Podcasts about Web 2.0 and nakedness

Listened to some more podcasts on the We are Smarter website.

The first one is an interview with Ross Mayfield, “prominent blogger, co-founder and CEO of Socialtext”.

He made an interesting remark about “the overall pattern in Web 2.0”. It’s: Share the control to create value.

He pointed to two general best practices in this area:

1. Refer to ‘customer stories’ on the Socialtext website for examples.
2. And the wikinomics website on which everyone could collaborate to write the last chapter of the book. This is planned to be published soon!

Later on he explained the ‘Inside-out approach’. There is a company that was using a wiki for internal product management and as a knowledge base for their callcenter. As they were developing, they asked why this information shouldn’t be accessible for the rest of the company, and even make it public. So they went on to open this wiki up. In this way all company employees can look in the database and help solve problems. Even customers that have problems can look for problem solvers, but also contribute to solving other’s problems.

The other podcast was an interesting interview with Barry Libert (co-author of ‘We are Smarter than Me’) about “the naked organization” (as opposed to the secret organisation). The naked organization is about being open to customers to get them to collaborate with you. Tapping into ‘the wisdom of the crowds’. The Internet is driving this trend.

What are tools and tactics for companies to be more naked? It’s easiest for small and mid-sized companies to be more open. But, whether a companies small or large, start small. Start trying. Use Facebook internally, for instance. After you have enough experience, turn it externally.