Below is from the website www.cubeless.com :
This is a listing the benefits of your organziation using cubeless. For the next few weeks, I am going to relay some of the case studies that we have experienced from our internal use of cubeless and relating then to these stated benefits.
The following is from wikipedia’s article on intellipedia, the US intelligence social community:
”Chris Rasmussen, knowledge management officer at the Defense Department’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), argues that “gimmicks” like the Intellipedia shovel, posters, and handbills, encourage people to use Web 2.0 tools like Intellipedia and are effective low-tech solutions to promote their use. Also, Rasmussen argues that “social software-based contributions should be written in an employee’s performance plan”.[23]”
Of interest to me is the last quote on social software contributions and the employee’s performance plan. My opinion and I know I have mentioned it before, but this is the next step of how tools like this are going to be used. Solutions like cubeless are going to help management determine the next crop of leaders in their company.
To break this down further, I would say that cubeless does 3 primary things for the organization: it is easier to communicate within the community, the community can assist others, and lastly, cubeless can build excitement and engage the community. If you are a manager, how are you not looking for these traits in your employees? Additionally, solutions like cubeless can also help one determine expertise within the community. Again, if you are a manager and need someone familiar with, oh, who knows, AC units, looking thru cubeless could help you determine who is up for the job. Just so many opportunities for social software, I really think we are still just scratching the surface.
Just read McAfee’s blog post on incentives, basically, how to quicken the pace and extend the reach of adoption of communities. One example he uses is from the intellipedia community, the internal community that US intelligence uses to communicate information. What they use to draw interested is what is called the intellipedia shovel. The shovel is passed to those members recognized for their involvement in intellipedia by their superiors. However, when McAfee presented this in front of a gathering of Health care execs, they mentioned that this wouldn’t work for their sales force. Below is what they said:
“They don’t care what the bosses think of them. But they care a lot what the rest of the salesforce thinks. If we put an idea like this in practice with them we’d make sure the positive feedback came from peers, not from above.”
So, how do you resolve this issue. Well, if you read the comments in McAfee’s post, I believe that Gregory Y’s comment hit it on the head. Our e2.0 offering, cubeless, uses a numeral value called Karma to determine involvement and expertise. The higher the karma level, the more the user is viewed as a community leader.
Karma on cubeless
Karma amount is basically the dependent variable of a model where usage as well as the quality of the content are the independent variables. Regarding “quality of content”, users that read questions can reward each other by classifying particular answers as “Helpful? Y or N” and the questioner can determine which answer is the “Best Answer”. How does this look, check out below:
As you can see, I did not ask nor answer the question, but I can still pick if the question is helpful or not. The “Best Answer” feature is only for the person asking the question and would be shown as a clickable button for each answer. Also, once you select a “Best Answer”, the question is closed. Below is a question that I asked receiving multiple responses.
I selected “yes” for both answers as helpful and selected Amy’s answer as the best.
Anyhoo, back on topic of incentives, what we have found with our customers and our own internal system is that the community self governs. For instance, if a user asks a question that receives plenty of quality feedback, he or she is expected to reward some of those who help answer her question by using the “Helpful” and/or “Best Answer” features. If not, the person usually is notified of this by someone in the community, but not necessarily by one who answered the question. Basically, our community knows when recognition is deserved, and when recognition is not given by other members of the community, these members are made aware of this. So this incentive is different than intellipedia’s, it is not vertical, it is very lateral, coming from members of the same standing.
Actually, it is at a point that some users who answer my questions will actually send me thank you notes/emails for selecting them as the “Best Answer”. I know that it sounds odd receiving thanks from the people who answered my question, but hey, it happens, and all for the better.
Something I noticed the other day is that, in communicating via enterprise 2.0 technologies like cubeless, the best “way” to answer a question isn’t necessarily the most direct. Why, well, it has to do with the mentality of “If this person is asking this question, there may be numerous others asking similar questions”. While being verbose is not ideal for one to one communications, providing rich, copious amounts of information is useful for future inqueries. For instance, I saw this question in our internal cubeless system.
”Can anyone help me understand if a/c unit by itself is better than a heat pump, when i have a gas furnace for heating?”
Air conditioning, a topic that generates tons of questions. Since I am fairly familiar with the science behind these units, I decided to answer, but in a “way too much info for this question, but relevent info for future questions” sort of way.
”OK, not getting too technical, but a heat pump and a AC unit are really the same thing. Most people think that AC units just make things cold, but what they really do is they make one side cold (the side of the AC unit in/facing your house) and one side hot (in/facing the outside). For instance, you will notice that while an AC unit is blowing cold air inside, if you go outside, the AC unit is blowing hot air. How this works is because of the condensing and evaporating of freon. In the part that cools, the freon is evaporated, so those coils become cold and a fan blows air on the coils, cooling the air. Then the evaporated freon travels outside to the compressor. The compressor makes the freon hot and the freon flows outside to release the heat. The heating and cooling of freon happens because of a difference in pressure in the cooling part vs. the heating part. But again, not to get too technical. A heating pump is really no different, except that you can reverse the process, and switch back. So if you switch the flow, instead of the cold part of an AC unit being on the outside, think of it as now on the inside of you home. Also, the hot side of the AC unit is now inside. So really, the process is the same.What this means to you? My take, since you already have a gas furnace, don’t bother with the heat pump. A gas furnace is far more efficent to heat than an heat pump. Think of it this way, a gas furnace is really only a valve to allow gas to flow, a match (or other ignition source) to light the gas, and a fan to blow hot air. A heat pump is 2 fans to blow air, freon (which is expensive), pumps to move the freon, piping all over the place, and wiring and valves everywhere. Basically, there is alot more moving/operating parts to heat pumps, thus these would take much, much more energy to operate, costing you money. In fact, even in the Northern US, then energy bills in months like July to cool a home to 75 F when the outside temp is 85 F are still more expensive than to heat a home in January when it is 0 F. Additionally, I am sure heat pumps cost you more.
So in summary, get the AC unit for the summer, and use the gas furnace in the winter. Don’t bother with the heat pump.”
Yeah, I know, lengthy answer, but information that is useful, nonetheless. This way, the next person may not even need to ask a question since the info will be in the cubeless system. Anyway, I thought I would pass this along.
First, let me say this, I have not read much of the literature concerning the “we” smarter than “me” movement. Having said that, there are situations where it certainly makes sense. I wholeheartedly believe that pulling information from a community can be very useful. For instance, it you want a quick feedback on a new product idea, or opinion on a new corporate policy, enterprise 2.0 products like cubeless are great for gaining key insights. Actually, using the Sabre Holdings (Sabretown) community, we cultivate great ideas for the new releases of cubeless platform. (speaking of which, more to come soon)
However, “we” smarter than “me” is by no means an absolute measure of decision making. Again, I am not sure if they address this, but certainly the more technical the issue is, “we” can actually be a poorer decision maker than “me”. I think that the perfect example to illustrate is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Many people do not realize that Einstein did not win the Nobel Peace prize in science for his famous Relativity equation e=mc2 , he actually won it for the photoelectric effect. Einstein’s theory of relativity was so revolutionary that many scientists regarded it as borderline quackery. It wasn’t until the 1960’s when instrumentation was sensitive enough to show the slightest differences in Newtonian physics vs. the theory of relativity that Einstein was finally shown to be correct. “Me” certainly beat out “We” in this regard. Actually, I would venture a guess that this explains the oft mentioned lack of performance of wikipedia on the sciences.
Now you may be wondering how this relates to a blog about an enterprise 2.0 product. Here’s why. One of the central benefits of products like cubeless is the ability to develop and find expertise within the community, finding those individuals and groups that can best answer your questions to help your performance within the organization. I could be wrong about this, but at times I feel the “we” better than ”me” argument undermines expertise, almost like sending a message that expertise is not needed, quantity trumps quality. But finding the “right” person and answer is absolutely crucial, and a ginormous benefit of corporate social communities, maybe even the greatest benefit. Without expertise, many of the advantages of communities are lost, so much so that one wonders if the community really exists.
Again, I am not well-read on this topic, and this situation I am blogging about may be discussed in detail, unbeknownst to me, but I thought I would capture my thoughts.
I am really hesitant to mention anything political, but this post really isn’t about politics, it is about understanding what is happening with the internet. Much ado is currently being made about McCain’s head internet guy’s (whatever the title is) comment that while McCain is, by no means, actively involved with the internet, he is “aware of the internet”. Factoring in his age and the prez race, you have a media frenzy.
Which leads to an interesting situation. Many organizational decision makers are probably not at the cutting edge of Web 2.0 tools, closer to McCainian ability than “iphone/facebook web tool superstars”. May argue that McCain cannot understand the internet since he is not a consumer, can we expect that a firm’s decision makers to “get” Web 2.0/e2.0?
My take, ultimately, is that the answer is yes. On the surface, it appears that the answer should be no, thus a huge problem for cubeless. And indeed, one does need a critical mass of know-how, but if you digg deeper, (yes I know, corny) think of who are the thought leaders in this web 2.o space, or the enterprise 2.0 space. You find that they are Mark Granovetter, Malcolm Gladwell, and Andrew McAfee. Not exact who I would call on technical cutting edge of these tools, but certainly they are the thought leaders. And honestly, it is not like topics such as weak ties, collaboration, and community are overly difficult to comprehend. Its sociology, not thermodynamics. (I really hope I don’t severely regret that comment, but come on, its sociology)
Lastly, I feel that whatever you are try to sell, or understand, or teach, if you cannot break this down into easily explainable parts, I would think that is web 2.0 problem, not the individuals. It is all about community, right, not exclusion.
One of the best pieces of of marketing advice I have ever recieved is from this handsome fella, Marketing Professor Roger Kerin at SMU. During my brand management class, we were discussing the Squirt soda pop brand, where once he quipped “there is nothing worse than a dumb competitior”.
I know you are thinking that this is the most ridiculous statement you have ever heard. At first, I would have agree with you, and honestly, for industries with low concentration ratios or with large size/wealth differences among the participant companies (think Apple vs. Microsoft, circa 15 years ago), this statement is generally incorrect. However, there are key insights with this statement.
In many industries, the competitors tend to be similar, for the most part. Coke and Pepsi, the various consumer packaged goods companies, Target and Walmart, all relatively similar in size and scope. In these situtations, poor decision making by one company can dramatically profits for the entire industry. Why? Well I think it has to do in large part with what I will call the “Zero Sum Fallacy”. At the crux of dumb decision making is the belief that whatever helps you must also hurt your opponent, and visa versa. Thus the overall gains and losses between opponents should sum up to zero. This line of thinking is certainly illustrated in price wars with one company lowering price to gain market share and the competitior acting accordingly in response. However, what actually happens is that no one wins during a price war. The profit margins shrink, your consumers become less price sensitive, and your brand can potentially weaken. Price wars are only one of the unfortunate outcomes of poor decision making.
In turn, smart competitors realize that participants in an industry can all profit (and thus win) and that the marketplace is rarely a zero sum senario. Companies can refine their target segments and product mix, thus eliminating direct competition, and they can strategically set price points so as to increase profitability for the entire industry.
This is where cubeless fits in. Cubeless allows for quicker resolution of business challenges, increases collaboration, captures knowledge, etc, and all of these benefits help your company to make better decisions, or be “smarter”. In addition, while cubeless assists your company, the adoption of cubeless and products like cubeless would also help your competition, which for the reasons I mentioned earlier, is probably one of the best situtations you could hope for. Ironic, no?
Lost some great comments for many posts. So very, very sorry. Will fix soon.
Playing with this site
and loved it. I especially thought that it was a marketer’s dream. If you are unaware, Twitter is a site where you can microblog, or the ability to give small updates of what you are doing. Normally you would set up an account online, but you can send and receive updates via your mobile. If you friends have twitter accounts, they can “follow” you and can be alert and track your updates. Also, it is entirely open, so anyone can see your content. How web 2.0!
Why am I so excited? Well, as a marketer, I tend to think that the communications on twitter are significantly different that other forms of “talking” on the internet like blogs, chat rooms, etc. Think of your product, if you sell a product that is “high involvement” like a car, these products tend to require a lot of thinking. Thus, if a customer wants to talk about your product, he/she would probably blog, a communication tools that requires a fair amount of involvement as well, but certainly is a superior form of communication.
But think about if you sell something like chewing gum. I dare say, probably not too many who are going to blog the virtues, good or bad, about chewing gum, but certainly, someone may actually twitter (using the noun as a verb) about your chewing gum. For instance I saw these “tweets” about Big League Chew:
BaudanzaPants: “You know what I haven’t had in a while? Big League Chew… “
wickedpissa: “Big League Chew’s flavor last for 13 seconds… I’m just saying.”
Do I think these individuals would blog about Big League Chew? Nope, but a quick quip on Twitter, obviously yes. And what great marketing research! Zero cost and reliable information. Good tool.
I thought I would go a bit more on why and the meaning behind the question categorizations of play, work, travel, and life. On the why, the ethos of our customers’ employees felt that there would be value if we could sort via question type. For example, if at the end of a long day, someone wanted to be a little entertained, that person could peruse through the “play” related questions. Or if someone is looking for general travel information, that person could narrow down the search to only “travel” related questions.
The meaning behind the question categories is fairly self- explanatory. “Work” related content helps to improve your work life. “Life” related content helps improve your personal life. “Play” are the fun/funny questions and “Travel” is for personal travel based questions.
Examples of some of the questions from our customers are below:
Work
“Did you know that cubeless is built in using Ruby on Rails? Does anyone have any experience with this platform and how could this be useful to our company?”
Life
“Can anyone recommend a good electrician close to where I live? I live in uptown. Thanks!”
Travel
“What seaside city in the Eastern USA would you recommend for an extended family reunion, July 2008 for approximately 50 people ages 2-80 years old. Any referrals to lodging or planning resources would be appreciated.”
and last, but never least, Play
“Which is the best beer you have ever tasted??? I have 4 that I love… Franziskaner blonde (German) is my top choice. Leffe (Belgium), Don De Dieu (Canada) and De Verboden Vrucht (Belgium). My gosh these are good beers!!! What’s your choice?”
Below is a short video on question categorization