Scoble Responds to SAP Global Survey

[Robert Scoble with Camera at the Maker's Faire. Photo by Shel.]

According to Technorati, Robert Scoble is the world's 35th most popular blogger.  If you slice it down to the category of technology or technology business, he is in the top half-dozen. There is no person I know who has a better ear for the sound of social media's heartbeat than Robert Scoble. He simply knows what's going on.  He finds out by tirelessly conducting conversations with geeks everywhere all the time and he has some clear answers for the SAP Global Survey.

The following are his views on what is happening and is about to happen.  The executive summary: Have a FaceBook strategy.

1. You are a recognized industry leader and pioneer. How has social media changed since you first got involved?

It's gotten faster and the world has gotten smaller. Today I have thousands of friends on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce. When the Mexico City earthquake happened earlier this year seven people were on Twitter WHILE THE EARTHQUAKE WAS HAPPENING! That was a very different experience than, say, 9/11 where lots of people were online, but mostly talking through IM.

2. How would you describe the state of social media today?

        Expanding and expanding fast.

3.  Where do you think it is going over the next five years?

        Video and mobile. Video and mobile. Video and mobile. Video and mobile. Video and             mobile. Video and mobile. Video and mobile. Video and mobile. Video and mobile.

        I think I said that enough times. Heheh.

4. When I first discussed this survey with you, you said all I had to do was look at FaceBook, Kyte.tv and a few others. Just what did you mean by that.

I've only been on Facebook two weeks and I have 2,000 friends there already. On Kyte.tv my video channel has been visited tens of thousands of times (and it, too, is only a few weeks old).

5.  This is a Global Survey.  What is your perception of how social media is evolving in the world's different regions?

Watch http://www.twittervision.com and you'll see every country in the world represented. It's growing extremely fast everywhere.

[Scoble and son Patrick at home, checking out what's happening online. Photo by Shel]

6. What differences --if any--do you see in how small to medium business is adopting social media v. huge corporations.?

Small ones usually do a more human job of communicating. Employees at small companies take more risks, generally, by doing something different. Look at "Will it Blend" over on YouTube. Would a big-company executive have done what that guy has done?

7. This is, of course, an SAP Survey.  Hugh MacLeod told me that the lines between social media and SAP's core application, ERP are getting very blurry.  Do you agree?  If you were advising SAP on strategic adjustment, what would you tell them?

I'd agree. I've seen enterprises pick up social software. BEA's application now has wikis and tagging and blogging built in. So does Sharepoint from Microsoft.

For big companies the marketing challenge is to appear small and nimble. It's why, if SAP announced an iPhone version tonight, the world would pay attention. The problem with big companies is that they move too slowly to really capitalize on the attention of the early adopters. By the time SAP adopts Twitter it'll be old news and not many people will pay attention.

So, how does SAP build one hot feature in every quarter? That's what I'd try to do.

8.  How will businesses reach your son Patrick?  What will they need to get his attention, gain his loyalty and make him willing to tell others about their goods and services?

Copy Apple. Er, understand what Steve Jobs and Apple has done. Whatever Apple is doing they are reaching young people very effectively.

But, right now I'd have a FaceBook strategy. Every startup in the valley is having to articulate whether or not they have a FaceBook strategy and if they do, what it is.

Does SAP have one?

9.  What social media tools are on the rise and which are sinking?  Is this the same or different worldwide as far as you know?

Hot: Facebook.
Hot: iPhone.
Hot: Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku (Pownce is hottest this week).
Cooling: blogging (Twitter is taking a lot of attention away from it).
Hot: Photosharing services and Scrapblogging stuff.
Steady but not sexy: Wikis.
Cooling: Second Life.

Comments

[Anne Johnson]

Shel,

Observations and examples for your SAP project :
Are you/SAP interested in the media, or in the content ? From the phrasing of your questions to which Hugh replied, it looks like the primary interest is in the media ; for a business, though, there ought to be at least as much interest in the purpose; the media is the interface which makes it more or less easy to actually do something. Being able to see that something happens is the quickest way to get over the "But" which Hugh hears a lot.

Distilling more than 20 years of experience with online social groups, the most critical thing for getting results is to have a way for people to create and maintain reputation.

Elaboration and examples below.

Reputation formation is _critical_; and reputation is not necessarily transitive. Some people can be trusted to know what they don't know, and to know when they can and can't say anything relevant; many people haven't learned when not to witter.

Be careful to separate function from form .. Web 2.0 shiny buttons are helpful, but not sufficient, for a community to form.

Focus on a topic helps a lot; that way it is simple to see what is on and what is off topic; people can tell whether there is a reason to stay around, because they are interested in the topic.

There is prior art - much can be learned from the Usenet experience. There are other big successful forums.

Geographic disparity adds interest; social media promotes shared context independent of geography.

Usenet is one of the earlier examples of a social medium; by consensus it formed groups focused on particular topics. Having a focus allows for reputation building. All groups which do something have, either explicit or implicit (and if implicit there will in due course be explicit recognition by the rest of the group) a cadre of leaders, who at the beginning know a little more or have a little more confidence in their knowledge than the rest; by being interested in the topic and having a vision for what the group might become those leaders become more expert than casual participants.
Some of these leaders will also become moderators; moderators are necessary to longevity and scaling, since there are always people who want to join a group and attract its attention to themselves by
creating controversy; when the signal to noise ratio gets too bad (ie, there is more controversy than constructive content) participation drops off and the group becomes less useful. (There is also a need to handle spam, but that is a different dynamic, driven by the cost/benefit ratio of mass mailing). Longevity is necessary to
enable the creation of reputation.

Geographic disparity is important, at least as much for the functional differences as for the cultural differences. OTOH, there is a strong sense of shared context created by interactions in a on-line (or virtual) group; it is easy to have much more common context with the people whose writing you read several times a day than with the person who happens to physically inhabit the apartment or house next to yours. It used to be that only big companies formed that kind of cross border shared context; social media makes it easy for millions of people to have the same geographically independent common context.

Examples :
1. comp.dcom.sys.cisco and cisco@spot.colorado.edu Almost as soon as cisco systems had product, it supported its customers on public mailing lists. A community of customers evolved, who supported each other. Reputations were formed, job offers made, many networks were built.
Search in the Google group mod.protocols.tcp-ip, in the year 1986,for early examples.

2. Impact on medical business choices - The "http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/surfacehippy/">surfacehippy
group on Yahoo, started in 2000, has more than 6000 members. It has been instrumental in supporting several thousand of them in a decision to have their hip joints 'resurfaced', using a prosthesis and surgery
technique new in the US (though proven elsewhere). There is a strong
sense of community, of 'giving back' from people who found the group, had the surgery, gained their lives back, and want to help others going through the process.

[shel israel]

Anne,
Thanks. You make some excellent points. To answer your specific question, SAP wants to get a comprehensive picture of all aspects of the social media environment globally, but most specifically it is interested in nits "home base" issues related to enterprise software and SME software

[Jeremiah Owyang]

I'd also add that Robert is one of the few "PERSONAL" bloggers that writes his own blog, without editors, and without a team.

Take a look at some of the top blogs according to Technorati and most of them are online newspapers --that just happen to use a blog.