1. Supernova attracts a great set of folks. In addition to the usual Web enthusiasts, Supernova gets people in traditional companies genuinely trying to figure out how to apply all this. And we get to hear from them how it’s working out, what’s just webby hot air and what’s truly transformative. I like that a lot, although it means that some ideas you’ve treasured come out sounding odd. For example, what we create on the Internet comes out as “user-generated content.” Ok. It’s still thrilling to see companies that five years ago would have thought the idea ridiculous now believe it’s going to change the way they build products and talk with their markets.

2. Judging from the line-up of speakers, one of the secret messages of Supernova was that the online organizations that blow the roof off of expectations are the ones that are devoted entirely to their users. I don’t mean this in the “We have to focus on our customers” sort of way. I mean it in the CraigsList way. CraigsList doesn’t focus on its “customers.” It is its customers. Now, not every company can be CraigsList. But every company can be a hell of a lot more like CraigsList.

3. The thing I like least about Supernova is its devotion to the panel format. Panels are how you make interesting people boring. It works like magic! Some panels were better than others, of course, but Supernova would be better if panels, with occasional lectures, were not the only format. E.g., the Wharton workshops day the day before allowed for more interaction and learning.

4. The backchannel (= the IRC) was well attended (see #3) — over 50 people at times — and was flipping hilarious. Omigod there were some funny people on it. It tended more towards humor than the supplementing of knowledge that we like to pretend is the backchannel’s point, but there was some of that too. We laughed, we linked, we fell in love, and we made potty jokes.

By the way, I do not like it when backchannel transcripts are published. I say some things that sound way meaner out of the context of the racing river of real time conversation. The rhetoric of a ringing, zinging IRC chat can be that of a roast, and the “all in good fun” spirit gets lost when read after the fact. In other words, I’m sorry, [Tags: supernova]

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The video interviews I did at Supernova are coming on line. Up now are three pages worth:

1. Jan Jannick of imeem; Kevin Marks on Net neutrality; Mitch Ratclliffe on the real costs of building communities; Craig Newmark of CraigsList on goodness.

2. Hans Peter Bordmo of Plum; Lili Cheng, the usability honcho for Microsoft Vista on social computing and the new operating system; Esme Vos, muniwifi activist; Rohit Khare and Tantek Çelik on the first birthday of microformats. (Someday soon we’re going to get Rohit’s name spelled correctly on the page. Sorry, Rohit!)

3. Kapenda Thomas of jookster; Linda Stanford of IBM on innovation; Philip Rosedale of Linden Labs and Second Life; JP Rangaswami of Dresdner and Kleinwort on why a financial services company is being so progressive about social software.

More are on the way… [Tags: supernova vlogs ]

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The Supernova webcast, podcast, and etcCast are all here.

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Go, Craig!

He begins by saying that he doesn’t have the capacity to think in terms of “user generated content.” [Did I mention: “Go Craig!”?]

He says CraigsList is a flea market. People go there to buy and sell but also to talk with other people. The only only way the site can run is by counting on people policing the site as much as possible themselves. “People are overwhelmingly trustworthy.” As a result of counting on self-policing, trust develops.

He contrasts this with corporations that don’t trust their customers. “I work with too many cops now that want me to be feisty. I’d rather have a nap.”

“I count on doing customer support only for the rest of my life. After that, it’s over.

The wisdom of the crowds works. “We do suffer from the problems of any kind of democracy.” The site gets spam, worst being political disinformation. In fact, Craig says he was just “swiftboated.”

By way of hope, he points to Dan Gillmor’s Center working on understanding citizen journalism and projects such as Congresspedia, a wiki about’s who’s buying Congress and what’s written on the price tag.

He says that in his little world, one of the thing’s that’s worked is remembering what it’s like to be left out, and then include people. [Go, Craig. My hero.] [Tags: supernova craig_newmark craigslist]

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[supernova] Jonathan Schwartz

The new CEO of Sun says that some workloads are not outpacing Moore’s Law — SAP, CRM, for example — and Sun is not going to chase those applications. Sun wants to find the apps that need more hw. He says 100% of companies want the tech that will let them connect with their customers. So Sun has to pick and choose. The companies that look at IT as a cost center are not as important to Sun as companies that look at IT as a way of growing their business. [Don’t tell Nicholas Carr!]

He lists commodity companies: Exxon, Citi Group, Google. Commodities are ok business, if you’re able to leverage R&D. [I wish our Net providers would understand the commodity markets can be profitable.]

Kevin: Where do you prioritize your R&D?
Jonathan: For one thing, on making our systems energy and space efficient. Security and provisioning. They are not going to build end-user products. They’re going to drive standards. “I’m not worried about demand. I’m worried about intercepting demand.”

Kevin: Web 2.0?
Jonathan: It’s no longer a read-only Web. [And it never was.] All client devices will be functionally equivalent, distinguished by form factor. Companies can no longer design products from on high. We’re putting consumer reviews of our products on our site even if they criticize because I’d rather have them do it in front of us…

Kevin: Last year you said every CEO should have a blog. Not a lot do. Why not?
Jonathan: Five years ago, most CEOs had their admins print out their email. The job of a leader is to communicate.

What’s the core R&D for Sun? “The era of custom hardware is on its way out.” Make sure that every device that connects to the network can interact with it. [Tags: supernova jonathan_schwartz sun]

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Tara Hunt moderates. We have four speakers who in fact will be workshop leaders: Christopher Carfi (Cerado), Francois Gossieux (Corante), Brett Hurt (BazaarVoice) and Robert Scoble (Podtech.net).

We break into four groups to work through different issues in a sort of case study way. The group I went into wondered how a smaller company could use social media to survive the announcement by a Microsoft or Yahoo of a product with similar functionality. It was an interesting conversation that veered from social media pretty quickly. We could have divided into Shirts and Skins, with most participants thinking of marketing in terms of consumers as targets and the rest hoping that goodness will also be good marketing. In response to some comments about authenticity, I found myself saying that “authenticity” is a term that means less and less the more you think about it, but the companies we think of as authentic frequently are companies that are clearly on our side.

Anyway, it was an interesting discussion. We’d need another few hours to get to enough common ground, though. And it was generous of Tara to step away from the front of the room so that we could talk amongst ourselves. [Tags: supernova marketing]

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I’m at the workshop day of Supernova. The conference-y conference starts tomorrow. The IRC, currently up, is irc://irc.freenode.net/#supernova. The “media center” aggregates the feeds, etc., from the conference; I suspect it will be in full swing tomorrow.

The Wharton day starts with a session on “the personal infosphere.”

Dalton Caldwell of Imeem gives a demonstration; it integrates IM and social networking. It does tags, but does not (yet) take in tags from other sites, so you hvae to make your Personal Infosphere investment in Imeem.

eSnips, an Israeli company gives you a gig to snip ‘n’ share Web content. I’s a social site and, as the slide ways, “The only social site where mainstream people are … and teens aren’t!” It’s focused on the content, not the people, says Yael Elish. (Here’s a folder of optical illusions I stumbled upon.) You can control who can see content. Anything you upload is given its own Web site. It’s tagalicious. It’s intended as a “pure consumer brand,” not an enterprise tool.

Ben Golub of Plaxo begins by giving a history of computing that claims that the Web wasn’t about people connecting to people until web 2.0 Aarrrggghh! I hate that meme! Anyway, he goes on to talk about how many people are connecting to other people. Lots. Plaxo is “the industry’s first smart address book.” It lets you “leverage your address book.” [I don’t know. I’d still rather see a distributed solution. FOAF and Plaxo should meet and have babies.]

Tariq Krim of Netvibes is an aggregator. I’ve played with it for a few minutes and the UI is very very easy. Cool even. He says that Netvibes is being designed by users and that it’s trying to be completely open.

Hans Peter Brondmo of Plum says it gives you a persistent way to aggregate all sorts of content in one place so you can share it or not. You can save deliberately or you can set it to save every site you go to. It indexes everyting. It will be tagalectable.

In the discussion, they agree that standards are good.

Mitch Ratcliffe asks a killer question about whether the motive for hosting content rather than managing it in a distributed fashion is in fact to give the hosting company an asset.

They discuss whether enterprise software is going to become indistinguishable from mass end-user software. Because these are non-enterprise sw folks, they push against the idea.

Do these services create new silos? Stated answer: Nah! Real answer: Yeah, probably.

By the way, for now I’m going to tag posts as “supernova” and not “supernova2006” on the grounds that the systems that sort through tags should be able to sort by date. Could be a tragic error on my part. [Tags: supernova]

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I’m on my way to San Francisco for the Supernova conference. I expect to spend almost all my time in the hallways, once again grabbing people to video-interview for CNET (with AT&T as a sponsor). The links to the podcasts, livecasts, etc. will be here.

I expect there will be some lively discussion of Net neutrality, but not just that. Supernova attracts a great bunch o’ folks… [Tags: supernova vblogs]

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Traci Fenton, founder of WorldBlu.com, is giving a Berkman lunchtime talk about organizational democracy. Excellent turnout, especially for the most beautiful day of the year. I’m especially glad to see that Traci has drawn first-timers, from union reps to workplace managers, in addition to the usual Berkpeople. [I’m paraphrasing throughout this post. As always.]

She says: In a democratic workplace, people get to decide which projects they work on and have access to the financial info about the company. This is the case at the GE Durham plant —150 employees and one manager. They make jet engines. All future GE plants will also use a democratic working style.

Organizational democracy = “democratic principles applied to a business context.” She cites Drucker, Wheatley, Senge, Hock, Semler, Collins, Fairtlough and Bower as sources of the idea. It’s not about everyone voting but everyone having a voice. It’s about operating out of freedom, not fear. Peer-to-peer, not paternalism. Humility and resolve vs. ego. Transparency vs. secrecy. Fluid networks, not hierarchy. It can become the norm, she says.

David Isenberg points out that the managers at GE (for example) get paid disproportionately high. How does this growing gap fit with the idea of democratic organization?

Traci says that people are rebelling against this. Whole Foods, for example, caps the disparity. Fairness is one of the characteristics of organizational democracy. GE overall suffers from the disproportion, but GE Durham does not. She points to other companies, too fast for me to keep up, except for Southwest Airlines…

Why should any one care? Context, cash and change.

The business context is changing because of technology: Employees have a voice on the Net and want one in business. Also, there’s been a reaction to Enron. And more of the world lives in democracy. And Gen X and Y have different expectations about work. And there’s a search for meaning going on (embracing our humanity). She says we’re going from the industrial age, to the information age, to the democratic age — networks, engagement, individuals…

Semco in Brazil flattened its hierarchy, gave employees a say in decisions, started job rotation, let people choose their boss, and let people choose how to be paid (e.g., hourly, by goals, royalties, etc.). As a result, their sales doubled, they launched 8 new products, and revenues went up 35%. Traci says that within this freedom, there is a tremendous sense of discipline. This happened because Ricardo Semler, the owner (his father founded it), at 25 was killing himself with stress.

Organizational democracy leads to more cash because it increases engagement. A Gallup poll showed that 73% of US workforce is not engaged by their work. Five years ago, that was 54%. This drives down revenues. Organizational democracy increases retention, increases efficiency, increases competitive advantage…

Organizational democracies have a positive ripple effect on their communities, decreasing corruption and increasing peace and stability.

WorldBlu wants to build 1,000 organizational democracies by 2020.

Q: People have been saying this for a long time. What’s the resistance?
A: People don’t understand how. Business leaders freak out because they think they have less control. I tell them they’re just giving up the illusion of control.

Q: People running the companies would have to give up a substantial amount of money personally.
A: At organizational democracies I don’t hear people complaining about the money piece.

Q: Does this work for low-skill or only for high-skill?
A: Atlas Container makes boxes. The average worker hasn’t finished high school. But they’re run democratically. Everyone knows what it feels like to be disengaged.

Q: (me) Is this a cultural change or can it be done incrementally?
A: It usually starts at the top, although I’ve blogged about how a junior employee can get involved. It can be rolled out at various paces.

Q: At GE Durham, people divide into teams and are given quotas. The team decides how many hours they’re going to work, they cover for each other, and suddenly they’re peer-accountable. I got the religion when I heard that.

Q: What’s the role for labor unions?
A: [Union organizer in the audience] This kind of model can work with the union. It seems like a natural pairing.

Q: Is this equally appropriate in rising and falling industries? And how does this play out with globalization and outsourcing?
A: I don’t know. How do the ethics of capitalism and the ethics of organizational democracy work together?

A: [audience member] Outsourcing can increase the knowledge work done by the people in the home plant.
Q: Are the outsourcers part of the organizational democracy? [Ouch!]

Q: Are these principles transferrable to very fluid industries where the parameters are changing rapidly?
A: Pandora is a startup using organizational democracy. It allows a company to adapt very rapidly.

Q: What’s your advice to new companies that want to start out right?
A: It’s not a matter of having standard processes that can be put in place but in adhering to a set of principles. At Gore, they use a lattice structure where everyone is related to everyone else. They share knowledge. “You have to find an answer that works on the scale you’re at.”

Q: What are the most common problems democratic organizations face?
A: At Pandora, the make-your-own-radio-station, people feel so engaged that they can be over-confident about the value of their participation.

Q: There are parallels between organizational democracy and the organic movement. The organic movement got coopted by the FDA. How are you working with large organizations so that the concept of org democ isn’t diluted?
A: You are in my head. We’re working on some proprietary tools that we hope will create a standard.

Q: Seal of approval?
A: There can be a backlash to that.

Q; Saturn seems to have gone from democratic to undemocratic.
A: At one company, they axed the CEO after the company missed one quarter, and the board brought in someone with a command and control background. I asked the old CEO if the employees had the strength to go forward. He said that there aren’t other job oppportunities. It’s unresolved still.

A: I love the idea of org democ, but it seems like it only works so long as the guys at the top say it’s ok.
Q: Yes and no. The movie The Take is about workers in 200 companies in Argentina demanding organizational democracy. Southwest Airlines also survived the replacement of the CEO.

Q: Why would the board care so long as the company is generally delivering? I something else going on?
A: Probably.

Q: Is one of your 12 qualifications having a certain percentage of staff on the board?
A: We don’t have set policies or processes. We recommend the adoption of principles. The Orpheus orchestra in NYC has no conductor. But their board doesn’t get it.

Q: (me) To what extent does the lack of democracy have to do with the fact that most companies are run by men?
A: Male CEOs who can run their companies democratically have this wonderful balance of the masculine and the feminine. They don’t have anything to prove, which is an important characteristic of leaders and workers in democratic organizations. Democratic organizations need a blend of compassion and discipline.

Q: What happens if the workers don’t accept change? Suppose they just want to follow rules?
A: A democratic company is not for everyone. Employees need a high degree of self-knowledge and confidence. Sometimes people have to leave companies that make the transition.

Q: I think this would work better in America than in some other countries. For one thing, when you’re responsible, you have to manage stress.
A: I don’t believe it has to do with culture. I think it has to do with the type of person you are.

Q: Does this work better for particular sized companies?
A: Smaller companies frequently are democratic just naturally.

[Tags: business democracy worldblu traci_fenton berkman]

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I’m on this panel, so can only do spotty blogging.

Eszter Hargittai, the moderator, shows a video of users go wrong with links. E.g., confusing sponsored links with what they’re actually looking for.

Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet talks about a survey they couldn’t do because it was too hard to figure out the purpose of a search, the credibility and origination of a link, the meaning of a link, etc. Instead he talks about four conclusions from various research. 1. People start as a skeptics when they start looking for links. If people know it’s commercial info, they become more suspicious. 2. People can be fooled. They can get lost. They can trust the wrong info. 82% of search users couldn’t always tell which results are paid and which aren’t. 3. Despite those problems, 87% of general search users say they find info most of the time. They are most successful finding commercial info, and least successful in finding political info. 4. When people are confused in a search, they ping their networks. They use links to start conversations.

Peter Morville (“Ambient Findability“) explains how he got here. He started out as a librarian. He read a paper by Marcia Bates and realized that queries are interactive and iterative: the query changes as our search continues. He became an information architect. (In fact, he’s one of the founders of the field.) How do you enable people to move between searching and browsing modes. As a librarian, he thought he could organize systems to help people find things. But usability testing showed the power of words, which then can be hyperlinks that jump people out of the browsable structure. Besides usability, there’s also desirability, credibility and accessibility. “Ambient findability” means being able to find anything from anyone, anywhere at any time.

I say (briefly) that links are little acts of generosity, which means the architecture of the Web is fundamentally moral, i.e., every link recognizes that there are other people who matter. [I’m paraphrasing.]

Seth Finkelstein points out that Google measures popularity and that not all is sweetness and light. Popularity does not distinguish between the famous and infamous, knowledge and crackpot, hateful ideas. Popular results become more popular precisely because it shows up more in the search sites. And most people don’t go past the first few returns. “When you type a search into a search engine, there’s a lot of social politics involved in the search,” and this, Seth says, needs to be discussed.

[The interactive discussion begins…] [Tags: annenberg hyperlinkedsociety peter_morville seth_finkelstein lee_rainie]

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