Enterprise 2.0

Peter writes...

It is not just Manchester [2], but Harvard too. Here is Professor Andrew McAfee talking about what he calls Enterprise 2.0:

"Trying to turn lemons into lemonade in class, I asked some of the people who actually had sent a URL to describe the experience of starting a blog. They all shrugged and said it was no big deal, took about five minutes total, didn’t require any skills, etc. I then asked why I would give busy executives such a silly, trivial assignment. In both classes one smart student piped up to say "To show us exactly how trivial it was." At that point, class discussion became interesting."

This relates to a feature in Sloan Management Review.

Congratulations to all the groups today. Magnificent.

You Still Have To Be Good To Be Big

Peter writes ...

I am trying to wrap up my thoughts on Social Computing as we move deeper into big systems and change.

And so I offer the opinion that you still have to be good to be big. Perhaps this is even more the case in the blogosphere than it is with conventional journalism. As a blogger you have to construct your reputation from scratch. The star witness to this, as ever, is Tom Reynolds. After years of spin, misrepresentation and tabloidism, one independent voice was enough to reveal the true temper of work in the frontline of Britain's public services. You might start your encounters with Tom's blog by looking at These Boots and The Slow Attrition of the Soul.

See also this out-take featuring Tom from Alan Yentob's BBC documentary on Web 2.0 last year. It proves again that you have to be good to be big. Alternatively, just have a one track mind.

If this is mass media ...

Peter writes ...

Jade Goody arrived as the Queen of the Unexpected Celebrities i.e. that sub-cult that rise through exposure on reality TV itself, rather than any other perceived talent. "I am the 45th most infulential (sic) person in the world," she was able to boast. Perhaps it was this new ego, and its likely shakiness, that fuelled her bullying of Shilpa Shetty. It was without grace. It was base. It was low.

But she wasn't the only bully, was she? There was Jo O'Meara, Danielle Lloyd and the Dickensian-monickered Jack Tweed. And then again, there was Endemol, Channel 4 and the team of University-educated programme makers and psychologists.

The horrendously boring show 'Big Brother' is centrally woven around a process of the construction of celebrity. Its livelier twin, 'Celebrity Big Brother' is concerned with the deconstruction of celebrity. Having made Jade Goody, here was the University-folks chance to unmake her. And then, on cue, Jade arrived with her family in tow, her urchin mother Jackiey being the first to be evicted. It was cleverly and cruelly handled by the show's producers; seeing that Jade had a maternal role in relation to her mother, they deprived her of this suddenly by evicting Jackiey, without goodbyes, without opportunity for the daughter to assess her unsteady mother's readiness for the outside world. Jade ended up crumpled and crying in the diary room.

Jade Goody arrived as Queen , to be waited on by the other celebrities, and she left begging for forgiveness. Along the way, bayed by the hyenas of mass media, the Prime Minister and Prime Minister-in-waiting found themselves ensnared in the fate of a few, well-paid people locked in a house.

I don't believe that any University-ethics committee would ever give permission for the psychological experiment that is Big Brother. But the fact that the "contestants" are well-paid, and that they do choose to enter, makes it all right. Doesn't it?

Does it?

If this is mass-media, then what have we to fear from campfire media?