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Matt's Musings

...what's inside my head?

Scissors, Shears and Social Media StrategyDecember 22 2008

I was recently thinking about the ways in which some enterprise 2.0 and social media evangelists proclaim that because many people have just installed a wiki or a blog, and suddenly got traction with building relationships, collaboration and interaction, that all you need is to “just do it” and throw in some web 2.0 technology in order to have success.

I was thinking about this at 3am one morning and it made me think of scissors … yes, scissors.

I could give scissors to someone as a gift and know that they’ll use it for cutting things because, everyone needs a good pair of scissors at some time or other. But people need different sorts of scissors for different things. A good pair of shears is just invaluable in the kitchen — I don’t ever think I could do without my Mundial shears! I also have a big pair of dress making scissors — you know the ones with stainless steel blades and big black handles (I think I ‘inherited’ them from my mother). They’re great for cutting fabric without the blades quickly going blunt. I also use these to cut my dog’s fur when it gets long, but I’d rather have another pair just for that task. I also once gave a pair of round-nosed

WIC future of technology presentation: Is your intranet dead?December 10 2008

Intranets are strange things. The term was coined by Stephen Lawton in 1995 who observed that people were making small websites internally to facilitate the sharing of information.

In a few short years we had such high hopes for our intranets:

1. Better communications 90% 2. Improved processes 80% 3. Knowledge sharing best-practice 72% 4. Improve efficiency 65% 5. Reduction in paperwork 65% 6. Avoid duplication of effort 62% 7. Real-time information sharing 55% 8. Cost savings 55%

Source: Melcrum Intranet Survey (2001)

But within three years we’d spend over $10 USD billion for what amounted to little more than an electronic filing cabinet. In essence, we had killed intranets because we had forgotten that these are all people issues, not technology problems.

Today, though, with Web 2.0 technology and the tools we call social media, people can now interact in online environments pretty much in the same way they in the real world.

This presents an amazing opportunity for organisations — returning to sharing knowledge and information being about people talking to people, rather than it being about sticking it away in a document repository.

The key to success of future intranets, therefore, is to adopt a more social approach to collaboration through supporting sharing and personal identity, having simple processes for creation and updating information, responsive, personal and relevant conversations.

M

Presentation ZenDecember 1 2008

Donna Spencer recently put together her top ten tips for presentations and presenters. This made me reflect on aspects of what I do in my preparation, presenting, and what I like to see in presentations myself.

Preparation

In preparing, I draw my thoughts and ideas on the shower wall with some simple bath crayons. It helps to sort out the logic of my slides and key phrases I’ll talk to when presenting them.

Each morning, when I get into the shower, I try and talk through the presentation from memory. When I come up with new ideas I then just write them on the shower wall. Normally, I can get about 1/2 way through the talk in the few days leading up to the presentation without the need for prompting. If I can get that far I know I know my material.

Themes

I find that using a theme can help with the visual flow of things and lend consistency to a presentation. Using all Simpsons or Farside cartoons, for example, can lend both humour and the overall style.

Practice in front of loved ones

I always try to present my slides to a friend or loved one. They always tell me if the pre

Government 2.0 — trends and strategiesNovember 30 2008

Last Thursday afternoon, I presented to the Web Standards Group on a topic dear to my heart — government 2.0. It comes off the back of a number of projects I’ve now worked with in government where web 2.0 tools have been used, the first being about two years ago when I suggested the use of a wiki as a way of sharing knowledge with external stakeholders.

In my new government project, I’m designing our strategy to leverage a range of social media, from blogs to delicious. This hopes to engage people leading up to the launch of a new website through a project blog, and draw on the way Google loves conversations to lead them to it.

Of course, the project doesn’t stop there. We’re only just getting through our planning and user research stages. I’m hoping that early next year I’ll be able to show you more of what we’re done, particularly in how we’re intending on tackling the sensitive issue of actually engaging in conversation with the public in a responsive, real, and relevant way.

M

Posted in government 2.0, presentations, social computing, strategy, web 2.0   Tagged: gov2.0, government 2.0, planning, presentations, strategy, web standards group, wsg   

Dr Horrible on the benefits and risks of blogsNovember 25 2008

I’ve been preparing material for my Web Standards Group presentation this coming Thursday on Government 2.0 and I figured I’d throw in something that shows both the benefits and the risks of using blogs and the value of good planning.

For Dr Horrible, his blog is a way of communicating with the League of Evil about how horrible he is so that they might let him join their group. He forgets, however, that as a public communications channel superheros like Captain Hammer and the police could read, and listen in, and then know what he was planning to do with his freeze ray.

The lessons for anyone moving into blogging and social media for the first time is simple, as I’ll explore in my presentation. Like with exploring any new media planning, assessing risks, and then mitigating them is an important first step.

What: Web Standards Group
Where: National Library of Australia [