Stumble Upon It!
Today, as it happens, I stumbled upon “StumbleUpon” which I think is most simply described as TiVo for the Internet.
StumbleUpon uses 
/ 
ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages that friends and like-minded stumblers have recommended. This helps you discover great content you probably wouldn’t find using a search engine.
StumbleUpon offers nearly 500 topics/interests to choose from so each Stumble produces only the most relevant content. StumbleUpon delivers increasingly relevant content as the Toolbar learns (like TiVo learns) what the user has liked in the past and continues to present quality web sites in the future.
Similar to Digg for news stories applied to the entire World Wide Web - could StumbleUpon be the beginning of the end for traditional search engines?
Crowdsourcing in Action
Yesterday, Febrary 5, The Kingbridge Centre as a member of IACC (International Association of Conference Centres) hosted a crowdsourcing session to determine what our clients are really looking for in a conference centre with the intention of course correcting accordingly.
Although not an Earth changing topic, the session did reveal areas that perhaps require more attention and others that require less in the mind of the consumer. And isn’t that what we are here for: to please the consumer?
It amazes me that something so simple as asking your target audience what they expect from a product or service is so infrequently practiced. A lot of companies spend a lot of time, effort and marketing dollars to tell us what we need or want yet seldom ask. The success stories of organizations that place their efforts in sourcing what their customers want (Amazon, Starbucks, iStockPhoto and more recently Dell and HP) have seen exponential growth and increased customer loyalty.
So why doesn’t every organization do it?
Habit? Disbelief? Arrogance? Fear?
You tell me.
Google’s Nexus One – What Happened to Crowdsourcing?
The Google search engine organizes its webpage information based on user visits to sites resulting from keyword searches.
Google crowd sources their map data using applications that allow users to submit data as well as correct it in both Google maps and Google earth.
They also apply to concept of crowdsourcing to many of their user applications such as Google moderator, Google translate and Google traffic.
With Google basing their success on harnessing the wisdom of the collective to produce superior web applications one has to wonder:
Why didn’t Google use crowdsourcing to design their new android phone: Nexus One?
The hype surrounding the release of the Nexus One promised a revolutionary smart phone, a clear step above Apple Inc.’s i-Phone. What was released however was an underwhelming, slightly improved (in some respects and not others) version of the existing android smart phone.
How does it compare to the i-Phone?
“Coming up with ways in which the iPhone 3GS maintains a formidable lead over the N1 is a cakewalk. The iPhone OS’s interface is less cluttered. There are not only five times more iPhone apps (100,000+ vs. 20,000) but the best ones, such as Tweetie, may be five times better than their Android equivalents. Google doesn’t even seem to be trying to catch up with the iPhone’s entertainment features: Android lets you copy music from a PC but not sync it, and has no provisions for buying or renting video. Bottom line: The iPhone is (still) a more highly evolved, refined device.”
Harry McCracken, Technologizer
Perhaps, Google should have stuck with what works:
User designed product!
Tweet While You Meet!
Want to add an element of collective intelligence to your next meeting or conference? Incorporate inputs from the global community on Twitter!
How often in a meeting or conference have you been participating in a conversation, listening to a presentation or in the midst of the decision making process and thought to yourself “I wish I knew someone with experience to ask or consult”? Well, simply tweet you inquiry and you will be surprised how many experts you’ll know in a very short period of time! This approach is also effective as an accuracy barometer for content – information at the speed of DSL! A perfect example of this can be found here, where a conference participant tells of one experience where twitter was a more accurate and engaging source for information than the conference presenters.
In addition to sourcing information and consulting with experts, Twitter is also a great way to gauge the effectiveness of your meeting strategies – as you are executing them. Imagine, you have prepared a learning activity for your group that you believe is very clear and engaging but as you watch the tweets roll in from your participants you can quickly gauge whether a course correction is in order. This far surpasses the traditional meeting evaluation that occurs at the meetings conclusion when the comments will be less candid and conscise because they are no longer in the moment.
Meeting Planners have begun to use Web 2.o applications such as online surveys to engage meeting delegates in the planning and evaluation process, they now need to forge forward and embrace microblogging as a means to continue the process of delegate interaction during the event. This article “Twitter for Event Planners” is a basic orientation to the application and how to use it effectively for meetings and conferences.
Whether you choose to utilize Twitter to harness information and heighten engagement in your conferences or not, the conversation is happening!
Blio
We’ve heard it before with the advent of the Kindle but this time it could be true – the end of the paper book could very well be upon us.
November 2007, we were told that the Kindle would revolutionize reading and end production of the paper book. In reality however, this generation of e-readers are not as popular as anticipated due mostly to the aesthetics of the reading experience. These devices use E Ink, a black and white display which is fine for text but incompatible with images, and other display options.
Enter Blio, a new e-reading software entirely unlike the others. Created by Ray Kurzweil prolific inventor and author of The Singularity is Near, Blio isn’t a device it is a ‘platform’ designed to run on any device from your home PC to your moblie - eliminating the need for additional devices. Blio sports some impressive features including with full colour graphical display, 2 page view, 3D page turning and web interface, making it a compatible interface for any kind of book from instructional text to childrens illustrated stories vs. it’s text onlycompetitors. The application is free to download and the books can be downloaded directly from either the Blio website or the application itself.
Not surprisingly this advancement in technology has come about as a result of a collaborative venture. Ray Kurzweil and his enterprise Kurzweil Technologies has a joint venture with the National Federation of the Blind called knfb Reading Technology to create reading products for people with disabilities. knfb Reading is the company that has created Blio and most certainly done so with every possible user in mind.
To learn more about Blio visit http://blioreader.com/
Social Media for Social Good
Imagine if there were 300 million police officers on the road everyday. How easy would it be to track down a criminal? How quickly could we find a missing child? Social Media has the potential to fill the gap!
Monday December 7th, 2009 The New York Times published this article; With Lure of Cash, M.I.T. Group Builds a Balloon-Finding Team to Take Pentagon Prize written by John Markoff. The intro to the article caught my attention as another example of how social and collaborative networks have the capacity to leverage exponentially the power of information:
“A group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology edged out about 4,300 other teams on Saturday in a Pentagon-sponsored contest to correctly identify the location of 10 red balloons distributed around the United States.
The contest, which featured a $40,000 prize, was organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in an effort to develop new ways to understand how information is disseminated through social networks.
The winning group, a small team at the M.I.T. Media Laboratory Human Dynamics Group led by a physicist, Riley Crane, took just eight hours and 56 minutes to complete the challenge.”
Essentially, using an accuracy based cash reward system and a social networking website the team was able to gather intelligence as to the location of the balloons all accros the country in just under 9 hours.
Now imagine the potential to utilize social networks to locate a missing child or a wanted criminal! Imagine the locations pinpointed by the network users being fed into a mapping application, the validity of the locals could then be statistically tested for accuracy. It would literally be like having an entire population of volunteer police officers!
Having said that, the motivation in this case was cash so that lends the question would the volume and accuracy of response be comparabe if the motive was altruism? A team of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) scientists tested this question and found that “In the final results all of the motives seemed to be effective,”
With that, my only remaining question is “When are we going to put this into action?”
Cultivate a Collaborative Enterprise Culture
Over the last month we have explored cultivating collaborative leadership by developing individual CQ (Cultural Intelligence – What’s your CQ & Cultural Intelligence – Raise your CQ). Now we will take a look at developing your organizations CQ in order to cultivate a collaborative enterprise culture.
Mary Stacey, founder and Managing Director of Context Management Consulting Inc. in Toronto held a workshop to explore this topic yesterday December 3, 2009 at MaRS Discovery District.
To offer a summary of the interactive session, Stacey suggests that cultivating a collaborative enterprise culture requires that as a leader you must:
1. Pay attention to the culture of your enterprise at every phase of it’s development
2. Develop your individual leadership capacity
3. Develop CQ through leadership DAC
Direction: each individual knows the
goals and aims of the collective.
Alignment: coordination of knowledge
and work in the collective.
Commitment: willingness of
individuals to expend effort towards the
needs of the collective.
DAC is directly proportional to CQ, that is to say it is a scale where an organization’s DAC can be anywhere on the spectrum between high and low and generally the higher your organizations DAC the higher its CQ. Therefore, since higher CQ is an indicator of collaborative culture where you sit on that spectrum defines the type of enterprise culture you have.
Where is your organization on this spectrum?
For more detailed information on cultivating collaborative cultures both “Action Inquiry” by Bill Torbert and “Leadership Agility” by Bill Joiner are excellent resources.
Learning 2009 – Innovation with Elliott Maise
I had the pleasure and privilege recently of participating in Elliott Masie’s innovative Learning 2009 meeting in Orlando, Florida. This was a gathering of over 1300 corporate education professionals whose job is to make sure that every employee is up to date in everything from corporate policy, new technologies, new products, regulatory requirements and the latest leadership strategies. Given these times of exponential change and tightened budgets, these learning leaders have challenging tasks to accomplish.
And it wasn’t just corporations. There were folks from professional societies and universities looking for new ideas. Many government agencies from the Veterans Administration to the CIA (The CIA has its own University) to representatives from each of the military services were present. Like many organizations today the theme was how to do more, better, for less.
The entire conference is loaded with innovative strategies that help participants learn faster and more productively. Some examples:
1. During plenary sessions everyone sat at 6 or 7 person round tables. It’s a huge room, but it is more friendly and encourages discussion.
2. Occasional 2 minute breaks were provided to encourage within-table discussions.
3. A Twitter feed was posted on a huge screen behind the speakers. The MC (Elliott) periodically resteered the conversation to address a question or comment.
4. An audience response system was employed periodically for assessing audience understanding and opinions, and occasionally to have fun.
5. Guest speakers were interviewed by Elliott, Meet the Press style, to focus their talk on the learning aspects of whatever they do.
6. Guests included Capt Sully Sullenberger (who had never landed a plane on water before his experience on the Hudson), Malcolm Gladwell (talking about high performance outliers) and Betsy Meyers (COO of Obama’s election campaign). Great learning experiences.
7. A few big names were brought in by low cost, high resolution video for a quick 5 to 10 minute interview. That’s walking the talk on cost effectiveness.
8. The many vendors were organized in a standardized format equipped with large monitors. The focus was content, application and learning, not hype. Everybody is a learner.
9. The majority of the meeting was spent in many small interactive courses run by experienced learning professionals. This was a great example of harnessing the collective intelligence of the participants.
10. Perhaps the most interesting activity was the presence of 6 students from Champlain College’s Emergent Media Division who were given an assignment at the beginning of the meeting to develop a learning APP for the iPhone (smart phones are an increasingly valuable tool for instant and convenient e-learning. They were told to interview at least 200 attendees, to select a group of advisors from them and to develop an APP that can be used for “On Boarding” new employees to any organization (history, policy, organization, how to do just about anything, who’s who, where everything is with maps and GPS). They completed their task by the last day of the meeting and demonstrated it. It was extraordinary and an incredible example of collaboration effectiveness.
I go to many different types of meetings and conferences all over the world. Like you I want to use my time well…to learn, to be inspired, to make good new connections and have great discussions with old connections.
Elliott passed this test with flying colors.”
Cultural Intelligence – Raise your CQ
Cultural Intelligence is defined by the individuals ability to adapt cognitively, physically and motivationally to new cultures whether organizational or ethnic. Simply, CQ represents an individuals ability to successfully adapt and flourish in a changing environment.
Last post we took a look at James and established his low CQ. In this example his low CQ resulted in his leaving his job. Although this is one option for dealing with issues of cultural intelligence, lets take a look at some more productive strategies.
As with any other form of personal development the first step is to be aware of your CQ strengths and weaknesses and pay appropriate attention to each. Next, and again not surprising you will have to step outside your comfort zone and practice overcoming your CQ weaknesses. For example, if you have low physical CQ and have issues adjusting physically to new situations then perhaps you should take a stage acting class. If you have low motivational CQ then spend one evening a week somewhere you ordinarily wouldn’t (like a Native American drum circle or a Salsa club – depending on your existing preferences!) and try to make a new friend.
These suggestions may seem simple or perhaps strange but in the case of CQ it isn’t a ‘business’ issue at root, it is a personal issue that needs to be dealt with accordingly. A business school sponsored training program is unlikely to help someone with low motivational CQ experience the benefits of adaptability more effectively than simply trying something they generally wouldn’t. You can find more strategies for enhancing cultural intelligence through The Cultural Intelligence Centre.
However, CQ does become an issue of ‘business’ when you are trying to boost the CQ level of an organization. A topic that Mary Stacey of Context Management Consulting in Toronto will be exploring at her upcoming workshop at MaRS on December 3, 2009. For those of you unable to attend I will share the session content and outcomes here.
Cultural Intelligence – What’s your CQ?
James has worked for the same financial services company for 10 years. The company structure has always been hierarchical and highly professional. Six months ago the company was purchased by another financial services organization with a more horizontal structure and business casual approach. James’s new supervisor arrived at work on the first day wearing khaki’s and insisting that he be called Bob by everyone versus Mr. Bennet. James, clad in his usual pinstripe suit and professional demeanor felt intensely uncomfortable with this new arrangement and uncertain whether he could fit in to this environment. After trying to adjust to casual dress and informal addresses James began to resent the changes as unprofessional and inappropriate and decided to leave the company.
In this simplistic example James can be considered to have low CQ. Cultural Intelligence is defined by the individuals ability to adapt cognitively, physically and motivationally to new cultures whether organizational or ethnic. Simply, CQ represents an individuals ability to successfully adapt and flourish in a changing environment. An ability I think we can all agree is crucial to collaboration – particularly in the today’s dynamic economy.
In their article “Cultural Intelligence” (featured in Harvard Business Review) Early and Mosakowski presented a simple test to diagnose your own Cultural Intelligence:
Rate the following statements – remember “culture” applies to both organizational and ethnic:
1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, 5= strongly agree
_____ Before I interact with people from a new culture, I ask myself what I hope to achieve.
_____ If I encounter something unexpected while working in a new culture, I use this experience to figure out new ways to approach other cultures in the future.
_____ I plan how I am going to relate to people from a different culture before I meet them.
_____ When I come in to a new cultural situation, I can immediately sense whether something is going well or something is going wrong.
Total_____ /4 = ____ Cognitive CQ
_____ It is easy for me to change my body language (for example, eye contact or posture) to suit people from a different culture.
_____ I can alter my expression when a cultural encounter requires it.
_____ I modify my speech style (for example, accent or tone) to suit people from a different culture.
_____ I easily change the way I act when a cross-cultural encounter seems to require it.
Total_____/4= ____ Physical CQ
_____ I have confidence that I can deal well with people from a different culture.
_____ I am certain that I can befriend people whose cultural backgrounds are different from mine.
_____ I can adapt to the lifestyle of a different culture with relative ease.
_____ I am confident that I can deal with a cultural situation that is unfamiliar.
Total_____/4=____ Motivational (emotional) CQ
In this quiz the closer to 5 your average score is the higher your CQ.
(Earley, C & Mosakowski, E. Harvard Business Review October 2004)
How did you rate on the Cultural Intelligence scale?
Stay tuned, next week we will explore some strategies to increase CQ both individually and across an organization.
