community software applications

How many times a day does - What do you think - get asked? Who's asking? Your customers, your employees, your suppliers, your kids, your friends, strangers, the media, colleagues. It seems everybody wants to know what you think.

Equally important is who is answering the question. Why, because more people can and do freely volenteer information - user generated content - about what they think. People on the net are organizing around interests and sharing reviews, images, videos, podcasts, votes, recommendations. They are writing to the web using social software applications.

Amazon figured out social shopping and e-comm - social e-commerce - a long time ago. They made it easy for consumers (aka prosumers) to make recommendations, write reviews and then share the information with other users. Although, I am not surprised that these ideas failed to catch on with most businesses. Interestingly, most businesses today are missing out on web 2.0 too.

You know, the static ones with old information. Or one where you couldn't find the information you wanted? The kind where the customers needs were an after thought. I dread those. You see them all over the web. From small business sites to medium ones and even large company sites. They all suck.

Here's a nice film promoting Charles Leadbetter's new book "We Think". The book is about collaborative innovation on the net.

From Mr. Leadbetter's site, "Welcome to We-think: mass innovation, not mass production

WeThink explores how the web is changing our world, creating a culture in which more people than ever can participate, share and collaborate, ideas and information.

Ideas take life when they are shared. That is why the web is such a potent platform for creativity and innovation.

Employees are able to collaborate and share what they know with other employees and learn what they don't know about customers. To go further, these social applications can be opened up so parts of the them (idea management) can help customers provide feedback, make reviews, or share ideas on how to improve products and services. This works. Take a look at Amazon.

The open-source software movement developed because people had an "itch to scratch". One that "off-the-shelf" software did not support or was too costly to use. In the open source community people want to contribute, learn and share their knowledge and experience. They want to participate in a rich learning environment. They want to be able to get their work done and make a difference. We know from experience that these ideas work in a business environment.

The following two posts are about advertising and new business models. My interests in them is about how we learn new things, share ideas, social information management (SIM) and flow in a workplace social network or community. In other words, how do we create a rich learning environment? One that helps employees and stakeholders sort through the clutter?

Note: I'm grateful for smart people like Mr. Hagel and Ms. Dyson. They help me clarify ideas that I simply don't have the time or skill to write about.

The following three posts have a wealth of information, ideas and tips for business managers and CIO's about social media, web 2.0, social networking, and online communities. The fact is, this stuff, social software has to be used to be fully appreciated. It takes time to grasp its power and usefulness. Workplace social software and communities need to be understood from both, a regular user view point and from an administrator (control) view point. You bet, this is work.

I'm trying to find a theme that connects the following posts. One theme might be on the transition from marketing 1.0 to marketing 2.0? Hint! Hint! Take the time to read the comments on them - they are fantastic.

" Is Marketing A Discipline In Crisis?" by Tom Guarriello, thetruetalk blog. These are Tom's thoughts about goog "having serious difficulty figuring out a workable ad model for social networking sites", and his first day at the BRITE Conference.

Wow - Check out this article, "Mobile Social Networking Revenues Could Reach Us$52 Billion by 2012", from Cellular News.