Off Course-On Target

Mishmash of Mashups

In the past two years or so, one of my most popular topics and the one that I've been asked to spend most of my time on is mashups. Notably, this topic seems to be popular across a widely diverse range of my audiences and across many countries and cultures.   

My recent audiences have spanned four continents, and included such diverse group as IT professionals and CIO’s; commercial sales executives; military organizations; technology-enabled learning and e-Learning professionals; and higher education professors, deans and ministers. Given all the interest, I thought a short summary of the topic, along with some recent examples, was due. Hence... today’s post. 

If mashups (or my views about them) are relatively new to you, you can find more details by searching for “mashup” on the Off Course – On Target site. Some of my previous postings on mashups include: 

• The future is a Monstrous and Marvelous Mashup! 
• Mashed Up Snowflakes?

The main point I try to make (and why it seems so relevant to so many) is that mashups should be thought of as a conceptual model rather than a technology. While the term "mashup" is somewhat new, the concept is neither new nor complex. In simple terms:

A mashup is a unique assembly of bits and pieces from more than one source into a single integrated whole. 

Even more simply (and a surprisingly robust metaphor for it) is that mashups are like Lego blocks; you have a lot of small components which can form almost infinite numbers of assemblies to create just about anything you can imagine.   

With mashups, the ‘bits and pieces’ or individual Lego blocks are pre-existing things that can come from any source and often from multiple sources. Furthermore, these “bits and pieces” can truly be just about anything and everything, from content to code to hardware to events to teams.

Two things that are accelerating the rise of mashups are what I call MC² (with apologies to Einstein and others):

MC² = Mass Contribution multiplied by Mass Customization

Mass contribution and mass customization are part of the deeply pervasive metapattern of mass personalization, which Erik Duval and I refer to as "The Snowflake Effect." All of us are becoming increasingly enabled by mashup technology and the plentiful availability of mashable objects.

We are becoming mashup creators ourselves. Fewer programming skills are required, and many essentially require none, so we can focus on finding and assembling the specific components we want to put together into a unique assembly. You can get a sense of the depth and diversity of mashups by spending a few minutes looking at some of the examples listed by the likes of WebMashup.com.

Perhaps because my audiences who work in information technology (IT), as well those who are CIO’s, have shown such an interest in mashups, I took note of today’s posting (July 23^rd, 2007) "A bumper crop of new mashup platforms" by Dion Hinchliffe and his previous posting from May, Mashups: The next major new software development model?. Dion’s blog, Enterprise 2.0, focuses on “leveraging the convergence of IT and the next generation of the Web”. He too makes note of this shift in focus from the current practice of creating  “raw components” to creating assemblies instead.  In the larger context, I’ve noted that this is also bringing with it a rethinking about the scope of design and how we are all becoming “designers”.  As we create these assemblies of solutions to match our  unique requirements, context, and situations. we are becoming more involved in design and design related tasks.   

Dion provided this diagram which I thought was a good summary of the situation:

   

He also provided a reference to a recent McKinsey "Web 2.0 in business" survey which noted that 21% of organizations globally said they are using or planning to use mashups. He went on to note that: 

“...there appears to be considerable demand for mashups at the enterprise level even though the majority of existing offerings are primarily aimed at the consumer space.”  

In other recent news, I saw a good example of the Snowflake Effect and mashups on TV, or perhaps better put, in video content. This example is called Chime.tv and you will find a good summary and even better video coverage on David’s posting "Chime.TV’s subject-based channels cut across Internet video sources with one UI".

Even more apropos to today’s topic of mashups, Chime.TV is but one of the many examples coming out of the recently completed Mashup Camp run by David Berlind and others from Ziff Davis. David posted some of his observations on mashup trends yesterday in his posting Mashup culture shatters crusty, stodgy old approach to business app dev.   

Returning now to this idea about mashups as a conceptual model, I want to recommend that you look at these examples and consider how mashups fit into your world and work. Consider that mashups also apply to people!  Think for example about putting together a great project team. Ideally you want to be able to find just the right collection and combination of individuals who possess just the right set of skills, knowledge, experience, and attitudes (the Lego blocks) to form a new “assembly” that best matches the needs of the project and the context of the specific situation. Or consider how valuable it will be to be able to find just the right individual(s) to meet and talk with at a conference, in an online chat, or on IM. 

Rather than leaving this to serendipity (even as powerful as I believe that to be), imagine a future where you and we collectively can start to increase the probability of finding “just the right” people to create the mashup of individuals you need. To some extent, this is already happening at some “unconference” events and more broadly with the newest “dating technology” whereby changing the context from romantic to professional or other purposes, the exact same technology can be extremely effective at helping you to find the right people to talk with, work with, and meet with. 

I’ll continue to keep an eye on mashups and talk more about some specific applications and diversity in future postings. In the meantime, send me some of the ways you are going to mashup your world. This may sound “off course” but it sure is “on target” to improving our overall learning and performance, don’t you think?

w
a
yne
===== 

An Update on Wireless Power

Many of you found  “The wire we REALLY need less of!”, my previous posting about the potential of having electrical power without wires, to be both interesting and high on your wish list. As I understand it, the research work continues to build in this area. For those of you who are looking for more details and examples of wireless power transmission, you may want to check out some of the following:

• Scientists light bulb with "wireless electricity" and “The end of the plug?” are two new articles on some promising progress out of MIT and  they provide a good explanation for the layperson of how it all works.
• Wireless energy transfer is Wikipedia's summary of the topic. They are looking for assistance developing this entry further. Perhaps some of you with expertise and interest in this area could contribute?
• “Wireless energy could power consumer, industrial electronics”  is an article from 11/2006 that has more details on the research at MIT and motivations behind it.
• “Project Tesla:  Wireless Transmission of Power”  is for those of you interested in the historical background and theory, much of which originated with Dr. Nikola Tesla.

I doubt that any of us are holding our breath waiting for this to show up for our general use anytime this year, but at the same time, change is happening at an exponential rate, and it seems that we are surrounded by such surprises more all the time, so let’s keep our hopes up. For those of you who are also watching progress in this area, please send along other news and articles of value as you discover them.

w
a
yne
=====

Brazil or Bust! (Part 2 of 2)

In my previous post, I told you about my adventure getting to this year's eLearning Brasil 2007 conference in São Paulo. The theme of this year’s event was The Influence of Leadership and Technology on Organizational Learning and Performance.

The conference itself was (and always is) very interesting for me and for all the attendees, based on past and present conversations and comments I have received. Obviously the majority of the attendees are from Brazil, but a growing and significant percentage of attendees are from other South American countries, such as Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador, as well as from Europe and North America. A full range of academia, especially universities and trade schools, commercial businesses, government personnel, and technology vendors are also well represented and are similarly diverse geographically.

Along with the eLearning conference, there is an awards ceremony for an annual competition t on technology that supports the visually impaired. The results are always amazing, and this year was no exception. So you can see why this is one of the only events that I regularly attend and why I get so much out of it.

As I mentioned earlier, Elliott Masie came to the conference via Internet-based video from his home in Saratoga Springs, New York, which worked extremely well. Elliott covered a range of key issues that he sees coming up over the next few years as well as some that are appearing now.

For example, he noted how people worldwide are feeling overwhelmed and distracted and the impact this is having on learning and performance. In this context, Elliott posed the question of whether good learning can take place at your desk and particularly, at work or on the job.

Next we discussed with the audience how there are similarities between cooking and eating, and learning and training, a comparison Elliott and I have found fascinating and valuable for several years. We reached a consensus that there are deep similarities between these two very human practices, so much can be learned from comparing them. The connection between learning and the world of food and eating appears to be so strong that Elliott is having master chef Bobby Flay join him at Learning 2007, where he will be cooking while Elliott is interviewing him about the design, innovation, and evolution of cooking, and how it relates to our world of learning. Best of all, we will get to sample some of what Bobby has cooked up. Now THAT is performance and learning at their best, don’t you think? ?

Next, we kept Elliott on line and on the screen and brought two other global leaders—Dr. Alistair Benson, Academic Director of Manchester Business School Worldwide, and Eric Shepherd, President, Question Mark Corporation—onto the stage for a Socratic Dialogue on “The Influence of Leadership and Technologies in Organizational Learning and Corporate Performance”. In a wide-ranging discussion, we covered observations such as:

• Contrary to the rhetoric that large numbers of workers are retiring and so we should be concerned about the “brain drain” that this would produce, we are seeing the opposite happening in several ways. First, just because people are eligible to retire based on age and years of employment, doesn’t mean they will, and indeed many are choosing not to. While in many cases, this change in the age of the population may involve a change in the kind of work and conditions, such as shorter work days or weeks, more flexibility, different roles, or more of a facilitative and consultative role, the real change is that people are living longer and working longer…A LOT longer.

Secondly we noted that this change would produce a broader range of chronological age among individuals on a team and in an organization. In many places, for example, we are seeing people enter the workforce earlier, sometimes because they are sought out by employers and are convinced to leave their education and training programs earlier because they already have sufficient skills and the knowledge that is so badly needed. Combined with the people from other end of the age spectrum, we can expect teams whose membership spans teenagers to centenarians. A good discussion ensued on what this means for learning and for working.

• An audience member from the São Paulo area talked about the challenge his company is facing from the lack of people with engineering talent and what should be done about this. The ensuing discussion found that this phenomenon is broad-based in most countries in the Americas and Europe and quite the opposite in developing regions, such as India and Asia.

The discussion included the trend of “mass contribution” by increasing numbers of people. Knowledge and expertise is now being captured through e-mail and instant messaging to blogs and wikis. There is, however, a missed opportunity to “mine” the growing repositories of such communications for the nuggets of knowledge, patterns, and other value within.

After a short break, I had the audience to myself—a wonderful opportunity. Beforehand, I had them choose one of several themes that they’d like me to talk about and to my delight, they chose “The Snowflake Effect”. We took a fun hour or so going through what is currently my favorite topic: uniqueness and the Snowflake Effect. Here are the slides from my talk:

One of the things I value about the support I’m afforded from Autodesk is being able to spend time with bright. eclectic people in different locations on this planet every day.  This gives me the chance to test just how broad and applicable are the trends that I see. This diverse range of people from Brazil and South America confirmed once again just how powerful these notions of mass personalization, mass contribution, and the Snowflake Effect really are and how well these translate into their context. 

Given this tremendous validation and confirmation from so many locations and so many contexts, my close colleague and friend Erik Duval and I are hard at work developing the Snowflake Effect into a full conceptual model and articulating this in much greater detail. Please stay tuned for upcoming announcements when we will have a site dedicated to the Snowflake Effect where we will be asking for your input, reactions and critiques.

For now, I hope you find some good value from my most recent experience in the great metropolis of São Paulo. And my sincere thanks to Francisco and the super staff of MicroPower for the great job you do of making eLearning Brasil somehow better every year. It’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of the whole experience.

w
a
yne
=====

Brazil or Bust! (Part 1 of 2)

Despite the travel gods’ best attempts to keep me from my goal, I finally made it to São Paulo, Brazil 52 hours after leaving San Francisco.

It all started with an emergency landing in Denver due to an electrical fire, which caused me to miss my connecting flight. I was rerouted through Newark, then shuttled to JFK, where the next leg of my journey was delayed because of fog in São Paulo.  Two flights later I finally arrived at my destination.

I had been asked back to São Paulo for the third time to emcee and facilitate the eLearning Brasil 2007 conference at the beautiful São Paulo World Trade Center (see photo at right).

And in spite of the unique challenges I faced getting there this year, once again I found it well worth all that I went through to be part of this annual event. In fact, the whole experience fit right into the theme of this year’s event, The Influence of Leadership and Technology on Organizational Learning and Performance.

Here are some extracts of how my adventure played out and how it fit into this year’s theme on learning and performance:

• While I was stuck in the JFK airport in New York, I used phone and instant messaging to contact Francisco Soetl, MicroPower CEO and the wonderful mastermind behind the “eLearning Brasil” events, to update him on my changing itinerary.

• Over lunch at a JFK restaurant, I made an Internet connection on my laptop with my Verizon wireless data card and downloaded a very effective new collaboration environment called MicroPower Presence that Francisco and his talented team have developed. We used this to provide VOIP (voice) and share some slides for a quick meeting with his team in Sao Paulo to set up a series of different plans, depending on whether I got there on time, late, or not at all.


• I also connected with Elliott Masie, who was going to be doing a keynote at this conference via video from his home base in Saratoga Springs, New York, and did some planning with him. Elliott, via his shiny new iPhone no less, was on his way to the opera at the time, but we quickly set up plans for my interview with him, whether it would be from the stage in Sao Paulo or by driving from JFK up to the Masie Center in Saratoga Springs where both of us could be beamed into Sao Paulo via video and the net.


• Boarding the plane (finally!), I sent Francisco and Elliott a text message update that I was on my way and when I was scheduled to arrive in São Paulo. (6:50 am).


• Finally on the ground in São Paulo at 6:50am local, but since no phones were allowed during the 90 minutes in the immigration and customs lines, I had a tense bit of non-communication time. By the time I was in the taxi the conference had begun, so I switched to text messages and mobile blogging using my phone.


• If you’ve never been to São Paulo (and you really should go!) then just try to imagine traffic in the world’s second (or fifth) largest city (depends how you count). Picture a city with about the same population as New York City (19+ million), but with only one fifth the land area, and about ten times more cars and trucks, and a thousand times more bicycles, mopeds and motorcycles. Got the picture?!


•   If you are imagining a lot of smog (among the world’s worst) and lots of helicopters (the most per capita in the world) and lots of high rises (7th in the world), you’ve got it about right. Oh, and did I mention this was all during morning rush hour?!!


• Fortunately a good colleague, Eric Shepherd, was also attending this conference and was in the audience. Eric is the CEO of QuestionMark Corporation, one of the world’s leading developers and suppliers of assessment systems and services for education and training related assessments. He was going to be on the Socratic Panel I would be facilitating in a few hours. Eric and I were able to do some mobile blogging while I was in the taxi, which enabled him to send me continuous updates on what was being said on the stage, what were the audience reactions, etc., and provide me with the much needed context once I was on stage (let’s hope) and facilitating conversations with the other keynoters and panelists. In return, I was able to keep the organizers updated via Eric, on my whereabouts and ETA at the convention center.


• When it became doubtful that I was going to make it to the conference in time Eric kindly offered to take the stage on my behalf and start the interview with Elliott when he finished his keynote address. Finally, in what I think is the closest I’ve ever come in almost 20 years to being late for a speaking engagement, I dashed from the taxi as it pulled into the Sao Paulo World Trade Center, caught the elevator to the convention center, and ran onto the stage 3 minutes late and in time to thank Eric as he handed me the microphone and I started the interview with Elliott.

That counts for close right? But it also counts for just doing what it takes to make things work. I thought this was a good example of how the combination of great people with the right “can do” type of attitude, and the clever use of whatever tools and technology we have around us, can overcome unexpected situations and still get the job done to everyone’s satisfaction.

I'll talk more about the conference itself in my next posting.

w
a
yne
=====

Shift happens—especially in your mind!

I want to alert you to an article and a book that recently came to my attention with some compelling empirical evidence that shows how effort and attitude really DO matter and that learning to “embrace failures” appears to be a discerning factor of those who succeed.

Carrie Bustillos, a long time Autodesk colleague and a Stanford alumni, passed along a recent article “The Effort Effect” from Stanford magazine about Carol Dweck’s research and her book Mindset:The New Psychology of Success. This book definitely makes it onto my highly recommended reading list.

Dweck proposes that we typically have one of two types of “mindset”: fixed or flexible/growth. Those with a fixed mindset think that their talents and abilities are preset. They simply are what they are and you just have to accept them. Intelligence and talents are basically what they were born with. This group, according to Dweck, is destined to go through life avoiding challenge and failure and not reaching their potential. On the other hand, those with a flexible or growth mindset regard their intelligence and talent as something that is malleable and can be developed over time.  This group is destined for growth and success.

Dweck was led to this research because she was curious as to why talent is not a good predictor of success. Why do some people achieve their potential while others who are equally talented don’t?  And she also asked herself, “What makes a really capable child give up in the face of failure, where other children may be motivated by the failure?”

It is important to note that the title “Mindset” is a play on words and Dweck is NOT recommending that we have a “set mind.” Nor is she simply championing “the power of positive thinking”. Rather, Dweck is proving how much of a difference it makes for those who choose to think about their abilities, intelligence, and talents as being very flexible.

What I really want to emphasize is that this means WE are in control! Being more successful, and realizing more of our individual potential, is a choice each of us can make. To me, some of her most fascinating experiments were those where she demonstrated that simply by changing the attitude or expectation that individuals had over their abilities (fixed versus flexible) completely determined the outcomes. Her research shows that those who have a flexible mind rather than a set or fixed one are more often successful.

“The Effort Effect” article recounts just such an example. Last November, Dweck served as an advisor to a top soccer team school from the UK whose performance director was concerned that many of their top players had a large gap between their actual performance and their potential. Of note was the fact that these top players were the most resistant to the school’s century old motto—arte et labore—“skill and hard work” and had the least motivation for serious training. With Dweck’s help, they identified the problem as somewhat cultural, since many believed that “star players are born, not made”, so what was the point of practicing?

The Stanford article outlined a recent study that Dweck and her colleagues conducted:

“‘Study skills and learning skills are inert until they’re powered by an active ingredient,’ Dweck explains. Students may know how to study, but won’t want to if they believe their efforts are futile. ‘If you target that belief, you can see more benefit than you have any reason to hope for.’”

I was also immediately drawn to Dweck’s work when she cited one of my favorite examples and topics, Betty Edwards classes and book on Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Dweck noted how Edwards' results show that tests are typically poor at measuring potential because most adults think they can’t draw and for the most part I’d add that the majority feel they are very “left brained” and logical and only a rare few are “gifted” with artistic and other so called “right brain” talents and tendencies. Yet what Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has proven to thousands of adults who have taken the course or used the book, is that anyone can advance from the typical kindergarten-like attempts at drawing say, a portrait, to astoundingly accurate and beautiful portraits by these same “talentless” adults in just a few classes. That would certainly shift your mind set!

One of the things I really liked about Dweck’s book and work and why I’m recommending it for your consideration is that unlike so many others, her conclusions are grounded in over 30 years of solid and rigorous research with many different groups. She is not just theorizing or stating her opinions.

For more insights from Carol Dweck on how this plays out in education and training, I recommend reading the interview with her in Education World, “How Can Teachers Develop Students' Motivation—and Success?” In the interview she explained:

“This is a really interesting question, and the answer is surprising. There is no relation between students' abilities or intelligence and the development of mastery-oriented qualities. Some of the very brightest students avoid challenges, dislike effort, and wilt in the face of difficulty. And some of the less bright students are real go-getters, thriving on challenge, persisting intensely when things get difficult, and accomplishing more than you expected.

This is something that really intrigued me from the beginning. It shows that being mastery-oriented is about having the right mind-set. It is not about how smart you are. However, having the mastery-oriented mind-set will help students become more able over time.”

Now for some additional reading that takes Dweck’s work in very different directions, you may want to look at the following:

• Guy Kawasaki picked up on Dweck’s work on his blog How to Change the World, which generated a lively set of comments and discussion. They took this off into a whole different direction and to my way of thinking, missed much of the key points of Dweck’s research,  but I still recommend it for your reading.

• Malcolm Gladwell’s blog and his New Yorker article “The Talent Myth:Are smart people overrated?” highlights a common and very troubling myth that is rampant in much of the business community. This was expounded upon at great length, and unfortunately to great effect in the book The War for Talent, written by a group of McKinsey & Company consultants who meticulously researched what made top performing companies different from the others. They concluded that:

“Success in the modern economy requires "the talent mind-set": the "deep-seated belief that having better talent at all levels is how you outperform your competitors." 

Unfortunately this “talent mind-set” became the doctrine of many managers and companies, the shining (for a moment) example being a company that was entirely built upon this model and had this embedded into the corporate DNA and culture. The company was Enron.

As you can see Dweck and her research have definitely sparked a lot of interest and diverse applications. To bring us back to Dweck herself and a focus on learning, here are some of Dweck’s tips from the Stanford article's sidebar "What Do We Tell the Kids, which I thought many of you would find very useful. Although they are aimed at children they can easily be adapted for adults and applied to many situations both professionally and personally.

• Listen to what you say to your kids, with an ear toward the messages you’re sending about mindset.
• Instead of praising children’s intelligence or talent, focus on the processes they used.

Example: “That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.”

Example: “That picture has so many beautiful colors. Tell me about them.”

Example: “You put so much thought into that essay. It really makes me think about Shakespeare in a new way.”

• When your child messes up, give constructive criticism—feedback that helps the child understand how to fix the problem, rather than labeling or excusing the child.
• Pay attention to the goals you set for your children; having innate talent is not a goal, but expanding skills and knowledge is.

Dweck continues, "Don’t worry about praising your children for their inherent goodness, though. It’s important for children to learn they’re basically good and that their parents love them unconditionally. The problem arises when parents praise children in a way that makes them feel that they’re good and love-worthy only when they behave in particular ways that please the parents."

Whether it is your children, your co-workers, employees or yourself, I hope you enjoy reading more and find this topic intriguing and valuable. Here at Off Course - On Target, I'm aiming to help shift your mindset to the flexible setting!

w
a
yne
=====

Context, attention, vanity and other powerful drivers of the future

On June 23, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, I was honored to give the keynote presentation at the second annual Contextualized Attention Metadata Workshop (CAMA 2007). This event, part of the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2007), was very well organized by Erik Duval, Jehad Najjar, and Martin Wolpers,all from KU Leuven University in Belgium, and was additionally sponsored by the ARIADNE Foundation, ProLearn and MACE, each of which are worthwhile projects in the European Union. I recommend you check them out.

I suspect that Contextualized Attention Metadata may be a bit foreign to many of you and so taken straight from the workshop description, here is what it’s all about:

Contextualized attention metadata (CAM) captures the data on attention that a user spends on resources in a specific context. CAM enables us to better support the user in dealing with the information flood. Using CAM, filters can be devised that present new information only in the relevant context, for example by prioritizing incoming email based on the attention previously given to the topics of the email. Furthermore, CAM data can extend and amend user profiles thus enhances personalization in existing systems. CAM streams are collected from all applications that a user may interact with, including digital libraries, office suites, web browsers, multimedia players, computer-mediated communication and authoring tools, etc.

However you describe it, CAM is relevant for most of us in everyday situations, because CAM is one of the fundamental enablers for the Snowflake Effect of mass personalization that I’ve been championing for many years. CAM is at the heart of what will make it possible for...

just the right stuff (content, code, etc.)...

to reach just the right people...

at just the right time...

on just the right device/medium...

in just the right context...

in just the right way.

I’m sure you can add a few other words after “just the right” to improve this even more, but you get the idea.

And this is NOT just a vision. Examples are already appearing, such as:

• Finding just the right music to listen to (Pandora, Last.FM, Musicovery, ZuKool, etc.)
• The latest dating technology, which is very good at helping you find just the right person and by changing the context of romance works equally as well for finding just the right person for any other purpose.

If you consider this capability from a broader perspective, you start to see how powerful “just the right” can be as we get better at having just the right:

• Things to read at just the right time
• People to call when you have a question
• Individuals for your project team

And I’m sure you can come up with many more examples.

This concept is easy to grasp, but turning it into reality is a healthy challenge. Figuring out what is “just right” for each of us at any given time and in any situation is no small task, and yet, progress is being made. Focusing on CAM will make it happen that much faster.
Below, you can view the slides I used to support some of my comments at the workshop and download them directly from my Slideshare site.

As you can see on slide 19, I emphasized some of the most predominant R&D efforts in this area, and noted my “wish list” of items that need more research, tools, utilities, and services for CAM:

• Pattern recognition capabilities
• Implicit and Inferred metadata capture
• Visualization to process CAM to expose patterns (to both humans and machines)
• Equivalent of the music genome project for content and context
• Context REMOVAL (from content)
• Synthesis and automation of “objectives”
• Metadata automation
• Online/offline solution for CAM (e.g. ability to track my actions, behaviors, and activities, whether off line or online, as much on the desktop as the browser
• Standards for interoperability and mashups of CAM
• Optimizing discovery

Fortunately, I was able to stay for the rest of the workshop as well and thereby benefit from the other speakers and papers that were presented. You’ll find a full list of all presenters and their papers as well as all the slides and mp3 files of the presentations on the CAMA 2007 site.  But let me highlight just two that I think you’ll find particularly interesting:

What I took away from Joe Pagano’s presentation, "Measuring audience attention across multiple channels for a new Web site" was their finding that every site is unique (the Snowflake Effect) in terms of how best to attract the most attention. In the example cited in the paper, they measured audience attention across multiple channels for a new web site Chronicling America, introduced in March 2007. Interestingly, for this site and audience, “online word of mouth”(OWOM) referrers were the most significant sources initially driving discovery of this site (see the following chart).

In particular, what they called  “genealogy sites” (e.g. obituaries) scored the highest, followed by blogs, referrals from the Library of Congress site, e-mail, and lastly, search. It is likely that over time, search will become more effective as the more links to the Chronicling America site help to increase the site’s ranking, and this pattern is already suggested in the chart.  However, as Joe concluded, it also shows how OWOM plays a critical role, especially in the initial phases of the introduction of a new site or new content.

Seth Goldstein, co-founder and chairman of Attentiontrust.org and one of the original investors of and advisor to del.icio.us, started the event with an interesting review of his observations of the CAM landscape from a more commercial perspective.  As Seth and the attentiontrust.org site put it so succinctly:

Seth stressed the importance of adopting and respecting the fundamental principles of attention: property, mobility, economy and transparency. He also made the interesting remark that “attention is now media”.  By this he means that streams of attention, where people choose to stream/broadcast/share their attention to things like music through Last.FM, to web sites through del.icio.us, and to photos through Flickr, are now growing exponentially.

You can see a tangible form of this “attention funnel” in Reblog, which is an “RSS aggregator for reading and republishing”. Reblog makes the process of filtering and republishing content from many RSS feeds easy and fast. Rebloggers subscribe to their favorite feeds, preview the content, and select their favorite posts. These posts are automatically published through their favorite blogging software, creating an attention funnel. Seth posted an intriguing blog entry last year about how “APIs are the printing presses of social media”.

However, one of the more provocative observations that Seth made was his assertion that what drives online behavior is “vanity and popularity [which are] more powerful than things that help me” and that “publicity is trumping privacy.”  Attention is one of the scarcest of all resources and we all want more of it!

You can think of this as “attention in reverse.”  Most of the work on attention is based on YOUR attention, what are YOU interested in, paying attention to, etc. Seth was noting the inverse; in his opinion, an even more powerful force is our interest in “Who’s paying attention to ME?”  We see this with such things as the great importance given to knowing how many people are reading my blog, visiting my web site, watching my YouTube videos, who has the most online “friends”, etc. 

One recent example you might like to look at is atten.tv, which lets you either broadcast your clickstream to the world or watch what others are clicking on, all in real time. Seth sometimes refers to all this as the "Attentron”, which he describes as “watching people’s browsing patterns as entertainment.”  Seth has created his own version of this with Trakzor, which is a community driven MySpace tracker that lets you see who’s checking you out. This capability is also available on Facebook. And while it is all rather wild at this early stage of development, it is worth noting that Yahoo! purchased mybloglog.com, which lets you see who else has been looking at your blog.

While I agree that this “attention in reverse” is a version of the very real human traits of ego and vanity, I’m not yet convinced that these are more powerful forces than the value we place on people and other sources of assistance—things that help us. But I do believe that “enlightened self interest” is both a powerful and very positive driver. The capture and management of context and attention metadata is key to harnessing this power and getting us ever closer to the vision of “just the right” and the Snowflake Effect.

My recommendation is to keep your eye on developments in these areas of context, attention and automated metadata and to do as much “learning by doing” as you can so that you have experiences of your own to reflect upon as you try out whatever versions and applications of attention and context tracking you prefer.

And in the spirit of all of us liking more attention, send along your experiences and observations, as well as links to your blogs, articles, podcasts and videos. To paraphrase Andy Warhol, your 15 seconds/minutes of fame (attention) await you! <g>

w
a
yne
=====

Andy Warhol, photographed by Helmut Newton