Naked Truth 2.0

La mayor parte del tiempo la gente de las empresas rodea un cierto hecho, ofrece versiones complementarias... pero no siempre cierra filas sobre una verdad descarnada, una "naked truth" que sea punto de partida. Como se comentaba antes, cuanto más amplia es la comunicación, más acartonada y más distante de la realidad se torna. De paso, soy de los que cree que existe una realidad sobre la que es posible coincidir.

En función de la madurez que uno tenga, esta distancia puede lastimar. "Ser bicho" es saber manejar estos códigos, para ciertas personas. Para otros, "ser bicho" es mentir, o al menos manejar aviesamente la información. Sospecho que la clave del entendimiento pasa por analizar cuál es el nivel de verdad que está dispuesta a admitir una organización.

Esto, leído "en módulo", puede resultar trivial. Pero es la causa que explica porqué hay gente que no puede trabajar en empresas grandes; el manejar distintos matices o el aceptar ambigüedades simplemente les resulta inaceptable -y hay algo autorreferencial en esto-. Me pregunto cómo se edificará el concepto de verdad en un contexto Enterprise 2.0. El ejemplo sencillo es el blog de la empresa, donde hay (debería haber) algo más de espontaneidad, capacidad de construcción de una verdad en común, capacidad de tolerar comentarios adversos. Imagino un post sobre resultados de ventas menores a lo esperado, link a planillas que expliquen causas (menor stock, menor impacto de la publicidad, etc) y la aparición de verdades contradictorias moderados por un experto en comunicación que... deberá saber construir (definitivamente, él sí) sobre la ambigüedad).

Web 2.0 is a warm gun, baby.

Some questions for 2008

We just can´t foresee what will our society look like in coming years. Neither can we assess the real impact of undergoing changes in technology and communication. Probably 2007 will be remembered as the year of x,y,z events we cannot even recognize these days. The year China slow down? The Euro year? The first year weather issues were taken more seriously? Who knows.

All in all we, we do like challenges. As Snark Consulting deals with changes in Marketing and Technology in a Telco and web 2.0 ecosystem (check our last report on the matter), we dare to make our best wishes for the year to come, but with not solemnity at all.

The business in Snark Consulting is to be curious about next changes. The toast we propose here is not made of alcohol but of questions. Do the honours with me, rise your glasses, and ask yourself with curiosity:

• Do we have enough of walled garden ideas (this web 2.0 gadget with this telco or that exclusive mobile phone)?
• Is it Google going mobile when their own phones?
• Are common individuals -mass stream- finally getting familiar with communication breakdown -yes I do like Led Zeppelin, but I´d like to go beyond the song-. Or just new teenagers will handle going indie twittering the whole life?
• Is web 2.0 going corporate as it seems, or it is just another way of controlling employees ideas and underlying currents within organisation?
• Is web 2.0 being profitable in 2008, or the last adquistions are a minor bubble -I think not.
• Are you going to do the usual Christmas spam -I hope not!

No more words. Let´s be prepared for the unexpected, and make your wishes.

Facebook: a diminishing giant

• Moto: "Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. "
• Suspect: as something gets bigger and bigger, it losses some of the essential meaning.
• Fact: Facebook's Beacon was released inNovember as a part of its Facebook Ads platform. It is designed to track the activities of Facebook users on a series of 44 Web sites, and to report those activities back to the users' Facebook friends, unless specifically told not to do so. The lack of disclosure about what was going on has led to a maelstrom of criticism against Facebook over the past few days. Facebook's tracking was far more invasive and extensive that the company originally let on.
• In the media: "We believe that in this market people will constantly try to find ways to exploit the personal information they have and that they gather" (Mark Cooper, CFA).
• My two cents on this: I ask myself how web2.0 giants can grow and be profitable without forgetting its roots and letting down their users?
• Addendum: Facebook users are winning the battle.