Tag Archives: Facebook

The big (and only?) opportunity for Google+

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We’re a couple weeks into the life of Google+.  Yes, it has been fun to be part of a social network as it is born and learns to take its first steps.  The hangouts feature is definitely uber-compelling and the circles interface is kinda neat.  But other than that how much has Google+ really differentiated itself from Facebook.

By the way, if the above paragraph means little to you, it probably means that you have yet to try out Google+. Everything you wanted to know about Google+ (so far) can be found in this Mashable post.

What I think about Google+ is that by the end of 2013, we won’t be talking about it anymore and the tumbleweeds will be rolling in.  One of the big things I’ve heard people say about Google+ is that it provides a Facebook “do-over” for those Facebook users that ruined their social graphs by friending too many people, or worse, friending a lot of strangers.  But I think people like that are in the minority of Facebook’s 700 million users.  Furthermore, I think the majority of Facebook users shudder at the thought of having to recreate their networks on something like Google+. 

But there is a place Google+ can be an easy, uncontested slam dunk.  That’s as internal social network for enterprises making use of Google Apps. The number of people craving a Facebook for the workplace is massive.  People want to utilize social network mechanics as tools for working together and getting stuff done.  And while there have been plenty of attempts to provide this from companies such as Microsoft, Jive, and Salesforce, Google is in a position to simply turn Google+ on as part of its Google Apps offering and provide the solution with very little barrier to adoption.  I’m telling you, it would be an instant success.

I’m certainly not alone in desiring Google+ be included as a Google Apps feature and fortunately, Google appears to be hearing the pleas and taking action.

2010 Social Media for Government Conference in Chicago

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I’ll be the first to admit that I had my expectations set at a fairly nominal level for Advanced Learning Institute’s latest Social Media for Government event in Chicago this past week.  But it was really a wonderful time.  The smaller size of the event (approximately 50 people) really gave me a chance to make some deep connections with most of the attendees.  Additional ALI did a great job of adding value by facilitating networking time by organizing lunch and dinner outings.  The location didn’t hurt either.  Being across the John Hancock Building, 2 blocks from Michigan Ave and 4 blocks from the lakefront provided easy access to social fun.  Hillary Hartley and I actually rented bikes, rode along the lake, onto the Riverwalk, into the Frank Gehry infused Millennial Park to soak in an evening of Indian music and dancing in the park. 

photo

Regarding the conference content, there was some great presentations and case studies shared

The city of Geneva, Illinois shared a true participatory government example in explaining how a Facebook Fan Page for Geneva, Illinois started by a high school junior … on his own time … became adopted by the city and established as the official Facebook Fan Page for the city.  Truly inspiring stuff.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin shined light on a court ruling about how access to Facebook profile pages of a government official is not required.1 Essentially, that means that government officials with Facebook profiles can still choose who to connect with on Facebook.  And that means, that social media jerks can still be left on the outside. 

“Social scientists.”  A term used by John Ohab – the man behind Armed With Science – to describe the type of person that social media practicers are:  one part web-savvy technologist and one part communications expert.  I like that term and imagine myself making use of it in the future.

But many challenges and unanswered questions remain. Including the typical ones surrounding culture change (or lack of) to embrace these new tools.  While everyone in the room understood how the risks of social media tools are no different than the risks faced by organizations when introducing email and telephones into their operations, evidence of how to properly make that case so that stakeholders grasp the message remains an ongoing exercise of experimentation

In fact, I was stunned by the number of people – who were sent to this conference with the task and action item to develop tactical strategies of social media use in their organizations – face blockers in their workplace preventing them from using these tools.  That’s right.  Access to sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube is blocked at the firewall level.    Craaaaaazy.

My presentation was a case study of the Ames Spotlight blog project I worked on in 2007.  Within that case study, I discussed how open source solutions and community practices are tools in efforts of social media adoption within government institutions.  While my presentation wasn’t designed to stand on its own (its mostly a slideshow of photos) it is embedded below.

 
  1. I searched the interwebs for a link about this, but haven’t found one.  I’ll be following with the presenter to see if there is something on the web to point to.