This week beside general busyness on our projects and Thomas going to Berlin to participate on a workshop for the Official artwork for the London Olympics in 2012. Magnus and I had a very interesting workshop with Martin Ferro-Thomsen, founder of Issuu.com,  about his current start up project conferize.com – that promise to change the way the conference business work. We are helping Martin and Conferize.com along with the social design on the service. Thinking about all the artifacts, all the knowledge and all the relations shared at tousands of conferences, you realize how many social design opportunities that emerge when people meet up and how amazing it would be if you could scale this by making it digital. Conferize.com promises to do that and Martin and the team are very dedicated to launch a service that makes a change… if in doubt read the Conferize manifesto http://blog.conferize.com/post/6102168246/conferizemanifesto.

This week another of our interesting clients went from stealth mode to public sign up. The project now have an official name and the site is up at shareleap.com. Shareleap.com like Conferize.com is on a grand misson changing the world by making business more transparent and collaborative. One could say, they are trying to redesign influence. 

Shareleap.com promise to change the possibilities for small investors and shareholders to influence large companies, allowing them to share and synchronize ideas and opinions, in order co-create or endorse agenda proposals. individually small shareholders are ultimately powerless, and the general assembly in most companies are designed to keep small investors out of power. If connected through a social platform like shareleap.com, small shareholders could be a major voice and regain influence. Moreover, in an increasingly turbulent and “broken” stock market, a lot of companies would actually see a great advantage in having a good and direct dialogue with small investors.

Working with start ups is such a thrill for us, we find that our competences and experience in working with social design and social business models, really is making an immediate difference, because we are in the creation and execution phase all the time. There is no layers between the product and the business + working with people who are running 10 times faster than anybody else, to keep up with their own ideas and ideals is just inspiring us to push the envelope on things. 

Reflecting on this weeks work, we see a new pattern in terms of innovation coming from the start up scene, from people who truely believe they can change something that is broken. We see the best ideas come from people that are outside “organisations” because they can work more agile and prototyping than larger corporations and traditional agencies are able to do. One area in particular that I see as an emerging space for this type of disruptive innovation is “Digital service innovation”. Here the digital and social realm offers possibilities for creating platforms that not existe and in fact disrupt existing institutionalized business models. This could be some up in the credo: You don’t need to own the market, to change it.

In fact think about the recently announced IPO of Facebook, which promise to become a top 10 IPO introductions of all time – estimated to generate 100 billion dollars, certianly by far the biggest for any social network site ever. Interesting (and a little scary) Facebook has done nothing but to create the platform and to own the relations – a lot of them. If Facebooks userbase is worth the astronomic amounts is beyond me to judge. However, it shows us that social platforms are immensely powerfull and quite a prosperous innovation space. However I think that the more Facebook tries to force it’s platform into commercial use, the less it be interesting for users to use. At least I have a hard time seeing the “like advertising” turning into an attractive business – somewhat profitable perhaps, but not very… ehm pretty. However I think Facebook and other major players will increasingly, become the infrastructure that will integrate into all other activities on the net. Facebook now owns the social graph of many people, and in the future that’ll be like selling oxygen to people drowning. 

Returning to the point. Platforms. Niche platforms. Major disruption will come from start ups and inventors creating “niche” platforms around specific areas of interest. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ is going to be to generalized and to broad for capturing all the potential action, it will probably be the “backbone” of a lot activity. But my guess is we wil see a continual rise of a mulitude of emeging niche platforms – like shareleap.com and conferize.com taking on specific business’  - where there are specific conditions and in particular specific social contexts and values to cater for. This is not disruption for the sake of disruption, but basically fixing inherent problems that the market is to slow or to blind to adress it self. That’s innovation. And it’s great social design. 

Just to say, in Socialsquare, we are spending a lot of time in our projects as well as in our methods thinking about the design of digital and social platforms, and how they are changing valuechains and businessmodels, by making markets  more transparent, distributed and scalable. In fact we are working on an event where we’ll share more of these insights, so stay tuned for more. And do drop by or set up a meeting with us if you are interested in more.

Have a cool weekend.

First week of 2012 is coming to a close and everybody at SQ is back from their respective festive and greasy Christmas coma.

Magnus has started a fitness spree and is refusing to eat anything but carrots at the lunchtable. Later today all the SQ’ers is heading of to our annual new years party and 2012 build up – that will include a mixture of oysters, steaks, wine … and Fernet Branca (if Kim is to decide).

We are settling well at our new office – and things are really nice here at Nørrebronx. Especially with our new glass-wall installed, allowing us to have meetings in more private setting. We are testing out new ways to work, trying to break the fixed workspace paradigme, where you day in and day out are at the same desk.

Our idea is that workspaces follow projects, so depending on what project we are working we set op “project islands” where the team is working from. We are trying to be more visual as well working with card boards and printouts, trying to get all our ideas and knowledge out of the computer and make it manifest and visual around the office. It’s actually not as easy and trivial as it sounds. It requires us to rethink the way we work and ultimately how can we be more effective in the same time making projects smarter, more explorative and easier to work with. Please let us know about any interesting workspace cases or concepts in relations to our ideas.

Beside a lot of good talk with prospective clients this week, we have been working a number of projects. This week we have started research on our project for SAXO.com where we’ll be researching and interviewing authors and self publishers. One of the question that we are exploring is a new value-chains and roles on the book market and particular the roles involved. And our project for Aarstiderne.com is getting into a new phase in conceptualizing and exploring community, collaborative and networked aspects of their business. Our project on crowdfunding for a design and art venue is also progressing.

Before going on holiday Magnus and I had a very inspiring social design workshop with a stealth mode startup on about a very disruptive financial community platform.

On a more general level we are exploring how the internet disrupt business’, building up a libary of examples, drivers, collecting numbers and data on the impact of the internet, that we be employing in our process going forward. Kasper and I are leading the team towards an event that we’ll annouce soonish. stay tuned. (… and stay hungry and foolish as well. Yes Steve Jobs biographies was under the Christmas tree this year).

We believe that the internet is about much more than social media – and in 2012 we start to see this emerge. Business’ need to embrancing social media, but they also need to understand and act on the fact that the internet is highly disruptive. We believe that the once that apt a adopting the way the internet works, challenges the existing value chains are once that owns the business in a digital and social future. We believe that we’ll be seeing a shift from branding-oriented marketing and communication smear on social media, towards a focus on design the digital product and services that is actually drives and defines productive interaction with customers. Our work is increasingly in this arena, helping unleashing new business potentials by creating social visions and social design for the digital service and products that changes the game of a given industry.

In the New Year this will be a recurring theme, as we are interested in how the digital is challenging existing business practices and how to design for disruption. And we’ll include some more writings here on the blog. So a new year resolution is that will be sharing more of our insights around here.

That’s a promise. Happy new year. Now go disrupt.
]]> http://www.socialsquare.dk/2012/01/06/weeknote-4/feed/ 0 http://www.socialsquare.dk/2011/12/21/weeknote-3/ http://www.socialsquare.dk/2011/12/21/weeknote-3/#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:36:57 +0000 Martin http://www.socialsquare.dk/?p=2012 A little late weeknote, as our last week was extremely busy – and not least very offline and physical, as we moved our office from the Meatpacking District to Slotsgade 2 on Nørrebro. We are very happy to be back where it all started, and this time we think that we have found the perfect spot for our office – both in terms of location (we love Nørrebro) and in terms of office space. We’ll be able to have our activities such as workshops, meetings and events here. Still a bit of interior decoration is pending – any great ideas for office design is welcomed. Imagery will follow once we are settled a little more, but f you are in the neighborhood, do drop by for a cup of coffee. Our new adress now is:

First of are we are obviously very glad that our new site is up and running. Emil and Nicolaj has been busy getting things to work, and will obviously keep tuning the site. Do comment. Be gentle :)

This week we have been busy continuing our work on several projects. Kim and Magnus have made some interviews with some experts in relation to our “farm” project, where we are trying to rethink the physical farm in a digital context. Amongst the interviews we had a very visit by a former employee Andreas Lloyd for a talk about how he and a bunch of other are organizing a ecological food collaborative in Copenhagen food collective, and Andreas also had some great insights on citizen involvement or rather citizen “desire”. Also my old friend Mads Bødker stopped by to talk about his research about technology and exploring places. Videos will be published soon for general interest. We also had a good internal brainstorm about the “valuechains” around the farm that elicited a lot of interesting aspects. 

Jonas tested out a new format for our research, toke the camera  and went on the street and caught some public opinions, and is a planning a upcoming thoughtleader meeting where we will invite some of the best and brightest to meet and talk about how internet is disrupting business, and how organisations needs to change the way they work. In this vein Kasper is researching thsi theme mapping concrete examples and tendencies on digital distruption, trying to carve out the some numbers about the consequenses for business. 

Magnus has been workshopping in the CBI project (community based innovation), where Socialsquare is a partner. And finalizing our strategy project for GEA. 

I have been spending on our project with DJØF and our collaborators WOGN. we are working with a group of members that has started blogging at detgodearbejsliv.nu. During the week I was visiting Kunde&Co participating as an expert in digital participation for a client, great fun and lots of ideas how to create participation. Lastly I ended this week reviewing a clever bunch of students at Copenhagen University, that has been working with us to come up with interesting digital services and products for the Royal Library. The students have been busy doing a lot prototyping and mashing up leading to interesting exploration in social products.  

Finally we are also happy to say that we will be working with saxo.com again, in a very interesting project. 

Have an excellent good weekend.

Det er et område vi i Socialsquare syntes er meget central at forstå og i virkeligheden meget større end de sociale medier. I oplægget argumentere jeg for netop dette. At organisationer ikke kun skal ud og agere i de sociale medier, men at det er helt centralt at organisationen begynder at agere socialt, og i virkeligheden, at det vigtigste er at få internettet ind i organisationen. Derfor skal organisationer lærer af og tilpasse sig den måde internettet virker på. Sociale medier er mere end bare Facebook markedsføring og Twitter ekkokammer snak. Det er i sin fulde konsekvens nye måder at organiserer sig på, som i stigende grad kan og vil kunne udfordre den måde organisationer virker på. Det betyder ikke at organisationen går væk, men at vi som organisationer skal lære sig at organisere os hurtigere, simplere og mere effektivt – det kan dynamikkerne på det socale internet lærer os, for det er her den største og mest gennemgribende innovation sker – eller rettere sker igennem.

Naturligvis er organisationer sociale, fordi de mennesker der er i dem er sociale, men vi kan blive bedre til at være sociale. Vi kan blive bedre til at dele, samarbejde, skabe relationer og åbne vores processer op. Og hvis vi ikke gør det, der hvor det giver mening og skaber værdi, ja så vil vi i stigende grad tabe værdi og mening som organisation. Fordi verden udenfor organsationen er blevet gennemgribende kompleks og sociale i det mange flere har adgang til viden, relationer og distribution.

Jeg argumenterer for at den største udfordring for organisationen i det 21. århundrede er organisationen. og kommer også med et par vinkler på hvad vi kan lære af det sociale internet. Se oplægget her.

The Social Organization – Martin Sønderlev Christensen from LeaderLab on Vimeo.

Slides er her:

Vores whitepapers om dette emne kan hentes her:

Den Sociale Organisation (PDF, 1,2 mb).

Det Sociale Intranet (PDF, 1,9 mb).

Kommunikationsforum er uden sidestykke det mest aktive og veldrevne faglige nichesite i Danmark, med over 5000 profiler. Kommunikationsforum er med tiden blevet branchens “telefonbog” – stedet hvor man finder og holder kontakt med dem man kender i branchen og finder nye spændende profiler, nu er den del helt konkret – slå dine kontakter op, ring, sms eller send en email.

Socialsquare har sammen med Kommunikationsforum skabt en app der gør det lettere, simplere og mere relevant at holde styr på branchen og dens profiler. Vi ser rigtig mange iPhone apps som bare er små websites eller bare fjollede app’s. Men K-forum iPhone App er en regulær schweizerkniv som kan bruges til at tjekke de seneste artikler, finde jobs eller skabe relationer. Værktøjet til den sociale kommunikatør.

Socialsquare har stået for koncept, interaktionsdesign, design og har i samarbejde med Greener Pastures implementeret app’en for K-forum.

De to gå-hjem-møder, vi indtil nu har afholdt hos Socialsquare her i efteråret, har vist sig at være store successer. Vores kontor været fyldt til randen af spændende mennesker fra nær og fjern, der, sammen med os, har diskuteret den sociale organisation og det sociale intranet.

Nu er vi klar til at invitere til endnu et spændende gå-hjem-møde – denne gang vil vi kigge lidt ud og se på hvordan og hvorfor, man skaber sociale netværk, communities og grupper, der giver rum og muligheder for at involvere og skabe interaktion mellem organisations medlemmer, interessenter og kunder.

Vi skal på gå-hjem-mødet se på og snakke om, hvad organisationen får ud af at skabe netværk. Hvad der skal til, for at netværket lykkes? Hvordan opbygges netværk, og hvilken værdi skaber det? Og opnår man bedst resultater på egne netværk eller på andres platforme?

Du vil også kunne høre Andres Rønne Nielsen fra Wogn, forfatter til bogen “Hvad vil I med netværk”, og som til daglig arbejde med at skabe og drive værdiskabende fysiske netværksgrupper.

Gå-hjem-mødet om at skabe sociale netværk afholdes den 11. november kl. 16-19 på Vesterbrogade 67.

Tilmeld dig her:

Følg med i gå-hjem-møderne og deltag i diskussionerne i vores LinkedIn-gruppe: Socialsquare gå-hjem-møder.

Det betyder jo ikke, at vi ikke har brug for organisationer, men at organisationer presses – ikke nødvendigs indefra eller oppefra – men udefra og nedefra. Spørgsmålet er ikke længere, om organisationer skal anvende sociale teknologier. Men hvor? Hvordan? Med hvilket formål?

Nu er det næste skridt at gå fra sociale medier til sociale værktøjer, der understøtter og fremmer virksomhedens kerneværdier og forretningsmål. Kunne vi kalde det den sociale organisation? Ja, hvor ikke. Men hvordan ser sådan en ud? Hvordan ser samarbejde, forretning, videndeling og kommunikation ud, når vi gør den social?

Vi vil gerne inviterere til gå-hjem-møde, hvor vi vil diskutere, hvad den sociale organisation er.
Vi præsenterer en række bud på, hvorfor det giver mening og hvilke værdi det skaber og hvad der er svært. Og så vil vi sammen prøve at mappe muligheder og udfordringer når vi sætter socialt foran alt.

Fra socialsquare vil du møde Martin Sønderlev Christensen, Magnus Christensson, Thilde Vesterby, Jeppe Kabell. Og ligeså vigtigt vil du møde en masse andre, som er interesseret i at gøre organisationer sociale.

Det var en super spændende dag fyldt med gode, konkrete cases, dybe samtaler, netværk og fokus på, hvordan vi får sociale medier til at give mening og blive en succes i organisationer. Fokus lå især på spørgsmålet om, hvorfor det ikke altid bare sker af sig selv. Vi taler ikke længere kun om sociale medier og kommunikation, men om nye måder at innovere, samarbejde og drive forretning på.

Vi har lagt alle talerne ud på vores videosite. Se eksempelvis:

Euan Semple (tidligere knowledge management director hos BBC) om, hvad der sker, når organisationer skal adoptere sociale medier og hvilke kulturelle misforståelser, der ofte står i vejen for at organisationer kan få succes med sociale medier.

Torben Bundgaard fra Novo Nordisk fortælle om, hvordan Novo Nordisk – med Socialsquare som partner – har arbejdet med at bruge sociale medier til at udvikle engageret intern kommunikation, ideudvikling og talentrekruttering eksternt.

Adriana Lucas, der giver sit bud på, hvordan fremtiden kunne se ud for “open social business”, hvor virksomheder og deres kunder ikke kun skaber samtaler, men opbygger relationer, som leder til transaktioner. Adriana taler også om, hvordan virksomheder kan arbejde med åbne, brugerskabte data, infrastruktur og platforme, således at kunderne får gavn af det.

Se alle talerne her :
http://video.socialsquare.dk/channel/639236/social-media-at-work-social

Du kan også læse et sammendrag fra konferencen her:
http://socialsquare.dk/2010/06/08/en-dag-med-social-foran-alt/