Why social media is the new email

Stephen Collins, who recently presented at the Perth "Edge of the Web" conference, has a great new posting on his company blog, including a free slideshow.

Rather than me try to rehash his sentiments, you should click through to his site here – and see why social media and empowering our staff and our stakeholders with more open information flow is as vital to us now as email and the internet is: http://www.acidlabs.org/2008/11/17/why-are-we-even-arguing-about-this/.

Do you agree? Post comments below…

New supercomputers do not herald the end of mankind

An article by Greg McNevin from IDM “Supercomputers Pass Petaflop Barrier” sits astride one of humanities oldest fears – our loss of control as the most prominent and intelligent entity in the world, if not the entire universe.

Reports McNevin:

The latest batch of supercomputers has been unveiled this week… including several breaking the petaflop barrier – a milestone some researchers say could revolutionise science more than any other discovery in living memory.

That’s a big call, but if you think about it for a second – living memory (say 80 years)? What else could a petaflop computer be competing against as the most revolutionary science event of the 20th and early 21st century:

• Penicillin (1929)
• Electron microscope (1931)
• Atomic bomb (1945)
• contraceptive pill (1951)
• Bar codes (1952)
• Optic fibre (1955)
• The Modem (1959)
• Human spaceflight (1961)
• DNA sequencing (1975)
• Artificial heart (1982)
• DNA fingerprinting (1985)
• The World Wide Web (1990)

There is some pretty stiff competition there, and against such a nerdy and non-descriptive name as ‘petaflop’… my money is on the historical ticket.

McNevin continues:

Two years ago, passing the petaflop barrier was thought of as science fiction by some, however, at the current rate of advancement IBM or Cray could be trumpeting a ten petaflop beast within seven years. According to prominent technology author Ray Kurzweil, that is roughly equivalent to the calculating power of a human brain.

Now this old chestnut of computers becoming as ‘intelligent’ as people has been used for all manner of doomsday fear mongering for years (blame Arthur C. Clarke & James Cameron). If you tell most people this fact, their first reaction is normally a shocked  “Oh my God, really”, and you may notice them have a thoughtful moment as they envisage a bleak future of robot soldiers stomping on bleached human skulls.

But really, I don’t think there is that much to worry about.

Human intelligence builds slowly, and is reliant upon imagination, emotion, and interaction with the rest of our species and our environment. Simply replicating an equivalent number of transistor links will not make the next generation Cray supercomputer into a sentient, feeling entity able to compete with a human intellect, and neither will the inevitable future doubling, trebling, or 100 times increase over our brain power.  

What we should see however are some phenomenal new modelling capabilities leading to ever-faster and more beneficial scientific breakthroughs. This increased processing power will be able to make computer software process information to a degree that  makes it look like it is comparable to human intelligence, but such applications are likely to remain very narrow for a long time to come. So while we may get to a stage where a computer defeats AIDS on our behalf by unlocking the secrets of the viruses genetic behaviour, the program of logistics, persuasion,  and  implementation to make it work will still require people power to be successful.

 

What do you think – are there greater breakthroughs in living memory that eclipse this one, and is the future ours or the computers?

Edge of the Web (EOTW) 2008 – PART 2

 

Stephen Collins

 The standout presentation of the business stream was given by Stephen Collins (of Acidlabs). Titled “Enterprise 2.0 – is it the new age of Aquarius for business?”, Stephen provided a heap of useful references to tools, people, books, and practical guidance.

In a style that was accessible and just plain sensible, he laid out the kinds of problems that many organisations see, and judging by the volume of knowing chuckles as he illustrated some of the points, much of the audience also had first-hand experience:

• monolithic projects with 2 year lifecycles are dead
• 70% of ICT projects fail to deliver expected benefits
• too many departments tend towards isolation (and many seem to like it that way)

Stephen’s presentation expanded around the key concepts of Web 2.0 as defined by Tim O’Reilley:

 1: The web is the platform

By using the web to exploit customer self-service, businesses can reach out to the edges of the web (be that the WWW or the internal network): accessing both the centre of their communities and the ‘long tail’, giving much greater, deeper reach:

“By using the web as the platform you expose opportunities and information to a far richer ecosystem. One where users are self organising and self empowering, where your ideas and the ideas of others and the knowledge you collectively generate are available to the whole business/community.”

2: Harness collective intelligence

There is a clear and demonstrable increase in the value of information and data in the network as more information and users are added. User contributions are THE KEY to dominance in the Web 2.0 era.

The focus of systems should remain on people over process, facilitating collaboration in new and engaging ways. By bringing people into a community you can realise benefits such as:

1. higher engagement & motivation;

2. Higher inclination to innovation;

3. increased ability to capture data;

4. increased ability to apply meaning to data as knowledge;

5. greater discoverability of expertise information.

The ‘network effect’ (or Reed’s Law) describes this increase in value within networks as more people are engaged. It works like this: as more people join a given network there is an exponential increase in the value of that network (both for the new user and the existing pool of users). Mathematical models prove this – take a look at the following snips from an Excel formula and try this yourself. If you increment the number of network users in cell A1 minimally (such as from 5 to 6), note how many increased network connections (and therefore ‘value’) this creates for the network overall – in this example 1 extra person introduces 10 new potential relationships that can benefit the network’s purpose.

As the network scales, so do these benefits. In a larger organisation of 200 users, introducing just 1 extra person generates 400 possible new relationships (and within any of those new relationships might be the killer idea that your business is looking for).

The exponential power of networks

 

The moral of the story is of course that every user matters – the one person you miss or exclude through lack of engagment, or by giving them poor quality tools to work with, might be the key facilitator you have been seaching for. It is through a lack of engagement and keeping the network/business divided into uncommunicative silos that ideas, companies, people, and networks wither and die.

3: Data is the DNA of the application

Without good data, no application has any worth. Flexibility with data is key, and data should be free as much as possible to be consumed by any user, or any other software, (so it can be ‘mashed up’ and repurposed).

If you have data in your organisation it is probably much more useful than for the things you are currently using it for. If you expose it publicly (external or more widely internally) through a user-friendly application, it becomes even more useful again.

Quality data should be able to be reused and leveraged by the network of users, but data management must remain a core competence in Web 2.0 companies, or else junk in = junk out.

4: Operations must be a core competency, users must be treated as co-developers

Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely coupled systems. Think syndication, not coordination – design for reuseability.

People and organisations will need to undergo significant change to achieve success. Slow, heavyweight management practices need to be replaced with light-touch management. Think flexibility, frequent change and release & deep stakeholder engagement, where developers and business teams are allowed just to get on with the job.

A groundswell of acceptance and utility emerges through an iterative approach, and understanding the marketplace and the needs of your business is a prerequisite to building and deploying applications in a Web 2.0 environment. Be sure that a lack of usability leads to failure, so be engaging – the days of passive users are over.

5: Create good aesthetics for a rich user experience

Mobile devices are increasingly a go-to platform for data consumption. Multi-device, multi-browser & multi-platform integration is important, as it allows the network to broaden and grow at the fastest possible rate.

Seek to create good interface & workflows, and ask the users to help solve those problems: the days of passive users are over.

Applications need to be brought to core functionality quickly and evolved and matured just as quickly, all the time taking into account the needs of the user base as a key factor. If you build an application without users in mind, don’t be surprised when no one uses it.

Summary

Stephen was an inspirational speaker to listen to. He obviously deeply understands the Web 2.0 world and lives it professionally, enabling him to pepper his presentation with anecdotes and references to research sources and other bloggers working in the Web 2. 0 space. He’s a pretty fast talker though, so I am pleased I managed to record much of what he said, as my brain-hand coordination was not able to keep up on the day! That’s a nice feeling though – to be absorbed in considering one really interesting point, only to be spurred on to the next one a few words later, and then the next, then the next.

If you get the chance do try to catch up with Stephen in person – it’s well worth the effort.

Obama 2.0

It’s great to see that President-elect Barack Obama has utilised some Web 2.0 features within his new website http://change.gov .

Instead of the usual static government broadcast site Obama is utilising http://change.gov as a multimedia and multipurpose resource, channelling the current euphoria around his victory into the practical configuration of his administration (all the way down to an open recruiting call-to-arms for non-specified positions) . If this is an early indication of how capable and fast his administration can be in applying new ideas and technology, then there may be some truly exciting and historic times ahead of us (as if the last week hasn’t been enough!).

The site uses some established Web 2.0 features:

• Blog
• embedded video
• RSS feed
• subscriptions

But it uses its intent to go way beyond applying these as just another set of marketing tools, making it a stand-out in terms of government sites. What it offers and requests (note the 2.0 way traffic) is involvement in actually forming the policy direction. So on the one hand there is the to-be-expected political ‘agenda’ – namely a list of policy and position statements. Yet alongside this is an invitation for readers to provide their ’story’ and their ‘vision’ for America, giving the impression at least that there will be some correlation of these responses undertaken to ascertain that policy action aligns with true public opinion  (it would be a tragedy if this was simply a stunt to look like he cares – this could be priceless data). 

Now from outside, other countries sometimes struggle to get the United States – and perhaps the invocation on the Change.gov website of the core U.S. principle of government: “Of the People, By the People” grates as a little cheesy to us. One thing we must be sure of though is that U.S. citizens take that kind of rhetoric very seriously, and there might be a lesson in there for us more cynical types in >not=America< locations.

Web 2.0 can only work in an atmosphere of trust and mutual benefit. If either side betrays the other we end up with pointless websites, filled with pointless banter from ‘the community’ (a corrupted version of what The Jam memorably sang as “the public get’s what the public wants”). If there is some early promise that Obama can deliver then it might start with this cyber-consultation campaign, and the rest of the world will be all the better for it from what is the very early days of his administration.

Not so much a case of walking before you can run, more like winning the New York Marathon using the midwife’s forceps as a set of starting blocks.

Let’s cheer him all the way.

Edge of the Web (EOTW) 2008, Perth – PART 1

Edge of the Web (EOTW) 2008

Today was the main conference day of the inaugural ‘Edge of the Web’ conference, held at the University of Western Australia, Perth.

Having such a strong line-up of speakers in Western Australia, coupled with the excellent facilities and organisation at the University Club, has helped move forward the understanding and debate about Web 2.0 and the future of web applications and social inclusion for business, government and recreation.

Some highlights from the morning sessions follow:

1.       Keynote: Derek Featherstone

Derek provided a nostalgic trip down memory lane, and reminded us of just how far we have come in the first 15 years or so of the internet. He started off with a quote from Jules Verne:

“Looking back to all that has occurred to me since that eventful day, I am scarcely able to believe in the reality of my adventures. They were truly so wonderful that even now I am bewildered when I think of them”.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 1864.

 

It was a good choice of quote. What was considered science fiction a century ago may be the most basic utility now, but if we reflect for a moment we still maintain a sense of wonder at what was, and what will be.   A fun and nostalgic illustration followed:

Gopher browser

Yep – that’s what the internet used to be, and I remember it well! This was the ‘Gopher’ platform on which I first browsed the web at university in 1994, and I remember it as well as if it was just last week. The feeling it engendered was one of exhilaration: that you somehow were able to hop between exotic-sounding resources in different countries, and it didn’t cost a penny. Then to walk out into the streets of North London safe in the knowledge that tomorrow you could pick another resource to tap into… a ‘fantastic voyage’  indeed, to pick up on another Jules Verne theme. (On top of that there was the miracle of a VAX email account and the trauma of keeping up with messages from a whole four contacts online – exhausting stuff).  

By way of contrast Derek then gave a live demo of the Radiohead video House of Cards – a great example of a new web application that makes its data freely available, allowing end users to customise their experience with multiple navigation and view options (see it at http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/viewer.html ). 

Radiohead - House of Cards video

 Looking back at these you see Derek’s point – it is an almost bewildering progression from lines of sluggish text to a 3D, interactive, customisable information superhighway.

Derek made some other pertinent points:

• Progress like this comes from willingness, passion, and commitment
• We need to aspire to the ‘impossible’, and in the process of working towards it we find that we make what was once considered impossible  commonplace;
• When in doubt, open it up. Get the information out there and let others bring new ideas and uses for information.

 

2.       Laurel Papworth – How to Develop a Social Media Marketing Campaign

Laurel gave an outstanding presentation on social media marketing that contained a deluge of social tools and websites (all of which she seemed to be an active member of – Twitter, Kwoff, Slide Share, Flickr, wiki.co.mments, Blogger, and many more!).

 

A key slide was her depiction of influence ripples, showing how links between popular bloggers (or distinct subjects) are created by people at the periphery of each subject, not those main players at the centre (a good example was Deaf Mom (http://deafmomworld.com/), who blogged on the poor service and abuse she got at a drive thru takeaway – a story that quickly found its way onto the main news services at Fox & ABC. Within a week she was meeting the executives of the company who were apologising in person).   

This goes a long way to showing the folly of some organisations who think that the only way to promote online is to target popular bloggers or news services with traditional press releases, which they expect to be cut & pasted close to verbatim leading to a controlled and consistent message.

 

The corollary is increasingly being used by corporations and indeed governments to promote various messages:  smart, modern communications and public relations delivered via inclusive, long term, and devolved information sharing and reticulation. 

Laurel presented her version of web 2.0 communication & development strategies as comprising of 5 steps:

• Involve
• Create
• Discuss
• Promote
• Measure

A memorable line she presented was (paraphrased!) “To understand the social web you have to live it”. Certainly advice she practices as well as preaches

In reference to promotion and communications online Laurel outlined the need to think beyond the old world of web-based metrics. Success is now much more than just page hits or click-thrus. We must consider the utility of information to people, and think of the niche that our sites can fill. This means we have to build community (starting off with changing internal cultures), rather than sticking with outdated models of simply broadcasting information in a shotgun approach, using static web pages and laborious menu-driven sites . We can no longer just talk at people, we have to talk to (and listen to) them.

This led to a key point – if there is no conversation then the content may as well not exist. After all it is the user community that creates and adds the value! No community = no value = no audience = no ratings = no searching = no point.  

An interesting fact that Laurel presented was that this year (2008), for the first time, Australians spent more time online than they spent watching TV (http://slicemedia.blogspot.com/2008/04/australians-spend-more-time-online-than.html ). Given the rise of social networking in the last few years this can only mean that Web 2.0 is gaining serious traction, and the notion of user-generated content is a concept that warrants consideration for professional bodies of all persuasions.

Given this high-volume of societal use the trend is towards using web resources (including within organisations) to discover and manage links and friends/colleagues, rather than focussing on depth of content. This results in three primary roles within socially-aware web sites: creator, responder and host, with different elements within an organisation taking on these roles at different times. What is interesting is that the ‘host’ role (often the ICT department) is decreasing – all they need to do is setup the baseline/structure with which subsequent creator-responder relationships can flourish. Then it is just a case of getting out of the way and allowing the wisdom of the crowd to take over.

Some of Laurel’s useful and entertaining online resources can be found here:

• http://www.slideshare.net/Silkcharm/
• http://silkcharm.blogspot.com/
• http://laurelpapworth.com/
• http://twitter.com/silkcharm

Burglar tactics reveal security weaknesses

An article on news.com.au reveals some interesting facts about security from a burglars point of view.

It is based on research from a University of Tasmania PhD candidate, who has demonstrated some real ingenuity in investigating what works in home & business security (she asked the people who make their living from bypassing it!) – but I think we can extrapolate from this clues applicable to good security in just about any other area, be it computer security, airline security, or national defence.

Some of the main points made by the burglars are:

• only do the crime if you expect a good return for your efforts
• pick properties/areas that appear to display the owners wealth
• target professionals who are likely to earn well, and posses high-value goods
• target homes in the daytime, when owners are likely to be at work
• follow people/employees to establish their patterns of behaviour
• look for alarm systems by manufacturers that are known to be easy to disable
• front up to homes, knock on the door, and if challenged lie about what you are doing there (if not challenged, break in!)
• pay for the knowledge of insiders to reach high-value business assets

 Some of this might seem obvious but it is worth reminding ourselves, and our employees/clients, of it regularly if we are seeking to secure particular assets.

For instance, who would ever consider that they might be followed to/from work – and would you ever consider doing anything about that particular threat (or could you, even if you wanted to – how set are your work hours, how static is the route you take to get there?).

Earlier this year in the UK, a security depot was raided to the tune of 25 Million pounds after the vault manager and his family were kidnapped by robbers posing as police officers. Obviously a lot of planning, watching and following was involved, as was some degree of inside information – how else what they know what this one man did for a living, and where he lived?

The aspect of the robbers tip-list above that is most difficult to defend against, whatever asset you are trying to protect, is the human one (just knocking on the door and saying you are there for some legitimate reason). In IT/hacking circles this is known as ’social engineering’, and it can be taken to some elaborate extremes. This was demonstrated by the infamous case of Kevin Mitnik, who gained access to some pretty privileged areas and sensitive equipment by turning up and saying that he was a repair technician – and as such he was granted entry by unsuspecting staff.

Another well known example was that of Frank Abagnale (of “Catch Me if You Can” book/movie fame) – who committed many frauds through simple misdirection using photocopied cheques, home-made laminated ID cards, and illicitly gained copies of company uniforms. Couple these basic items with a convincing and charming personality, and the sky is the limit – quite literally for Abagnale, who rode the airlines for free as a fake pilot for around 2 years.

You might consider the word ‘misdirection’ out of place in describing what Abagnale did – but think about the airline pilot scam. He puts the uniform on, attaches the fake ID to the pocket, and THAT is all people see – its as if they become selectively blind. “Oh – you have a pilots uniform on, and some kind of plastic ID badge – so you MUST be a pilot… come and climb on board sir!”.

In a similar vein, I would recommend checking out the work of the British performer Derren Brown at http://www.derrenbrown.co.uk and here (where he calls such activities ‘perceptual manipulation’). A nice example related to security from him was to place a wallet on a London footpath, with a bright yellow circle drawn around it. The wallet stayed there, with clearly visible cash protruding from it, all day – neither thief nor good Samaritan daring to pick it up. As Derren says on his website, “We learn suggestibility from an early age… This leads us to accept what societal figureheads such as parents, teachers, tutors and doctors say.”

This is the suggestibility that kicks in when a stranger turns up at a reception desk and says he is there to fix the air conditioning – and can he please have a security pass to access all areas. If he shows a pass, a letter of appointment, or even just a bag of tools, that can be enough to convince the receptionist to comply with his request (or is it a demand?) to entry.

So if our aim is to improve security, how can we counteract these charming, sneaky, and opportunistic criminals?

I think the first (and perhaps most essential) tactic is to stop trusting people. I know this is not everyone’s ideal solution – and that is why there is such a current reliance on technology – which in itself generally doesn’t work in the face of determined attackers), but it is the reality of the situation.

You might have a great security system that works 100% of the time, but if a fake engineer comes to your office and programs it to ignore all events between 7 – 8PM every night, you are in serious trouble. And you may never notice the 1 hour failure – if the commands are issued in line with what the machine expects, then even it is fooled – it will still report 100% reliability within the parameters it has been provided, regardless of who actually provided them.

And this doesn’t have to be an elaborate criminal attack – it might be just a fed up contractor looking to cash in and move to another city in the near future, and he knows that you are never likely to spot the misconfiguration. In this scenario, which is increasingly common, we have great dangers. Here is someone who is legitimately on site, with full trust and access privileges, but they are NOT an employee, and may have little loyalty to their host business. Also bear in mind that this same contractor may be working for competitive clients who run the same systems, and he may be passing information on about how you do business.

Trust therefore is a shrinking commodity in the modern world. We can no longer trust who sent us an email, who is on the other end of a chat session, or who posted a particular website. We also should not trust people on the periphery of a business such as contractors, certainly not strangers who front up or even phone up, and certainly not those employed within the business, who tend to be the source of most fraud and theft from businesses.

Making any attempt on your home/business seem unlikely to yield lucrative results (or increase the risk of getting caught) will also help protect you, and that can be done in many ways. Not showing high value items in the shop window for instance – take a leaf out of the jewellers book, who tend to keep valuable items locked in cases behind the counter. When was the last time you saw $10,000 earrings displayed on a rotating carousel outside the shop?

Within businesses, don’t assume that everyone has to have access to all areas, and all information. Divide and rule, or perhaps divide and secure. Then you can pay special attention to those who do have the ability to really damage or undermine your security – think system administrators, cleaners, security guards, or executive staff.

But at the end of the day no system is 100% secure – so make sure you have secondary systems that will help you recover from the failure. Backups of information, other staff who can fill in key roles, and a good, old-fashioned, insurance policy are basic starting points.

Security- in whose hands?

During the recent terrorist scare at Heathrow airport (alleged plot to build bombs onboard from liquid explosives), I saw an interview with a passenger in a loooong queue for boarding.

“What do you think of these delays?” asked the interviewer.
“Well, its a nuisance, but it keeps us safe”, replied the passenger.

You may recall the extreme measures taken on that day – no hand luggage, 1 clear plastic bag to carry on essentials only, no tubes of cream, and so on and on and on..

But what was actually happening at this security check? Who was doing it? I don’t mean which agency, I mean which individuals?

How were they trained, who trained them, who decided what should be looked for, and who decided that anything bigger than a paperback book is just too dangerous to risk bringing on board?

At the same time as the authorities were dealing with the ‘liquid explosive’ plot, who was looking out for the ’solid explosive shaped like a watch’ plot, or the ‘explosive compounds swallowed in separate condoms’ plot?

The problem with security on this day was that the police only know about, and foiled, 1 plot. But as demonstrated by Schneier in his movie plot terrorist threat competition, the terrorist has all the cards – they can dream up plots galore, and only 1 has to make it through the screening processes in place at the time (which tend to be statically configured – “OK, now were looking for shoes.. or for nail polish bottles… or for people who are Librans“).

The problem of course is that all these systems tend to rely on humans performing the screening, and doing so with 100% efficiency all the time… or else what is the point? And how likely is that – well, why do you think we invented computers in the first place?

But even introducing technology into the equation does not guarantee success. Machines must be installed, configured, operated, and maintained. And who performs these tasks? You guessed it – good old unreliable humans.

So when you are thinking of security, don’t just look at ’systems’, and don’t just look at ‘guards’ (I used to be one – believe me!).

Try to negate the threat in its entirety. For airline security this is going to mean either to stop flying altogether, or to remove the reason for people wanting to blow planes up. The way things are at the moment – I think it might go either way.

In the meantime, standing in a ’security’ queue for an hour does not make you any the more safer.