Backblog April 2007

One of the purposes of this blog is to keep people up to date on news and events around the world that relate to wikinomics - and as it explodes into the mainstream more and more other news sources are (knowingly or not) providing information on the same thing.

But if you want to do more than just keep up to date on the topic, I recommend you stop by our wikinomics website and help us write Chapter 11 of the wikinomics playbook - or at least tap into the knowledge base that is evolving.

For example, on April 12th Dwayne Phillips contributed to a section called Mass Collaboration Beyond Individual Disciplines, which was originally created by Kartik Ariyur. A particular focus is placed on the benefits of common language, with emphasis placed on one of the most valuable universal languages in existence - mathematics. Joost Bekel has recently updated and an interesting contribution on enterprise 2.0 architecture he created earlier this year, and Shava Nerad’s update on prosumers (originally created by Chris Wisehart) has many interesting ideas and examples throughout it.

Given the way that wikinomics is changing how the world works all around us, any one person trying to keep up to date on all the best knowledge being created faces a daunting task - but if we bring all of our knowledge together, we might just enable a whole new level of understanding.

Don Tapscott

Make sure to check out Don's Wikinomics blog.

At the LG-sponsored Chocolate Fashion show at the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival, I found myself in a fascinating conversation with Frank Lee, a manager with LG Electronics Canada. We chatted about everything from HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray, to LG's internet appliance line, and I even got the inside scoop on some unbelievably cool products that LG is currently working on.

LG's presence at the TWSSF is extremely logical. Telus is the platinum sponsor for the event, and conviniently Telus happens to be the first Canadian cell provider to carry LG's popular chocolate cell phone - the Chocolate Flip 8600.

Frank was extremely positive about just how significant the Canadian market is for LG. "In the past few years, we've realized just how important the Canadian market really is. In terms of feedback, you can't get much better, it's almost like one giant focus group because you get so many different opinions. There's so much diversity." I asked him about a specific instance that he could think of, "our line of Digital Internet Appliances, definitely, is one of the first that comes to mind. Ultimately, those have been a real success for us, but in other cases we've even pulled certain products because we got feedback from Candians that we thought were so incisive, it resulted in us retooling the products."  

I also wanted to get Frank's opinion on the HD format wars. It turns out that LG already has a leg-up on the competition, "it's all about offering consumers a choice. We figured what better way to give them the maximum amount of choice than to allow both formats to work on the same player. That's what the Super blu HD Player is all about."

We talked a bit about some of LG's new phones and it was fairly clear that LG is really pursuing the Chocolate phone as a fashion statement (the outdoor fashion show was my first clue). I asked him about new phones we could expect from LG this year and he obviously couldn't reveal too many specifics, but he was definitely excited about it. "We have an innovative new phone coming out in Q4 that is going to be massive. We're pushing boundaries in the mobile market and we definitely think this phone is going to create a sensation."

I figured that since we were on the topic of LG's upcoming products, I asked him what product he thinks consumers will be most excited about that they may not have heard about yet. I got quite a response. "We've got 7 R&D centers worldwide, and they put together some incredible products. One that I think consumers will really be excited about is the new 3D plasma screen we're putting the finishing touches on. It's going to be a new manifestation in plasma television. I saw the prototype and I was speechless. It's that good."

A 3D plasma screen? I tried to get pricing and release details, but Frank insisted that we're going to have to stay tuned to find out.

To think that this was only the first day of the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival. An incredible 13 day extravaganza bringing together Skiing, snowboarding, music, art, and most importantly some of the most cutting edge tech you'll find anywhere.

Andrew Rideout

Regular Backbone contributor Ian Harvey had a very interesting article published in the Globe and Mail Small Business Section titled "Is it real, or is it video conference?" about some of the recent breakthroughs in videoconferencing from two notable companies, HP's Halo and industry stalwart Cisco. Having not followed the videoconferencing industry closely, I was taken aback by the fact that in 2005 the overall industry was valued at 1.15 billion globally and is expected to grow to 3.1 billion by 2010.  Research firm Gartner Inc. sees even further value in videoconferencing, as an industry, and estimates that the sector will be worth over 12.1 billion by 2011, alone.

If you ask me, the real beauty part is that all of the breakthroughs in the industry ultimately lead towards one thing specifically- a price reduction. More money being spent on videoconferencing will ultimately make the technology more widespread and therefore, more affordable.

Large-scale videoconferencing is a truly enterprise-level solution. Ian quotes Guy Welty's description of how videoconferencing saves his company, W.R Grace (a global chemical supplier with annual sales valued at 2.5 billion) "Sending two high-level executives to Asia is two days each of downtime with the travelling. This is much more effective."

Increasingly, videoconferencing is being marketed towards the SMBs as a way to increase productivity and collaboration. Methinks that the internet's growing reliance on collaborative media leads us to an obvious conclusion- videoconferencing will soon be built into our every day internet applications once the technology becomes cheap enough. In fact, videoconferencing solutions for Joe Average can cost anywhere from 50-200 bucks.

You can also have a look at Ian's article in our Top 300 issue titled "Why CEOs Should Blog."

Andrew Rideout

In the January/February issue of Backbone, we ran an article called Turning over the Dark Side of the Internet which brought into focus some of the netherregions of the online world. After reading Danny Bradbury's article, it becomes increasingly clear that while the internet is, by its nature, a largely self-policed place, there is still room for organized codes of conduct, especially in the world of blogging.

The Blogger Code of Conduct seeks to clean up the quality of online discourse while by-and-large serving to keep the conversations not necessarily friendly, but a bit more civil. The Blogger Code of Conduct is the brainchild of Jimmy Wales, creator of wikipedia and Tim O'Reilly a conference promoter and blogger who is widely credited with coining the term Web 2.0. On O'Reilly's blog, he states “[It] gives us an opportunity to change the level of expectations that people have about what’s acceptable online,” he is also quick to add "The aim of the code is not to homogenize the Web, but to make clearer the informal rules that are already in place anyway." Think of it as a Robert's Rules of Order for the blogosphere.

While the idea of the Blogger Code of Conduct has been thrown around in certain circles for a while, the impetus is largely due to some very specific death threats received by influential tech blogger Kathy Sierra after she got involved in a dispute over whether it was acceptable to delete potentially liabelous or inflammatory comments left on ones personal website. Sierra was so alarmed by the threats that she cancelled a keynote appearance at a trade show and called the police, who are now investigating.

The Blogger Code of Conduct will most likely exist in many different forms with different types of rules pertaining to different types of blogs. While the Code of Conduct will not necessarily be adopted by all bloggers, having different sets of rules (mostly having to due with self-moderation and comment-censoring) could let readers know, in advance, what is expected of them when they participate in a particular blog.

The Internet can be a pretty wild place, and bloggers are an opinionated and sensitive bunch. If you want to know more, have a look here.

Andrew Rideout

As I’ve talked about the growth of the open source movement over the last few years, I’ve often speculated about how many different products and services could be created in a similar way. While some people are quick to agree, many others are resistant to the idea - surely complex products can’t embrace an open source creation process, can they? Wouldn’t it just lead to chaos?

Well earlier this week the world’s first open source car was revealed - a vehicle that’s technical drawings and blueprints are available online, and everyone is invited to add their own ideas so long as they are shared with the community. So if you can design a car this way… what can’t you do?

At the same time, it’s important to note that some important structure was added to the design process - a focus on environmental sustainability. This helped overcome the problem I mentioned in an earlier post on OScar, which was (and is, though it remains in early conceptual stages) trying to bring the open source movement to car design.

OScar found out the hard way that with no parameters in place, it’s kind of hard to come to an agreement on what an ideal car should be between (say) a racing enthusiast and someone more interested in environmental issues.

But as many companies have found, having too many parameters in place stifles innovation. Sometimes all you need is a guiding concept, an open platform, and the ingenuity and innovation that naturally flows out of an interested an engaged community.

Don Tapscott

Be sure to check out Don's cover story in the next issue of Backbone. Until then, check out his wikinomics blog.