because stats does a fairly good job of translating. And how will we communicate with people who are illiterate.

Kathryn Corrick: I only get English results. Dave Sifry: you need to ask for the languages you want. Enormous corpus of data has [trumped] rules. . . . Liberating and dangerous at the same time. Did WoW expect to create a virtual market in China and India? Will we encourage open access to tis information? Democratizing and centralizing. Globalizing and encouraging xenophobia. Will the Chinese start building their own protocols? What will happen to the openness we take for granted.

Questions

7. ?? : Facebook compresses the space for first names. Bill Dutton: Net English – unintended consequences. Multiple identities. Nicknames.

Bill Thompson: Having one name is a relatively recent phenomenon. Imperfections in the tools create serendipty. Ideas are not linked because they are similar but becuase of deeper conceptual matching.

Nigel Shadbolt: Structure and typology. Condensed areas with weak links between. Unanticipated arrivals in other places.

Dave Sifry: . . . we don’t like to be challenged. How easy or difficult is it to get attention to a meaningful conversation? How can someone with quality ideas become heard without going through money and capital?

KathrynCorrick: Doesn’t fragmentation make it difficult?

Dave Sifry: Not sure that is a problem. The larger issue is trust. No singular person to [referencing Walter Cronkite]. Don’t have the same level of massive singular change – is that a bad thing. We will find out from our friends.

Kathryn Corrick: e.g., Iran, difficult to verify.

William Dutton: Remind everyone that TV/newspapers/mass media still exists. More flexibility. Institutional networks. Individuals – news platforms on line. Another independent source of accountability. Not replacing mass media yet.

Bill Thompson: Not sure I agree. Something happening underneath. Trust grows and is broken quickly. Mass media challenged, checked and undermined. Indefensible practices. Is corrosive rather than additive?

Question

?? Can we anticipate stuff better – raise quality of thinking. Is concept broad enough? Ppl don’t use tools like ping back etc. Contemporary social phenomenon of self-expression. I tweet therefore I am. IS this @Nico_Macdonald. I find people who agree with what I say [I find people who can explain what I am interested in!] . Politics is driving the web not the technology. Is webscience broad enough in its engagement with societ?

Nigel Shadbolt: Exteme nich opinion get marginalized. Conversation about intentions drives people to consensual . . . Not a union of everything but more than an intersection – key areas that acccount for what we see. Small differences in technology influence social interaction and can be invisible to ordinary user.

William Dutton: Continuity and change. A few years ago a few experts . . . internt more central across all sectors and users reinventing the web as dramatically as computer scientists. Cannot understand the internet except interdisciplinarily ..”{?]

Question

@inkuna Free at point of use. Does panel think #So.ME revolution spinning into public policy? e.g. US health care debate. Is free-at-point-of use (F) becoming the model?

KC: wonder whether anything

Dave Sifry: How related to US healthcare debate? . . .. Ah ……..I see! Never really thought about it in those terms. Gut . . . not really. . . . Someone has got to pay . . for sustainable business that lives beyond you. In media around for a long time . . . tradeoffs . . . get users then figure out how to monetize . . . interesting . .

Bill Thompson: I destroyed the newspaper industry. I am sorry. It was a mistake. . . Guardian . . . 15 years later paywalls are futile. One more nail in the coffin. If payments had been required earlier, it might have been different. Businesses changing so fast maybe only investors are concerned.

William Dutton: If you charge by use on internet, invisible. BBC online doing well. Advertising doing well – distribution of revenue is the issue.

Question

Brian Kelly: 71 people using #oxsmc09. The bankchannel is no longer private because on screen in front of us. We know we are successul if we get spam – e.g., taxis asking us if we want a taxi at end. Are we seeing commercialization of social media?

Kathryn Corrick: Until technology gets ubiquitous, it doens’t get interesting.

Question

Shane ?:

KC: Brave new world.

Nigel Shadbolt: Ecology of applications, information types and needs – much richer shape than used to – typical with [enriching] technologies. . Surprising ways that twitter is being appropriated.

Issue is trust -trust in media, content, services “someon not inspecting our packets”[?]

KC?

William Dutton: People who use internet trust it more than authorities. Trust is based on experience. More educated more skeptical but trust dependent on experience.

Bill Thompson: Dream some more dreams.

Dave Sifry: Clay Shirky – it is not social media if you can’t spam it.

Before: high signal to noise ratio. The openness of a hashtag # is that it invites spam.

SEO – how to get traffic – have more interesting material.

Is it OK for a taxi cab to enter the twitter stream. What are acceptable social mores?

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Reality is broken. Games are great. What do you dislike about games?

Published September 17, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Game designers are better at psychology than psychologists

Jane McGonigal, games designer extraordinaire, has long pointed out that games are better designed than most jobs. I agree with her, but oddly I still prefer work.

Nonetheless, agreeing that games designers make better use of work psychology than psychologists do, I’ve been deliberately playing games from beginning to end.

Orientation that gives control back to the audience

Getting into games, the autonomy dimension of Ryan & Deci’s ARC model is clear. We need to be be able to see what to do at glance. We shouldn’t need elaborate instructions or encouragement.

Something for the audience to get their teeth into

I am stepping through the levels quite doggedly. That should be the competence dimension of Ryan & Dec’s model. In truth, games are quite fun while I am figuring out the rules – or when I think I can push myself to a new level. But they also get boring quickly. Dogged is the feeling I have!

A way for us to play together

I think I don’t use the social aspects of games sufficiently. Social or relationships, is the third component of Ryan & Deci’s ARC model.

I am probably not very sociable because my motives for playing games aren’t social. But, equally, I probably get bored quickly because I am not being sociable.

Bringing our own rules to the game

What has interested me more has been the way my preconceptions affect my game play

In a game in which I played the role of explorer in Africa, it took me a long while to realize that I could deliberately kill people and even longer to do it.

In Mafia Wars running on Facebook, I am yet to start a fight. I am yet to invest in armor. I only do jobs against an anonymous enemy. When someone attacks me, I just clean up and take out some more insurance.

In Farmeville, I would like to share my tractor.

Does social mean more than sending gifts and energy bonuses? Are our ‘identities’ and ‘values’ also important to us?

Sometimes it is useful to have our values challenged. Sometimes it is useful to see that we impose rules that other people don’t care about.

Then we have a choice. Do we want to play by those rules? Maybe we do.

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Do your customers love the way your professionals work with each other?

Published September 16, 2009 by Jo Jordan

The play, the actors, an ensemble, the essence, the audience

Today, I heard James Roose-Evans describe how he directs a play.

And I thought about leading groups of professionals when each brings their own expertise.

It is so different from working with people who hope to fill our shoes one day. We have such inadequate language to describe how something magical and intangible but definitely palpable and recognizable comes out of our interaction and is so pleasing to our customers.

What do you think?

“I love working with actors. What is exciting, at the first day of rehearsal, when you have a whole group of actors from different backgrounds and different expectations and techniques and the director’s task is to weave them all into an ensemble in order to convey the essence of the play and share it with the audience. It is a very exciting journey that a director makes with the actors.”

Transcribed from BBC Radio 4, Wednesday 16 September, 2009.

“James Roose-Evans founded Hampstead Theatre 50 years ago. He has written 17 books, including the bestselling Inner Journey: Outer Journey and Experimental Theatre and has directed many plays, including the award-winning 84 Charing Cross Road. He is a non-stipendiary Anglican priest, founded the Bleddfa Centre for Creative Spirit and continues to lead meditation classes. His autobiography, Opening Doors and Windows: A Memoir in Four Acts is pubished [sic] by The History Press.

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Have a 4-Hour Workweek just like Tim Ferris

Published September 16, 2009 by Jo Jordan

This post is a little presumptuous. I have never met Tim Ferris, but like most people who spend a lot of time with computers, I have read his blog and watched some of his talks. I want a 4-Hour Workweek too!

So what does Tim Ferris do?

As a trouper in first year lecture halls, you must forgive my penchant for turning everything into a 3 part list.

These are my thoughts.

1. Tim’s sells “action art”

Tim decides to learn the tango, and wins the world championships. He wants to gain muscle and he is The Incredible Hulk in weeks. He learns to swim as an adult and is winning races in no time.

Whatever Tim does is breath-takingly audacious and gob-smackingly successful.

2. Tim doesn’t just make art. He packages it for sale through his blog & public speaking.

His big sale, of course, is his book, The 4-Hour Workweek.

3. Tim also does his own marketing and he is his own agent

Tim has an active blog. He watches his numbers. And he manages the office for the “Tim Ferris” enterprise.

What Tim doesn’t do – is his own accountancy or his back-office operations. He outsources the clerical work of his business to offshore firms offering clerical services.

What is Tim’s business model ?

1. Tim centres his business on what he loves to do, what he does well, and on what we love him to do.

2. Tim takes his work directly to the marketplace.

3. Tim took the initiative to create a business structure around himself and does a fair share of the skilled and expensive management work himself.

What can you and I copy?

Do what we love, do what we do well and do what the world loves us to do.

Finish the task and go out to meet our audience.

Take the initiative and create and run the business we need to support the work we want to do.

Are you in a hurry?

Oh, we usually are!

So much so, we scamper over the first question. Then we freeze in fright as soon as we think of selling our work for money. And we never get round to thinking about business processes, let alone take charge of them.

Can I persuade you to spend 10 minutes trying?

Grab your favouite beverage, a pen and an old envelope!

1. Of all things you do, what brings you that sense of deep pleasure of a job you know you do so well? Write down three things in 30 seconds!

2. Done that? Now turn the envelope over and draw your value chain. On the left, put the raw material that you work with, draw a line across the page, and jot down all things you need to turn that raw material into whatever it is you make.

You can make a fish bone diagram with fish bones coming into a spine. My fish bones included headings like “access”, “willing people” “time”, “credibility” – all the deal breakers if I don’t get them right.

3. Now you have your fish. On the tail at the left is your raw material. You probably have five or so bones coming in from either side. And the head to the right is the finished work.

Let’s finish off.

Draw some more lines (3 to 5) parallel to your fish’s spine. Label each line with things that need to happen for you get the resources you need.

It is quite likely that each of these represents a learning curve for you. Which one’s can you get help with, and which one’s will you take responsibility for?

Do a quick cross-check that you have covered all the functions.

CEO: You

Operations: The work you love

Marketing: How you build connections

Sales: How you close deals

Buying: The source of critical physical resources and knowledge

Technical: Any equipment and technical skills you need

Accounting: Keeping count and keeping the taxman happy

HR: You

One more business model for a 4-Hour Workweek done-and-dusted!

Does this work for you? Did it take you closer to an action plan?

Do you feel you could surround yourself with the business you love?

Can you list what you need to learn to do and cheerfully put your learning goals in order?

Can you identify what you need to learn and throw the questions at Google?

I hope so. I made progress once I could get myself to pick up the envelope and the pen.

Apologies, Tim. I don’t know how much I’ve distorted your business but this is what I learned from you. So thanks.

2 Comments

How much lifestyle are you earning?

Published September 16, 2009 by Jo Jordan

I am about to depress you. So grab a cup of coffee, or your favorite beverage, and put your feet up. And put your arithmetic head on. I am about to turn numbers upside down and talking some shocking truths about how hard you have worked for that cup of coffee and how much you have to be paid to earn a lifestyle of luxury.

Or to be mischeivious, how much we have been paying some very well paid people for having lunch and going to sleep.

Thought Experiment 1: You are worth $1 or GBP1 or Euro1 per second. Count 1 potato, 2 potato, 3 potato. Click, click, click. Count it out like a metronome. Click, click, click.

Each click is a dollar coming in. Not a lot, is it? Barely pays for the coffee you are drinking, the sofa you are sitting on, your broadband connection.

Actually, it is is $30 million a year.

I put it on a graph for you. You might want to check my arithmetic again. I’ve done the calculation several times but I am getting old and I’ve begun to make mistakes with numbers.

Thought Experiment 2: Over the shock? Well, lets count 30 seconds. 30 potatoes – wow, that takes a long time.

Wait – patiently. $1 arrives.

Count another 30 seconds, another $1 arrives. $2 dollars per minute.

Coffee is beginning to seem really expensive.

How much is that? $15 million, of course.

No, $1 million a year.

You have to divide by 30 not 2. You are now earning 1/30 of the person earning $1 every second or $30m a year. Shock? That long wait is $1m a year.

And look again. The person earning $1 per minute, every 60 potatoes, is earning half what you are earning (500K).

Thought Experiment 3: Now imagine earning $1 every 15 minutes. I am not going to ask you to count to 900 potatoes. It will feel an age. Certainly long enough to linger over your coffee and check your mail. $1 by the time you have finished. That’s all.

That 35K a year. A respectable salary in England.

Thought Experiment 4: And now imagine $1 per hour. What do you do with $1? Buy a packet of crisps? That’s less than 9K a year.

Thought Experiment 5: And finally let’s look at the minimum wage. 75c an hour. Around $6500 a year. Green line at the top. Less than a litre of milk. Half a loaf of bread.

Still it is better than $1 day which is the green line second from the bottom.

The red line underneath that is $1 per month.

Seeing the other picture?

You are probably feeling a little muddled. Good. It’s good to turn numbers upside-down and inside-out and get another perspective. So what have I done, here?

I’ve reminded you that employers quote wages by the hour because accountants use that number to do their costing. This number doesn’t concern you. What concerns you is the total per year (after taxes) and either the amount per second or the time it takes you to earn $1 – which is what I’ve shown you. That’s the lifestyle you’ve earned. Total after taxes divided by (365 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds). At a dollar per second that comes to over 30m a year.

I’ve shown you how the gap between pay rates gets very big, very fast. The way pay rates are quoted encourages us to make mistakes. $1 per 30 seconds and we think half-a-minute and think we have half-the-lifestyle, when actually, we have 1/60 the lifestyle, or 1/60 the lifestyle, or 1/360 the lifestyle.

Forget about costs to your employer. Let them run their own business.

You should be concentrating on the lifestyle you earn.

Ask: What do I earn per second because I am alive every second of the day not just the time I spend making money for other people.

Every second of the day.

Now tell me what you earn per second and how you intend to drive that up!

P.S. If you want to play with the numbers or the graph, it is on Chartle.

One Comment

WANTED: Advice of someone who has made friends with their alarm clock

Published September 15, 2009 by Jo Jordan

: Image via Wikipedia

Is there anyone out there who is recovering from a bad relationship with their alarm clock?

I don’t sleep through them. I don’t hit the snooze button over and over again.

But if I have set an alarm clock . . .

I cannot go to sleep

I wake up during the night

I wake up before the alarm clock.

I do so hate been rudely awoken.

Does anyone have any tips for trusting alarm clocks?

Winter is coming and how does one know the time at this latitude without one?

P.S. I grew up in the tropics. The sun came up predictably between 05:30 and 06:30 all year round. It was no problem to be up and at work by 07:00. I really don’t know how to do this!

3 Comments

Year: 2009

Do your customers love the way your professionals work with each other?

The play, the actors, an ensemble, the essence, the audience

What do you think?

Like this:

Have a 4-Hour Workweek just like Tim Ferris

So what does Tim Ferris do?

1. Tim’s sells “action art”

2. Tim doesn’t just make art. He packages it for sale through his blog & public speaking.

3. Tim also does his own marketing and he is his own agent

What is Tim’s business model ?

What can you and I copy?

Are you in a hurry?

Can I persuade you to spend 10 minutes trying?

Do a quick cross-check that you have covered all the functions.

Does this work for you? Did it take you closer to an action plan?

Like this:

How much lifestyle are you earning?

Like this:

WANTED: Advice of someone who has made friends with their alarm clock

Is there anyone out there who is recovering from a bad relationship with their alarm clock?

But if I have set an alarm clock . . .

Does anyone have any tips for trusting alarm clocks?

Like this: