There is a new breed of innovator roaming the streets – and Michelle is one of them – called Social Entrepreneurs. These people seek to change the focus of innovation from making money to making people and societies truly rich. It is often called Social Innovation.

Michelle has inspired me with her passion for social innovation. Her focus is in the areas of environment, sustainability and social justice (in particular the rights and empowerment of Indigenous people).

After a long career in enterprise she now runs her own marketing consultancy and regularly blogs about connecting the world through social innovation.

Michelle is also developing her own startup in the social/technology space; she also runs other entrepreneurial events in the tech and social innovation space.

Here in her own words:

How/Why I’m doing what I’m doing now?
I grew up in a beautiful area of Sydney a shy girl, a wallflower of sorts. I have always appreciated technology and the way it can enhance our lives. I enjoy connecting with people, and solving the world’s problems, one step at a time of course. I love to contemplate, explore and learn about the world and how we all behave in it.

Since my late teens I have felt an intense drive and spirit inside that has taken me exploring the other side of the world, has seen me train intensely in martial arts, and pushed me to develop myself personally, constantly acquiring new knowledge and understanding.

Just over year ago I was made redundant from my role as the marketing manager for an IT solution provider. I had the opportunity to take similar roles but felt it was time to forge my own path, shed the skin of where life had led me to, and make a concerted effort to carve my niche.

My vision has always been to make a massive positive difference in this world. Social innovation using technology and the web is not as developed as it could be in Sydney yet, but I will ensure, as I develop myself and create my own, that I do all I can to see it grow to the levels it deserves. I would love to see the entrepreneurial tech and social innovation communities that are emerging achieve all they possibly can and, for greater society to embrace this whole heartedly.

What is the best piece of advice you have ignored to get where you are?
To work a 9-5 job, get married, have a kid and buy a house. All around me I saw people settling for the first thing that came along but not really being happy. Yes, I missed out on short term gratification and yes it’s hurt and sometimes been lonely but it never felt real to just do what’s comfortable. I know those things will come but at a deeper, more meaningful level.

Are you actually happy?
It is so easy to get out of bed at the crack of dawn when I have a purpose. Thankfully I have the drive and energy to keep going and to pursue my dreams. Is life perfect? No. But I’m not sure it’s meant to be and strangely, when I achieve great feats along the way it doesn’t feel different, the journey just becomes more enjoyable. I do know that I live for the experience of life, live it to the fullest I possibly can and that the best is still to come.

How many times they nearly gave up when things went wrong and what kept them going at those times?
It’s funny that I now have a very positive, optimistic view on life it takes a lot for me to reach the point of giving up. But, on those rare occasions I’ve felt like it, moments later it all falls into alignment.

It has helped to talk to as many people as I can who share the journey or have some insight into what I am experiencing. Special people of note have been John Wells, Raul Caceras, Mick Liubinskas and Kim Chen.

However, I have walked away though, like from my first professional Muay Thai fight after months of intense physical and mental training in preparation. I knew in my heart that the lesson was not the fight but the journey to it, and now all I’ve experienced since in the tech, social innovation and music communities.

What do you wish you hadn’t sacrificed to be such a success?
Sleep ins but it’s interesting that the more I kick this up a gear the more disciplined and organised I am becoming. I try to encourage a no TV household so we ensure we’re always active or doing something productive. My housemates think it’s funny when I hide the TV, only bringing it out for special events.

What mistakes did you make and what did you learn from them?
A wise mentor repeated many times that ‘it’s only a mistake if you make it twice’. As a human being we make them and we learn from them. I do feel though that my biggest mistake I have made was not being at peace with that, not forgiving myself for being me. As soon as I did find that peace the cloud lifted and it all started to become clear.

This time it is my friend Annalie Killian, who is also known as Catalyst for Magic (yes that is really the job title on her business card) or as @MaverickWoman on Twitter.

I’ve known Annalie for many years and have always been inspired and energised by her. Over the years she has evolved as an organisational change agent (catalyst) and intrapreneur. Yet several constants have remained with Annalie over the years, for example, her:

• passion for change,
• generosity of spirit,
• extreme curiosity, and
• deep joie de vivre.

Here is a bit of insight into the life journey of this woman who has challenged stereotypes and travelled far. In her own words:

How/Why I’m doing what I’m doing now?

Let me start with what I am doing now, then I’ll try and cover the how and why.

Since 2000, when I moved to Australia from South Africa, I have worked as “Catalyst for Magic” at AMP, a large iconic Australian Financial Services brand. My role is Director of Innovation, Collaboration and Communication, and I see it as championing the spirit of “ubuntu” – a Zulu word referring to our inter-connected Humanness” – in all its rich and imaginative and complex essence- and directing that magic towards meaningful and purposeful work and business outcomes. Call it culture, call it engagement, call it creative collaboration, collective intelligence– it’s all of that, and it’s what sets one company apart from the next.

Why I am doing what I’m doing now?

My best friend, who unfortunately died of cancer at age 33, sent me a card after a particularly trying incident working for an extreme bully, GM of Human Resources at the time at the Bayside Aluminium Smelter in South Africa. She said: “You will outlive him…you are a survivor- it’s inevitable”. At the time, I didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now….and I think the essence of what she was referring to is my resilience, resourcefulness and extreme adaptability.

So why do I do what I do? Maybe it was inevitable…I thrive in it! As a corporate maverick, I dodge, weave, swim upstream and take a lot of set-backs but keep on purpose when it comes to innovation and bringing others along. And yes, it is unsettling for some who want to cling to the status quo or the past.

How do I do it?

If “life is what happens when you are making other plans”, then I guess I don’t make too many plans but rather find ways to apply my strengths to opportunities I spot and shape my work that way. I have an insatiable curiosity and am highly attuned to faint signals that others often don’t notice. Believe it or not, these skills were forged in childhood by personal circumstances and it taught me to pick up on almost imperceptible signals and anticipate scenarios- giving me the best ability to cope and navigate through challenges. And I am

Who would have thought that this was preparing me to become a change agent, working in innovation in a large corporation, nurturing the adoption of ideas and collaboration among many to anticipate disruption, embrace change and overcome threats?

My proudest breakthroughs include facilitating the first democratic elections in South Africa in the Zululand region to a peaceful outcome in 1994, establishing the first Community Foundation in Africa and building that into a powerful transformational agency, and establishing + producing the AMPLIFY Innovation & Thought Leadership Festival since 2005. The latter two were the result of spotting signals early and converging many ideas into a powerful vision.

What is the best piece of advice you have ignored to get where you are?

Sticking to the straight and narrow road! I have always meandered down ally-ways and side-streets, and these have yielded the richest discoveries and sometimes set me on a totally different trajectory.

How many times did you nearly give up when things went wrong & what kept you going at those times?

Know that cartoon about the frog trying to strangle the Pelican that’s eating him? That’s me. I can be almost compulsive-obsessive when I want something. I NEVER give up. I just find a different way. And, I have learnt patience…I can bide my time. This is the hardest of course, but I have been rewarded more times than not by letting go of something and then revisiting it at a later time when circumstances caught up. Ideas can be way ahead of their time and one must be willing to cultivate the eco-system to prepare it for an idea. (This feels counter-intuitive because we know how slow organisations can be to change- but there’s no point forcing something so hard that it forces YOU out!)

Are you actually happy?

Yes! Unequivocally yes! I don’t have a perfect life, or actually perfect anything…but it’s sort of all working and there is harmony most of the time. I still have lots of ambition that I hope to realize and it would be great to really push my talents to see where the limits are. There are a few big dreams still looking for a physical manifestation- I’d like to play in a larger international arena and I would also like to help my 2 daughters achieve their dreams. One wants to be a musician and learn Mandarin so she can sing in China, and the other one wants to be a fashion stylist/ editor. I’d like to study Alternate Health like massage therapies as a hobby. (I love spoiling people!)

What do you wish you hadn’t sacrificed to be such a success?

It’s a flattering question, though I don’t think of success as a destination, more as a work-in-progress.

I have not been balanced at all times…favouring the mind and not honouring the body equally. I don’t sleep much…there’s so much living to be done! But no, I have never regretted not sleeping more!

I think my daughters have missed not coming home to cookies and milk served by me, but I don’t do guilt. I know they have gained in many other ways through the way I parent them, like a belief that being deeply immersed in doing something you love and becoming good at it is one of the most pleasurable things in life, and that all mastery requires effort. It’s very funny when I hear them sharing these thoughts with their teenage friends!

What mistakes did you make and what did you learn from them?

I make mistakes all the time…it comes with taking risk and learning. But it’s crucial to be very observant and spot a mistake quickly, then fix it immediately. It helps to have low ego and attachment to a process so you can amend it without feeling like it’s a loss of face!

Outside of a criminal offence, there are few mistakes one cannot overcome professionally or personally. But some mistakes can shadow you throughout your life. One of those is choosing a partner that is not right for you- and being tied to a bad scenario for a lifetime until your children are adults. That’s about the only warning I can give! And…mistakes should not be wasted, they are vessels of personal growth.

What would be the point of a mistake-free life? Can’t think of anything more boring!

“New Social Networking Site Changing The Way Oh, Christ, Forget It: Let Someone Else Report On This Bullshit”

It was shared by my friend Mark Pesce via Twitter this morning and gave me a chuckle while I was on the train. But then it reminded me of the well known Christian/Jewish scripture:

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9

Which is the ancient wisdom that explains why 1980s fashion is trendy again. However, it also gives us an insight into humans. While we change the tools – from stone axes through to guns and computers – it is hard to change the fundamental architecture of humans and their behaviours.

We’ve all seen the breathless announcement of yet another innovative/ groundbreaking /game-changing/ revolutionary /cool /[insert appropriate PR buzzword] social networking application. But what does it change really? Certainly not the people who use it.

However, what it does change is the affordances available to the person. For instance Twitter enables almost instantaneous broadcast communication around the world (of course that is when the API is not down). Thus a cranky comment, that would once have traveled all the way across the office without that technology, can now annoy someone in London quite easily.

Thus it never fails to amuse and annoy me in equal parts when people act just like people do everywhere on social networks and it is reported as if this is some special property of social networks. 

Those people who are ill informed idiots were like that before they ever defaced a Facebook memorial or something similar. These behaviours do not arise ex nihilo in a person just because they signed up to a social network. But the social network context might help to amplify that behaviour.

The case is well argued by Tom Stewart in his post Don’t blame social media for bad behaviour.

The technology creates new affordances for people. It amplifies any behaviours and actions far beyond what used to be possible. Thus my comment that “it changes nothing, yet it changes everything”. We as a society will have to find new ways of dealing with this amplification of normal human behaviour and actions. I suspect it’s the beginning of a long journey.

The internet is a strange beast; it is everywhere and nowhere all at once. Unlike traditional media – with its registered offices, chief editors, and boards of directors etc. – the internet is amorphous yet powerful – and it is still only a teenager. And it is changing the face of human communication in ways we are only just beginning to understand.

As a business person and former public servant I can see the organisational challenges thrown up by the digital revolution. As marketer I adore the power of the digital revolution for marketing and communications. As a technologist I find the democratisation of technology world-changing. And as a citizen I wonder how this will all affect my world.

The digital revolution is manifesting changes in social behaviour and consumer expectations and this has implications for service delivery and communications in both business and government.

Let us firstly consider how the rate of technology change is increasing and how adoption is becoming faster. We can see that the rate of change is increasing in these examples ^[1]:

• Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users
• Television took 13 years to reach 50 million users
• The Internet took 4 years to reach 50 million users
• The iPod took 3 years to reach 50 million users
• And the iPod reached 1B application downloads in 9 months .

Now let us consider Facebook ^[2] , which is probably the most mainstream of the social networks in the western world. If Facebook was a country it would be the fourth largest in the world:

• Facebook currently has more than 400 million users
• About 50% of those users login each day
• The average user has about 130 friends
• There are approximately 500 billion minutes of time per month spent on Facebook
• More than 70% users are located outside the United States
• More than100 million users are currently accessing Facebook via mobile devices
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is women 55-65 years of age

Don’t forget China has Qzone (from Tencent Inc.) which is growing at a similar rate to Facebook on their first quarter report ^[3]:

• Active Instant Messaging (“IM”) user accounts increased 8.7% QoQ to 568.6 million
• Peak simultaneous online user accounts for IM services increased 13.2% QoQ to 105.3 million
• Active user accounts of Qzone increased 10.4% QoQ to 428.0 million
• Peak simultaneous online user accounts of QQ Game portal (for mini casual games only) increased 9.7% QoQ to 6.8 million
• IVAS paying subscriptions increased 16.1% QoQ to 59.9 million
• MVAS paying subscriptions increased 14.8% QoQ to 23.3 million”

The behavioural changes that sites like Facebook and Qzone are creating in ordinary people are vast. Everyday large numbers of non-technically skilled people are actively engaging in the online social communication and sharing of images, links, and videos with friends, groups, and events. They are engaging with software and becoming skilled at use largely without the support of technical support. They are using technology to mediate their social communications in a way that was not possible only a few years ago. The technology has become democratised and the barriers to participation lowered drastically.

Now let us consider Twitter ^[4]. While it is much smaller than Facebook, Twitter does have a very different focus and its use case is very different. While Facebook is about who you already know, Twitter is about who or what you don’t know yet.

Some basic facts about Twitter ^[5] include:

• Twitter has more than 75 million users
• It distributes more than 50 million tweets per day
• And there are between 10-15 million active users

Increasingly Twitter is the home of breaking news – some good examples of this from 2009 are the place crash in the Hudson River in New York, the Chinese earthquake, and the Iranian revolution. Journalists are now lurking there instead of the pub to get tips. All around the world Twitter is becoming entwined with mainstream news providers, with tweets showing on screen during telecasts (for example, the Q and A program Australia’s ABC).

And some more interesting facts that demonstrate how intertwined social media platforms and technology are becoming into our everyday lives include:

• YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world
• Wikipedia inadvertently crushed earlier competitors and now has more than 13 million articles with 78% of those non-English languages
• 80% of companies in the United States use LinkedIn to find staff

Another feature of social technology is that it is not tied to the computer; it is becoming mobile. For example, Generation Y and Z do not use email except to talk to old people like us (as my university students told me so kindly) or to institutions like school or university. Their preferred medium is text messaging via mobile or instant messaging via data networks.

What we are seeing is a shift in behaviours – it is not that certain behaviours are ceasing. Instead they are moving into a social networking context. For example, social network traffic now exceeds traffic to adult sites^[6]; it also exceeds email traffic . Not because either adult content or email are disappearing, but because these activities are moving location into a social networking context.

Additionally, we are now seeing the emergence of physical location based social networks. Grindr, Gowalla and Foursquare are some new entrants. Also sites like Facebook are working on adding location based functionality to their offering. This is bringing physical presence into the social network experience enabling serendipitous meetings in real life. Thus physical presence is now becoming part of our digital matrix. And this leads to the new digital divide. As I’ve said for a while: “The willingness and desire to be hyperconnected via technology will become the new generation gap.”

This is a social media ecosystem that is interlinked and hyperconnected in ways that old media did not enable. The desire to connect was always there in humans but the technology did not support the desire. Now people can be connected constantly and ambiently – and this continuous electronic presence is a new stage in human relations.

For each of us there is a myriad of data points about us out there on the internet. It’s like an impressionist painting, one dot tells nothing but many dots create an artwork, or in the case of our data many data points tell the story of our lives.

As with many other innovations the social web is here and now we’re trying to work out how to (a) Use it; (b) Regulate it; and (c) Police it.

We’ve made good progress on how to use the social web from a personal perspective. But business and government are just starting to understand how it might be possible to use it. However, regulation and policing of the new social web is under fierce debate around the world. For example the various internet censorship moves in Australia, France, China, and North Korea. Also, as Danah Boyd commented^[7], Facebook is a utility and that those tend to get regulated.

Some of the key issues that need to be debated and resolved include:

• Ownership of personal data
• Privacy
• Security
• Transparency
• Law – copyright, intellectual property, defamation

These are all important from a personal, business and government perspective. Without clarity on these issues we face continued debate and uncertainty and this is never a good thing for business or government.

Another key thing is infrastructure – that is why Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) is a brilliant thing. For those who can’t see why we need one it is worth remembering that nobody could see the purpose in having a fax machine before it was in use, and in the early days of computing some people saw the need for only a few computers in the world. If we build it, then the business and commercial opportunities will come. And not to build it means that Australia will become the digital poor relation in Asia.

The internet is now the largest word of mouth transmission mechanism humanity has ever seen. It amplifies communication in ways we are only just beginning to understand. And its immediacy and reach have irrevocably changed the communications landscape. Some of the changes in consumption patterns that arise from the digital revolution are about realtime expectations.

Changes in consumption patterns mean that we no longer consume media when publishers want us to. We do it when we want, on whatever device we choose, and on our own terms.

Let’s also look at some simple everyday behaviour. Who reaches first for the hard copy phone book to find a business anymore? Hardly anyone uses their old fashioned paper phone directory anymore.

Where are all of your personal contacts stored now? For many of us contacts are stored in our mobile phones or in our email accounts. But also many people are finding that their personal contacts are in their preferred social networks, and for many sites like LinkedIn or Plaxo store business contacts.

Social networking is crashing the degrees of separation between individuals. Even between the governed and their governors the degrees of separation are being crunched. People are having conversations with the Prime Minister, Opposition Leader, State Premiers, and their local councillors via social networks such as Twitter. This unprecedented access to people in authority is changing the demands on the organisations that support them. Previously letters went to a Minister and into the carefully crafted ministerial system. Responses were considered and carefully crafted according to predetermined service level agreements. Now the potential response needs to be turned around within minutes. This is a seismic shift in communications and in the demands upon organisations.

Expectations of response times are dropping. Have you ever had a phone call or text message asking why you’ve not responded to an email that just arrived? That expectation is now on steroids due to the growth in realtime web. Delayed gratification is becoming a thing of the past.

We are moving into an expectation of realtime responses from service providers. This is evident in TV shows – now we no longer wait until a show arrives for showing in Australia, we just download it and watch it whenever we want. Anyone who has teenagers has seen their internet download limit chewed up via this kind of immediate consumption behaviour.

The technology (including mobile) is shifting the notion of what form an acceptable communication takes. Now people receive confirmation of bill payments made or alerts about bills due for payment via text message to their mobile phones. Businesses are now embracing these new channels, with banks and airlines sending information via SMS as well as email. They are also building iPhone applications in their droves – for example most Australian banks have either launched or are building an iPhone banking application.

The modern Australian user is increasingly consuming media on a mobile device. The shift will continue as lower cost devices become available. Apple changed the game entirely with their iPhone and now the rest of the pack is playing catch up. There are also new entrants to the mobile game like Google.

The social web is not going away. It is going mobile. It is going realtime. We need to find ways to engage and deliver services using the social web that work for our constituents.

NOTES

[1] Source of these statistics is http://www.youtube.com/user/Socialnomics09 video dated 30 July 2009

[2] Source of the Facebook data is http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics at 30 May 2010

[3] Source Tencent Inc. 2010 First Quarter Results http://www.tencent.com/en-us/content/at/2010/attachments/20100512.pdf at 30 May 2010

[4] Tweet statistics are from http://blog.twitter.com/2010/02/measuring-tweets.html at 30 May 2010

[5] Twitter user numbers are from http://themetricsystem.rjmetrics.com/2010/01/26/new-data-on-twitters-users-and-engagement/#more-1430 at 30 May 2010

[6] Source Hitwise http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2009/01/social_networks_overtake_adult_websites.html and http://weblogs.hitwise.com/to-go-ap/2008/05/social_networks_the_new_email.html at 30 May 2010

[7] Danah Boyd, http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/05/15/facebook-is-a-utility-utilities-get-regulated.html at 30 May 2010

There are longstanding conventions that enable us to sort out who owns property in the real world and some of the traditional principles of property rights include:

1. control of the use of the property
2. the right to any benefit from the property
3. a right to transfer or sell the property
4. a right to exclude others from the property.

[Source: Wikipedia]

But as we move further into the digital revolution then issues of ownership regarding digital assets and virtual goods comes to the fore.

However, some of the traditions of the web – such as openness – seem to be at odds with this notion of ownership. Also legal definitions might not be keeping up with the developments of these new digital and virtual goods. For example, what are the rules around a virtual good that I give away? What jurisdiction does it live in? How does title to the virtual good transfer?

These are all the questions facing the modern music industry with the shift to digital music. Locking down access does not seem to be working. Perhaps it is time to think about this from a fresh angle?

Other related issues are copyright and defamation. The old rules often seem very clunky and difficult to apply in this new digital world.

Some interesting questions for us to sort out. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

The first woman who sprang to mind is Jo White (a.k.a. @mediamum on Twitter). She’s been a friend and an inspiration for a while now.

There are not many women who combine a career in journalism, a large family, activism for breast-feeding, postgraduate studies, teaching, co-founding a startup, and moving to the other side of the world. Jo has done all that and more.

Jo’s response to my idea was to say: “You have officially turned into the Andrew Denton of the internet. The ‘Are you happy’ question had me thinking for a few days.” (Being compared to Mr Denton is hardly the worst thing anyone’s said of me )

Her responses got me thinking and helped me to consider my own experiences differently. Here are the questions and Jo’s answers about how she got to be where she is now…

How/Why I’m doing what I’m doing now.
We moved to the US to pursue this company launch because of a few reasons. Firstly, I firmly believe that my children should see us working hard and really chasing dreams. They saw me do my undergraduate degree by distance education that took three years, and went to Queensland with me and saw me graduate. That kind of thing makes a lasting impression on kids. I want them to have big dreams, and put in solid work to attain them.

I also wanted to demonstrate to my husband the full commitment and faith I have in our ability to travel this path together. There are simply not many husband/wife startup relationships that are celebrated, and this was a massive move for us.

Finally, of course I would never have made this leap unless I firmly saw the vision behind the company itself. What we are seeking to provide the world with is a tool that will help everyone navigate the web, find credible information, and inform us all on what and who the best resources are on the web.

I want to really encourage everyone to create more content, and to make it the best content they can pull together, no matter what their space is. TribeVibe will really make that come together.

I have just written my Masters thesis on the strength of social media communities, and have been accepted the offer of a fully funded PhD position at Colorado University’s ATLAS program. I will be working in the EPIC Project Colorado Lab, researching social capital and other aspects of communication online as they relate to crisis informatics (disaster relief, information dissemination and communication).

I am also the Program Director for the 60 Weeks Program at Boulder Digital Works, connecting world leading graduate students in cutting edge digital with the best minds in all aspects of digital, innovation and business. 

What is the best piece of advice you have ignored to get where you are?
I try to never ignore advice, however there is some I’ll give more weight to than others. Successful women entrepreneurs are people I really pay attention to, especially if they have had aspects of the journey I share. I turn into their biggest fans. There are not many of them.

There remains a view that startups are too risky for people like me – a mother of four. I also ignore the people who say you can’t manage a family, an academic career and a startup. What they’re really saying is that they can’t do it. Not that I can’t. And that’s okay.

Are you actually happy?
I stewed over this question for a while. I’ve come to the conclusion that it depends what you mean by ‘happy’. If you mean content, no I’m not. But I don’t think anyone who loves working in startups is ever content. Being content commonly relates to being stagnant.

But the people I know who are successful are insatiable. If they find themselves ‘content’ then they enjoy it for a short time, and begin looking for the next challenge. That’s me. I’m happy because I’m working towards something I know is enormous. I’m surrounded by the buzz and stress and pressure, but I’m completely absorbed in it.

There’s a lot of laughter and our home is always busy. My children have never said “I’m bored” and they don’t hear it from their parents. That’s a happy environment for me.

How many times they nearly gave up when things went wrong & what kept them going at those times?
I’m not a great quitter. I might feel like it, and spout about it to my closest friends and of course my husband – but I am really bad at throwing in the towel. It’s far easier to say “I’ve had enough” than it is to follow through and close it down.

Lots of people celebrate failure in the world of startups. I don’t. To me, failure is when you stop. Failure is when you allow a problem to be the brick wall that stops you. That’s not good. I see issues as the speed bump you found a solution to, or the lesson you learned to make yourself better. It’s only failure if you stop. I keep going because I like success. 

What do you wish you hadn’t sacrificed to be such a success?
I don’t think I’d call myself ‘such a success’ – there’s a long, long way to go. But so far, so good. I have had numerous successes that are the result of hard work and strategic planning. I have learned so much since making the move to the US.

I wish I hadn’t sacrificed a certain amount of my own faith in my ability. It’s hard to explain but I think that the sense of security that comes with a regular job in an office with a company that’s been there forever gives you a sense of establishment and reinforcement of security, even though it’s in a comfort zone.

In a startup, that is never available for you. You’re always creating your own success, and the only affirmation you have is what you create.

What mistakes did you make and what did you learn from them?
Mistakes are plentiful. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to make them. (Sometimes, it seems, numerous times a day!) I am big on metrics and informal evaluation, and I use this in all areas.

I disengage from those people who sap my energy or frustrate me. I also surround myself with close friends whom I respect and learn from all the time, just by being around them – and whose personalities make me happy.

My biggest mistake has been to try to forge paths with people who were having negative relationships with me, and try to turn them around instead of looking elsewhere for positive relationships. I think I pretty much have that sorted now, but I learn all the time.

Also I don’t just trust lawyers and advisers, especially on things that are going to affect me and my kids rather than my co-founders and the business. I double check stuff, and on more than one occasion this has served me well.

Thanks to @victeach, @everydaycook, @150dominos, @silly_billy_boy, @lyrianfleming for their help with the questions.

Sessions today included:

• Australia and New Zealand – performing in the global arena
• Is the current system broken?
• Challenges and opportunities in the global economy
• March to modernity – Asia tomorrow and the rise of the global south

A recurrent theme is the issue of gender equity and boards. Every panel has women participating. Perhaps a valiant attempt to stave off quotas for Australian boards?

But there are some good initiatives in the area of gender equity. For example, a mentoring program for ‘board ready women’ by Chairmen of ASX200 companies.

David Hale gave a whirlwind tour of the global economy and outlook. This included some gems:

on current trends “we could by 2050 have a world in which there are more Australians than Canadians”

Spain next domino? “the problem in Spain is the economic leader is a total idiot”

“Greece has been an accident waiting to happen for a long time” – apparently poor tax collection is part of the problem

His general outlook was fairly gloomy for most of the world, especially UK, Europe and Japan. With emerging nations plus Australia/New Zealand as only

David’s key message was that governments really need to reduce debt and there is going to be a lot of pain associated with that process.

Avril Henry did some straight talking to the assembled (mostly Boomer) audience about the expectations of the GenX and GenY people their organisations need. She outlined how much the next generations expect technology as part of their life and work expectations.

She outlined issues of network amplification effects of social networks and their impact on business environment and culture. Avril’s points about how the forces of fear and command and control are driving away potential employees really resonated for me.

I really hope the leaders at this conference heed her call for greater focus on ‘soft’ skills in management for Australia’s sustainable economic advantage.

Loved how Avril called:

“generation Y – generation WHY? because they always ask this question”

Some good stuff here! Looking forward to tomorrow.

Iconoclasts are the people who tear down the idols of faith. Traditionally this has been a religious activity, but the growth of a secular society has seen the development of secular idols of faith. And social computing has already developed many of the trappings of a religion, with its own priesthood and idols.

But one of the big learnings of recent times is that experts don’t always have all the answers and that we can learn a great deal from engaging in sharing of knowledge for general benefit.

Admittedly, in some cases, only an expert will do. Some examples: if I’m having brain surgery a group of opinionated and gifted amateurs is not who I want on the case; nor do I want my accountant or lawyer to be inexpert.

But in the case of emerging applications for social computing there are not really any experts. There are people who know enough to give a perspective of the technology, the affordances of that technology, and possibilities inherent in it. But once that is out of the way there is a lot more value in shared discourse than in monologue.

I often facilitate sessions with educators and we discuss how social computing is changing the landscape for both teachers and students. And I always come away from those sessions humbled by the amount that I learn.  Not because these people know more.  Rather it is because they are inquiring and asking questions.  It is in the questions and attempts at solving real world problems that we uncover new approaches.

Real people sharing experiences, prompting new ideas and the connecting of dots drives experimentation and adoption of new ideas and new ways of doing things in social computing.  This is no clearer than in the various coffee mornings (e.g. NSCM) around Sydney, where people sit and talk over coffee.  They share ideas and experience and many come away energised and buzzing with new ideas to try.

But missing from the equation in social computing (or what some people call social media or new media) are the people who are willing to identify the secular sacred cows and call bullshit.

Too many of us are sitting at the feet of the experts (or gurus, ninjas, rockstars, gods and goddesses) waiting for them to deliver the answers from on high (possibly on the new HP tablets if not stone tablets).

Perhaps it’s time for some more social media iconoclasts?

The interesting thing to consider is what low cost things can be done to encourage innovation. Because innovation is less about money and resources than it is about mindset.

What kind of environment supports innovation?

I’ve worked in many different kinds of organisation – including large and small private sector enterprises, government, education and not-for-profit – and the one thing that flowed through is that innovation is less about resources than it is about mindset.

Environments where people are micromanaged and failures punished are not conducive to innovation – fear rarely makes people look outward to develop new ideas.

The kind of places I’ve seen innovation flourish have been ones where managers were comfortable to let people put forward ideas. Places where failure was not fatal to one’s career and where giving it a try was part of the culture.

One of the most innovative workplaces I ever worked in was a not-for-profit. We had little money but our Executive Director was a very smart woman who surrounded herself with smart people and let them do their thing. Sure, she set boundaries for us. But we were able to try many different approaches to business and technology under her guidance.

The interesting thing was that under her leadership the other managers reporting her also gave leeway to new and experimental ideas.

The other innovative workplace was a very large global multinational. Innovation was seen as part of our job there and, again the leadership of the company reinforced the message that new ideas were welcome. Funnily enough we did not invest a lot of money into encouraging innovation or into piloting the new ideas – only after they’d been proven was money available.

For me innovation is something that bubbles up within an organisation if management allows it. This does not mean that there should be no parameters around meaningful innovation for that particular company or industry. But in my experience it is management who set the tone for innovation within an organisation. If managers don’t support innovation it will be still-born no matter what innovation programs and other gimmicks are attempted.

A key signal as to how an organisation regards innovation is whether or not they celebrate their innovators. In both the organisations above, successful innovators became part of the corporate storytelling and anecdotes of their ventures became part of the corporate lore.

I will be on a panel discussing Transparency in Business – Risky or Essential?.

The debate will be moderated by Headshift’s Anne Bartlett-Bragg and Robin Hamman and the panel members are Nicholas Gruen (Gov2.0 TaskForce Chair); Sherre Delys (ABC Radio National), and me.

This topic has really got me thinking about transparency in business. It’s very much in vogue these days, with many people arguing for radical transparency. And I’ve been re-engaging with Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies at the same time.

An open society seems to me to be a necessary precursor to transparency; but there are so many barriers to openness and transparency. But then there is the question of who benefits from transparency – how do the different stakeholder groups benefit or suffer from transparency? These are all questions about power relationships and the nature of hierarchical relations.

So much to think about. But the question that keeps coming back to me is “transparency – so what?”