The annual conference of IAFNA in Atlanta ended with the commitment of many participants to meet again in Vancouver, April 2009. For me, it was a great possibility to reconnect but also to meet a lot of interesting people who I didn't know before.
Saturday afternoon, I gave a 3 hours workshop on "Communities not Clients - How Web 2.0 Changes Everything, Including Your Business". See my presentation here:
These were my main hypotheses:
1. The WWW was a singular technological event of historical importance. In human history, there were a few technical inventions which had significant impacts on all aspects of society and economy. Printing press, double accountancy and steam engine were certainly such inventions: the printing press opened the possibility for more to gain knowledge and to rise from darkness to light. Double accountancy allowed the traders of Central Europe to globalize. The steam engine facilitated the start of the industrial age and large scale manufacturing. It was however, not the invention of the Internet (which existed since the late sixties) that changed the world, but Tim Berners-Lee's proposal to use a hypertext language to link between different Internet sites and his creation of the WWW consortium in 1994. Basically no part of business and few parts of private life have been untouched by this technological revolution.
2. The age of connectivity has just begun. The first 14 years of th WWW were just the start of this technological revolution. You might remember Thomas Watson's famous words from 1946. The then CEO of IBM said that the world would need not more than 5 computers. He was wrong - the world will only need one computer - which is the total of all small and large machines, cell phones and other electronic devices that will be connected to one large artificial brain.
3. We are all computer illiterate. Particularly the generation beyond 40 has just acquired basic computer and web skills. We see in our kids that they have understood the power of social networking. If we (as consultants, managers or other professionals) want to master change we must learn to master technologies of collaboration.
4. Intra- and extra social platforms will change organizations more than any facilitated workshop can do. Already, we have seen many types of organizations transforming. The travel industry, large parts of the retail business, banking and other sectors have changed significantly. In the future, we will see entire sectors of the economy disappear and be reborn on the web. The transaction costs of many business operations have decreased to such a low level that there is less and less justification for classical organizations - they are just too inflexible. Already, sweat shops such as Mechanical Turk of ODesk show that not only services but also production will be organized in project related teams.
5. Web 2.0 will speed up democratization. The role of bloggers, social networks and alternative online media in controling and transforming governments and societies will increase significantly. In February 2008, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in 131 cities of the world against violence in Colombia. Bloggers influence political opinions. Election campaigns are held in Second Life. This is all just the start. I am waiting for the first virtual revolution, or overturn of a Government.
6. Ultimately, no change initiative will be successful which does not combine virtual and face2face interventions. E-change, or Blended Change will be the keywords of Change Facilitation of the future. Web 2.0 enabled processes will enable us to engage large groups in change processes.
By the way, in my workshop in Atlanta, we discussed the question "Why should one blog?". This reminds me of a similar discussion 12 years ago - "Why should one have a website?" Well, if you are in the business of consulting: google the word "iafna". My blog, with a report on the conference, is at second position, after http://www.iafna.org/. As I use to say: search engines love blogs.
If you now think about starting a blog - hold your breath. With the next version of the Change Management Toolbook, we will provide you the opportunity to blog in an environment which will facilitate that your article will appear high on the index of search engines.