How Pacquiao Could Counter-Punch Bad PR Using IA

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Roan Yong

Manny Pacquiao, the eight time boxing champion in different class, was forced to defend himself for his stance on “gay marriage” issue. He emphasises that he is not against gay people (or gay behaviors for this matter) – but he is against gay marriage, a view that reiterates his Catholics faith.

Poor Manny! He is just a nice guy who is caught in between a horrible journalism and Catholics faith. He could have ducked this whole mess, if he exploit the different understanding that people have on gay marriage and re-define the term in his favor.

How Social Media Could Create PR Nightmare

What a PR mess that Pacquiao got himself into. This is one of the dark-sides of the internet / social media, i.e. the power to create PR havoc. All it takes to “light the fuse”, is to extract the (negative) emotional element out of its context, and spread it across multiple social-media channels like Twitter and Facebook.

That’s why I’m not so surprised when I learn that the recent Ferrari crash incident – involving a successful foreigner from China and a Singaporean cabby – was turned into an anti-immigrant rhetoric. Emotion can be made viral. Hard facts can’t.

During the interview, Pacquiao did not mention about the infamous verse (Leviticus 20:13) that implies gays must be killed. What Pacquiao did, was simply saying that gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed. Isn’t Pacquiao entitled to his opinion just like the rest of us? Has being religious become out-of-fashion in modern society?

Thankfully for Pacquiao, he did a damage control. He clarified his statements publicly. I think bringing the context back to the (misquoted) statement is the smart thing to do when you find yourself in similar situation like Pacquiao’s.

Pacquiao could do better if he understand the discipline of Information Architecture (IA).

Gay Marriage Is a Wrong Term. Civil Union Is The Right One.

Same-Sex Union Can't Be Labelled "Marriage"

Andy Ho argued that gay marriage should be called “Civil Union”. (Source: The Straits Times, 19 May 2012)

At the heart of the uproar, is the different perspectives about the term “gay marriage”. Some people see gay marriage as an equivalent to the traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Some people like Andy Ho from Straits Times and I, opine that gay marriage is equal to a civil union.

The different understanding about a term can cause confusion, disagreement, and frustration. If you ask me, whether I support gay marriage, I would say no (I’m not a gay-hater. I just think that there is no such thing as gay marriage). But if you ask me, whether I support a civil union between people of the same gender, then I would say yes.

Why my responses are different for issues that are seemingly similar? Well, I’m not alone in this contradictory behavior. Words are multi-faceted and thus are slippery. Thus, when people from different background collaborate, there are always frictions caused by the different understanding from the same words.

Yet, words can be used to unite people. To facilitate collaboration and co-creation, people must have the same understanding on commonly used words/terminology. This can be achieved in two ways. First through strong culture. Second through IA study, i.e. call a meeting, get people to do card-sorting exercises, and then decide on the right terms to use.

Back to Pacquiao. To minimise the PR damage and to project a positive image of himself as an intellect, he could have said, “I support civil union between gays/lesbians – but not gay marriage. Marriage is sanctioned by god to be the union between a man and a woman.”

The above extrapolated statement is powerful because he will not be seen as a gay-hater (the statement clearly said that he support a civil union) and he can defend his Catholics belief at the same time.

Indeed, clearly defining terms could save you from a PR nightmare, could salvage relationships, and could win over people. Information architect to the rescue!

Thoughts?

Want Change? Use Video

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Roan Yong

Okay, hands up if you’re struggling with making change within your organisation?

The greatest challenge in the change management is making people care about the message that we are telling them. This isn’t an easy thing to do – especially in organisations, where people are swamped with daily work activities.

Most people just want to get on with their daily routine and maintain status quo. It’s not that people are lazy. They just need to be convinced that the change is worth their attention and energy.

So the question for us – the people who roll-out change in organisation – is how to grab people’s attention and tell an engaging story. To me, the answer is by launching great marketing campaigns to initiate the change effort.

Posters and a website are the foundation for a good marketing campaign, because they create greater awareness and inform people on the reason behinds the change effort. To have a great marketing campaign, however, you need to produce fantastic videos.

The Power of Videos

In recent years, more people and organisations are using videos as a change management tools, because videos are the best medium to store and convey stories – especially the emotional elements of the story.

Take for example, KONY 2012. It is a successful viral campaign that calls people to take (simple) action to stop Joseph Kony. (if you don’t know who he is and you don’t care, then I was at the same boat with you – before I watched the video clip below).

Here is another brilliant example of the use of video as a storytelling tool: the trailer of the movie, Prometheus. By using real event brand – TED – and projecting it into the future, i.e. year 2023, we are unconsciously drawn into the story. It’s akin to getting invitation to participate in the future – told by the movie.

Why the Adoption of Video Has Accelerated

The use of video has been increasingly important over the years, and will be critical in change effort in the future, for at least two reasons. First, the effort and cost to produce and to host videos have been steadily decreasing over the years. Second, the technology to support the consumption of videos, such as broadband internet, mobile platforms like iPad / iPhone, and sharing tools (i.e. social technology) is widely available.

Even within the organisation, the infrastructure for hosting videos can be easily acquired and it is now more affordable to invest in such technology. In sharepoint 2010-based intranet, you can consider Kontiki enterprise to host and distribute videos.

In short, the time is ripe to make use of video as the leading tool in change initiative. By not investing time / effort in producing videos and not investing in infrastructure, organisations are making change more difficult. And these organisations are not agile, are less innovative, and will get left behind.

Thoughts?

Further Readings

Bailyn, E. (19 March 2012). The Difference Between Slacktivism and Activism: How ‘Kony 2012′ Is Narrowing The Gap. Huffington Post

Tsukayama, H. (10 March 2012). Kony 2012: The Anatomy of a Viral Campaign. Washington Post.

Suddath, C. (16 March 2012). Five Reasons the Kony Video Went Viral. Bloomberg Business Week.

Pomerantz, D. (18 April 2012). ‘Prometheus’: When Movie Marketing Goes Very Right. Forbes.

Prometheus Viral Clip: David The Android. Youtube

Singtel’s Transformation And How to Make It Happen (An Outsider’s Perspective)

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Roan Yong

Singtel's bid to become more Silicon Valley, less Singapore Inc

A Snapshot of The Business Times, 16 April 2012.

What’s up Singtel? After a study trip to Silicon Valley, the company reshuffled its senior management team and the CEO, Chua Sock Koong, said that the kind of talent that they would recruit into Digital Life were people from media, internet space and digital space.

Wow! Can a single study trip change the mindset of the senior management? In Singtel’s case, it seems to be. I’m happy for Singtel, not because I’m their loyal customer for the past five years, but because I think they are moving in the right direction for two reasons.

First, Singtel understands that, to be successful in today’s economy, they have to bring-in talents with skills in social media / PR. It is folly to think that customers (employees included) will keep their opinions, on new ideas and on service dissatisfaction, to themselves - when they are highly educated and armed with social media and mobile gadgets. Today’s economy is about co-creation. And Singtel gets that.

Second, Ms. Chua’s philosophy on innovation. She has definitely hit the right tune by looking wide at the whole business ecosystem, to come up with innovative adjacent product / services like AMPed and skoob. This perspective on innovation is advocated by Ron Adner in his book, The Wide Lens: A New Strategy for Innovation.

Don’t get overly excited, however, by the senior management’s good intention to make change happen. They may not succeed because of – you guess it – the middle management’s resistance to change.

To deal with middle management’s resistance and to increase its chances in changing mindset of their people, Singtel has to do two things well.

1. Promote the right people, i.e. people who share the senior management’s views and are able to translate their vision into day-to-day actions, and convince everyone that the change is the right thing to do via dialogue and focus group conversations.

2. Adopt social organisation model. Singtel has taken a huge first step in being a social organisation. It has Expresso – Singtel’s internal Facebook, and blogging and sharing platform.

Expresso is certainly a laudable effort in stimulating quality conversations among employees and cultivating internal communities.But, to make it work, Singtel has to think about social intranet strategy, i.e. how to have user-generated contents, how to store/retrieve contents easily, and how to maintain the quality of contents in the intranet.

Social intranet strategy has to be accompanied by social media strategy. To strengthen its social media effort, Singtel have to think about connecting with customers via online conversation – especially in Twitter, because Twitter is the king when comes to real-time digital conversation and tracking the reach of the conversation / measuring online influence.

Singtel got to act fast, because Starhub has been tweeting for awhile now!

Singtel's Twitter account (as of 22 April 2012)

Starhub's Twitter account (as of 22 April 2012)

When the proposed transformation is completed, I believe Singtel would become a more customer centric organisation than it has ever been and a truly exciting multi-national company.

Thoughts? Agree / Disagree?

Greg Smith, The Secret of Viral, And The Chamber of Engagement

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Roan Yong

This article was published in Social Media Today on 18 March 2012 by the same author.

Check this out: Greg Smith, a vice president in Goldman Sach, posted the reason for quitting his job in the New York Times. And said that his former boss was at fault for the deteriorating corporate culture. Goldman, he said, cares more about profit than its customers.

Greg Smith stories went viral on the internet. And scores of career consultant throw their hat into the ring by offering opinions on career management. Did Greg Smith commit a career suicide? You bet. Whatever Greg Smith does in the future, it won’t be related to the banking industry. His banking career is over!

I totally agree with Amber Mac, a respectable career consultant, on why you and I shouldn’t follow Greg Smith’s example. Like Amber Mac said in the article, you should quit your job gracefully when you know it is over. And one way to do so, is to keep your (negative) opinion about the job to yourself. Just because you want to quit, it doesn’t mean you have to burn the bridge.

Since this blog isn’t about career management, I’d like to offer social business’ perspective to Greg Smith’s story. There are two thought bubbles that pop up in my head when I read the story: (1) Why did Greg Smith’s story go viral? What’s the secret sauce of viral stories?; (2) What should be the platform for real conversations between management and rank-and-file staff?

The Secret Sauce of Viral Stories

Greg Smith’s story is by no means unique. Watch the above video clip. And you would see another man, Joey DeFrancesco, who also quit his job publicly. And like Smith’s story, his story went viral in the internet. This begs the question: Why the seemingly ordinary stories of people lives can go viral?

The main reason is empathy. We can empathise with both stories because of the bigger picture. DeFrancesco quits because the unfair treatment that hotel employees usually receive. He becomes the voice of all hotel employees who silently suffers from the gross mistreatment. While Smith quits because the deteriorating corporate culture in Wall Street (read: greed).

Those reasons appeal to many people. And because we can relate to Smith’s story and DeFrancesco’s story, we feel the urge to like or to forward the story to our friend, colleagues, or family members. That’s how the story went viral.

So the secret sauce of viral story is the emotional hooks that the story has. Can you position the story to appeal to many people? Can you make people feel emotional through your story? If you can do that, then there is a high chance that your story will go viral.

Social Intranet is The Right Chamber for Employee Engagement

Greg Smith and Joey DeFrancesco wouldn’t be folk heroes if what they say doesn’t make any sense. Organisations need to do more about employee engagement than just conducting the infamous corporate climate survey.

It is unfortunate that Smith and DeFrancesco used the wrong media to tell their story. In the age of social intranet and social organisation, they could have expressed their displeasure within the corporate walls, i.e. via internal blogs, discussion forum or video repositories.

If they are brave enough to tell their opinion in social media, then surely they are brave enough to share it with all their colleagues. The management could then conduct closed-door honest conversation with the relevant people.

No matter how bitter they are, Smith and DeFrancesco should have given the management a chance to tell their side of the story. By going public, they are killing off the opportunity to do real dialogue between them and the management. The social intranet, not the social media, is the right chamber for engagement and conversation.

Arguably, a real dialogue is only made possible if the management doesn’t punish people for expressing their opinion in the social intranet. But at the very least – you, I, and other rank-and-file staff, should extend our hand and give the management an opportunity to prove that they care about employee satisfaction.

When all else fails, look for another job! Discreetly of course.

Comments? Do you agree with me?

My TEDx Talk: Addicted to Greatness

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Roan Yong

I was honored to speak at TEDx Suzhou on 25 March 2012, at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. My talk is titled Addicted to Greatness: How Gamification Unleash Total Engagement. This talk is an extension of my earlier talk at Barcamp Shanghai on 3 March 2012.

I change the main title because I wanted to focus more on the gamification part, instead of the engagement part. Here is the video of my TEDx talk and the presentation slides. (If you are in China, please click here to view the video of my TEDx talk).

Addicted to Greatness

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You can find the minutes of my talk below.

The Coming War of Engagement

Studies have shown that since 1987, the job satisfaction rate has been steadily decreasing. Among the younger workers (aged 25 and younger), the job satisfaction rate is only about 40%. So more people are disengaged at the workplace.

Disengagement can hurt organisational performance in 3 ways: (1) Higher absenteeism; (2) Lower productivity; (3) Lower creativity. This can lead to massive loss in productivity. It was estimated that nations like Singapore, Germany, and United States lose billions of dollars in lost productivity.

Far and away the best prize life has to offer is, the chance to work hard at work worth doing. Theodore Roosevelt

More importantly, we need to engage because engagement cultivates talent. When people are engaged in their work, they have the energy to put in 10,000 hours of deliberate effort that can transform them to be talented people. However, once people become talented people, they can be disengaged. So engaging people must take priority over bringing talented people in.

This means the war for talent is over. To be successful, organisations have to win the war of engagement. Organisations have to figure out ways to maximise the motivation and creativity level of their people, so that they can have Steve Jobs and Jeremy Lins among their rank.

To win the war of engagement, organisations have to do one thing right: making work meaningful. Organisations have to blur the line between work and play.

Gamification and How It Can Be Used to Unleash Total Engagement

According to Malcolm Gladwell, there are three ways to make work meaningful: (1) Autonomy; (2) Complexity; (3) A link between effort and reward. The third way, a clear link between effort and reward, also means making progress visible – something that Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer Advocates in their book: The Progress Principle.

Autonomy, Complexity, A link between effort and reward, and Progress visibility are the elements of fun and the keys to total engagement.

One way to bring out all the elements of fun, is through gamification. Gamification is the use of game design techniques and game mechanics to solve problems and to engage people.

When we play games, we are totally engaged to the point of obsession. Games are so addictive because the game designers embed game mechanics in the game.

The game mechanics are none other than the elements of fun that we talked about earlier. In games, we have: (1) Autonomy, i.e. we can defeat the enemy in any way; (2) Complexity, i.e. we develop skills just-in-time to defeat the enemy; (3) A clear link between effort and reward, i.e. we get points, artifact, and other virtual goods once we defeat the enemy; and (4) sense of progress, i.e. we know how far we are in the game.

Underlying these game mechanics is the build up of confidence / self-belief. Games build confidence. In games, there is always someone / something who guides us and believes that we can fulfill our destiny – despite the adversity that we face.

Gamification isn’t a fantasy. It is enabled by web 2.0, cloud technology, and mobile platforms (e.g. iPad, iPhone). With these things, for the first time in history, we are able to collect and analyse big data – which is the lifeblood of gamification.

And our world is increasingly gamified. More organisations like Amazon.com, Linkedin, Salesforce.com, Nike plus, are gamifying their business so that they can engage their people and their customers.

Allow me to use Salesforce as an epitome of gamification. In Salesforce, you can find:

Goals – a function that triggers two elements of fun: autonomy and complexity.
Points and achievements – function that trigger another element of fun: a clear link between effort and reward
Progress bar – a function that gives sense of progress.

To make gamification work, all elements of fun have to be used. Tencent weibo (qq weibo) is the poster boy for gamification gone wrong. Despite its fantastic point system, i.e. badges, levels, and points – qq weibo fails to inject meaning into their point system because they don’t have goals. A fact that is made worse by the ranking model (it is based on the number of followers – not on points).

Nike Plus is one of the best examples on injecting meaning into the point system. Nike plus did so well because they understand what the community of runners needs. Nike plus know what the people want, i.e. setting personal goals, improving your performance, training smarter, etc.

Point system isn’t the essence of gamification. The build up of confidence is.

Gamification can unleash engagement because it offers an array of tools like goals, points, badges, achievements – to build confidence so that people can focus and achieve their personal goals.

Smart organisations use gamification to engage their people and to maximise the motivation and creativity level of their people. With an engaged workforce, organisations can increase innovation and improve productivity by leaps and bounds.

How Gamification Leads to Maximum Performance

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Roan Yong

He kept saying great things. You will have a great fight. You will do splendid. You look great. You are looking better. He kept giving me compliments and compliments about everything that I did. - Mike Tyson talking about Cus D’Amato -

Listen, you can change your life. Your family life. You can become something that is very special. - Cus D’Amato -

I love watching the above video clip. D’Amato builds Mike Tyson’s confidence and he turns him into a great boxing champion.

In basketball, I see a similar thing happening. D’Anthoni trusts Jeremy Lin’s ability, gives him confidence and opportunity to shine. And Lin took the opportunity and rise to NBA stardom.

No doubt, D’Amato and D’Anthoni are world class trainers in sports. But I think building confidence is the first thing that great mentors, in any field, should do. Too bad organisations have to many bosses and to few mentors.

In the business world, people talk about Key Performance Index (KPI) and disregard confidence. And that’s a real pity, because confidence is a premium factor of performance in any kinds of work. To meet or exceed business KPIs, you must first have confidence to do so.

Whose Job Is It to Build Confidence?

Now, you may ask, whose job is it to build confidence? The answer would depend on who you ask. Bosses would say that they expect their staff to be self-motivated (read: solve your own confidence issue). On the flip side, staff usually expect their boss would help to build their confidence (read: please help me to be confident).

On either side, the expectation is inflated and unrealistic.

Over the course of their work, rank-and-file staff often face hurdles or disagreement with their boss that knocks their confidence down. Although, the good people can motivate themselves and try again, too many knocks on confidence could lead them to give up. People, no matter how tough they are, can be demoralised. And they need help to regain their confidence.

Expecting the bosses to continuously build their staff confidence is also unrealistic. Pressure to produce results often means the bosses can’t afford to make mistake. Once the fear to make mistake sets in, the bosses don’t have the time and energy to build confidence in their team. Bosses, afterall, are just human.

So what now? The job of building confidence is practically in no-man’s land.

Gamify Work to Build Confidence

Perhaps a third party intervention is needed. Gamification of work is requried. This doesn’t mean that we all should play games at work. But rather gamification is about applying the principles of gaming into the business world.

The interesting fact about game is that it builds confidence. If you play game, you would notice that gamers start at level 1 - a level in which you don’t know how to do anything. But as you progress in the game, you gain more confidence on your ability and on using the right skills to achieve the goals.

Game mechanics is the secret mechanisms that builds confidence. In games, you earned points, badges, level ups, artifacts, and other virtual good. All these virtual stuff are in fact some sort of compliments that you get for everything that you did right. If you did something wrong in the game, you would die. But, you learn something when you die, you are making progress, and you have an opportunity to try again.

When work gets gamified, all of us can inculcate self-belief and have the privilege of receiving many compliments – just like Mike Tyson had. All of us can become champion in our line of work!

Comments?

Note: This is a prelude to my TEDx Talk: Addicted to Greatness: How Gamification Unleash Total Engagement. Stay tuned if you want to find out more about how gamification builds confidence.

In the meantime, you may want to watch another video clip of Mike Tyson. Pay special attention to 2:40 onwards and between 3:06 and 3:41 - that’s how D’Amato implants self-belief in Tyson’s mind.

Want to Uncover Linsanity? Use Big Data

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Roan Yong

Much has been written about the Harvard-graduate, Asian American, Knicks’ point guard, Jeremy Lin (a.k.a. Linsanity) and his sudden, spectacular rise from obscurity to stardom. Everybody, from the media to the bloggers, is captivated by his “linderella” story.

I think the main reason behind Linsation is that we all saw a piece of ourselves in Jeremy Lin. I mean, how many of us longed to be recognised in our work? How many of us are dying to be given that one opportunity to showcase our god-given talent?

All of us want to have our “Jeremy Lin” moment, i.e. the magical moment where all our hard work paid off. Alas we may not get our chances because of prejudice against our gender, race, or religion, or perhaps because of perceived lack of experience.

Frank Deford asked this question in Sports illustrated: how many “Jeremy Lins” out there who never got their chance? I asked the same question in my head. I think it is a sad fact and unfair to write people off without first, giving them the opportunity to shine.

I reckon millions of people around the world change their job, become “zombies” at work (translation: completely disengage with their work), or become depressed because they never got the chance to show what they are capable of.

Wouldn’t the world becomes a happier place to live and to work if everyone has their “Jeremy Lin” moment? I believe so. In fact, I would argue that to succeed in today’s economy, organisations have to uncover the invisible Jeremy Lins within their workforce, to improve productivity, increase innovations and retain talents.

Relying on the big data to uncover more Jeremy Lins

The key to uncover the hidden gems at the workplace is to rely less on instinct and more on numbers. Let’s face it, no one could tell in consistent manner, who would be the best man for the job / the task. We have cognitive bias such as the Halo effect that impair our judgment when comes to picking talents.

Fairness (or the perception of it) is another reason to use numbers to uncover talent and to assign tasks. People are more receptive when they are told that they don’t get the job because they are short of the necessary statistics, than because they are instinctively disliked by the management.

Believe it or not, numbers were used to predict Jeremy Lin’s rise. Ed Weiland, an amateur number cruncher, foresaw the incredible rise of Jeremy Lin. Amazingly, he even predicted that Lin would score less when Anthony Carmelo (the star player) returns to Knick’s lineup.

The technology to collect and analyse big data is already here. Web 2.0 enables us to track performance / work activities and to instantly number-crunch the data. This means we can derive a new perspective from the work that we do. For example, Linkedin offers InMaps that allows you to visualise the relationship among your communities.

Furthermore, more people like Ed Weiland, now can have opportunity to learn and can gain access to business intelligence software such as QlikView (free). This trends is going to further increase, thanks to the ubiquitous mobile platforms like iPad / iPhone, the cloud technology and the decreasing cost of the software over the years.

So for the sake of happiness, and for the sake of innovation and productivity (translation: profits), organisations have to use the big data to analyse the performance of their staff and to assign challenging work according to their best ability.

Only then we can have more Jeremy Lins and less disgruntled zombies at the workplace.

Thoughts? Comments?

P/S: I’m learning how to be a Chief Data Scientist, so that I could harness the power of big data. It’s time for you to learn business analytic too. There is a pent up demand for people with deep analytic skills.

The Pursuit of Happiness: How Gamification Unleash Total Engagement

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Roan Yong

I was in barcamp Shanghai on 3rd March 2012, to give a talk, titled the Pursuit of Happiness: How Gamification Unleash Total Engagement.

In this talk, I shared how engagement has become the new competitive advantage. Alas, many organisations are clueless about engaging their people. This is about to change, however, thanks to a new emerging field called gamification. Successful organisations are those who know how to gamify the workplace to engage their people.

Here is the video clip of my talk.

And here is the presentation slides

The Pursuit of Happiness

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If you like this talk, then stay tuned. I will come up with a more exciting version of this talk for my TEDx talk this month.

How Google+ and Twitter Whack Facebook in the Nym Wars (Or The Case for Established Pseudonyms)

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Roan Yong

This post was published on Social Media Today.

Finally! In a stunning reversal, Google listens to the internet crowd and allows the use of established pseudonym in its Google plus real-name policy. By doing so, Google follows the footstep of Twitter – who is a long time supporter of pseudonym.

Of course, allowing the use of established pseudonym also means Google and Twitter are whacking Facebook in the nym wars. Unlike Google, Facebook stubbornly cling onto its draconian real name policy. Such tyrant attitude can make Facebook the loser in the nym wars.

The Nym Wars

Nym wars (#nymwars) involve not only the major web 2.0 players, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, and Google, but also people who needs to manage online engagement platforms (i.e. discussion forums, blogs, webinars, Twitter townhall, etc). Yep, we (KM-ers) are in it.

At the heart of the nym wars, is the dilemma on whether people should be allowed to be anonymous or to use pseudonym/moniker (fake name), or should be forced to use their real name.

On one hand, you want to promote freedom of speech/expression or even to promote a free flow of ideas. On the other hand, you want to promote accountability so that people can give a more thoughtful and constructive feedback – instead of any feedback.

Of course, the million-dollar question here is: whose side you’re on? I used to be a staunch supporter of real-name camp. But not anymore. I’m leaning on the dark side, i.e. anonymous/pseudonym. Though I support a variant of the dark side, called persistent (established) pseudonym - not the real dark side, i.e. a complete anynomity.

Here is why.

The Issues With Using Real Name

The champions of the use of real name are China (the usual suspect) and Facebook (shocking?). Enforcing its real name policy, Facebook disabled Salman Rushdie’s account. Thankfully, Rushdie fought back and won. Others like Wael Ghonim (the face behind Egypt’s Arab Spring), and a chinese dissident Zhao Jing (a.k.a. Michael Anti) are not so lucky – their Facebook account is disabled.

I like the idea of using real names. Partly because, by using real names, people are held accountable for whatever they say. Thus, eliminating the negative side of anonymity: disparaging, irrelevant comments.

However, people may be afraid to speak their mind or opt to sugar-coat every words that they say. In other words, ideas can get stiffled.

The problem with real names doesn’t stop here. Another problem is the complicated nature of our identities. This best illustrated using Lady Gaga example. Lady Gaga is a stage name – not a real name. But the woman prefers to called as lady gaga. The whole world knows her as lady gaga. Could we then insist: ”kindly use your real name”?

The Trouble With Being Anonymous / Using Pseudonym

The anonymous / pseudonym camp is championed by civil rights groups like EFF. They argued that anonymity is required to allow people to freely share their ideas without fear of being reprimanded.

I don’t completely buy this argument. I don’t agree with it because total anonymity also means anarchy. People can give disparaging comment, irrelevant comment, or personal attacks, without any implication. It’s like getting away with murder.

In fact, I believe anonymity encourages spams and trolls more than constructive feedbacks. Look at what happened to REACH portal (Singapore government feedback portal). It is full of rubbish, angry comments! (here is an example).

How Persistent / Established Pseudonym Wins the Nym Wars

Liz Gannes in her All Things Digital article argued brilliantly that the gist of the nym wars is about having unified online identity – which would allow Facebook or Google to analyse our web footprints more accurately across multiple platforms. But Gannes’ article doesn’t fully explain how unified online identity is the key to win the nym wars.

Well, thank God Mathew Ingram plug the gaps in Gannes’ article. In his GigaOm article, Ingram explained that unified online identity, or established pseudonym, allows people to protect their privacy and build reputation at the same time. And when reputation is attached to a pseudonym, people can establish an online identity (distinct from their real name), attract like-minded folks, and build communities around common interests.

This is the reason why Google+’s revised real name policy is a wonderful policy. It is now flexible enough to accommodate established pseudonym. Furthermore, to gain access to myriad of Google tools, you need to have a unified Google identity. So Google is subtlely promoting the use of established pseudonym (yes it is a sneaky but superb move).

Another policy that I like is that of Twitter. Twitter has no real name policy – but acknowledges people for using their real name. And like Mathew Ingram pointed out, Twitter doesn’t need such policy. Pseudonym in Twitter is heavily attached to reputation. To gain reputation/credibility in Twitter, people need to stick with their chosen pseudonym.

I believe established pseudonym is going to be the new norm. And whoever allows the use of it will win the heart and soul of the digital natives.

Randi Zuckenberg, are you listening?

4 Key Issues/Challenges in Championing Innovation

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Roan Yong

I’ve been thinking about Innovation lately. As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking about Innovation since I started working about eight years ago.

I believe key challenges in championing innovation can be summarised into four.

The first key challenge is defining innovation and prioritising areas for innovation in the organisational context. Different people define and interpret innovation differently. Without a common understanding on innovation, the organisation can’t spur innovation. So the challenge here is about creating a common understanding of what innovation means, how to do it, and what the priority areas are. To address this challenge, I suggest conducting focus groups to seek inputs from staff and top management, to merge the definitions of innovation, and to prioritise areas for innovation.

The second key challenge is engaging staff to innovate. According to 2006 Gallup study, engaged staff are more likely to innovate. Thus to spur innovation, organisations will have to engage their staff. Although there is no easy sure-fire way to engage staff, engaging staff is not an impossible feat. Based on my experience, the best way to engage staff is by conducting regular staff communication sessions between staff and top management – for e.g. Townhall meeting – where staff can have a dialogue with the top management on organisational issues and on ideas to improve business processes

The third key challenge is creating safe-fail environments in the organisation. Innovation requires collaborative and supportive environments where passionate like-minded staff can connect, can prototype ideas, and can innovate upon each other’s ideas. Alas, nurturing such environments in the organisational context is difficult. To address this challenge, I suggest cultivating communities of practice, i.e. communities of passionate like-minded people who meet regularly to solve organisational issues. Thriving communities of practice create safe-fail environments that encourage experimentation and give people time to fully develop innovative breakthroughs.

Last but not least, the fourth challenge in championing innovation is incentivising innovation. Rewarding people with monetary rewards or other extrinsic rewards isn’t sustainable, because people will soon demand for bigger extrinsic rewards. On the flip side, giving intrinsic rewards such as recognising and/or giving resources (time and fund) to staff who propose innovative ideas, can spur and sustain innovation. Thus, to address this challenge, I recommend designing recognition system which raises the profile of staff who propose innovative ideas, and setting up innovation funds to provide staff with the necessary resources for innovation.

What do you think? What’s your experience in championing innovation?