Month: February 2012

To improve their chances of success, organizations need to define clear objectives for using ESN [Enterprise Social Network] software, and once it’s implemented, they must monitor and analyze usage in a way that gives them an idea of whether these goals are being met.

Moreover, organizations need to devote the necessary staff and resources not only to implement but also to maintain and manage ESN software, and also get executives involved in using it.

If implemented and used properly, ESN software can yield significant benefits to organizations, such as encouraging employees to share information, expertise and best practices; improve efficiency through better coordination and reduced duplication; and empowering employees by giving them a “voice” within the company.

“The organizations that have been successful at doing this are ones that are very focused on their culture: they understand it, they understand their shortcomings and are using these tools to solve these shortcomings,” Li said.

After never being a dominant force in personal computers, Apple surged to the top of the S.& P. 500 by transforming the cellphone into a multitasking smartphone, arguably the single most important technological advance so far in the 21st century. It rolled over vaunted rivals like Nokia, Motorola and Research in Motion with a combination of brilliant technology, dazzling design and shrewd marketing backed by the singular vision of its late founder, Steve Jobs. “Everyone truly needs it,” Mr. Cihra said of the smartphone. “It’s the most transformative piece of technology in our lifetimes.”

while you have your day tomorrow, and every day from then on, remember that we are living through the greatest revolution ever seen in the potential for human achievement and human connection. We can ruin it at birth, or we can nurture it. And one day, in decades to come, we’ll be asked about these years, and what we did at the birth of the internet era. The decisions you make today and tomorrow, will be the answer you will give to your grandchildren. Make it an answer you can be proud of.

We assume that every meal we eat, every hotel bed we sleep in, every piece of culture we consume, is something we can have an opinion on, and have it be given the same importance as an opinion from anyone else. There are rating sites online for you to rate just about anything, legal or not, and the sheer weight of amateur reviews outdoes the professionals for authority most of the time.

…the world is currently run by a generation whose upbringing has left them intellectually unable to be deal with modernity.

This isn’t their fault. For someone to be in charge today, they’re more than likely to be in their 50s or 60s. Which means that when the Berlin Wall fell they were most likely already steeped in an intellectual tradition that had bedded in quite far.

But what happened after 1989 was, as we all know, devastating to that tradition. The end of the bipolar world – the end of history as Fukuyama had it – and the end of the relevance of 50 years of political and military planning.

Instead, things got weird. Germany was reunited in 1990, and a few weeks later, on Christmas Day, the first web server was turned on. Nearly 21 years later, and the internet has destroyed and rebuilt everything it has touched. Hierarchies have been under attack from networks for 20 years now. History certainly didn’t end, much to everyone’s disappointment.