We saw how Web 2.0 technologies can help create ‘virtual’ water coolers. Beyond simply virtualizing though, Web 2.0 can help ‘globalize’ the water cooler, taking it beyond the confines of the office and in the process reap benefits not possible with the humble blue bottle in the corner.
The key is to understand the potential of Web 2.0 technologies, i.e., leveraging of network effects:
Acknowledgment: Web 2.0′s Real Secret Sauce: Network Effects
The web is increasingly becoming the platform binding our lives, and in fact is being shaped by its very users. Having a web site but not harnessing its “water cooler” potential is really a criminal waste of resources. Web 2.0 technologies allows for interactions among large numbers of geographically dispersed but virtually connected people. A significant competitive advantage can be gained by tapping these interactions and the utilizing the resultant network effects constructively by bringing the right kind of people together in the right environment to facilitate great things happening.
Such open networks are also spurring vibrant conversations among employees inside companies and among customers in the marketplace. Smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable happen sooner. Cisco Systems for instance felt that if employees are going to congregate online instead of in person, why not sell the virtual water cooler? For the launch of a recent product, the ASR1000 router, the company used all its traditional marketing tools, such as press briefings, direct e-mail and product data on its Web site. But it added several Web 2.0 pieces to reach a wider audience and also show what the new, high-powered router is needed for. At Cisco’s virtual campus in Second Life, the company gave a stage presentation and then led participants into a building with visual demonstrations of the ASR1000.
A small yet poignant matter to note is that while traditional water cooler conversations reveal the latest gossip and grapevine, global water cooler (Twitter, etc.) conversations talk about pertinent affairs too, just not those at a company level. Both are key to the functioning of a company.
To know what’s happening outside my immediate company gives me a greater knowledge of my specialisation, and access to a network I could only dream of at a physical water cooler.
Still the bottomline remains: companies are not democracies. Social media will deliver little value if it becomes a water cooler din because not all great ideas germinate at the water cooler. Pointless chatter is just as prevalent. Discussions need to be moderated and channeled. Establish mechanisms for the cream of the chatter rise to the top, and sludge to settle at the bottom and drain away. Web 2.0 and social media can’t replace decision making by management, but can be immensely helpful in making better informed decisions.
Ultimately what a global water cooler really suggests is the room of ideas is much big bigger than a war room, office or country. It renders asunder borders of all kinds, and is speckled with great ideas all around.
To manage in the Web 2.0 world is to converse, to listen, to be honest and upfront, to collaborate, to moderate, and constantly watch out for the trends and patterns that always emerge when many minds mingle and mix in the network.
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