Bad Mix: Traditional businesses and Social media

I recently did a road map of social media initiatives within the department and agency I work for. I tracked all of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policies from the 1970 (Hello President Carter!) to the present time and them mapped them to specific Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) policies and initiatives. I also captured when various Social media businesses like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Blogger were formed or purchased by Google. It was a fascinating exercise.

The evolution of businesses, which are based on the concepts of social networking, and organic growth, has truly been disruptive in the business world. The tools provided by these companies are making the Jasmine flower proud (my poor attempt in weaving the political revolutions in the middle east into this blog entry). Unfortunately I don't think social media tools are going to successful in the big business world because businesses are based on the principles of organized management. There is a reason why fortune 500 companies hire executives with a Masters of Business ADMINISTRATION and not Masters of Science in Business. Structure and management go together.

If you think about it. Labor unions and other user related groups with a common goal (that are not dependent on a process) will adopt social media successfully within their organization. Meanwhile investment banks and large supply chain companies will have limited success because they are based on processes. IT is critical in a business they automate business process and automation of business processes can be managed. Social media shouldn't be managed but it should be organic. A successful CIO may be able to successful implement social media in niche pockets but he or she cannot make it an enterprise level shared services. Folks in the Department of Defense claim that social media is successful in their organization. When you do intelligence analysis which is based on information sharing from different perspectives then there has be collaboration. Social media in the intelligence domain is successful because it is based on information collaboration. This is uniquely different from a typical fortune 500 company.

Anyway I had this thought this morning and now I need to go to work and the agency's social media initiatives.

Google Driven Architecture (GDA)

A few days I decided to try something different and it worked wonderfully. For the last couple of years or so, I have been spending some time building a web site for the New Market Antique Dealers Association (NMADA). I charged them a very low amount since I was helping them out. The user community for this web site is not at all computer savvy. Here were their requirements:

1. NMADA shall have an updated website
   
2. NMADA members shall be able to write entries and upload pictures about their products (antiques)
   
3. NMADA would like to a calendar to update their entries
   

Traditionally I would create a typical website with a MySQL database in the back-end and a PHP site in the front. Unfortunately the NMADA had an existing website which was a static site with lots of outdated pictures. The website was just an old website. I took the brave task of updating the website unfortunately after a couple months, I realized that I didn't have any time. I asked a dear friend of mine to help with me the with site. He finished the site and now the website can be found at http://www.newmarkettoday.com. Recently the NMADA members came to me and asked for my help to fulfill the second requirement of having a content management system. Fortunately before the members could spring the second requirement as an actionable task, I moved their hosting to a site which provides database and PHP support. Even though I felt fortunate, time was still against me. I therefore decided to implement the second requirement using Google Technologies. Rather than create a database schema, research and implement a content management system, I decided to use Google's Blogger website as the the content management system. Now NMADA users can login into the Blogger website with their Gmail accounts which I created for them, write their content, upload pictures and publish the content to the newmarkettoday website. I know. I know. What's so special about that? Developers have been using this practice for ages. Well let me tell you. I built the functionality in fifteen minutes and another five minutes to customize the site. Google's Blogger website has well defined access controls which can be customized for various NMADA members.

Okay let me get to the point (I know I am dragging but it's good to prolong sometimes...okay).

It is possible to create a professional level website with just Google technologies. Hence the title, I use Google Drive Architecture for building websites.

Blogger.com - You can use it as a WYSIWYG editor and to upload pictures and videos into your website.

Google Page Creator - You can publish static pages to the website. I currently use it to store attachments which are linked to my blog entries.

Google Calendar - You can publish events to Google Calendar and invite guests

Google Docs - You can write and publish documents on your website

Google Checkout - You can use this when you want to enable e-commerce functionality to your website.

Google Mashup Editor - You can use this when you want to create custom views with your data.

Google Sites - You can use this as your integrated Google tool to build and manage your website.

As you can see, it may not be the most straightforward but it is possible. The bottom line is that your don't need spend tons of money on folks like me who can build you a php or a Java enabled websites which have all of the snazzy bells and whistles. If you really to build a good website then you should hire someone however you have a mom and pop store then it is time to use GDA - the next paradigm in the land of many architectural paradigms.

A Google Sites YouTube video

FriendFeed and Kadoo

Today I got my invite to join FriendFeed.com. A personal feed aggregator from various Web 2.0 sites like Blogger, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg, etc., etc. It also lets you access your friend's personal feed. This way you can get alerts on what your friends up took. I personally don't think it will be popular since users don't want to sign up to multiple Web 2.0 sites. This website is built on top of other websites. I am not too impressed with it. Nevertheless I will use it for awhile since it is still quite new. Good luck to FriendFeed.com site.

BUGS ON FRIENDFEED

• I cannot add multiple blogger sites.
  
• I cannot edit my facebook.com account which is mapped to my FriendFeed account

Things that worry me:
FriendFeed lets you login into your account via your multiple email address (if you register more than one address). This can be a security glitch but the email addresses can also be used by advertisers.

I also came across another web2.0 site called Kadoo.com. They are currently building a Social Information Management System (SIMS). I signed up to be a beta tester on it. SIMS sounds interesting but we have wait and see if it is a cool thing or simply a bust!