In support of this week's blog show, guest Peter Gloor has made available to us a scholarly article containing the summary findings of the research project we have been discussing. The article is officially entitled, "The Virtual Mirror: Reflecting on Your Social and Psychological Self to Increase Organizational Creativity."

Authors of this work are Peter Gloor, Daniel Oster, Alexander ("Sandy") Petland, and Ornit Raz. Maybe Peter could tell us a little about these other contributors. The article does not contain the authors'  biographies or credentials, though it does contain an extensive bibliography of references.

While the paper is academic in tone, it makes use of intriguing mapping software that renders social interactions into colorful grids. The graphics come through nicely in the PDF version we are offering in the IAOC Library. Here is the link to download the report:

The Virtual Mirror, (PDF, 17 pages, 577K)

The report is dated September 19, 2007. Peter, thank you for making it available to our community.

STEVE O'KEEFE

I am always amazed about the coolhunting qualities of the Finns. I am currently teaching our annual virtual COIN/Coolhunting seminar at Helsinki University of Technology and as happened to me the previous three times, the cool trends being set here just blow me away. It starts with well-known things like the Finns’ ubiquitous use of mobile technologies. Nokia communicators are everywhere. They are used as browsers in the restaurant, to call up Google and resolve the burning question of which is the oldest church in Finland. To find the restaurant in the first place, the communicator of course also includes a navigation system which easily guides us there through the narrow streets of Helsinki. And when we take a taxi back to the hotel, we pay the taxi driver using our cell phones. Quite different from the US where most taxi drivers in New York still want to be paid in cash!

Finns are also eager users of blogging and social networking. They were among the early adopters of LinkedIn, and they are currently actively embracing Facebook extensions and plug-ins. They even coined a new term for people who buy tech gadgets to obtain the right to belong to their own self-chosen digital tribe. “Yhteisöllisyys” comes from the term yhteisö which means “community” or “society” in Finnish. But as was explained to me, Yhteisöllisyys is more than just the Finnish word for community. It stands for a self-selected group of people who get part of their meaning of life from belonging to a loose association or virtual community sharing the same passion for a high-tech gadget. I am not sure if I understood the meaning completely, but from observing my son playing “world of warcraft” it seems to me that he is definitively part of that Yhteisöllisyys. It is not enough do be part of a virtual community, what counts is to be a passionate member of the virtual community. Surprisingly often, what Finns are passionate about becomes a trend very soon thereafter in the rest of Europe or in the US.

Mark October  22-26, 2007  on your calendar for a blog program that promises to be profitable... and provocative. The host will be Ted Demopoulos, author of Blogging for Business. His topic: Should CEOs Blog?

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
The term "CEO Blog" refers to a blog written by a high level executive such as a CEO. The few CEO blogs that exist are very popular, but should the average CEO or other executive blog? How can they possibly make time among their other responsibilities? Are the "rules" different for CEOs and other high profile poeple? Can they have ghostbloggers or blog less frequently? The week of Oct 22, Ted will answer these and other questions on IAOCblog.com.

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:

Ted Demopoulos’ professional background includes over 25 years of experience in Information Technology and Business, including 15 years as an independent consultant. Ted helped start a successful information security company, was the CTO at a "textbook failure" of a software startup,  and has advised several other startups. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, conventions, and other business events,  author of  What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere, coauthor of  Blogging for Business. Ted blogs at www.BloggingForBusinessBook.com

Using social badges that measure face to face interaction on the microscopic level allow us to predict patterns of collaboration and gain insights into how we work together on levels not possible before. At the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence we have recently experimented with what we call microscopic dynamic social network analysis.

GPS satellite based navigation systems tell us where we are and how to get where we want to go. In our research we used a similar people-based social navigation system develop at the MIT Medial Lab by Sandy Pentland’s team to better understand our position in social networks. Using social badges - body-worn sensors - we measured physical interaction of co-located people to better understand who they are, and therefore allow them  to better navigate in their own social network.

In a research project with 22 study subjects, who wore the badges during work for one month, we were able to predict social characteristics such as extroversion, neuroticism, openness, and agreeability based on microscopic social network analysis. We obtained control measures of these values with a standard psychological test NEO-FFI). High contribution index was positively correlated with extroversion, and negatively correlated with neuroticism. This means that the more people looked their communication partners into the face, the more of an extrovert they were. The less they looked them into the eyes, the higher was their score on the neuroticism test.   Fluctuation in betweenness centrality was positively correlated with openness, and negatively correlated with agreeability. In less scientific language: the more they changed between being in the center of the conversation, and by withdrawing into their offices, the more open to new things they were. The steadier their communication pattern, either as a socialite or a recluse, the higher their agreability score.  We were also able to obtain correlation between social network position and job satisfaction, and extroversion.

Of course this technology has to be used very carefully, to avoid the risk of intruding into the privacy of the individual. In our project we have alleviated this risk by only sharing individual results with each affected individual, and giving a condensed view without individual identification to management. So far study participants have reacted very positively to the insights they gained about their own communication behavior.

Microscopic social network analysis can be used to complement proven psychological tests such as the FFI. It could be used, e.g. as a further input to identify people suitable for certain professions, for example identifying the most agreeable candidates among potential recruits as police officers.  By simply wearing social badges, a user will finally be able to answer question like “Do I have more of an introvert or an extrovert communication style? What personality types do I have to bring into a meeting to make it more productive? How can I change my personal communication behavior to be more efficient? What leadership styles are most effective for a certain situation?” We hope that future research will help organizations become more innovative and productive by exploring their hidden social structures in a virtual mirror – helping members of an organization to better understand their hidden social characteristics to improve the overall organization.

In the IAOC's continuing effort to profile university and college programs in Internet marekting communications, today we look at San Francisco State University and professor Sanjit Sengupta.

SFSU's College of Business developed an E-Commerce Marketing concentration through which undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to focus their marketing degrees on e-business methods, practices and strategies.With such courses as Internet Marketing, Internet Public Relations, Digital Advertising, Hi-Tech Marketing and E-Business Marketing Strategy, students learn the latest trends, strategies and technology in online communications, as well as how to use basic design software. To demonstrate what they have learned, students get to work on semester projects with real clients in the San Fransisco area. For more details, read this press release.

Sanjit Sengupta earned his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. He teaches courses in Strategic Marketing, Business-to-Business Marketing, High-Tech Marketing and E-Business Marketing Strategy. He has also taught at the University of Maryland, College Park and in many executive development programs in the USA, India, Finland and South Korea.

His research interests include new product development and technological innovation, strategic alliances, sales management, and international marketing. His research has been published in many journals including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Product Innovation Management.

In addition, Dr. Sengupta co-authored a book called Marketing of High-Technology Products and Innovations, Second Edition, which was published by Pearson Prentice Hall. Prior to his academic career, he worked in sales and marketing for Hindustan Computers Limited and CMC Limited in Bombay, India.

I did a online promotional campaign for Peter's new book, Coohunting: Chasing Down the Next Big Thing, written with fellow M.I.T. researcher, Scott Cooper. I was testing a new campaign called "Blog Buddy" that pairs an author with a "blog warrior" for a daily hour of simultaneous phone and high-speed Internet work. It's a guerrilla blogging campaign.

For the Coolhunting campaign we added a risky feature. We decided to make the daily phone call between the blogger and the author public, through FreeConferenceCall.com, so that anyone could listen in. Then we invited journalists to join us on the call.

What we're talking about here is Transparent PR. The PR campaign is conducted in front of a live audience. FreeConferenceCall.com taps out at 100 connections, so for the first two weeks I kept the phone number quiet for fear some journalist would publish it, overload the capacity and crash the program.

Two weeks into the program, we started promoting it to the public as well as the press. My fears of crashing the system were unwarranted -- we never had more than five non-staff on the call. The technology functioned reasonably well, though the user experience was diminished by poor audio and some connectivity problems.

The sessions themselves were a revelation. Our goal was each day to talk about someone doing innovative work, visit their sites and/or blogs, post a review on our blog, post a comment on their blog, and make a personal connection via email or phone. The result far surpassed that goal: over 100 sites visited, reviewed, and blogged in a 20 day period.

In a further nod to transparency, publisher AMACOM Books agreed to make all the promotional and tracking documents public; these are normally internal documents, such as which journalists asked to see the book. They're available on the authors' blog. Patron Saint Productions also put a case history of the campaign, which became available just a couple of weeks ago.

The campaign for "Coolhunting" illustrated a new kind of PR: using site reviews, comments on blogs, and email to connect with journalists and others in an educational discussion. Peter Gloor's recent work is about how effectively people connect in work environments, and why. I hope you'll look at this case history as an example in anticipation of his blog show this week.

STEVE O'KEEFE
Co-Host, "This Week on IAOCblog.com"

Folks, I got mixed up on the dates for Lois Kelly's appearance on the blog show here. She has been rescheduled for the week of November 5-9.

I adjusted the schedule elsewhere on this site. For those folks who already transferred the date to their calendars, please note the change.

With Apologies,
STEVE O'KEEFE
Co-Host, "This Week on IAOCblog.com"

Wow, what a lineup we have for the Fall 2007 season of "This Week on IAOCblog.com"! Take a look at these hosts and topics, and plan to tune in next week for the kickoff program with Sloan School of Management researcher, Peter A. Gloor.

We have two vacancies left in the schedule. If you would like to present, contact Morty or me. Who do you want to see on the blog? Maybe Morty and I could convince them to join us.

STEVE O'KEEFE & MORTY SCHILLER
Co-Hosts


This Week on IAOCblog.com
Fall 2007 Program Schedule

September 24-28, 2007
GUEST: Peter Gloor, Sloan Management School at MIT
TOPIC: The Virtual Mirror: Patterns in Collaboration

October  1-5, 2007
GUEST: Open
TOPIC: Open

October  8-12, 2007
GUEST: Open
TOPIC: Open

October  15-19, 2007
GUEST: Dave Taylor, Blogsmart, Ask Dave Taylor
TOPIC: Is It Okay to Get Paid to Blog?

October  22-26, 2007
GUEST: Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business
TOPIC: Should CEOs Blog?

October  29-November 2, 2007
GUEST: Dianna Huff, Marcom Writer Blog
TOPIC: Writing Search Engine Friendly Copy

November  5-9, 2007
GUEST: Lois Kelly, Foghound
TOPIC: Conversational Marketing: Mood over Matter?

November  13-16, 2007
(Monday, Nov. 12 is Veteran's Day)
GUEST: Shel Horowitz, Ethical Marketing Expert
TOPIC: Blogger's Code of Ethics: News or Ruse?

As online communications gains recognition throughout the academic community, my hope is to create a section of the IAOC devoted to discussing online communications courses and programs in academic institutions all over the world. This will be a resource for educators and students to learn about and share information pertaining to the study of internet communications.

I would like to invite educators and instructors to share on the blog any information regarding their online communications courses and research. Furthermore, I will post any relevant information that I discover from surveying various university websites and course catalogs.

photo courtesy of lukethelibrarian, used under this Creative Commons license

In next week's IAOCblog program, "The Virtual Mirror: Patterns in Collaboration," MIT researcher Peter Gloor will discuss the implications of a newly-released paper analyzing data of employee interactions gathered through sensors worn voluntarily by employees. You don't want to miss it. In the meantime, a little more about Peter Gloor.

Peter Gloor is a research scientist at the Center for Collective Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's  Sloan School of Business Management. Gloor leads a project exploring "Collaborative Innovation Networks" or "COINs," and documents this work on two sites, the more formal Innovative Collaborative Knowledge Networks site and the less formal Swarm Creativity Blog.

You can understand the implications of Gloor's work a little better if I give an example. Gloor has designed software that makes the analysis of giant databases of employee interactions fairly easy. He analyzed over 1 million email records from Enron Corporation for evidence that the leaders of the company had knowledge of the fraudulent methods they were charged with. Interested in what he discovered?

Tune in next week for the start of This Week on IAOCblog.com's fall season with a session led by MIT's Peter Gloor.

STEVE O'KEEFE
Co-Producer, This Week on IAOCblog.com

I read an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal called "Download This: YouTube Phenom Has a Big secret." Marie Digby is a 24 year-old singer and guitarist who began posting "homemade" music videos on YouTube about a year ago. Her videos (mostly covers of pop songs) took YouTube by storm and ultimately launched her music career. She now has radio exposure, songs for sale on iTunes and literally millions of fans who adore her music and the "humble" way she has become a star. Two weeks ago, Hollywood Records began to spread the news that they had signed this new, talented pop star.

It turns out, however, that Marie Digby was actually signed by Hollywood Records in 2005, over a year before she posted any of her videos on YouTube. They conveniently left that detail out of the recent press release. Digby's MySpace page mentions nothing about record label involvement; and every time she has appeared on TV or the radio, she is ostensibly shocked and amazed at how she "stumbled" into recognition.

Obviously, this demonstrates the tremendous power of the Web to build meaningful awareness for any person, brand, product, service, etc. As for Hollywood Records, there is no doubt that this campaign is responsible for the high profile of Marie Digby's debut album, which was finished at the end of 2006. As for the millions of YouTube viewers who believed they were watching a self-made pop star get lucky with the opportunity of a lifetime, I'm not sure. Hollywood Records and Marie Digby: Genius marketing or deceptive tactic? 

Check out some of Marie Digby's music videos.

Thanks, Steve, for your gracious introduction earlier. I am extremely eager to start working with the IAOC, to help grow and develop this dynamic organization.

As Steve mentioned, I will begin to create membership profiles on the blog this week. I hope to have all current members profiled by mid October. If you are a member and do not wish to be profiled, please send me an email to let me know.

I am also spearheading a membership drive, so if you have been involved with the IAOC but have not yet become a member, don't be surprised to hear from me soon.

Thanks and I look forward to a busy and exciting next few months.

David Reich

We have confirmed two programs for the Fall Season of our weekly blog show, "This Week on IAOCblog.com":

September 24-28, 2007
GUEST: Peter Gloor Sloan Management School at MIT
TOPIC: The Virtual Mirror: Patterns in Collaboration

October  22-26, 2007
GUEST: Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business
TOPIC: Should CEOs Blog?

Would you like to lead the IAOC blog for a week? Send email with your suggested topic and I'll try to get you into the schedule.

STEVE O'KEEFE
Co-Host, "This Week on IAOCblog.com"

I'd like to take a moment and introduce members to David Reich, a recent Tulane University grad who will be helping us with an IAOC membership drive this fall.

David graduated in May from the AB Freeman School of Business at Tulane University with a bachelor of science degree in management. He has worked in marketing and public relations with Ike Behar -- an upscale men's clothing brand in Miami -- and Michael Werdiger, Inc., a diamond jewelry distributor in New York.

I've asked David to begin a series profiling all the IAOC's members on the blog. So don't be surprised if you are profiled in the coming weeks. Those who wish to be profiled need only join the IAOC and those members who do not wish to be profiled should send email to David Reich.

David, welcome aboard and thanks for helping the IAOC grow its membership leading to our spring conference in Zurich.

STEVE O'KEEFE
IAOC Vice President

Welcome back teachers, professors, students, and professionals to another season of "This Week on IAOCblog.com." I'm Steve O'Keefe, co-producer of this program with the irascible Morty Schiller, who has been shooting down spam comments and trackbacks all summer.

For those who are new, "This Week at IAOCblog" is a weekly blog show where we try to bring in experts each week to lead discussions on topics related to online communications.

Here are some of the people who have asked about being on the show this season, or we solicited them and they've agreed to teach:

Nettie Hartsock - Blog Consultant and Book Publicist, who promised Lois Kelly, the Word-of-Mouth marketing expert with her for a show on how "point-of-view matters more than messaging in conversational marketing." Yum.

Shel Horowitz, ethical marketing expert and copywriter extraordinaire, we hope will lead us in a discussion of efforts to generate and enforce a "Blogger's Code of Ethics."

Dave Taylor -- yes, THE Dave Taylor, tech guru, innovator, iconoclast -- as in Ask Dave Taylor your questions right here, on IAOCblog, about (shhhh!) generating revenue from your blog.

Ron Sansone on the Independence Day Digg Mugging the IAOCblog received and what it shows about the future of tagging, digging, and Ron Paul's chances of riding social networking into the Oval Office.

And Much More! We'll continue bugging Bob Bly to visit us; we might get an update from Dianna Huff, and I'm hoping MIT's Peter Gloor will join us to talk about a new study analyzing workplace communications for signs of "Swarm Creativity."

All in all, a busy season ahead. Interested in leading the blog for a week? Send me your show idea and let's talk. We're going to take the rest of this week on IAOCblog to talk about what's coming this Fall -- and about our European Conference in Zurich next Spring.

STEVE O'KEEFE
Vice President, IAOC
Co-Host, "This Week on IAOCblog.com"