The use of Social Networking in the workplace

Don Tapscott wrote a nice post in his blog on Grown Up Digital (the site has the same name of his new best-selling book, called Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World), about the use of social networking in the workplace.

He starts the post with the Urban Dictionary's definition for Social Networking: “The practice of spending time unproductively on social-networking websites, especially when one should be working,” or “When you spend all days at your job on social networking sites such as facebook,myspace and twitter.”

He said: "if this is happening in your workplace, all I ask is that you don’t blame the technology and conclude that the best solution is blocking access to social networking sites. Social Notworking is a managerial problem, not a technology problem." and also said: "If a (probably young) employee spends all day socializing on Facebook, make it clear that this is not acceptable. But if an employee wants to take a five-minute break from routine work a couple of times a day and check out what his or her friends are doing via Facebook, this should not be viewed as a problem."

He finishes with: "Moreover, if you are the manager, appreciate that Facebook is increasingly used by businesses to keep employees up-to-date in fast-moving workplaces, just as some companies are adopting Twitter for the same purpose. If you’re perplexed as how this would work, ask your young employees to show you how versatile social networking sites have become."

I agree with him, increasingly the companies are using social networking to promote their business, products, services and keep contact with their customers. For example, as mentioned by Tapscott, Facebook and Twitter are excellent social networking tools to use with business purposes. Instead block the access to social networking sites, the companies should think about how can explore the social networking. If the social networking helped to elect the president of USA, also can help the companies to enhance their business. Think about it!

Yes we can

Don Tapscott commented, in his Wikinomics' blog, about the video where the "President-elect Barack Obama invite the nation to participate in the Inauguration festivities surrounding his swearing-in as President on January 20. True to form, Obama’s opening words include “But this inauguration is not about me. It’s about all of us.”

It’s this kind of inclusive thinking that clinched him the nomination and then the election.

The Obama administration promises to employ the digital tools of Web 2.0 as much as possible in the campaign to introduce to the country a newer and much more participatory democracy."

The used social networks and new web 2.0 technologies by Obama's campaign was decisive for his election. Don Tapscott wrote another post about this subject called Technology and the US election, and I also commented about in a previous post.

Presentations at Google

I like so much the initiative of Google, where they call eminent persons for presentations at Google, and they record and publish the presentations on You Tube. There are several presentations with different kind of people, like: Daniel Goleman, Bob Woodward, Paul Krugman, Barack Obama, John McCain, Noam Chomsky, Marshall Goldsmith, Henry Kissinger, and others.

They separate using the tags: authors@google, leading@google, women@Google, candidates@Google (before the president election, they interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain)

In the Google Author Series (authors@google), I would highlight the presentations of the following authors:
- Ian Ayres
- Don Tapscott
- Chris Anderson
- Steve Wozniak



This is an excellent initiative, because sharing the videos, they enable the people watch good presentations with nice content.

Thank you, Google!

The power of mass collaboration — now on film

Don Tapscott published today in his blog, a post where he comments the film Us Now, a documentary project about the power of mass collaboration, the internet and its potential impact on society. He wrote: "Directed by Ivo Gormley, the film explores how the web is changing the ways we can organize ourselves. From a democratic football club where the fans pick the team to a lending service where everyone can be a bank manager, Us Now tells the story of new technology through human eyes, and for the first time brings together the leading thinkers in the field of participation and web culture to describe how mass collaboration could change society. As the co-author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, I was asked by Ivo Gormley to participate."

You can see further information in the film's website: UsNowFilm.

Technology and the US election

Don Tapscott published a short but nice post in Wikinomics (his blog that has the same name of his book), about the impact of social networks and new web 2.0 technologies on this year’s US Presidential election. He said Obama embraced social networks like no other candidate in an attempt to connect with young voters and build transparency and a real sense of community action into his candidacy.

He also mentioned the web site VoteforChange.com, created by Obama's campaign to encourage people to get out and vote. According Tapscott, the site does three things:
- It helps young people register to vote regardless of who they are voting for.
- It’s the first initiative of it’s kind to make an antiquated process more web friendly, and the interface is intuitive and easy to use.
- It educates young voters about their polling locations and helps then understand and get involved.

He concluded the post: "Obama isn’t explicitly telling people that he has the best value out there - he’s simply providing a trusted source of information. One more example of how he’s tapping the web 2.0 to show what he’s all about."

I think Obama has been well advised for a competent staff that realize the importance of social networks and new web 2.0 technologies nowadays.

I wrote a previous post about this subject, called The use of social networking strategy in an election campaign.

For those interested in social networks and new web 2.0 technologies, Don Tapscott wrote an excellent book, with Anthony D. Williams:

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

Cognos Forum 2008

Cognos presented its annual forum last week in Las Vegas. The forum had more than 3.700 attendees (record in Cognos Forums), and how it is the first forum after IBM had acquired Cognos, I think is already the influence of IBM.

In my opinion, reading the news about the forum, the events highlighted are:

- What is new in Cognos products, mainly Cognos 8 BI version 8.3.

- Dan Volitich launched his expected book about Cognos 8 BI. He is president and owner of John Daniel Associates, a Cognos partner.

- Don Tapscott (New Paradigm and author of Wikinomics) presented a general session keynote, about new paradigms for technology and business today and in the future.

- Another leading analysts participated at Forum, like Kurt Schlegel (Gartner), Cindi Howson (BIScorecard) and John Hagerty (AMR Research), sharing theirs insights on current and future trends in Business Intelligence and Performance Management.

- Cognos honored its main partners and customers.

- About the sessions presented by Cognos staff, I highlighted:
. Why performance management continues to be among the top priorities of CIOs and CFOs at the world’s leading global organizations.
. How companies are realizing the benefits of business intelligence and PM through higher performance.
. Web 2.0 technologies (mainly Adobe Flash) and Cognos solutions.

I think it was a great forum, Cognos is in the right direction and it will continue increasingly its successful integration between Business Intelligence and Performance Management.

Books that define why and how the world is changing

If I had to choose three books that define how the world is changing, I mention:



- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More - Chris Anderson




- Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything - Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams








- The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century - Thomas L. Friedman






Because I think those three books define why and how the society, the economy and the companies are changing nowadays.