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Random Thoughts of Mike Wagner
New Gig
Social Product Marketing
Friday, 30 October 2009 00:30

I haven't written in awhile but wanted to let everyone know I have joined Valhalla Research. Being the Director of Social Systems I will be building out methodologies and strategies around Enterprise 2.0 and Social Strategies.

The new enterprise is emerging – open, networked, global and focused on knowledge workers who are empowered to innovate.

Today we can see that a fundamental change is occurring in how companies compete. In particular, the rise of the Web 2.0 is enabling new business strategies and designs that enable organizations to create differentiated value and/or lower cost structures – and therefore a competitive advantage.

It is becoming clear that a new kind of enterprise is required – one that orchestrates resources, creates value and competes very differently from traditional firms. These new enterprises drive important changes in their respective industries and even the rules of competition.

We are on the cusp of a management revolution that is likely to be as profound as the one that gave birth to the modern industrial age. Driven by the emergence of powerful new collaborative technologies, this transformation will radically reshape the nature of work, the boundaries of the enterprise, and the responsibilities of business leaders.  

You can still reach me at all my contacts plus now This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

 

 

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The New Normal Management
Social Product Marketing
Monday, 10 August 2009 04:17

I was asked a thought provoking question about ‘Managing in a New Normal’ and what my view was. I decided to recap my response for all:

"Just as software has proved to benefit from continuous Agile development methods, so can other areas of business and even more importantly, us as individuals. We are in a state of constant flux, and unaware of this fact can cause businesses and individuals to stagnate while others evolve. The new normal is anti-normal meaning once its considered the norm, new paradigms are already taking root which one must keep abreast of in order to react quickly. Management is less about assigning tasks today – Project mgrs can handle that – but rather executing in laying the foundation and resources needed for people to flourish. Bridging strategy and vision with how to make that happen in today’s hyperbolic speed world."

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CoTweet vs. TweetDeck
Social Product Marketing
Sunday, 12 July 2009 23:18

I have been using TweetDeck as my Twitter client for some time now and have been happy with it. But, after testing out CoTweet this past week I might actually switch.

Here are a couple of things I like about CoTweet:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.     <!--[endif]-->Web App – for whatever reason TweetDeck and Seesmic are both client applications although Seesmic announced this week that it would be releasing a web version – read release. With web apps I never have to worry about version control or what machine I’m using – I have a couple.

CoTweet Dashboard

<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.     <!--[endif]-->Multiple Accounts – Having the ability to control, monitor and manage multiple accounts in one environment is huge for power users. CoTweet has made it easy to identify what follower or tweet is related to what twitter account by the use of small avatars and initials. CoTweet has a neat little feauture called “cotags” that lets you “sign” every tweet you post with a little signature.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.     <!--[endif]-->Scheduled Tweets – Sometimes for a particular reason its good to keep the pipe primed especially when dealing with a globally utilized platform that Twitter has become. I used to use FutureTweets to tweet reoccurring tweets and designated times, which I would normally not be able to eg. sleeping. CoTweet has this functionality built in which keeps me from jumping out to another tool thus simplifying things for me.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.     <!--[endif]-->Multiple Users – CoTweet’s tag line is “How Business Tweet” and having organized Twitter strategies for businesses I understand the coordination problems that are evident with multiple users. CoTweet pretty much solved this problem with numerous user controls. No reason for me to go into them all and these guys did a nice job at summarizing them MailChimp.

5. Search - Like TweetDeck, CoTweet also has the ability to run and save searches. 

 CoTweet Searches

We'll see if I make the switch or not. Right now I find myself switching between the two. 

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Social Media in Plain English
Social Product Marketing
Thursday, 02 July 2009 07:28

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The Age of Customization: Enterprise 2.0, The Perfect Pair of Pants!
Social Product Marketing
Monday, 29 June 2009 05:45

I spent last weekend searching for pants. I had a need. I looked for pants that were comfortable in the winter and summer but would always ‘breath’, the right material so they would last, and also pants that would be acceptable for multiple occasions. The problem is I couldn’t find a pair that met all these needs. I had to buy multiple pairs. I settled on the only solution that was available at that time. I will have to adapt the right solution (many pants) instead of having one solution (one pair of pants) that adjusts to my needs, when I need something different as situations arise.

I want a pair of pants that could change on-the-fly (no pun intended) easily; adapting to the environment and occasion as I see fit.

Well, we might not be able to do this with pants but now we can with Enterprise Applications. In fact, this type of flexibility, customization and efficiency of a solution that adapts to multiple needs will be the standard in five years time. Three forces are aligning to make this happen. 

  • Web 2.0 – user empowerment and customization
  • Ajax – technology techniques to bring richness and back-end interactions to the user
  • Services – Exposed through SOA or other, services are the enterprise applications building block of tomorrow.

These forces are aligned to support the next generation of Enterprise Applications that will be common place in 5 years. These applications will be browser-based. They will unlock the value of information previously contained in separate silos through granular services. With AJAX client side technology, they will consume these assets and allow users to interact in a rich and dynamic fashion. And with the 2.0 social networking and collaboration aspect, the tilting of the IT pendulum back towards the client side leads to more empowered end users capable of generating content and even their own ad-hoc, mashup applications.

Now you can customize your organizations applications to your needs instead of forcing your employees to adjust to a heavyweight, monolithic solution that might not be a right fit for their need. Even further, you can empower your employees to further tailor the solution to meet a particular situational need when they need to.

Why will these applications be the standard?

This new paradigm is difficult for some to grasp. We have been offered large solutions that we had to make fit into our organization and make work for what we had to get done in our jobs. But the productivity that these applications brought to transactional activities is drying up. The future is focused on the knowledge worker who has tacit activities to accomplish and where no solution has arguably truly demonstrated much benefit with regards to optimizing these people’s situational activities.

This is where organizations can increase productivity. The problem is that because of economies of scale, past applications couldn’t be developed to meet these situational, micro activities needs. The technologies weren’t all there, understood enough, or further, understood in the context of their synergistic relationships which yield the capabilities to meet these knowledge workers activities needs.

The Enterprise 2.0 Application can. It can because the forces listed above are now converging. Enterprise 2.0 is a natural evolution of consumer facing Web 2.0 Applications. Web 2.0 has introduced public consumer users to its benefits and now enterprises have begun to catch on to the technologies and techniques to further their web-based applications; to leverage existing assets, whether it be data locked behind a firewall or intellectual knowledge locked in your employees heads.

I can’t wait to see what unfolds! (pun intended)

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