Be the Master of Your Online Activity

New Zealand is a "small place" with only 4.5 million people. We are used to knowing each other fairly well on a face to face basis. Rebels are rare here, and they stand out from the crowd very easily. We have a way of bringing into line people who stand out too much, or who try to rise too tall; it's called tall poppy syndrome. It was New Zealand that prosecuted "The Last Western Heretic".

I've been confused for the last five years by the FACT that among the general public, the Internet has hardly caused a ripple. "I love the Internet" they say; because that's the expected response, but then they say, "But I seldom use it." I know that this is not the accepted view but I've actually sat with people and watched them use the Internet. I've asked them to demonstrate what they usually do. The fact is, "not much".

15 years ago New Zealand users of the Internet, and many NZ developers of software and web sites were doing leading edge stuff. Along with Norway and Sweden, New Zealand was proving that countries "on the edge" were enthusiastic about the Internet and how it would change their economic and social opportunities. Following closely behind Canada the NZ government promised us the NZ Digital Strategy to make the age of digital information a key driver of the NZ economy. There have been results that I applaud, but just a few. Government web sites are easy to use, and sometimes informative. The software industry in NZ continues to develop, but it's operating in a little bubble of it's own, disconnected. That's dangerous in a global world.

My interviews with NZ Internet users show me that usually they DON'T JOIN email lists and social networks. When they do join, they are seldom, real that as almost NEVER, active participants. There are THREE active email forums (non-technical) for the public in New Zealand. There have been many others but the all fold for lack of interest. The most successful by far is Canterbury Issues, a relatively new forum using Online Groups.

It can be argued, and I would agree that lack of participation is a world wide issue. The "long tail" of non-participating members of every online social network is well understood. But the situation in NZ is more severe I'm sure. Non-participation on two networks where I'm an active member is about 85%, and the top 5% generate and get 50% of all the attention in the network. In New Zealand I'm comfortable with saying that non-participation is close to 95%. For instance I'm the most highly connected person in NZ, on LinkedIn. I'm very easy to find and get a message to. Only ONE person in NZ has ever been proactive and asked me to join their network. I live in Christchurch. I've tried to build my Christchurch connections, but frankly, it's hard work.

At Christchurch Airport, I met a young Italian man, a geologist by training, who has been working to collect seabed data off the coast, south of NZ. We were discussing social networks, facebook in particular, when he mentioned that he was a member of LinkedIn. That makes sense for a young professional man. His University Professor recommended that he join. Once again that is good news, University Professors should be leading the way in that practical manner. So the young man and I are now connected on LinkedIn and he now has 18 connections. Sadly his Professor only has 8.

When I look at the 600 LinkedIn members in Christchurch, representation for Lincoln University and the University of Canterbury is sparse. Moreover, they are also notable of not bothering to develop their networks.

The Universities will of course counter that they have their own well developed academic lists and forums, regular conferences and departmental meetings. Researchers in any field often know each other both by their publications and by face to face meetings. I accept that. But the University needs to connect with it's community, and social networks would help to make that connection. When a University is talking about downgrading or closing courses, that community connection is even more relevant. There are 80 staff of the University of Canterbury who are LinkedIn members, only 6 of whom have more than 30 connections, the minimal number in my view to begin to have a successful LinkedIn network.

So there is work to do. If you live in New Zealand, here are some places to get in touch online.

Yahoo: New Zealand: (439 Members)

Canterbury Issues: (Discussion about Christchurch and Canterbury only)

Virtual Handshake NZ: (57 Members)

Kiwi Scrum: A NEW approved group for LinkedIn (58 members)

In the process of searching for links for this Blog entry I discovered this very optimistic video about the Tuhoe Digital Journey facilitated by Paul Reynolds. I'm thrilled to represent it here.

John Stephen Veitch
Open Future Limited - You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags New Zealand small place face to face The Last Western Heretic on the edge NZ Digital Strategy Canterbury Issues Online Groups social networks Tuhoe Lincoln University University of Canterbury John Stephen Veitch

The Information Super-Highway Isn't Used

In 1995 New Zealand was like several other small fringe nations, very active on the Internet.  This was driven, in my view, by the isolation we felt, by a need to connect to some imagined centre where better information and expertise might be found.  Connecting to the world was important, at least it was for me.  The Internet was commonly spoken about as the Information Super-Highway, but most of the imagined benefits of that have not been realized.

Both government and business leaders seem focused on the poor quality of NZ broadband. The NZ Digital Strategy has become very narrow compared with the original vision.  I agree that much faster and more reliable broadband would be desirable, but I recognize a different and deeper problem. 

Prof. Lloyd Geering on TVNZ last Saturday spoke about his acceptance of whatever his teachers told him, and of his acceptance of what people in authority said.  Do you remember those days?  I certainly do.  That was me too.  We suffered from an inferiority complex, looking to "Home" or England for people with expertise, we were unwilling to accept the knowledge and expertise of our own people, preferring to buy from overseas people who supposedly had experience that NZ couldn't provide.  Too often New Zealanders could not be recognized as successful at home until they had proven themselves overseas.  We did not understand who we were. 

The social climate in NZ was excessively focused on finding the one source of authority that could be relied upon.  Missing from my early training was the concept of mentors, and the idea of networking.  I had bosses, who could have been mentors, who might have tried to be mentors, but the concept wasn't in my mind.  I developed a journal that I've kept for 35 years, which was my way to find mentors, hundreds of them, most of whom have no knowledge that they helped me.  In New Zealand, probably because of our small population, where everyone knows everyone, there was no great emphasis on networking, nothing like what we can see overseas.  I've recognized these failings in my own life in the last 15 years, with my connection to the Internet, particularly on Ryze, providing the mirror that has allowed me to see myself in a new way.  People on Ryze saw in me, knowledge and expertise that I couldn't clearly see in myself.  That was a gift, that can never be fully repaid. 

When I was first introduced to Ryze by Bala Pillai, it made no sense to me at all.  I didn't join.  Six months later I recognized what a big mistake I had made.  I've been an enthusiastic paying member ever since.  But efforts to encourage other New Zealanders to join Ryze have fallen on deaf ears.  There are perhaps three New Zealanders with successful histories on Ryze. 

My experience on LinkedIn follows that pattern.  When Introduced to LinkedIn I joined immediately, (I try not to repeat my mistakes) but for a long time it was just a directory service.  Ryze was so much better for talking to people.  In comparison the people on LinkedIn seemed shallow and inexperienced.  But networks change, the services any network offers are likely to improve, membership grows and the experience of the members develops.  In the five years I'm talking about Ryze went from 200,000 to 350,000 members, and LinkedIn from nothing to 19 million.

There are 730 NZ members of Ryze.  In contrast there are about 8000 NZ members of LinkedIn, but of those only a tiny number are active.  People understand enough to join, but having joined, they didn't know intuitively how to use it.  That was exactly the situation I found myself in.  It was my connection to Bill Vick on Ryze that forced me to look seriously at LinkedIn. Bill Vick is the author of "LinkedIn For Recruiting" and lives in Dallas.  Des Walsh of Tweed Heads, NSW, Australia also on Ryze invited me to join a LinkedIn discussion list on Yahoo.  Slowly I was educated about some of the ways people were finding LinkedIn a practical and useful business tool.  Today I'm an enthusiastic advocate. 

Of the 8000 NZ Members of LinkedIn only 18 people have more than 500 connections.  550 have in excess of 100 connections.  But the mean number of connections over all NZ members is a number less than FIVE.  For people with only 5 connections, LinkedIn is not going to be an effective tool.  Even with as many as 30 connections LinkedIn is only beginning to be useful.  Restrictions on what LinkedIn will let me see (Limit 500 entries) prevent me from producing better NZ data. 

I can however produce more detail about Christchurch, my home town.  Christchurch members of LinkedIn are now about 500.  The median number of connections is closer the THREE than four.  12 people have more than 100 connections.  If we take 30 connections as the beginning of LinkedIn being useful as a tool, another 39 are able to experience that.  For the 250+ people who have fewer than 4 connections, "the benefits of LinkedIn membership" remains a meaningless statement. 

The problem behind to poor success rate on social networks is not in Ryze, Xing, Facebook or LinkedIn, it's in our own heads and in the community.  There is a lack of social permission in the community to be strongly involved in these networks.  People don't appreciate why anyone would need to do that.  To make any social network an effective tool in your life you need to learn some skills that are not widely distributed in New Zealand.  For instance of the 18 people on LinkedIn with 500+ connections, 8 were born and educated overseas, 3 have considerable work experience overseas, two completed their academic education overseas.  I'm one of the other 5.  My reason for being in this company is the first web site I built, New Zealand Dances, dating from 1995.  To build that site, I relied on networking with dancers all over the world, over 700 of whom contributed to the site.  Long before good search engines and before social networking became popular I was enjoying a cooperative and helpful Internet experience.  The business failure of NZDances was a great loss to the dance industry here.  Few people understand what they lost.  There were over 700 pages in the site at it's best.  There are more than 62 pages on the Way-Back Machine.  (search for www.nzdances.co.nz)

John Stephen Veitch
Open Future Limited - You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags New Zealand Information Super-Highway NZ Digital Strategy Lloyd Geering LinkedIn Bala Pillai Bill Vick social permission Des Walsh NZDances www.nzdances.co.nz Way-Back Machine John Stephen Veitch

Learning by Using the Internet

How do we learn anything? We learn on the playing field, we learn by doing it, we learn from our friends and associates. So YOU learn about the Internet by using it and often by trying out new things your friends told you about.

How does your BUSINESS learn about the Internet? Too often it's by employing someone with a very technical disposition, someone with a precise sort of mind, to take care of the details. So she/he builds a website, an Intranet and a perhaps some databases for "company knowledge". This is a fair bit of work, but it usually achieves very little and sometimes nothing at all. While the company is "on the Internet" company knowledge of the Internet is close to nil. While the company has an Intranet, it's badly supported, disorganised and employees try to avoid it rather than use it. As for the "Knowledge Base", it's cost a lot of money and is drives nothing at all.

What's wrong here? Essentially the people who work for the company are not in the picture. Executive staff are left out, supervisory staff are left out, and the people at the coal face have no part to play. What is the company learning? Where are your companies ambassadors? Where are the connections to new ideas and knowledge that will drive future innovation? Where is the ongoing learning for each staff member? In a global economy, where are your companies connections to the world?

The MAJOR failure is that both companies and government have neglected the learning opportunity that the Information Super-Highway was supposed to bring us. I've been a severe critic of the NZ Government Digital Strategy. Nothing changes with the "Dec 2007 Refresh" A focus on broadband and on software development, won't do anything to help New Zealanders overcome their dismal failure to use the Internet effectively. What's missing is a social and educational programme that's well funded, that I was calling for 5 years ago. There have however been some successes. Maori have a presence on the Internet, and generally the quality and functionality of government web sites is excellent. (Would somebody tell site designers that ALL URL's should be very close to permanent. We forever go to government sites to see "This item has been moved". Why?)

It is my hope that this Blog and the Open Future web site and my connections with colleagues in New Zealand and across the world can help bring the value of the Internet into the business world.

John Stephen Veitch
Open Future Limited - You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags Ryze confidence learning conversation not knowing broadband Knowledge Base New Zealand Open Future new ideas innovation Learn ongoing learning global economy Information Super-Highway Digital Strategy, executive John Stephen Veitch

Learning on Ryze

Balla Pillai introduced me to Ryze in 2001, Ryze was new, I couldn't see the point. I didn't join. I did join in 2003. Ryze had been through a big growth spurt, and the networks were buzzing. Generally I found the business focused networks were a waste of time, but the help networks were helpful and the political networks were informative. 500 Citizens was a joy, and Sans Fronteirs was a delight. Then we had an unfortunate election in the USA. The mail on the political networks became accusatory, entrenched and repetitive. There was no discussion going on, only flag waving and banner parades. There was little value in that.

Like others, I've found my experience here has forced me to learn more about things I was relatively uninformed about, Cuba and Venezuela for instance, but also the American political and social system. That knowledge has increased my confidence.

Posting my ideas in a public forum and seeing the response from others, and feeling my own strength in defending my position, has taught me a lot about myself. It's helped me define who I am, and what's important to me. Slowly I've found the courage to say in public many things I've privately come to believe, but I'd never heard expressed. To my absolute surprise I often found other people agreeing with me on those points. It's really encouraging to know that your most wild ideas are not perhaps without foundation, and that in the future some of these dreams might become real.

Posting to Ryze and other networks has increased my ability to put together my own ideas, and to have confidence in expressing them in public. I now know that I can stand my ground when I'm right, and I can concede ground easily and freely when I'm wrong. In both cases I'm a winner. I've been re-educated and I've been able to change my mind about lots of things over time. To some extent that has changed what I think, what I deem to be important and to some degree I guess, who I am.

If you are capable of being non-dogmatic, if you can allow yourself not to know, and keep open the ability to doubt and to reconsider, if you can postpone the desire to choose your "truth" before the evidence is in, these discussions offer you a great deal. You can learn, you can change, you can become more powerful as a person.

John Stephen Veitch
Open Future Limited - You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags Learning Ryze Balla Pillai help networks political networks my confidence public forum who I am ability to doubt my own ideas change my mind non-dogmatic choose your truth John Stephen Veitch