Blogging, collaboration, social networking and connectivity

Eight years ago I was VP of Marketing at a high tech company developing web collaboration applications. At the time it was a tough sell trying to promote and communicate project web sites, team sites and collaboration sites before there was much of a market let alone understanding that users could come together in a dedicated website or space on the web and trade, expand, create, store and retrieve new ideas, documents and strategies.

Fast forward 8 years and we have a whole generation collaborating, gaming, connecting among groups of people and all over the world. Kids when they move these days bring their entire student networks with them. Connectivity is so ubiquitous with this generation that they expect employers to also be offering the same kinds of connectivity, performance, productivity and ease to support their business relationships as they now have with their personal relationships and productivity.

A great example of business catching up with connectivity...I attended a recent IT event - Summit 2008, a session on Web 2.0 and social networking. The room was packed, about 300 people at the session, many grey heads, evidently a mix of managers, business, and senior IT people. The speaker talked about blogs and asked for a show of hands of who was blogging. I was the only one in the room who put up my hand. This surprised me. Not because I was the only one blogging but considering the interest and participation - other sessions were not standing room only - I would have figured that others would be trying out blogs and the new connectivity applications. Not so. Not the generation who are managing the IT budgets and making the business decisions.

For a quick overview of the fast approaching future, just look to your sons and daughters, nieces, nephews, or grandchildren. They're not likely to let you on their Facebooks but sneak a peak anyway because its all about connectivity and relationships. The future is fast on our heels.

IDC and Nortel released a great study today on the world-wide connectivity habits of employed workers (n 2400 globally) - it's worth the price of signup/contact info to download a copy to learn about the 16% hyperconnectivity segment (people using >7 devices and >9 applications); 36% increasingly connected (using between 4-7 devices, 6-9 web apps). And the 36% are moving fast into hyperconnectivity; so soon more than half of all workers will expect their employers to be offering them connectivity. Better to get thinking about this now. Download a copy at: http://www.nortel.com/promotions/idc_paper/index.html