Marcelo Iñarra » Management Innovation

New Media + UNHCR + London = Inspiration

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

After the conference in Barcelona, and following a series of presentations throughout Europe, I finally ended up in London where I’ve been presenting and co-facilitating sessions at a UNHCR workshop. Suzanne Trembley from the UNHCR headquarters designed a second new media training session to follow-up the successful session that we had in Kuala Lumpur some months ago.
Participants came from Spain, Italy, Germany, UK, Northern Europe and Portugal and the web team from the Geneva headquarters.

In two intense days, we covered the main trends in new media and were given the opportunity to see a presentation from the Google Grants team where David Angel and Brid McMahon from the Google office in Dublin, revealed the nuts and bolts of Search Engine Marketing. Mobile phones were part of this party too, with Si Crowhurst from â€œWe love mobileâ€ an agency based in the UK.

The inspiring environment of NCVO, next to the Thames, was the icing on the cake of a perfect two days, where brains were bubbling with new ideas on how to provide help to refugees and engage people in this cause.

Posted in Home, Management Innovation, Mobile Mobilization | No Comments »

Google’s innovative spirit : Lively

Sunday, July 13th, 2008

Lively by Google is a new product available in Google Labs which you can use to create a 3D avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design. At first, Lively seems like a kind of Second Life but it can also export to blogs and other websites via a widget. If you have a few minutes spare, why not download the application and start to create your avatar. Pretty soon, you’ll be talking to friends on your very own website.

But what are the benefits of Lively for the social sector?
Perhaps for more politically correct uses such as the development of a 3D virtual office where you can interact with your supporters. Or maybe Joe Trippi, Obama’s New Media Campaign Manager could, implement virtual meetings between the candidate and his supporters (Joe, if you do decide to use the idea, please don’t forget to give me credit!)

But I’m pretty sure that its politically incorrect uses will be far more interesting! (as soon as I come up with one, I’ll share it with you on this blog).
Beyond the concept of this new 3D chat toy , I must also highlight Google Lab’s innovative spirit. Lively will graduate only if it’s approved by users like Google earth , Gmail and other Google experiments. Of course, Google is not thinking in terms of revenue with this application, money will follow Lively if people love the experience.

Posted in Creativity, Digital strategies, Home, Management Innovation | No Comments »

Wikinomics, business for the 21st Century

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

An important edition to the ever-expanding Wiki-world, the book Wikinomics, by Dan Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, looks set to become the new bible for the business community.

The philosophy behind Wikinomics dates back to the 1930s when western economists decided that individuals should compete in a free market and that planned economies (such as Stalinâ€™s) were doomed to failure.

A young socialist academic, by the name of Ronald Coase, disagreed with the economists, arguing that if this was the case, why did huge companies exist with centralized operations and planning. His theory, for which he won a Nobel Prize, was that making things requires collaboration and as a result, companies emerge because the cheapest way to collaborate is to gather human resources, tools and materials under one roof.

In Wikinomics, the authors discuss the ways in which mass collaboration continues to change the methods that companies are using to harness skills and knowledge to innovate and increase funds.

The more successful companies share information and resources and focus their efforts on four powerful new ideas: openness, peering, sharing and acting globally.

And now that the internet is radically lowering the cost of collaborating, big companies are losing their edge and small ones can compete without the need to become a massive organization.

â€œCollaboration can occur on an astronomical scale, so if you can create an encyclopedia with a bunch of people, could you create a mutual fund, a motorcycle?â€ asks Tapscott.

Wikinomics gives several examples of such successful, wikinomic ventures, including the Chinese motorcycle industry, which has tripled its output in 10 years thanks to the online collaboration of hundreds of small firms.

If there are any criticisms to be made of this book, it is that it presents no downsides to the wiki world whatsoever and may leave less discerning readers unaware of the fact that wiki is anything less than perfect.

The book fails to mention why some wiki movements have worked and others have not, or that wikis cannot be trusted for solid information on politics, news and history. The authors are also quick to dismiss worries that wikis can devolve when a smart mob develops a kind of â€œmass stupidityâ€ (giving the example of the Stalinist movement).

However, criticisms aside, Wikinomics is an ideal starting point for organizations that want to formalize their collective intelligence and could really help businesses to move forward.

For further information or to contribute to the Wikinomics playbook, the first peer-produced guide to business in the 21st Century, check out the authors’ website, www.wikinomics.com.

(Review by Ashley Baldwin for www.marceloiniarra.com )

Posted in Book Review, Home, Management Innovation | No Comments »

Archive for the 'Management Innovation' Category

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New Media + UNHCR + London = Inspiration

Google’s innovative spirit : Lively

Wikinomics, business for the 21st Century

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