Tag Archives for web2

These high-riding web2 days

my ride

go ahead - take the high ride

But I digress…

Just about nothing I have ever accomplished in my near-two-decades of work in software technology in the Bay Area has been simultaneously as complicated — or as simple — as implementing a wiki community. I created, evangelized, and administered an internal innovation community where I work, and for over a year it has exhibited tremendous growth and has been a success all around. Nothing could be easier than concocting the right theme and use cases, creating a cool set of templates, applying an agile and sociable design, and harnessing the built-in wiki features that surface fresh content dynamically. Seeding content and shepherding people unfamiliar with the “wysiwig” or markup interface into the world of working in wiki has likewise been fun and dare-I-say carefree. Watching content bubble in and funnel and collect and percolate, all-the-while cross-linking and spreading connections across the organization, has been joy.

However, nothing was a harder decision than to implement a wiki, not to mention choose the “right” platform, and there is a constant education process on “why use a wiki in the first place” (once you get beyond “what the heck’s a wiki?”). Beyond that, there’s something more mysterious — particularly in the large enterprise. Something that’s still hard for me to grasp — something ethereal — that makes it hardest of all. I’m not exactly sure, but I think it has something to do with having shots of tequila as a teenager.

I have had many surprisingly heart-to-heart conversations with colleagues about “why wiki” and “why share all this stuff?” and “why does it work?”, but one of the most enduring memories is a talk about Facebook in which my pal tossed around the old “you have to watch what you say on these things — or your employers will find it and it will come back to haunt you” sentiment. At last impatient with that tired old standby, my response surprised even me. Maybe the key, I said, isn’t learning how to censor ourselves. On the contrary — maybe the key is something more like coming to the realization that a whole lot of us did shots of tequila as a teenager; that many of us are imperfect; and furthermore that instead of being a liability, these are the things that really matter. In the end, I further pontificated, perhaps the profoundest shift of “Web 2.0” is in fact just that: a broader acceptance of all of our humanness in the face of not being able to hide it anymore.

Whoops. I was going to write a post about something entirely (but not quite) different (late-in-coming, the May edition of Governing featured an article on wikis called Working in Wiki). Looks like that will have to wait just a bit longer. I guess this one needed to come out and stay out.

The only community that needs to matter

I just read Mike Walsh’s post Community through the eyes of a 2nd grader. I really like his musings about the community at his boy’s school:

They create mini-communities or groups which they call a Grove. A Grove consists on 9 kids, 1 kid from each grade, k through 8. These Groves meet every couple of weeks to mentor, share, help, learn and develop friendships across grades. What a fabulous idea – gathering all stakeholders and discussing how they can create a stronger and more valuable community – I love it!

This interests me for many reasons. Not the least of which, life has made sense to me diffently — or only — now that I have my girl, but I’m also fascinated in general about the nexus between on- and off-line communities.

'Rock climbing' at Crissy FieldI’m passionate about “my” San Francisco community, even though it often feels just as intangible as bits on the Internet, but I’m especially curious about where on- and off-line communities “meet.” Arguably, you could say we have Monica Lewinsky to thank for the powerful growth of online communities in the “offline” world of politics (think Move On). Lately, some clever innovators are monetizing through their online stores but delivering just down the street (Kodak and its picture books). And I’m fascinated about the physical books we still buy, print, read, and most importantly, share — as well as new online gems like the promising Red Room that are also bridging that gap between physical and ethereal communities.

So are physical and online communities really so different?

Some day soon I’ll re-post my blog/rant on “Web 2.0 and my community” – which I wrote internally at my company after walking down Golden Gate Avenue to the Expo last year (and the ensuing Spock Debacle), but for now, I’m happy to just to be reminded of what matters. As Mike says

I learned quite a bit during the 60 minutes that I spent with a bunch of little kids – and enjoyed every minute of it. This is a great reminder of keeping eyes wide open. Turn off the Blackberry and listen to your little kids. It turns out that they’re pretty smart.

Likewise, like Therese Stewart saying “It’s not same-sex marriage: it’s marriage” — it’s not on- or off-line community, it’s just community. I’m thrilled every day in which I get to perceive it through new eyes.

Volumes of a Man

I had lunch with my father yesterday.  I twittered that I was lunching with the most important man in the world – but he in reality has always made me feel like the most important person in his world, and I bet that everyone in my family, and beyond, feels like that whenever they are talking with him.

He brought me some important records from his long and successful working career in different in ascending levels of government in California. He shared wisdom gleaned from all these years of his important career.

Many things he said struck me and will help me, but one thing made me bolt awake early this morning. Whenever he went into meetings, he said, he took a notebook and he always took a lot of notes. Before he met with me he took the time to go through his huge porter, as he called it, to find the essence of what was important to bring to me. He said there are notebooks and notebooks and notebooks in this huge porter.

This struck me in the light of the early morning for two reasons. One is that every day – or maybe just as time goes on – I find ways I am more alike with my family. A bolt of recognition breeds a common understanding, and that’s a special feeling I’m getting used to with my daughter as well. Just like my dad, it turns out, I take tons of notes (coming as no surprise to anyone who works with me).

The second reason has to do with that elusive process of synthesis. To some, the amazing point might be that he kept all those notebooks at all, but to me, the big gift is that my dad pulled out just the right notebooks that would be valuable to me at this point in my working career. What’s funny about blogging this is that I believe this to be the point of “Web 2.0:” the synthesis. The medium might have changed from notebooks (just as from newspapers, editorials, letters, even emails) to blogging – now continuing on to twittering – but the point is still the same: to synthesize.

When it comes down to it, is the huge porter and the process of going through notebook after notebook really a different process of innovation than popping up a browser tab to Google? The tools might have advanced with us, but what’s important is culling through those years of volumes to get to the right point at the right moment – for the right person.  How lucky I am that Dad has always made me feel like the right person.

The third of two things that struck me (yes, I should have kept sleeping) is that innovation is such a continuing process, just like another common thread through our family. Big companies talk about reacting to this or that latest disruption as if it’s the only one. It’s only today’s — this moment is small. What’s important in the next moment will be different.