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.

Back in november Susanne Jøker Johnsen – head of the biennial secretariat – contacted us after reading this previous blogpost on crowd funding. She wanted our help for a new funding concept for the biennial. Like a lot of cultural events, the secretariat is facing increasing difficulties funding the biennial through the traditions means – public and private funds. At the time they had a shortfall in their budget of 800.000 DDK. Without a solution future events would be jeopardized.

We started our work by conducting an intensive research of the network of the biennial and on the art scene in general. Crowd funding could work – we reckoned – but we early on suggested that the secretariat should also open the event up on a broader level and promote “open source”-principles in the general governing of the biennial.

For the crowd funding process we identified groups of potential contributors. And for each group we identified a level of ambassadors with the role of activating their networks and securing a more direct and personal linkage to the potential contributors. For each group we developed a specific strategy with specific communication, messages and channels – all for motivating and rewarding the people willing to contribute. For the actual transaction we suggested kapipal.com which is a good and flexible platform with good sharing and embedding functionalities.

As written above, we also suggested the use of “open source”-principles, meaning that the secretariat should open the biennial up for other stakeholder’s projects and events. This will lower the cost of arranging the biennial, enhance mutual ownership and hopefully create a more relevant and present event. Instead of being the executing part on all the events, the secretariat could take on a mere facilitating role forming partnerships with other actors allowing and encouraging them to arrange and host their own projects and events. The biennial will instead be a platform that – because of its size and importance – offers leverage and synergy and should be seen as an opportunity for other stakeholders within the glass art world to realize their own projects.

The challenge for the secretariat is now to use and balance these principles and even to combine them. So far the approach seems to work. Only a few weeks after delivering our project the secretariat tells us that the budget shortfall is now reduced with 100.000 DDK due to new partnerships. Hopefully more partnerships will form. Next is to see how the crowd funding processes will do.

As far as Susanne Jøker Johnsen’s know this way of financing and organising an arts & crafts event is never done on such a big scale. If this approach proves to work, it could potentially open up for a whole new range of events and projects in the art world that hasn’t been possible before either because of organisational or financial reasons. The biggest challenge to this new approach is the culture among the actors in the art world. To succeed with these principles a shift of attitude is needed – especially amongst the artists. The challenge is therefore to find the right means and messages for the stakeholders to see themselves as equals and as someone who’ll be willing to participate in the reach for the common goal: in this case to promote the world of glass art.

This project clearly proves how strong these social principles are if applied correctly. And that it is possible to do changes with the proper technical and cultural understanding of these mechanisms. Some industries are being disrupted faster than others due to these social dynamics. At Socialsquare we believe that this type of change is inevitable and that most industries will be effected at some point – the art world too.

Kim, Martin and myself have been working on “the Book” project. Doing interviews, desktop research and hosting a very interesting insight workshop with our esteemed client’s management and chairman. It was our first workshop in the office and it worked out fine, although I believe we need to look more into a new printer so that all our flows, sketches, diagrams and analysis get an enhanced (and at least larger) presentation.

We have held some great conversations around the different perspectives on open innovation both internally and with clever people around us during the last couple of days. We have been invited to speak on the subject during the next couple of months both in Denmark and internationally so you will be able to read more about it in future blogposts, but here is a short version of our thoughts and experiences so far.

Open innovation initiatives in organizations can be seen as either “structured” or “emergent”. If they are “structured” the are based on the idea of “push” where participants are invited to help a given organization with input or ideas because they want to improve their own situation as customer or citizen, because they want recognition or because they can win a price. We have been part of branded innovation projects like these since 2006 and build numerous of them. We know how to make them work, both from a people, a process and a platform perspective – but we also know when this approach are less likely to give relevant new input and knowledge to the organization.
If the initiatives are more “emergent” the conversation are more based on the idea of “pull”, does not typically take place at on a company website branded for the purpose and peoples motivation to join in are more based on creating something new or relevant for themselves. It’s more a collective action than an collaboration and in this “emergent”, non-linear or process-driven conversation the participants are peers and contributors with all (or non) of them owning the ideas they share and develop together. This is a completely different approach to innovation which have greater potential and greater risk. It might be more rewarding in the end but is typically challenging the way business is done today.
We believe that both approaches are useful and valuable in their own, different way but as they demand very different organizational set-ups, competencies, tools and KPI’s they need to be handled in different ways.

We will continue to explore open innovation, how organizations of today can use these to develop new products, services and business models and what it takes from an organizational point of view in the coming months. Your ideas and comments on the subject is most welcome so pitch in here or send a mail if you share our interest.

On a completly different note: If you, like us, are interested in the lean start-up movement you should check out the Stanford course, the launchpad class

That’s that. Have a nice weekend.

We are therefore deconstructing the process of writing and publishing. We are talking to authors and asking crucial questions about writing and publishing, about the function of publishing companies, about the interaction between authors and readers and about the creative process in general.

It is clear that the book industry is changing (or “being disrupted”, to use a term we like). An article in The Guardian paints a picture complementary to our own observations: That the traditional institutions of publishing and the central function of the publishing companies are no longer as crucial for publishing and reaching a big audience as they used to be.

In the eighties and nineties a lot of the core functions in publishing were outsourced. That led to a growing number of out-of-house functions like freelance editors, freelance proofreaders, freelance art directors and freelance publicists. Today we see these same functions bypassed more and more often, and that authors increasingly choose to publish and market their books more indepentently.

Obviously, the Internet is the main driver in this development. New services like smashwords.com and lulu.com provide part time or professional authors with a platform where they can conduct and manage their own publishing. Considering this, what is the role of the traditional publishing company in the future?

The publishing company and the editor still offer an almost priceless service to (established!) authors. Besides creative support, marketing and the practical task of transforming a script into a physical product, the publishing firm helps in endorsing the work. On the other hand the commercial interests could act as a creative constraint for interesting new niche productions.

Instead of reaching the readers through old-school marketing or the traditional book fairs, the authors can connect to their potential audience through forums, rating systems, blogs, chats etc. These can also be means of promoting and endorsing a piece of work.

The article that I referenced earlier is written by Cory Doctorow, who besides being a science fiction and post-cyberpunk (?!) author, is also known for advocating the liberalisation of copyright laws. He is a good example of how to use the new possibilities and that it is possible to make money while doing it.

At Socialsquare we enjoy identifying the disrupters of a given industry. But what social and technical dynamics is driving this current development? The infrastructure of the Internet and the digitization of books are certainly major drivers. From the demand side we believe that the development evolves around the movement towards niche and long tail markets. From the supply side the development seems in line with the social paradigm and its sharing and co-creation. What do you think?

In the coming weeks we’ll continue our work. Together with our client we’ll design a concept that meets some of the issues and challenges above. I’ll write some further blogposts on some of the more essentiental questions we meet.

K

The DNA of the Internet is based on freedom, anarchy and the free flow of knowledge – to limit these basic dynamics will amputate the creativity and the opportunities on the Net. If SOPA and PIPA were adopted, content owners and the US government could hinder the very infrastructure for sharing (not only the illegal sharing!). And without sharing the Net will not have co-creation – which in our opinion might be the single most important feature of the Internet. It is therefore positive that the Senate and House of Representatives now has decided to postpone the vote on the bills. But the threat is not over – new unhealthy and ignorant initiatives will come.

The value of the Internet should be created by developing new solutions and not by limiting. Assets are volatile – especially on the Internet – and if the established companies feel that their markets are being disrupted they must join the competition instead of limiting it. The Internet is free, humane and creative – and it would be fatal to force and build up the same institutions and legal frameworks that we find “IRL”. At Socialsquare we are therefore following the development closely.

Take a minute to enjoy John Stewart’s take on all this.

The conflicts here at Nørrebro are a little less dramatic. Sourdough and rye bread baking is the focal point in a situation where Rasmus (one of the students that are writing their master thesis with us) has challenged yours truly in baking the best rye bread. The dispute is pretty pathetic. But the rest of the Socialsquare welcomes it at lunchtime.

Everyone at Socialsquare has been working hard the last week. On Friday, we completed our project with European Glass Context on financing and organizing the coming biennale through crowdfunding and open source principles (a blog post will follow). And we are also progressing on our “The Book” and “The Farm” projects.

Stay tuned!

Kim

We’ve been meeting with a lot of really interesting people and organisations this week. Martin have been away censoring at IT University on mobile and social IT related thesisses. We have been putting a next to final hand on our sparkling, new office. And thanks to (or despite of) TDC we finally got our own Internet connection up and running. Thanks to 23 for the lifeline support in the past weeks. If you end up in the heart of Nørrebro someday, don’t be shy to drop by Slotsgade 2, 3 tv.

The research for our collaboration with SAXO.com and interviews and concept development for our crowdfunding-focused Biennale project has taken much of especially Kim’s and some of my time this week. We learn a lot and that’s always good.
We have continued working on the social design of a new corporate platform for a large industrial company and continued our collaboration around a disruptive financial community platform with a stealth mode start-up. Quite different work, both rewarding in their own ways.

Yesterday, Rasmus and Inge-Mai moved in to work, collaborate and write their master thesis together with us. We are interested in “how the successful innovation principles of interactive value creation, distributed co-creation, and mass collaboration in the private sector may inspire the public sector to reform administration and development processes”. It’s going to be very exciting to see how the project evolves in the coming months.
This new research project will complement the research we did with Jacob last year around planning and implementation of crowdsourcing in complex organisations and we look forward to learn even more and build upon our existing expertise in regards to the more advanced methods and approaches for creating participation in complex markets and organisations.

This week we have been listening a lot to Kim Hiorthøy. It’s highly recommendable when you are in a productive mode.

Have a nice weekend.

Magnus

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/2012/01/02/comments-on-how-the-internet-changes-business/ http://www.socialsquare.dk/2012/01/02/comments-on-how-the-internet-changes-business/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:57:45 +0000 Kim http://www.socialsquare.dk/?p=2052 Andreas Lloyd is an old colleague here at Socialsquare. Andreas is highly engaged in the food co-operative Københavns Fødevarefællesskab and we therefore interviewed him for our farm project with Aarstiderne. Andreas’ comments were used in our vision workshop last month.

Besides talking about member-driven organisations and organic foods we also had a chance to ask Andreas on his general views on how internet affects business. His thoughts are very much in line with ours here at Socialsquare, and he manages to put them into very precise words. Take a look at the video below and tell us if you agree.

Method
The way we approached this project was to start out with building the web page so that we were able to investigate the result. The process has been characterized by our curious and experimental approach. This lead us to an ongoing adaption of the web page based on the results we gathered.

Skibsted.net is constructed so that Jens Martin Skibsted’s data from a number of online services is collected on a continuous timeline and by a ‘tag’ function. In this way Jens Martin Skibsted’s life is maintained and sorted in the digital realm, and in relation to a general timeline.
An early version of skibsted.net experimented with mixing Jens Martin Skibsted’s own digital information with search results from Google matching “Jens Martin Skibsted” to cover all of his online identity. The current version of skibsted.net collects data from Twitter, 23, Flickr, WordPress, Facebook and Delicious and presents Jens Martin Skibsted’s thoughts, experiences, work and physical location.

When Identity Goes Digital
With skibsted.net we have investigated digital identity together with Jens Martin Skibsted and based on the project we have made a series of observations.

Because different digital services play an increasingly large part of our everyday life, more and more personal information is available in a digital format. This increased digitization means that digital identity is transforming from being something we create and control to a more direct and transparent image of our personality and actions. The way skibsted.net is built perfectly illustrates how increased digitization equals increased transparency. Jens Martin Skibsted is aware of this and comments: “In this emerging radical and transparent world you have to be a real person and communicate who you are.”

Skibsted.net exemplifies how the spread of digital services leads to increased transparency. Digital identity is therefore something that is created by our actions as opposed to something consciously developed. In this way skibsted.net is a very direct image of Jens Martin Skibsted’s identity.

The project skibsted.net is a callback to the classic discussion regarding whether identity is based on experiences and thereby mutable or if it is a fixed concept that follows you all your life. The content on skibsted.net is collected on a continuous timeline whereby the presented identity is constantly changing. Digital identity thereby becomes something dynamic and mutable.