IS5600 2

1
IS5600 2

• The Internet ( Web 2.0) Competent Executive

2
Unlimited Information Opportunity or Hazard?

• In late summer 1994, a mathematics professor
  found errors in Intels Pentium Processor.
• When Intel refused to respond, he posted his
  comments on a website.
• Later, Intel announced that the error would only
  happen once in 9 billion calculations. Critics
  disagreed, noting that one would never know if a
  calculation was correct or not.
• Within 1 month, IBM stopped shipping
  Pentium-based PCs.
• In November, Intel admitted the problem, and
  offered a replacement chip if you can prove the
  need.
• By late December, following huge public outcry,
  Intel offered the replacement chip to anyone who
  asked.

3
In 1994

• Who had Internet access?
• Globally, less than 1 of the population
• Who read newsgroups on the web?
• Even fewer people.
• Search engines were primitive and missed a lot of
  content.
• Internet-literacy was low.
• Were you Internet literate in 1994?

4
In 2009, it is a bit different

• 24 of the worlds population has Internet access
  1.46 billion people
• Wikipedia is an online encylopaedia that is
  written by anyone
• eBay/TaoBao buyers and sellers rate and comment
  on each others performance for every
  transaction.
• Epinions, Amazon, and many others report customer
  feedback on all products.
• Twitter delivers 140-character tweets
• Dopplr keeps you in touch with your friends
  travel movements

5
The Ubiquitous Web?
http//www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
6
So What? Markets are Conversations.

• Widespread access to the Internet
• Dedicated feedback sites
• Ease of posting / publishing (e-mail, newsgroup,
  discussion forum, weblog)
• Dedicated feedback mechanisms
• Feedback aggregation
• Search engines

7
Markets Have Changed

• The Internet enables new forms of communication
• Deep linking subverts hierarchy
• Better quality information comes from other
  consumers, not vendors
• Does anyone actually read/listen to what the
  vendors say anymore?
• Do the vendors know what we say about them???
• There are no secrets
• you can find anything online, good or bad

8
So What Do People Go Online For?

• To socialise 81
• To shop 39
• To become part of a community 72
• To be entertained 82
• To learn 88
• To have fun 83
• To date 21

• Learning about
• New subjects 68
• The world 65
• A disease 61
• Healthy food 55
• Finance 37
• Buying
• Home items 49
• Electronics 45
• Music 35
• Movies 29

www.ruderfinn.com/intent
This data is from a US survey. Would it be the
same in HK? China?
9
Websites and Web 2.0 is for Anyone

• Google and the Wiki-movement have revolutionised
  collaborative website design
• Google Docs (online document editing)
• Google Apps (a variety of applications)
• Google Sites (DIY web-design)
• For nothing (basic) or cheap (US50/user/year)

10
You Tube

• In Spring 2008, a musician was travelling through
  Chicago.
• He saw his guitar being carelessly handled by
  United Airlines ground staff.
• They admitted their bad behaviour, but refused
  compensation.
• So, he wrote a song to complain about it, posted
  the song for free on YouTube and
• Do you think United really wants all this bad
  publicity?
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v5YGc4zOqozo

11
Blogs

• Online, web-edited diaries
• Public or Private
• Personal or Corporate
• Free and ubiquitous
• There are so many blogs that we have lost count
  a few hundred million, globally
• Does anyone here keep a blog?
• How do blogs compare to facebook, wiki, second
  life, ?
• Lets look at the stats http//www.google.com/tre
  nds

12
Whats all this got to do with Global IS?

• Blogs are an IS application
• Blogs are a powerful weapon in anyones hands
• Of offence or defence
• Of propaganda or counter-propaganda
• Of information or mis/dis-information
• Blogs are increasing used by senior executives
• Search engines love blogs.
• Google has its own dedicated blog search process

13
Ignore Bloggers at your Peril!

• Jupiter Research Study (April 2006)
• Bloggers are exerting a "disproportionately large
  influence" on society.
• The 25 of web users who are "active" are
  dominating opinions and creating business trends.
• "They're not representative of the larger
  audience, but what they're saying does matter".
• Globally, there are over 200 million blogs, and
  35 million bloggers they are better paid,
  better educated, and have better jobs.
• If 100 people complain online, that can be enough
  for a firm to pull a product from the shelf.

14
Application Example (for you!)

• Your company produces high-end MP3 players in
  China and sells them worldwide. Your latest
  model, mpSX88, has been an excellent seller, and
  is factory-guaranteed for 3 years.
• However, 15 minutes ago, you (the CIO) received
  an e-mail from your marketing director about an
  on-line discussion forum that reports several
  breakdowns of the mpSZ88 after as little as four
  months.
• When you search for mpSX88 failure on Google,
  you see that there are already over 1000 hits,
  many at blog sites.
• What will you do to stop this negative publicity?

15
New Lines of Defence Offence

• Executive Blog (xlog)
• Written by an executive (e.g., SUN COO Schwartz)
  as own initiative.
• Straight language not marketing language
• Insights, opinions, wonderings, marketing.
• Employee Blog
• Written by large numbers of employees with
  company encouragement (e.g., HP).
• Straight language not marketing language
• Insights (technology), advice.

16

• Jonathan Schwartz SUN
• http//blogs.sun.com/jonathan
• See the December 18th 2005 Posting
• He gives away servers?!
• Randolph (Randy) Baseler - Boeing
• http//www.boeing.com/randy/
• Comments, Marketing Reflection
• Why do they do it?
• Who is the audience?
• What are the risks?
• CityUs President xlog
• Oracle xlogs http//www.oracle.com/corporate/exec
  utive/blog/index.html

17
Effectiveness of Org Blogs

• Value to consumers / stakeholders
• Cost / quality Offence vs. defence
• Marketing by the masses
• Risks? Effort? Habit?
• Will this work in Hong Kong? China?
• Ask the next generation of HK consumers how they
  spend their time on the Internet.
• Jack Ma (Alibaba) http//blog.sina.com.cn/mayunblo
  g
• Li Yan Hong (Baidu) http//hi.baidu.com/liyanhong
  
• Charles Zhang (Sohu) http//charles.blog.sohu.com/
  
• Lenovoblogs http//lenovoblogs.com

18
Social Networks

• Seem to be a powerful tool and a way of tapping
  into the 'wisdom of crowds'.
• Are crowds that wise?
• How about the folly of crowds?
• Social networks need to be focused and refined so
  that they actually do add value.
• We will look at social networks again in week 6
  in the context of knowledge management.

19
Organisational Web 2.0 Perspectives

• McKinsey (2007) reports widespread but cautious
  interest
• Web 2.0 is seen as strategic
• But not just blogs and facebook!
• Instead, a focus on networking and automation
• Web services, collective intelligence and
  peer-to-peer networking are particularly popular
• Social networking, blogs and wikis are less
  popular.
• India and A-Pac are leading the move.

20
Web 2.0 Applications in Organisations 1

• Collective intelligence
• Knowledge management applications
• Formal KM systems with codified knowledge that is
  widely disseminated
• Collaborative publishing
• Less formal, web-based publication of knowledge
  or intelligence items of value to others

21
Web 2.0 Applications in Organisations 2

• Web Services
• Facilitate automatic information passing between
  systems
• E.g. a retailer and supplier might use web
  services to communicate over the Internet and
  automatically update each others inventory
  systems (McK Q, 2007).

22
Web 2.0 Applications in Organisations 3

• Peer-to-peer networking
• File sharing systems (music, text, videos) either
  over the Internet or within a closed group
• Files are distributed across many locations,
  sometimes in pieces.
• The combined bandwidth of all users can be
  accessed
• No need to rely on a single file server
• Each peer in the network is both client and server

23
More Web 2.0

• Communication with business partners and
  customers
• 70 of respondents indicate the above usage
• 20 are using blogs to improve customer service
  and get customer feedback (ve and -ve)
• Wikis to encourage a culture of sharing
• And capture informal/anecdotal information that
  would otherwise be lost.
• Could product or s/w developers use Web 2.0 to
  gather ideas

24
Wikis? Wikipedia?

• A wiki is a website that uses wiki software.
• Wiki-websites enable the easy creation and
  editing of content, including interlinked web
  pages, using a simplified markup language within
  the browser.
• Wikis are often used to create collaborative
  websites and the concept dates to 1994.
• Wikipedia is a multilingual (260), web-based
  free-content encyclopaedia project with 75,000
  contributors.

25
Resistance?

• Yes. Not everyone is positive.
• Not all organisations have strong grassroots
  support
• Management and customers alike can still be
  traditional and apathetic, seeing any IT as a
  cost, not an opportunity.
• Does Web 2.0 generate enough value to cover costs?

26
How can we measure value?

• What is the value of better communication or a
  knowledge sharing culture or involvement in
  product development?
• Value cannot come in a day it needs time, space
  and mistakes to evolve and mature. Best practices
  have yet to emerge and in any case may be
  context and company specific.
• Does a better culture improve competitive
  advantage? Can the advantage come from minimal
  investment or is something more significant
  needed?
• Think out of the box. What could your company do
  with Web 2.0 that it is not doing now?

27
CEO or CIO?

• Lets look at the CEO-CIO article from McKinsey.
• Is the CIOs job really so critical that the CEO
  can only trust him/her-self to do it?
• What is special about this CEO-CIO?
• What are the parallels between this case and last
  weeks on the CEO of CIMC?

28
And Now Wiki Time!

• Id like everyone to create their own wiki.
• Please use www.wetpaint.com where I have already
  created the is5600.wetpaint.com wiki.
• After you have created it, please email me the
  address so that I can link it to the IS5600 wiki
• What to write?
• Comments about IS5600 classes IT/IS in HK
• What did you learn? What will you change?
• Perhaps half-a-page or so per entry.
• 10 of your IS5600 marks!
• I will write comments on all your blogs and I
  hope that you will too.