Darwin Discovery Engine Blog

Using Darwin’s Awareness Engine™ to Uncover Community Web Activity: Lou Dobbs Case

The Darwin Awareness Engine™ uses the concept of rising stars to bring forward terms that are receiving increasing attention in the target content areas. In this case we were looking at both informal media such as blogs and more traditional mainstream media.  

We noticed that Lou Dobbs started getting a lot of attention in the informal media.  Looking closer we could see that is was coming form the Latin-American community.  At the same time there was little mention of him in the mainstream media until a week later

The Latino community was organizing to demand Lou Dobbs resignation or firing from CNN for some very inappropriate comments. This discovery created a baseline to observe how the news spread and eventually grew to be covered in the mainstream media a full week later. In this case the Awareness Engine™ served both an early detection and provided the ability to monitor the story as it evolved. 

As many know Lou Dobbs did resign but the story does not stop here. What is the aftermath? What happens to the community that was organized to demand Lou Dobb’s resignation? Does it consolidate and grow its influence on the Web? These are questions that be monitored and tracked by the Awareness Engine.™ The coverage and conversations in both social media and mainstream media can be observed and compared. 

Monitoring and Measuring the Impact of Public Service Media Part Two: Addressing the Issues

In the last post we raised some of the ways that Public Service Media can support community through the Web. In this post we look at how Darwin’s Awareness Engine™ can help. First, we will look at data mining and awareness. The Awareness Engine™ collects Web events from both formal and informal sources, and correlates them with multi-dimensions to show occurring emerging patterns.  The basic interface provides the user with the benefits in the “Awareness and Discovery in Action” section.  The accumulation of this information provides a rich corpus for advanced trend analysis over time.  Special reports and alerts can be customized and developed as needed to meet different levels of monitoring and analysis.  Public Service Media programs can benefit from the measuring and monitoring of the evolution of a theme over time or dimension:

1.     tracking and measuring the impact of the Public Service Media programs’  actions in the community and/or the broader Web

2.     creating alerts based on significant variations within the designated  themes of interest and/or controversial spikes

3.     advancing analytics for pattern recognition and prediction

With these benefits, the Public Service Media programs have better awareness of critical themes to improve and mitigate their interaction within the community and the Web.  Furthermore it provides them with better planning for subsequent and follow-up programs, which become more target-specific and identifiable.

The Awareness Engine™ can also help empower community leaders.  Similarly to the Public Service Media team, the community leader/s can gain greater awareness from the technology.  This access can generate more relevant content, but also engage more community leaders to participate as a valuable resource towards their community thanks to the Public Service Media.   A key benefit is that the elevation of awareness will generate more content from the community, thus leaving the PSM neutral in the emergence of community issues.   Our next post will cover an example of how Darwin’s Awareness Engine™ can uncover community Web activity before it hits the mainstream press. 

Monitoring and Measuring the Impact of Public Service Media Part One: Defining the Issues

A new breed of dialogue amongst communities is possible with the Internet and Public Service Media can play an important role documenting and supporting this effort.  This dialogue can be intentionally coordinated for a known purpose or it can emerge out of a shared event or awareness.   These new conversations range from known issues, to emerging and ephemeral bursts that can reach a tipping point capable of having a positive or negative effect for the concerned community in question, but also into other supporting or antagonistic actors or communities. The recent effort by the Latino community organized through a Web site to sanction Lou Dobbs is a good example that I will explore in more depth in a later post.

Considering that the information used by a community for support or dialogue can be found in different sources, it is important to understand the core issues and needs of this community when using Web technologies.  Given that some of its members might be active information and support providers, one must be aware that the relevant content for this community can emerge from anywhere.  As such, it is important, before interfering with the community’s use of their Social Web, to take a baseline measurement of the current pulse within the known sources and those that are far reaching but correlated

Darwin Ecosystem provides a Web Discovery and Awareness Engine™ that collects information from formal and informal sources, and displays the emergence of themes within the targeted content that relates to the topics of interest.  This approach does not depend on the search engines’ popularly page ranking, thus, importantly, it can display in near-real-time the emergence of a Web movement from fresh information across multiple sources on one screen without scrolling through pages of results.  It is also not subject to manipulation by search engine optimization (SEO) experts.  Furthermore, trends can be analyzed from the collected information to observe the progress of a theme and its associated topics (monitoring the pulse through time and the impact of an event on a community’s topic of interest).

Darwin’s Discovery and Awareness Engine™ provides valuable real-time information about the technology savvy level of the community, and other sources addressing them directly, or even related topics unbeknownst to them.  These sources display, with Darwin, the themes of interest where the program team can target its attention and discover opportunities for actions and/or further inquiries.

Awareness and discovery are cognitive and intimate processes that are best experienced by a user facing recognizable information that might validate his/her perception, or capture the attention when unexpected information is observed in a familiar context.

Public Service Media program can benefit from:

1.   identifying key sources and Web-active community members

2.   targeting investigative reporting

3.   engaging communities in constructive interaction

4.    observing the dynamics of leading theme over time

5.    observing the impact of Public Service Media actions of the communities

With these benefits, the Public Service Media programs become a catalyst for community empowerment, thus accelerating a successful social integration whilst monitoring and mitigating the risk of extreme movements and stereotypes. In my next post I will look at some of the ways that the Darwin Awareness Engine™ can address these issues.

Initial Thoughts on Apple's iPad

Where to begin about the iPad? The name? the iPhone OS? ATT? No camera? Lack of interconnectivity? Storage? USB? Lack of ingenuity perhaps?... and the list goes on. I will not repeat what every one has said on the Web and the press. It is now very obvious that Apple disappointed its fan-base with a lack of vision and absence of revolutionary thinking. It seems they lost their magic on that one, and the hype that they created is now hurting them.

I am sure that they will recover. Now all the competitors are going to try to move quickly... and of course this is good for users and innovation. This time I am sure that innovators were overrun by business people who had their fingers in iTunes’ store, ATT and new imaginative ways to perform consumer cashectomies. To add insult to injury, Apple saw the writing on the wall as every day we saw emerge what the users, experts and developers expected to make this a great breakthrough. The iPad is an ideal case study of the failure to leverage Web communities to create a product that meets and exceeds expectations; this should go in the business book of what not to do in the age of information sharing. Apple lost over 4% when the market closed today.

Now let’s innovate Apollo13-style. What can, after all, I use this iPad for? It’s a screen, it can be programmed, it can access data, it responds to my touch, it’s feels good to hold, and it is an oversized iPod. Now what? It’s all about the apps. Regardless of the eBooks, movies, pictures, email, games.... this iPad opens a new world of applications for very specific and unexpected use. I think we will see more business applications come out of the iPad than the iPhone simply because business applications are process-driven and need to show more screen real-estate than a phone.

But it will not be so easy for organizations to think outside the box considering that today’s applications need to be ubiquitous to the enterprise standards. So who will use them? In my opinion it will be defined according to roles and functions instead of an homogeneous platform requirement (after all the data access is/should be supported by server services and not applications themselves; review your IT director’s compensation if that is not the case ;-). I can imagine CEOs and executives changing their reports and dashboards for iPad applications that provide them with more mobile and instinctive interactions, medical personnel using the iPad for charting instead of nurse-station or bedside computers, and many other specific uses that the iPhone was too small to do efficiently.

I also see new opportunities for information consumption models that involve visual representation of shared and/or large amount of information that require more tactile interactions than retyping a search query or browsing pages and pages of results before discovering what matters to the user. . But, maybe I am being optimistic.

Yes I am disappointed by Apple’s iPad limitations, but I am interested in the potential it offers for developers and innovators alike. Apple has proven time and again what it can do. That’s what it needs to remember today as the critics speak

Information Awareness and Discovery for Life Sciences and Pharmaceutical Companies

Success for lIfe sciences and pharmaceutical companies is often associated with their ability to manage knowledge transition and information sharing. This is especially true as as they deal with the challenges of many recent mergers in the industry.  The segregated systems where the departments’ collaborative efforts are stored represent a significant barrier to business continuation and leveraging knowledge.  As system integration analysis and process streamlining efforts struggle to unify these systems, the companies are losing precious time to better manage their R&D, clinical trials, and manufacturing, all the while  ensuring efficient CRO and CMO monitoring relationships.

Considering that these companies are knowledge intensive, it is critical for them to improve R&D productivity.  However, the increasing complexity of information systems and the increasing amount of semi-structured collaborative technologies increases the level of information overload, growing work flow complexity, and knowledge isolation through diverse communication and storage tools.

These companies’ organizational models are in the perpetual struggle of managing rigorous processes and needing to be flexible and organic in their structure. 

Mastering knowledge in a timely manner is key to their evolution and discovery processes.  This is why Darwin Ecosystem takes a different approach to accelerating information consumption by breaking the silos of knowledge to allow for meaningful discovery.  Our technology aggregates the information made accessible through simple syndication channels (RSS) and correlates it to deliver an awareness experience according to the user’s context of interest.  This  presentation, known as a Scan Cloud, immediately  displays what is happening across the organization’s departments by outlining correlated clusters and dimension classes that make it easy to grasp what is happening and direct attention  to the information of interest.

Darwin’s Awareness Engine is designed to evolve with the company and its users, and it can process new sources on demand, thus adding to your corpus of correlated information.  There  is no need for complex dashboards, strenuous process analysis and complex system integration.  All that is required is to make the content available to the service as an RSS feed.   Darwin’s Awareness Engine will correlate the content as it comes.  The experience can also be enhanced by customizing the taxonomy according to the company’s cultures and context. Darwin provides an awareness of what is d going both inside and outside the organization so that emerging themes do not get lost in silos.

Illustrations:

The following illustrates a correlation from mainstream media and blogs the morning of December 14, 2009.  The Scan Cloud™ show the connections between the emerging events associated with the Monsanto company.  A selection of on the Monsanto key word further filtered the sources and allowed for social media content to emerge as seen in the second screen capture.  The selected blog entry reveals a criticism of Monsanto. 

 

Webcom 09 - The Misplaced Fear of the Mainstream Media

Permeating the recent Webcom 2009 event was the discomfort and fear of mainstream media losing ground to the rise of social media.

The simple reality that information consumption is migrating into a Web dialogue leaves the mainstream media having to compete with what they label as unverified content, and thus accordingly, untrustworthy information. Again, a major perception shift from an industry that has a difficult time distinguishing between unverified written expressions and the wisdom of crowd. I often heard from many traditional media people attending such comments as: “How can people consume such rubbish and unverifiable comments?” “We are dedicated to verifying and delivering quality content that is far more reliable!”.

Formal content providers truly believe that without their controlled content people will have a distorted view of what matters and believe opinions over facts. From their perspective they are absolutely right! If people accept social media information as validated truth, we would have... well, isn’t this what we already have? The simple fact that opinions and discussions are transposed from the oral to the written form does not mean that it changes much regarding the risk of people being misinformed. People distort, fabricate and adopt their own points of view according to their social networks, whether it be physical or the Web. The battle is not one of formal versus informal, but one where formal content providers need to listen and engage in the dialogue.

I was also amused when I heard that mainstream media and large companies were questioning the value of social media and its content. These companies and traditional media spend fortunes on market trend analysis with voodoo-like rearview mirror reporting that only serves to give them an impact appreciation for what they did in order to improve the next campaign. The amusing part is that they have traditionally done this to measure opinions and perceptions to best attract customers, yet today they are worried about the volume of content created by the same people they have been trying to mind-probe through inference investigation. Can someone pinch me here?

The perception that has to change is not the one of the people (it is only a transposition for them), it is the one of the media companies who are far more feudal than the people, as they fear a loss of power. I believe that Thomas W. Malone’s 2004 The Future of Work a great tome on the transformation of business, is more meaningful today in the light of the traditional media companies’ challenge. But are traditional media companies capable of distributed deliberation and content creation with the emerging wisdom of crowds?

The ability to have a real-time written communication has changed the concept of readers and audiences. It is now a dialogue! And from that basis the media industry is transformed forever. Traditional media needs to rethink its relationship with its customers (yes customers as they are no longer passive). They need to focus on their core value of reliable information and take it to a new level that will preserve their integrity as their assumptions regarding the information life-cycles and distribution are changing. Some will understand that their business operating processes are the enemy and that they must create new ones. 

Many media companies are becoming consumed by finding ways to become social destinations themselves than thinking about their core business value proposition and processes. These companies are taking the risk of becoming followers in the media revolution instead of becoming the leaders and champions of valued and verified information. In my opinion they are making a mistake as they are driven by following to catch-up instead of innovating and managing their own transformation.  

See the post by my colleague Bill Ives that appeared here this Monday on What killed the Rocky Mountain News for an example of a mainstream news company that did not successfully handle the rise of social media. In this session the former Editor, John Temple, said that newspapers now need to spend more time on innovation and not simply work on trying to get more revenue for online versions of what they have always done. 

Post script: The Seattle Times recently took the innovative step of inviting editors from some neighborhood blogs to question mayoral candidates for a town hall-style debate organized by the newspaper and its news partner, KING-TV. Here is a good example of creative use of soical media with traditional media. 

Prendre le Pouls 2.0 du succes

Ceci est une translation en français d’un blog Taking the Pulse 2.0 of Success publié récemment afin d’atteindre les communautés de langue française et anglaise qui s'intéressent aux moteurs de découverte et de veille sur internet.

Les entreprises de toutes tailles sont convaincues que leur vision du futur doit guider leurs actions à mener. Afin de s'assurer que leur actions sont alignées avec cette vision, le défi que doit relever le top management est de pouvoir gagner la confiance, susciter l'inspiration et faire agir leurs employés dans le sens de cette vision. Un Top Management  expérimenté s'assurera également d'inclure le point de vue de tous les acteurs intéressés à l'entreprise pour s'assurer leur engagement et faciliter l'exécution des tactiques au service de la vision.

Entretenir et ré-inventer sa vision est un processus très itératif dont dépendent les résultats de l'entreprise. Comme tout système asservi, ce processus sera le plus efficace si l'on peut observer des résultats mesurables le plus tôt possible dans le cycle de vie de la vision. Les résultats sont souvent utilisés pour mesurer si la vision était correcte ou nécessite des ajustements. Aujourd'hui, ce genre de mesures n'offre qu'un pilotage par rétroviseur. Par exemple, quand une entreprise regarde sa courbe des ventes, elle mesure le résultat d'un ensemble d'efforts et d'actions menés en collaboration plusieurs mois auparavant, bien avant de pouvoir devenir un indicateur de succès.

Aujourd'hui, le Top Management a besoin d'une visibilité et d'une lecture en temps-réel de l'alignement des actions et des motivations avec la vision stratégique de l'entreprise. Avec l'émergence des outils de collaboration Web 2.0, beaucoup d'équipes ou d'experts utilisent les espaces de dialogue instantané via un écran, les blogs, les wikis et autres moyens pour coordonner leurs activités et mettre en oeuvre les retours d'expérience pour aboutir à leur objectif plus facilement/rapidement. Malheureusement, cette information n'est que rarement utilisée comme une mesure du pouls de ce qui se passe au jour-le-jour. Ces outils restent isolés, ambigus et produisent du contenu éphémère ou non comptabilisé, simplement parce qu'il est trop hétérogène et que l'on ne sait pas le mesurer. Et pourtant, les employés les utilisent pour délibérer, obtenir des décisions, déléguer, voire à des fins stratégiques.

Avec Darwin, nous offrons une plate-forme qui sait mesurer le pouls des différents initiatives à travers l'univers Web 2.0 de collaboration de l'Entreprise. Pour en savoir plus, contactez nous sur www.Darwineco.com.

Peut-on tirer du sens des micro-blogs?

Ceci est une translation en français d’un blog “Making sense of micro-blog Streaming and Awareness” publié récemment afin d’atteindre les communautés de langue française et anglaise qui s'intéressent aux moteurs de découverte et de veille sur internet.

Les micro-blogs (Twitter), network sociaux (Facebook) et autres publications issus des nouveaux médias (Flickr ou YouTube) nous permettent de recevoir un flux d’information continu associé aux événements au fur et à mesure qu’ils se déroulent, en réponse à notre curiosité et envie d’être au courant de ce qu’il se passe autour ou au sein de nos communautés d’intérêt.  Des événements tels que la montée du mouvement Obama durant les dernières élections présidentielles américaines, comme plus récemment les mouvements de protestation contre les élections Iraniennes ont été alimentés par et ont profité de cette vague internet.  Ce qui fut remarqué comme un trait de génie dans la campagne d’Obama pour faire passer le message, est maintenant perçu comme un instrument essentiel à la libre expression et antitrust des medias en Iran.

Quand un événement est aussi important et observé par tant de gens, on peut être certain que les medias traditionnels s’en feront l’écho et filtreront les différentes sources d’information pour nous les servir. La réalité est que il ne nous viendrait pas à l’esprit, à moins d’être un passionné par un sujet, d’aller dans les espaces de micro-blogging pour être informé sur ce qui se passe sur un thème donné. Et la raison en est simple: Pourquoi irions nous perdre notre temps à lire des centaines d’entrées insignifiantes et chronologiques dans des micro-blogs émis par des personnes que l’on ne connait même pas?

Même Connan O’Brian, le nouveau présentateur vedette du Tonight Show a maintenant une plaisanterie satirique à propos de l’absence de fond des Twitts des célébrités en contraste avec la popularité fulgurante de Twitter. Qui peut bien être intéressé par savoir si Angelina Jolie envoie un message sur Twitter “J’ai bu un très mauvais café à Malibu”? Alors pourquoi tant d’engouement et que faut-il en penser?
Cet engouement grossit parce que les médias ont depuis appris à utiliser Twitter pour toucher une audience plus grande, et ce sans coûts supplémentaires. Cela leur permet aussi de faire ce qu’ils ne savaient pas faire avec les texte-messages sur téléphone... ainsi, ils font la promotion de Twitter à chaque occasion qui se présente!

Et pourquoi le micro-blogging a son importance? Et bien tout simplement parce qu’ils représentent la voix du peuple (rapidement effacée par ces méga media qui inondent l’espace par leur messages). Il est important de faire une distinction à ce stade; la voix du peuple n’est pas la même chose que le thème commun discuté par tous. C’est pourquoi celui ou celle, pour qui le temps est important, ne prendra pas le temps de lire une suite chronologique de publications de 140 caractères provenants de personnes qui commentent leur attente dans la queue devant le magasin pour acheter le dernier iPhone ou ceux qui se plaignent du Directeur de leur Lycée.

Les micro-blog sont chaotiques par nature et participent à notre surcharge d’information, à moins biensur d’avoir un sujet d’intérêt commun avec quelqu’un qui fasse un travail de surveillance, de recherche, de filtrage, de sélection et de livraison de pièces d’information les plus pertinentes et intéressantes sur ce le sujet. A ce jour, le phénomène du micro-blogging est utilisé pour faire la promotion se soi, ou de sa communauté.

Maintenant, comment extraire du sens et de la valeur de cette surcharge d’information que nous aimons tant créer et partager. En contraste avec la succession des micro-blogs, l’engin de veille et de découverte Darwin, un produit de Darwin Ecosystem LLC, prend une approche différente en reconnaissant la nature chaotique de l’information, et en appuyant son modèle sur l’émergence des thèmes corrélés et ce à travers de multiples sources.

Votre entreprise est-elle 2.0? conférence du 28 août à Montréal

Ceci est une traduction en français d’un blo "Is your enterprise 2.0? (Montréal 8/24/09 Conference)” publié récemment afin d’atteindre les communautés de langue française et anglaise qui s'intéressent aux moteurs de découverte et de veille sur internet. Nous avons donné une présentation fin Août à l'événement d’Allard-Hervieu; “Votre entreprise est-elle 2.0?” . L'événement s’est tenu en français et nous étions heureux de noter la présence de représentants des sociétés parmi les plus importantes basées à Montréal (publiques et privées)

Plus de 75 dirigeants étaient présents, apportant leur expérience significative en solutions de collaboration et leur compréhension de l’impact grandissant des technologies Web 2.0. Contrairement à l’habitude pour ce genre de conférences qui deviennent souvent des actions de prospection, Allard-Hervieu a su choisir le bon message et les bons interlocuteurs pour rendre l'expérience mutuellement enrichissante. Les présentations furent animées par 3 orateurs se succédant suivant une histoire logique. Elle démarra avec l'émergence et le positionnement du Web 2.0 dans l’univers de l’entreprise. Elle se poursuivit avec une introduction aux solutions et technologies qui animent et capture les contenus, et les bienfaits de plans de communication pour leur déploiement, le tout illustré par des exemples concrets. Enfin, l’histoire se termine sur comment peut-on finalement mieux consommer toute cette information générée et chaotique afin de mesurer le pouls de ce qui se passe dans et autour de l’entreprise grâce à des classifications par émergence et corrélation organique, en opposition avec les portails complexes, les classements par popularité et outils de KM.

Ce fut l’occasion pour nous de faire pour la première fois une présentation ouverte de notre produit Darwin.... Nous avons utilisé des exemples vivant et temps-réel directement liés aux entreprises de notre audience.... Hydro-Québec, le sujet H1N1 et les tendances des nouvelles canadiennes. Le cas Hydro-Québec fut particulièrement parlant puisqu’il a souligné la controverse du moment sur les donations faites aux écoles privées. Notre technologie a permis de montrer le contraste (mais corrélé) entre le point de vue des médias (formels) et l’opinion du public (informel). De plus, nous avons aussi pu découvrir que le débat était surtout francophone, en montrant un rapport de 10 à 1 en ajustant la préférence linguistique sur l’anglais.

Cette présentation d’une corrélation des thèmes à travers des sources multiples et aussi différentes que le formel vs l’informel a fait réaliser à notre audience le potentiel d’une telle solution pour des applications à l'intérieur de l’intranet de l’entreprise, ou bien en liaison avec le Web.

A New Age of Communication-Centric Collaboration

Twenty years ago Lotus Development Corporation released Lotus Notes.  As one of the fortunate alpha tester and early adopters, Notes changed the way I relate to collective information and inspired my career in collaboration and social computing.  Since then  the platforms have changed but collaboration computing remains rooted in Ray Ozzie’s Lotus Notes vision.  As an extension to Ray’s view of collaboration, I created in 1996 the first social network (InterCommunity) on the Lotus Domino platform (Web server) and delivered the first Web-based community social network upon which partners could build community applications (similar to FaceBook).  The solutions we see on the Web today were understood and often existed in large enterprises as well as being available to a handful of early business Web communities throughout the ‘90s.   

For the last 20 years I have also observed companies going through the painful transition of archaic email and file sharing to Wikis and collaboration solutions.  The simple fact that collaboration is stuck in application silos is deeply rooted in the segregation of process and communication tools.  When you think about it,communication and deliberation precede the formality of process, yet most information systems have it backwards and do not connect the two effectively (even if they have all the latest Web 2.0 tools).  Frankly, other than Web protocols, the core usage challenges have not changed since 1989 despite the Web’s richer applications and social computing innovations; connectivity and open source is what made the difference thus far, not the applications themselves.  As we are naturally motivated in transposing what we know over understanding the opportunities that a new environment offers, we often continue to make the same mistakes and build technologies to over-think what is natural; our innate ability to communicate and  evolve.

But now Google shows us Google Wave.  Not since my introduction to Lotus Notes twenty years ago have I been wowed with innovation in that space.  Google Wave truly rethinks communication streams and collaboration as it should be with today’s connected world.  Google did not reinvent the wheel, they just proved that it a sphere.  It is perhaps too server-centric for  my taste, but it  is just a matter of time before the model can be truly internet-based instead of mainframe-like.  Nonetheless, Google Wave’s API does open new ways to incorporate content, applications and structure in the stream of human communication in real-time.  Lotus Notes first version had some very basic features that made it possible to build solutions that promoted collaboration and content distribution, as well as  access control, replication, forms, views, scripting language, mail and later Web standards.  With these integrated basics developers created applications that exceeded Lotus‘ expectations.  Google Wave’s core architecture has the building blocks, openness and a framework based on today’s Web computing reality that will allow the user and developer community to marvel us with their clever use of Google Wave.  The communication-centric framework of Google Wave is simply brilliant and users will gradually embrace its many features as well as enrich their use through third-party plug-ins. 

I have read the more skeptical and critical press on Google Wave.  In my opinion they have short memory and grossly under estimate what Google is doing to the Web with this truly new paradigm.  Facebook and other messaging technologies need to think about ways to connect and leverage Google Wave or they will be left in the dust by its user community.  As to the critics who claim that the UI is too complex for every day users... I would like to add that if you survived and supported FaceBook’s user experience, Google Wave will not be a problem.  This is not your father’s Web so get with the program and compute with passion and intelligence.  We are about to discover new ways to have a return of investment for all the time we wasted promoting ourselves on the Web 2.0.  Isn’t it time for something new? 

I see Google Wave as new platform capable of creating a much needed movement to revive business opportunities and bring new players to the Web.  I also feel fortunate that the Darwin Awareness Engine brings a solution to the information overload that Google Wave generates.  If history repeats itself, Google Wave’s composition is destined to succeed. 

L'engin de veille et de découverte Darwin présenté à Webcom 2009 à Montréal le 22 Octobre

Ceci est une translation en français d’un blog Darwin Awareness Engine (TM) Shown at Webcom 2009 in Montreal. publié récemment afin d’atteindre les communautés de langue française et anglaise qui s'intéressent aux moteurs de découverte et de veille sur internet.

Webcom 2009 aura lieu à Montréal le Jeudi 22 Octobre de 8:00 à 18:00. Vous y trouverez un excellent panel d’intervenants. Shel Holtz lance la journée avec le thème Transparence: La valeur de l’acces à l’information. Puis il y aura 4 sessions en parallèle: Entreprise 2.0 & Intranet, Marketing 2.0, Solutions 2.0, et Media 2.0. Les équipes de Darwin Ecosystem feront des présentations dans trois de ces sessions.
Thierry Hubert parlera dans la session Solutions 2.0. Son sujet sera de montrer comment une intelligence collective émerge du chaos de l’internet. Dans cette session, il fera aussi la démonstration de l’engin de découverte Darwin et discutera de ses capacités.

Bill Ives parlera de blogging dans l’Entreprise 2.0 et Web 2.0 à l'âge du Twitter. Les Blogs furent parmi les premiers media sociaux, faisant leur apparition sur la scène politique en 2004, et dans le business en 2005. Ils furent le premier media social dans la classement de Gartner “slope of enlightenment”. Aujourd’hui, Twitter a fait son entrée comme le nouveau media social en vogue sur le Web. Est-ce que Twitter remplace les blogs? Les blogs sont-ils dépassés? Cette présentation couvrira l'état de l’art des Blogs en 2009 et tentera de vous convaincre que les Blogs et Twitter sont des partenaires naturels ou chacun renforce l’autre. Elle couvrira l’action du blogger à l'extérieur comme à l'intérieur de l’entreprise.

Bill animera également une discussion sur Twitter n’est pas un oxymoron pour le business. Dans cette discussion, Bill traitera de Twitter comme un nouvel outil qui s‘ajoute à la longue liste des outils issus du Web 2.0 qui sont passés dans le monde de l’entreprise. Il a émergé dans l'année écoulée comme un nouvel outil de communication, mais qui ne remplace pas les existants, comme les blogs par exemple. Allez découvrir la grande variété d’applications aux affaires de Twitter de la part d’un sceptique devenu convaincu. Des exemples d’application seront présents et la discussion encouragée.
Notre ami Claude Malaison discutera de Twitter et les attaques terroristes Mumbai: Comment écrémer CNN?

Il y aura beaucoup d’autres intervenants très intéressants dans la merveilleuse ville de Montréal.

Improving communication during work-awareness.

Recent surveys and research show that executives finally value social media favorably to improve relationships with customers and build their brand (“Social Media: Embracing the Opportunities, Averting the Risks” paper from Russell Herder). Paradoxically, these same executives fail to embrace these technologies within their organizations to improve productivity through better collaboration, idea sharing, faster initiative adoption and, of course, knowledge capitalization. The reason for this can be attributed to the many past failures of Knowledge Management (KM) and collaborative technologies that were assaulted by armies of consultants and system integrators over-thinking communication empowerment. Today we know that most KM initiatives have failed due to exaggerated efforts to harness tacit knowledge into explicit processes. Having spent most of my carrier in the space of KM, collaboration and social technologies since 1988, I can testify to how many times the Web 2.0 in the enterprise was adopted under different names; Groupware, Shareware, Communication Intranets and others...the bottom line is that they all aimed at improving communication during work-awareness.

Let me expend on work-awareness. Work-awareness in state of mind where the individual is focused on his/her activity and driven by accomplishing the task at hand. If a company is able to empower the individual with communication and information discovery tools, then the information being captured is likely to be rich in relevance and valued as a sharable asset for others. Many power-blogger and micro-bloggers (Twitter) practice this concept to make their knowledge valuable for personal gain and knowledge acquisition. This is an observable phenomenon that companies can use to improve capturing knowledge from their workforce as well as empowering them to share this knowledge to solve problems and improve productivity.

Now back to the bad rep of KM and earlier versions of the Web 2.0. KM, like the early efforts of artificial intelligence, is a noble cause rooted in predictability and measurements that can rival the best structure data analysis. The reality is that the data source is messy and very human. As such, emerging movements and personal interpretations are more meaningful than a well defined empirical dashboard. Basically it requires a human being to extract value from this corpus of unstructured data.

Most of my readers know I have been developing a Web 2.0 awareness technology (Darwin Ecosystem) for the last two years that can can extract relevance out of the chaos of unstructured communication. I was a keynote speaker at the Enterprise 2.O conference in Montreal, Canada last week. Since the conference, I have been exposed to many Canadian companies who are struggling with making sense of their communication platform as they are exploring the implementation of Web 2.0 solutions. After every demonstration of Darwin’s Awareness Engine these companies were amazed at the technology’s ability to aggregate and correlate meaningful information on one screen; one called it “The dashboard of our voices” and an other said “I can finally make sense of what is going on without endless meetings.” Needless to say, we are now discussing the best way to implement Darwin’s Awareness Engine in environments that have only emails, Lotus Notes/Domino, Sharepoint and others with proven Web 2.0 solutions. I look forward to harvesting what they have in their legacy communication tools to show them that the value of collaboration is not about the platform you choose (the standard now), but instead it is about the knowledge hidden and captured during work (the future).

Darwin Ecosystem: logo et police expliqués

Ceci est une traduction en français d’un blog publié récemment afin d’atteindre les communautés de langue française et anglaise qui s'intéressent aux moteurs de découverte et de veille sur internet.

Notre philosophie et technologie s’appuie sur notre profonde conviction que seul un système organique et évolutif de veille intelligente peut soutenir sans faillir le défi de rester pertinent et d’absorber la diversité et le chaos grandissants des informations capturées (enregistrées) sur l’internet. Nous pensons que les travaux de Charles Darwin sur l’origine des espèces, au travers de l’observation et de la classification de la nature tout aussi imprévisible et chaotique, offrent un parallèle saisissant avec le phénomène de l’internet.

De la même manière, nous appliquons une méthode de classification organique aux liens qui existent entre les contenus chaotiques et incontrôlables de l’internet. La théorie du chaos est un autre atout essentiel de notre technologie. Cela reprend les hypothèses des systèmes dynamiques fortement sensibles aux conditions initiales, communément désignées par l’effet papillon (battement d’aile du papillon), où même une faible variation des conditions de départ peut avoir d'énormes répercutions à l'arrivée, même dans de très courtes périodes de temps. En d’autres termes, et appliqué à notre contexte, d’un ensemble de petites publications sur l’internet peut émerger des relations observables et voire prévisibles.

Edward N. Lorentz a étudié et observé ce phénomène en 1960 et abouti à un modèle mathématique démontrant comment l’air se déplace autour de l'atmosphère. Ses travaux aboutirent à des modèles divergents de prévision météorologique. Cette sensibilité aux conditions initiales est aussi appelée l’effet papillon. Il montre ainsi qu'une dynamique très complexe peut apparaître dans un système d'équations formellement très simple, depuis connu sous le nom d’attracteur de Lorenz, en forme de papillon quand observé de haut.

Avec ces concepts à l’esprit, voici une explication de notre logo: Notre papillon est issu de la forme d’un attracteur de Lorenz car nous utilisons des attracteurs définis par les utilisateurs pour attirer les groupements d’information pertinents. Les antennes symbolisent notre capture des événements par l'écoute active des signaux émis (RSS). Les ondes sont filtrées et mises en forme par l’attracteur; les lignes extérieures de notre papillon. Le papillon est aussi un organisme vivant qui évolue au sein de son environnement.  Enfin, dans le pur esprit de convergence entre Darwin et la théorie du chaos, du chaos peut émerger un ordre. Et cela vaut pour l’origine de l’univers, comme des espèces ou de l’internet.
Contemporain à Darwin fut Firmin Didot, un imprimeur français, qui fut reconnu pour avoir établi la classification “moderne” des typographies d’imprimerie. Ainsi, dans le pur esprit de l’importance de la classification pour aider à manipuler la complexité, nous avons choisi la typographie “Didot” comme notre police de caractère standard.

Is your enterprise 2.0? (Montréal 8/24/09 Conference)

I gave a presentation last week in Montreal at the Allar-Hervieu event; “Votre entreprise est-elle 2.0?”.  Of course, it was in French and I was pleased that it  attracted some of the more important Montreal-based public and private companies. 

Over 75 executives, with extensive experience in the importance of collaborative computing and the emerging impact of  Web 2.0 technologies, were present at the event.  This was a breeze of fresh air as many such conferences are occupied by Web industry enthusiasts looking for networking opportunities and prospects.  Not this time!  This time the communication firm Allar-Hervieu of Montreal targeted the right audience with the right message.

The presentation was made by 3 speakers delivering a logical story-line that addressed the positioning and reality of the emergence of the Web 2.0 in the enterprise, the use of content-capturing technologies and the need for thoughtful communication plans through concrete examples. and lastly how this chaos of information can be best consume to help the enterprise measure the pulse of what is happening through organic correlation and emergence ranking in opposition to complex portals, popularity ranking and KM tools.

This event was our first open product demonstration.  I used live examples relating to the audience's   organizations... Hydro-Québec, H1N1 trends and Canadian news events.  The Hydro-Québec live demonstration was particularly relevant since it outlined a current controversy about donations to private schools. Our technology was able to show the formal media perspective in contrast (and correlated) with social media citizen contributions.  Additionally, we also noticed that the Hydro-Québec debate was clearly francophone-driven as a contrast of 1 to 10 was visible when tuning the linguistic preference. 

This demonstration, of correlation sources originating from the formal and informal Web, demonstrated to the audience how they can benefit from this technology within their intranet as well as reaching to Web content.

Taking the Pulse 2.0 of Success

Organizations of every size believe their vision for the future must lead their actions to be realized. To ensure that actions are aimed towards that end, the challenge of the executive team is about gaining the trust, leading the inspiration and ensuring that the vision will be adopted and acted upon. An experienced executive team will also ensure that the organization’s stakeholders express their vision and share its ownership. This provides for a better feasibility assessment and execution commitment.

Maintaining and reinventing a vision is a highly iterative process that shapes future outcomes. This process can be most effective when observing measurable results as early as possible in the vision’s life cycle. The results are often used to measure if the vision was correct or requires improvement. Nowadays this form of measurement provides leadership with a rear-view mirror decision-making perspective. In fact, when an organization measures sales, it is the outcome of coordinated collaborative efforts that have often occurred months before becoming a key indicator of success. 

Today management needs to have real-time visibility on the company’s vision adoption and actions that lead to the measured result. With the emergence of Web 2.0 collaboration tools, many teams and knowledge workers use chat rooms, blogs, wikis and other means to coordinate their activities and implement best practices aimed at reaching their common goal. Unfortunately, this information and knowledge is rarely observed as a measurement of the pulse of what is going on day-to-day. These tools remain segregated, ambiguous and lead to perishable or ignored content simply because they are too heterogeneous to provide measurements. Yet employees use them for deliberation, decision buy-in, delegation and strategic purposes.

We have a platform that provides an overview of pulse of different initiatives across the enterprise’s Web 2.0 collaboration.

Making Sense of Micro-blog Streaming and Awareness

Microblogs (Twitter), social networks (Facebook) and rich media posts (Flckr and YouTube) give us the ability to receive streams of events as they occur in near real-time about unfolding events or just  answer our curiosity needs to know what’s happening in our communities of interests. Events such as Obama’s rise to the presidency, and more recently the protest against the election in Iran, have been fueled and benefit from this Web movement. What was seen as an ingenious way for the Obama campaign to spread its message, is now seen as the instrument of free speech and media control disruption in Iran. 

When an event is that important, and being watched by so many, we can count on the news to leverage and filter these sources for most of us. The reality is that unless your are passionate about a given topic or your social network, you would not think of going to microblogs to be informed about what is going on. And the reason is simple... Why would you waste your time reading through hundreds of insignificant and chronologically sorted posts from people you don’t know?

Even Connan O’Brian, as the new host of the Tonight Show, now has a satirical skit about how meaningless celebrity Twitts are in contrast to the hype made about Twitter. Who really cares if Angelina Jolie Twits “I am having a terrible coffee in Malibou”? So why the hype and when does it matter?

The hype is there because many media have learned to use Twitter to reach a larger audience at no cost... that is why every media talks about Twitter. This basically gave all the media a way to do what they could not do with phone text messages... so they promote Twitter every time they can!

Now why does microblogging matters? It matters because it is the voice of the people (although fading quickly thanks to those mega-media spammers). This is where an important distinction must be made; the voice of the people is not the same as the words of every one. This is why no one who values his/her free time will read the chronological stream of 140 characters statements from people waiting in line to buy the new iPhone or complain about Junior High’s principal.

Microblogs are chaotic in nature and increase our information overload, unless someone who cares about a given topic, observes, searches, filters, selects and delivers the valuable nuggets for us to pay attention. To this day the microblogging phenomena has been focusing on self-promotion, community awareness, and used for people-reporting.

Now how do we make sense of the information overload we all love to create and share? In contrast from today’s iteration with micro-blogs, Darwin Ecosystem LLC awareness and discovery engine, takes a different approach by acknowledging the chaotic nature of this information, and focusing its model on the emergence of correlated themes coming from all even-driven sources.

Web 2.0: A Collective Conscientiousness Platform?

I have been exploring the role that the WEB 2.0 can have as platform for the representation of Collective Conscientiousness. With blogs, wikipedia, wikinews, social networking, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube and other highly interactive and social network-enabled features, we are starting to see popular themes and sub-culture groups emerge to the mainstream. With the interaction between people’s interests and the need to express themselves (their lives) with these systems, we are providing our society with near-real-time awareness of what matters to people. 

I believe that we will be able to harness the commonality of the expressions found across these systems and be capable of viewing the expressions of the Collective Conscientiousness. I think that this awareness can influence actions towards the evolving Collective Conscientiousness that can be of use to market analysis, political campaigns and governance.

Please comment and let me know if this is a topic of interest and if you would like to join a focus group to further discuss and explore the possibilities of a visible collective conscientiousness.