The Future Place Blog

The downside of social networking

We are all aware that there are risks in posting on sites such as Facebook, but actual examples are seemingly quite rare. Today the BBC has a stark example of what can go wrong, explaining that 13 employees of Virgin had been sacked for posting critical comments about Virgin Atlantic and its passengers.

Web 2.0 – Inside the Enterprise

At the ESOMAR Online Forum in Dublin last week there were a number of presentations, talks, and Interactive sessions. The main interactive sessions was organised by GfK’s Nick Buckley and comprised four syndicates, each looking at different aspects of Web 2.0.

My group looked at Web 2.0 inside our own companies. The finding from my group, as best I can remember them were:

1)    Have you seen Web 2.0 or social media take off inside your company?
There were eight of us in our group. Amongst the eight companies we represented we found the following:

• 6 out of 8 had an internal Wiki;
• 7 out 8 had employees who networked with each other using Social Networks;
• 6 out of 8 companies had Facebook communities, mostly not-official;
• Only one company used YouTube informally;
• 5 out of 8 companies had at least one official blog, and one person reported an unofficial blog;
• One company reported using an electronic exchange (a sort of wisdom of crowds approach) to review new ideas;
• 2 out of 8 companies used user comments to improve their relationship with panel members;
• One company reported linking Last FM to their Intranet to allow staff to monitor each others music listening habits.

2)    Which uses of Web 2.0 tend to be unofficial?
Amongst the uses they were classified as lying between semi-approved to clandestine were:

• YouTube (viewing and uploading);
• Facebook;
• Mysinglefriends.com (leading to dating within the company and comments);
• Linked-In (which can function as a network within a company or as a CV for a new job).

3)    Where has Web 2.0 had a beneficial effect?
There were a number of benefits mentioned, including:

• New colleague networks (but these are also a threat to current power structures within companies);
• Internal Wikis have created knowledge resources;
• Some reported that employee recruitment had been helped by the ‘human face’ that the unofficial Web 2.0 showed;
• There were several reports of beneficial PR flowing from Web 2.0 usage; including the re-reporting of blogs;
• Guidance to colleagues, both via things like Wikis and by staff reading opinion leader blogs.

4)    Have you seen a transformation in your company from these Web 2.0 effects?
Although most people in our group had plenty to say about Web 2.0 on their company, there was nobody who said it had made a massive change to their business. The changes that were reported were:

• Loss of paper. The long fabled paperless office appears to finally be making an appearance. Younger members of staff, in particular, seem happy to deal with everything on screen. Not everybody in the group found the loss a paper as being all good, some enjoyed reading paper (for example on the tube or train, or in the bath);
• Some reported that Web 2.0 had increased the interaction between staff located in remote offices, for example researchers and DP teams recognising their colleagues were ‘real people’.

5)    Have you seen example of blurred boundaries between work and leisure?
The group were aware of plenty of anecdotes from elsewhere, for example of people being sacked because of things they had shown on MySpace or Facebook, but nobody had direct experiences of these sorts of thing.

6)    Have there been any problems or disbenefits wit Web 2.0 in your company?
The group were able to point to several issues, although none were seen as ‘massive’ problems:

• Concerns of lost productivity at work because of Facebook, indeed one person reported that Facebook was still banned at her company;
• There was some conflict of messages, for example when somebody blogs saying X, when other company people are saying Y;
• Wasted time, doing stuff that is fun, but not core to the business of the day;
• “Reply All” has been the bane of companies ever since email became available to all, Web 2.0 makes this problem worse;
• Information overload;
• Creation of a two-speed company, with some employees networking together, accessing information from blogs and wikis, whilst others don’t/can’t.

So, what does all this say about our companies? I think the main message is that Web 2.0 may be quite mew, but that it is already quite well embedded into most companies. Whilst there has been no great revolution, there is a clear sign that the power and information structures inside companies are changing, aware from a gerontocracy towards a meritocracy. And, the final point is that the Gen Y employees are different, the Net is natural to them, email is considered slow and formal, networking is natural, and boundaries are seen as wrong or irrelevant.

Blogger's raise poverty awareness

I have to admit that I did not hear about Blog Action Day Poverty that took place on 15th October until today (21st October). However, looking at the Blogpulse chart below, plenty of other people picked up on the theme of poverty.

I think this is a really interesting sign of how the Web can be used by people who want to do good to mobilise the conversation. On the broader level there is a real risk that the Credit Crunch will mean that Governments are tempted to take their eye of tackling world poverty, so moves like Blog Action Day Poverty are important.

Via Emma Mulqueeny

Nielsen closes it consumer listening site

mrweb repots that Nielsen has pulled the plug on its Hey! Nielsen site, and that it is due to close shortly, although it is promising to return soon. Brand Republic report that some users were upset and hurt by the decision, with one quote being "I don't know the reason, why you will act like this. Did we do anything wrong?".

Exciting community ends

For the past three months I have been moderating the mylifemyid research community (with my Virtual Surveys hat on). I think this may have been one of the most exciting projects taking place in the UK, with over 1000 young people expressing their views about the Government's proposed ID Card scheme.

What made the project so exciting was the fact that it was open to any 16-25 year old British resident who was prepared to abide by terms and conditions of the project (a few were not). The majority of the posts were quite negative to the ID Card scheme and it was a challenge at times to keep the discussion constructive.

For any resercher keen to know more about the project I will be co-presenting our learnings abouth the methodology at the Inisght Show Conference.

The mylifemyid website has now been removed, but from Googling the web I can see that the project has thrown up at least one new, indpependent, blog, ID-Watch, dedicated to the ID Card issue, it will be interesting to see if it can maintain a more objective slant than the No2ID discussions sometimes display.

Virtual Surveys are currently preparing the analysis of the project and the report will, after being presented to the IPS, be published on the IPS website.

The scourge of late payment

Nigel Legg has a really important post on his blog about the way some large clients create problems for their suppliers by paying late.

An interesting but unlikely change to the law would be to require reciprocity. Any company that insisted on say 60 days before it paid its bills, would be required to offer this facility to their clients.

In the short term I suspect that companies like Nigel's will need to fall back on the traditional response of charging bad clients more than good clients. Indeed, I would always encourage any business to check that they were not giving a better deal to bad clients than they are to good clients. If you charge the same rates to all clients, you best customers are usually subsidising your worst. By worst I include: late payers, people who ask for field and tab but then expect analysis, people who unreasonably call for extra debriefs (reasonable calls are fine), and companies that are so disorganised that they change the materials, the questionnaires, and the project schedule, not because of good reasons, but becuase they have not done their part of the job properly.

The band and the game

The Economist has a lovely article looking at he impact games are having on music sales and the fortunes of bands. The article focuses on the popular game "Guitar Hero" (ask your kids about it). Evidently Aerosmith have made more money from a Guitar Hero game than from any of their albums.

The phenomenon of bands gaining followers and cash from games at the same time as record companies continue to mourn the passing of their hegemony illustrates the changing structure of the market.

Using a white board to explain CDOs

I saw the video below on the PresentationZen site. It is a good example of how a worked example can be a better way of explaining something than a PowerPoint. The use of the white board keep the focus on Paddy Hirsch, rather than the slide materials.

Will the Internet be illegal in Italy?

One of the posters on mylifemyid drew my attention to this post on The Register. An Italian court has ruled that blogs in Italy are unlawful, and the case could have wider implications. I am sure somebody will sort it out, but who? When?

Is Iceland going bust?

BBC's Robert Preston makes a persuasive case that Iceland (the country not the UK retailer) is in deep trouble. For example, its GDP is US$20billion, its banks have borrowed US$120billion. One consequence of Iceland's problems is that companies who have been in the habit of borrowing from Icelandic banks will need to look elsewhere to find their capital to continue their operations, these organisations include a wide rank of UK companies and West Ham United football team (soccer).

Iceland's Landsbanki is Iceland's second largest bank, and is currently ranked by Bloomberg as the European bank most likely to collapse, according to the Telegraph.