I’ve just recently been invited to join to to a group on Linkedin called Internet World – future of social media. Although I’ve registetered myself to many marketing groups on Linkedin, this was the first time I was invited. The organizer of the group, Endaf Kerfoot, got my name from one of his partners / colleagues from the Netherlands, apparently from my presentation on the IAM / MarCom event last June about Web3.0. Me being a-guy-who-likes-to-help-others of course joined and have chosen to really help Endaf to setup up social media marketing for the Future of Social Media brand.

Internet users are spoiled – we have to go into the social comfortzones
!This blog will be the first in a serie to help Endaf to create some attention for the “Future of social media” brand, and is there a better way than to start at the basics? I think many marketeers do not see that the essence of social media marketing is to be social. Although it’s seems obvious, it’s actually not easy, because we people have issues to see things when they’re not obvious. @Kevinrommen on Twitter – someone I’ve met recently on Twitter and in real life – used the analogy that business should see their websites as an accountmanager.

I agree with that! People need to understand that it’s still all about people, especially on the social media. And with the web many things have become easier for us, so we’re getting spoiled all over the place (just think how difficult is was 10 years ago to get news or a holiday booked?). This makes it actually harder for a marketeer to get the customer to his accountmanager, so it’s time to go to your customer into his online comfortzones like Facebook, blogs, Twitter, Linkedin.

We need to be social in the social comfotzones
Before we go lookup our customers in their online social comfortzones, we you stand still for a moment and try to understand what we should be trying to do in those social comfortzones. I’m convinced that the most important word of social media marketing is ’social’. If we’re not social there there is no place for us in the social comfortzones. So what is social all about? The definition of ’social’ :

• A noun in The Free dictionary:
  • “a party of people assembled to promote sociability and communal activity“
• An adjective in the Cambridge dictionary:
  • “relating to activities in which you meet and spend time with other people and which happen during the time when you are not working“

The word ’social’ is similar online as well as offline, but do we ‘act’ social online like we do offline? We should, because according to the words of Steven Covey we keep our same pardigm. But we actually don’t, many of us don’t really behave social when we’re online, so why is that? According to Stephen Covey it’s because we do not know the environment well enough to understand how we can apply our paradigm in the right way. For all the readers, assess yourself on how social you are offline, because if you’re not – then I’d suggest you don’t even try to act social online. Personally I know that I score quite high on the ’social’ scale, if someone else thinks differently, DO LET ME KNOW!

How do I act social?

I guess Marc Zuckerberg - CEO of Facebook - knows how to be social at a party

What kind of behaviour fits ’social’. Let’s see, if I go to a party then I’m doing something social right? Well, it matches with the definitions given above. So what do I do when I’m going to a party? Let’s analyze this from a case that is similar to online: I’ve just moved to a new city and some guys at work tell me to come to this party to have fun. This is what I think I would do:

• I like to have fun – that’s a goal right?
• How do I get my fun at a party? Let’s take the booz for granted
  • I would like to have a great time with some people. So how do I do that?
• First I have to be there and just be present
  • So I have to get there
  • In the best case I can find someone who knows the scene to tag along witt
    • Or else I’m just on my own – even more exciting and challenging
• So I’ve arrived, then what?
  • Of course I’ll head for the bar to make sure that I have something in my hands. Even better, I’ll make sure I’ll have 2 drinks – possibly one to share
  • And after having observed the crowd for 10-15 minutes – hopelessly waiting for someone to approach – I’ve finished both drinks.
  • So I have to go to the bar again and this time I’ve got enough courage to ask someone who looks interesting if he/she wants a drink. So I
    • Poke / nod or do something else that is socially sensible to someone and introduce myself
    • And I would ask that person something to drink
  • The result can go both ways, either my offer is rejected or accepted. Probably after a few times someone thinks I’m interesting enough to accept my drink.
• Now comes the hard part – somehow I have to avoid some inconvenient silences and get a chat going on. By that time I just hope I’ve had enough to drink to make a few jokes that will smooth the chat.
  • So I’m trying to connect with people by conversing with them.
  • For me a good part of this is listening. To quote Paul Arden from his book “Whatever you think, think the opposite“:
    • “In an interview it’s better to listen carefully to what the interviewers have to say than put on a show of your own brilliance. That way they will be interested in you without you saying a word“
  • There’s a big chance the first chats will end within ten minutes, but also a chance that my jokes do find a good spot to land.
• By then the party is well on the way.
  • If I’ve had luck, I’ve found some people to hangout and dance with.
  • If I didn’t have luck, well I’d probably had enough drinks to convince myself that there’s nothing wrong with dancing by myself
• Eventually there’s an end to the party. Knowing myself I had the pleasure of practicing my dancing skills by myself. So I’m left with a dilemma:
  • Was the party worth my time? Wouldn’t I have been better off going online chatting with my friends back home? Or wouldn’t I have more satisfaction from my favorite TV shows?
  • Or do I think that I want to have a social life and I’ll try again next week? Or even tomorrow?

A simple test to see how social we are online

How social are we online?

If you kind of agree with the things I do to be social, then do this test with me:

• If you join a Linkedin group, do you spend at least half of the time checking out other people’s discussions / news?
• Or do you directly head to create your own discussion and to promote your own blog / news article?
• How often do you give a good reply on blogs / news items that were relevant for your interests? Is it more than 5 out of 10 times?

I bet many of you will find yourself answering:

• You spend less than 20% of the time checking out others.
• Most of the times that you come to a group, you think about:
  • getting your question to be answered (give me!)
  • to get people read your message / blog / news (personal branding)
• It’s probably less than 2 out of 10 times.

Now let me show you how I will interpret you if I would see you do this at a party

• You come to the party and start talk / dance / drink or what ever to pull attention to you, you don’t spend a lot of time to observe the crowd.
• You walk up to people and:
  • Ask them if they want to give / buy you a drink
  • Talk a lot about yourself and don’t really listen to their story
• And when you do listen to someone, because he / she has an interesting story, you just leave without giving any reaction.

So do you think you’re social enough online? Who ever thinks their equally or even more social online than in the real world, then please please please give a comment. I’d love to learn how you have found the way to change this asocial habit when you’re online.

But if you’ve come to the conclusion that this asocial behavior fits your behavior online, then probably you’re like 90% of the people online. This kind of behavior is actually very common when we don’t have face-to-face contact with other people, just think of how often you or your friends change behavior once you step in the car (swearing, picking our noses, checking out other people).

Why do I choose to be more social online?
If I do not pay attention I’m the asocial guy doing all of the above. But lately I have come to understand that social media does represent the offline world. Although we do not see people face to face, we’re still talking about people who try to form communities. Understanding this I’ve changed my ways and spend more time giving other people attention online than asking them to help me. And you know what? I do get positive reactions and requests from people to connect with them. Is it worth my time? I do believe that helping others is never a waste of time. But by giving first and not asking something directly, I’m investing in an image of the guy that often gives decent answers on the web. The goal would be the reaction of people thinking ‘That’s Ha Vo again, where did I see him before?’ – being found before I was searched for.

In the past two months I’ve been intensively researching the growth of social networks and have analyzed many researches and I’ve come to the conclusion that the social web is actually like our normal offline world. Just associate the social web like a digital topography of our planet. Just think of Facebook like Rio de Janeiro or New York and Orkut like New Delhi or Bejing. But they just has the potential to be X000% more efficient than it’s real counterpart.

My visions of how the online word will change in the coming 3-5 years (2012-2015)
It’s all about the growth and the productiveness and of the social web. In my opinion the social web will evolve as follows:

• The social web will continue to grow, with more and more Web 2.0 platforms that serve millions of users with specific preferences and niches.
  • We will continuously have the urge to discover more social available resources within those different environments.
  • Probably programmable web will have more than 10.000 Web API’s registered.
  • In the age group until 50, we’ll all have at least 5 Web 2.0 platforms we’ll frequently use.
• There will be solutions to the annoying issue ‘do I really need another account’
  • OpenID will not be enough, it’s too limited and will not evolve fast enough to support standardized interfaces to transfer richn datasets that can be found in the different environments.
  • Websites will often offer authentication support for multiple popular Web 2.0 frameworks. So instead of AddThis.com we’ll have AuthenticateMe.com as a broker service to multiple Web 2.0 frameworks.
• The online social networks will become a surrounding where we gather everything we need / want, much more like the neighborhoods we live in.
  • It’s all about getting more ‘relevant stuff’ in the same amount of time.
  • Besides the ´fun´ and ´social´stuff, we will also include professional related tools and applications.
  • All social networks understand that they have to facilitate an open application environment, like currently Facebook does. Or else they’ll just see users flocking away to other SNs that offer more convenience and facilities.
  • Users between 18 – 40 will be spending on average more than 20 hours weekly on social media. Research shows that currently it’s more than 10 hours weekly.
• Enterprises will understand that SNs offer a every efficient way to push their propositions into the right comfort zone; the right community – the right preferences – the right place – the right time!
  • Social Networks are sticky on mobile. This means users will always carry their apps with them and they expect to be served with as relevant stuff as possible!
  • No more need to advertise, it’s about getting the specific e-commerce spots in the right apps to serve the right crowd, at the right time.
  • Endusers will get better deals, as marketing costs will diminish as offerings are so rightly targeted that the conversionrates will be at least 3-4 times higher than merchants are used to.

Consequences for the giants like Google & Yahoo, Amazon & Ebay & Expedia
The big giants will more and more offer their services through SNs, but that’s where they’ll lose their current leverage. The way people act in social communities can be so much more efficient for ecommerce and ebusiness, that merchants might not need central ‘hubs’ anymore like the current giants.

• Top 5 most visited websites, people are spending more and more time in Social Media.
• Search egines will structurally feel more loss in ad revenues, forcing them to start charging money for their online services.
• But they will redefine themselves and offer specific functions within their API’s that are usefull for social business / commerce and charge money for them. This will of course make them more unattractive – creating a downward spiral: less effective & more costs.
• But the question is – is advanced search really necessary if merchants can connect their e-commerce / e-business webservices directly to the social apps inside the Social Media landscape?

Consequences for online marketing techniques
In contrast to today, social media will make push marketing more attractive. It’s like the art that shopmanagers of  leading supermarket chains possess, how do I position the right product in the right comfort zone to stimulate sales? Like in the offline world, we know where to find shops and restaurants, but what determines where we’ll buy our groceries or have our favorite meals?

• Social media marketing will have overuled bannering & SEO marketing
  • These marketing campaigns do not generate enough return for their investment
  • Online advertising revenue will further drop, opposed to predictions from many researches by many major consulting firms
  • Return on social media marketing campaigns will become easier and easier
• Retail marketeers and shop managers will understand better how they should sell online, than the online marketing agencies who can’t see the similarity between the web and offline business.
• Why the big social networks that are fast enough to adopt social business and social commerce models will really start earning big money and will show why they are worth billions, even more than they’re worth today.

Social commerce will have unique potential to benefit it’s members
Social networks will have such great power as they possess most of the spending time of users online. They might of course decide to go the Microsoft path (first everything is ‘free’ and then you start to pay big money), but I think they won’t. The application evironment will stay open, but probably social networks will understand that their power can be enforced if they will also become ‘dealbrokers’ for their members.

• In the offline world we’ve seen this so often, big organizations can always negotiate special discounts / privileges for their members. So why wouldn’t a SN like Facebook do that for a crowd > 500 MLN people?
  • Just think … what airlines wouldn’t want to give a special discount to a group of millions of people?
• Social media will have have their own commerce API’s and will restrict apps to offer their commerce only through their APIs.
  • With this power SNs can even charge commission over the real sales, instead of pay / clicks.
  • Just imagine billions of business done through the commerce API of
• SNs will understand that better deals will even give them more buying power
  • Just consider the current iBood concept, quite a succes. Now imagine Facebook doing that for their hundreds of millions of users.

Personally I feel that Facebook can become 10 times the value it is today if they see this role they can play to further benefit their users. I mean, their current ads just suck, don’t they? If they would just start with a special deal for travel arrangements, I bet they can kill the likes of Expedia instantly! I think that’s why Amazon is already making deals with Facebook, but who’s got the leverage? If I was KLM, I would already start to talk with Facebook

And about Google, I think they CxO’s do see that this is a threat and that’s why they’re buying / offering all the tools / features that a social network might need. But I still don’t see Orkut beating Facebook.

My vision is not for visionairs but for normal people – we just need more time
Often when I tell my stories I often hear that my ideas are so ‘far away’. Personally I think it’s just a matter of understanding the power of the different Web 2.0 players. It’s like our education, we all have to learn stuff that we don’t really understand how to apply it in our lives. But the idea is that afterwards we have it in our ‘toolkit’ to allow us to apply it later on when we want to generate value for society.

It’s a matter of time before Enterprise 2.0, Health 2.0, Charity 2.0 etc. will also become more real with better results. Then mashups of Web 2.0 platforms will become more common and our society will exponentially function more efficient! If all the European countries that face the ‘ageing population’ issue would just recognize this and start really stimulating 2.0 projects to solve social issues!

A role for Componence in this bright future
@Componence I’ll lead my team to develop the components that will be used by Enterprises who want to create more valuable mashups with social networks. We’ll make it easier for all SME and Enterprises to reap the benefits of popular social media (Web 2.0 & social networks) with the components in our Chameleonsuite.

We won’t be like Dapper, Yahoo Pipes or Gnip. No, we’ll cover the complete technology stack with a backend that will fit an Enterprise SOA into a frontend that will cross all widgets, gadegts, apps platforms! We’re gonna be so cool

Kiva is the example for Charity 2.0, as it has more funding than projects. The cool thing about Kiva, it’s all online, it’s about real people, 100% of money donated to projects really  go to those projects and it has incorporated many Web 2.0 concepts. This is what they say about themselves:

“Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.”

Kiva numbers – how successful are they really?
Kiva keeps it all very transparent, as you can always find the latest statistics on a special page on their website. Just today the following numbers were shown:

With this example you can see that the lenders on average loan $ 143.85 – that’s a lot more than many of us do for charity. But I do believe that we all would give to charity easier if it was really easy and transparent. Kiva has done that and the results just show for it.

An amazing trackrecord – with help of online social networks
Kiva has different integrations with different e-mail address books, but a very strong integration with features of Facebook. The result is a staggering trackrecord of the growth of the cumulative loans of Kiva:

The growth is just unbelievable, from 1 -> 68 MLN in just 27 months – WOW!!!! That just shows how many people are willing to help others help themselves.

Let’s replicate this for other charity organizations!
Helping out Charity gives anyone a good feeling, the core reason why I believe the same concept should also work for other charity organizations. I’ve already started to talk with Treesfortravel, an organization that allows people to compensate their CO2 footprint.  But it can be done bigger, we can even create a SAAS / ASP platform that would allow any charity organization – of course we need to do validations / moderation – to apply for an account.

In the Netherlands alone you have > 1000 charity organizations. And I know many of those organizations are not meeting ends with their budgets. They keep part-time staff, who usually are not paid very well. I personally believe that if these organizations would have an internet platform like Kiva, they could at least get an average 10.000 Euro per year out of it. So 1000 charity organizations would generate about 10 MLN Euro per year, less than 1 Euro per Dutch inhabitant. I think I’m on the low side of the estimation, 2,5 Euro per person might be better, resulting in 25 MLN Euro per year for charity 2.0.

A rough plan – step by step with big thinking
Of course we would start with 1 charity organization and we’ll use Chameleon technology to implement it. We make sure that the application can be ported to most of the big communities like Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, iGoogle & Hyves. And the application would be heavily integrated with the API’s of those communities to facilitate different features like:

• login with existing community account – instead of creating a new one
• easily invite friends with address books and friend lists – no more manual typing e-mail addresses
• posting to walls of your own account / friends accounts
• take  application along into Facebook / Linkedin / Hyves
• taking widgets/gadgets into iGoogle / Facebook / MS Vista / Mac OSX
• Localization of others in your neighborhood

And we’ll be buidling it on the Amazon cloud, to make sure that possible traffic can easily be processed.

Getting startup investments
According to my estimations we need between 200 – 300K Euro in a 2 year period to setup the platform. This is money we don’t have immediately, so we’ll start small. Treesfortravel said they only have a 3-5K’s this year, but would hope to pay back more if coming years allow them to spend more budget online.

Our idea has just 29 votes - the second place.

But there is another way to get 20K, the contest of the ASN Bank – a Dutch social responsible bank – to generate ideas ‘For the world of tomorrow’ . This is the right place to promote this idea, and we’re already on the 2nd position.

Most of the other projects – described in Dutch – are oriented at a much smaller scale, usually targeting to setup 1 specific project at 1 certain location.

Our idea could benefit all the other ideas that have been contributed. So that’s why I personally believe we should be able to win this contest.

The catch of this blog – please vote for my idea
I think with 1000 votes, we might be safe and win the contest. So please help me push this idea, because I think my concept will help other charity organizations with their charity 2.0 ambitions. And if they succeed, then many more people are helped. So please vote for me and take the next steps:

1. Register (it’s in Dutch – but still very easy)
- http://www.voordewereldvanmorgen.nl/site
- only fill in the required fields
2. Click on the first link in the confirmation e-mail that you will get in your mailbox
- the confirmation page will open in your browser
3. Click on the red ‘ Bevestig’ button on the confirmation page
4. Go to the page of my idea – http://www.voordewereldvanmorgen.nl/site/project/442
5. Vote for me by clicking on the thumb icon
6. Scroll down and become my fan
7. Give yourself a pad on your shoulder – you’ve done a good deed today

So thnx in advance for your support and if you’ve read this blog and you do not feel like supporting me, then please at least comment me the reason why you don’t feel like helping people who help others?

And if anyone feels like investing in the idea, then give me a shout in Linkedin.

At Componence I’ve been thinking about social network marketing A LOT lately. The ideas are popping up in my head. The enthusiastic reaction of so many people give me confidence that we’re heading to a bright new direaction with Componence. I’ve even made different business minded presentations about mashups and social network marketing with Chameleon. I mean, if we as a technical solution company can convince marketeers, then our social network marketing ideas must be really good

Let someone else say it
“E-Marketer’s CEO Geoff Ramsey gets at the essence of the issue with his commentary: “If you’re going to build a community, don’t center it around your product, but rather on something deeply relevant to a particular consumer group,” Ramsey said. He also suggested keeping fans of your brand pages happy by giving them a lot of content and letting them share the love with others.” If you want to know more about the article, then read the full article about Social media can be a marketing platform: It starts with brand evangelism

I agree – but proof first that your message is powerful enough
I personally agree with this point. But I think before you think you can have your own community, there are a few steps you can try before spending a lot of development costs on a community that might not pull enough members. I mean, why not test if your message is powerful enough to get the potential community members to come out of hiding from their comfort zones?

I mean, a community is till often the end of many e-commerce / business concepts, with a lot of business models before it. It’s like becoming the CEO of the company you love, it wouldn’t be so wise to just go to the shareholders and tell them that you’ll be their next successful CEO right?

1. Organize a sweepstake contest – to generate sales leads
Create a sweepstake social network marketing campaign that can lead to viral social network marketing campaign. But keep it real! Make sure that

• core message about the action is about true feelings when people think about travelling
• the prizes in the sweepstakes are direct related to travel or can generate
• the response of the client is valuable for sales this year

How can you determine a succes? Well, it should generate more leads than your last leadgeneration campaign, for less costs. And if your contenst was really about your core USPs, then the response – the user generated content – will contain better sales information. So if you’re lucky, you will have:

• less costs
• less printed promotion sent out – less trees cut down
• more leads – let your target group spread the word
• better sales information
• if you’re really smart, the sales information can also be used to create better online content around it
• hopefully a better conversion rate

Wouldn’t your Marketing Director be more happy to grant you more budget to go forward with you community ambition if the above works out? And if it doesn’t work out then there are two options:

• You just or your marketing / advertising agency didn’t pinpoint the USP’s of the concept good enough, then you or they should be replaced
• Or the message is not strong enough and you can save yourself the pain of investing hundreds of thousands in a community that would probably not work any way

2. Easy to share – NO MANUAL E-MAIL TYPING!
Make sure that the campaign is so cool that there is a nice chance of ’spread around’. And make it REALLY EASY TO SHARE. And then get people to vote about it and let the best responses win.

Example: www.weareplaystation.com

• - Slogan is “This is living”
• Can you capture the PlayStation® spirit on your camera?
• How? By uploading images / photos … and just a description
• Sharing options –> 5 communities –> Type emails manually –> No address books
• Available only at the website

I personally would do it differently

• Slogan is “This is living” – Show us how Playstation expands your living and brings it more energy, fun and excitement.
• How? By uploading images / photos … and –> YouTube movies –> Picasa / Flickr series –> A network of friends / family who enjoy living Playstation together
• Sharing options –> 10 communities –> No manual e-mail typing –> MSN / Gmail / Yahoo / Facebook / MySpace / LastFM addressbooks
• Also available as apps in communities –> Facebook app –> Open Social app in MySpace / Orkut

And the prizes … I would give prices that were related more with ‘This is living’ rather than a camera, games or money. How are about a roundtrip of Living in Japan, the home of Playstation?

3. Connect to sales offices
And when it comes to give out the prizes, connect it to the sales offices. The winners might get a lot for free, but the others might be easy to convert with special discounts only that day … or give out coupons.

Example: www.weareplaystation.com

• I don’t think there is a connection to sales offices
• I would organize the announcement of prizes to the local retail
• And give attendees at least coupouns with discounts on Playstation merchandising

4. Follow up and show your appreciation for the response
Eventually if the response is good enough, the user generated content might deserve a follow-up. Let’s say if the user generated content is about favorite locations, then booking agents might write their own reports / specials about it.

5. Show your added value – keep the relationship
If the previous step can lead to something valuable for travelers, they might want to come back to the website where they can find the special information / services. And involve them again …

6. Can you get into their comfortzone?
And if you are really successful in binding the relationships to your values and you can keep the interaction. Then make sure that users of your website can be taken as an app / widget along into their comfort zones (Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle, iPhone, desktop, ..) You can do this my making mashups wiht popular web systems that are already used frequently by your target group

7. And if you’re really successful – then create your own community
This community should definitely show more service and more value, that can be generated by the power of stakeholders who have an commercial interest in the community. So combine user generated content with professional feedback, more sweepstake contests … I personally think e-mail marketing will be replaced by social marketing campaigns. For me e-mail is still a lot of spam, even the newsletters I’ve registered to. But if a friend sends me a message … I’ll look at it, even if it is spam. And if he/she does it too often … I’ll say something about it and it will probably be less.

Of course the above is a lot of talk, I’ll try it myself at Componence and will share real numbers after the summer, once we’ve done a few of these projects. In the meanwhile: be true, be smart and let the social networks do a lot of marketing work for you

Other related articles / content:

• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/twitter/4963780/Facebook-Twitter-and-blogs-more-popular-than-email-report-says.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_marketing
• http://www.foliomag.com/2009/keys-using-social-media-marketing-platform
• http://www.slideshare.net/mstrickland/how-to-do-social-media-right-in-2009
• http://www.slideshare.net/socialmediasquad/social-media-marketing-by-the-numbers
• http://delicious.com/popular/Socialmarketing
• http://www.social-marketing.org/relatedsites.html
• Social media marketing group in Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=66325

Quite some while ago I saw a episode of CSI where Twitter was used to validate alibis and past movements to solve a murder case. But I have not yet seen an episode of House or Medical Investigation, two quite popular american medical ´detectives´ shows, using Twitter. I guess that shows how slow the healthcare branch moves towards online social media. So maybe they should? Isn’t the urgency high enough? What can be more urgent than saving lives?

If you know me well enough, you know that Iwant to see if paths towards certain goals can be made more clear. So this Health 2.0 blog is NOT about the generic approaches and its theories. On the contrary, I’ll try to show ways of reasoning that will the numbers to make a path towards Health 2.0 with a successful more tangible.

Getting into Health 2.0
Since last years end I’ve been challenged by one of my client to show that Componence can really be a partner for them in their Health 2.0 ambitions. It has been quite a journey since then and after having met many people (Egbert van Gelder, Satya Kaliki and Bas van Eijdhoven) and read many articles / blogs (especially the blog of Martijn Hulst), I strongly believe that Enterprise 2.0 can be made very tangbile in Healthcare. But even then it seems that there are a lot of non-enterprise factors that make progress in the healthcare industry actually quite hard.

Health 2.0 can be very tangible!
I’ve compared networking technologies before; military operations use top of the nodge networking / communication because they need it to ensure optimal effectiveness of the soliders in the fields. Soldies need to have as much as information as they can get, to make the best decisions, within the shortest times … to save their own lives as well of their men.

In many theories of Enterprise 2.0 the possible gains are hard to put into metrics, which is a key factor in non successful ROI calculations for Enterprise 2.0 projects. But with Health 2.0 it can be quite easy in my opinion:

• It’s about saving lives – how much is 1 life worth?
• It’s about preventing medication/treatment mistakes – how many costs can be saved by improve medication guarding?
• It’s about decreasing the amount of illness days – wouldn’t the aging society of the old economies benefit from this?
• It’s about improving the efficiency of Healthcare with the patients active involvement.
• It’s about decreasing insurance costs for healthcare, probably the most expensive personal insurance we all need.

Dutch Health 2.0 – no chance with poor communication / ambition?
In the current phase, The Netherlands is busy to setup a national EPD (Electronical Patient Dossier), a place  where all stake holders can access the same information about a patients health situation. But as Egbert told me, it’s just information and the regulation of who can access it. Without any services …

Yeah, so if you start a national project like that, of course there will be many problems and resistance by the people. I mean, when Bush pushed several legistlations to allow federal agencies to intrude into private data of many, the ambition was clear: prevention of 9-11. But what is the ambition / goal of such a EPD?  On the website of the Ministry national healthcare we can find:

“Het is belangrijk dat zorgverleners veilig en betrouwbaar relevante medische gegevens met elkaar kunnen delen. Dat maakt de kans op medische fouten kleiner en ondersteunt de samenwerking tussen artsen beter.”

roughly translated as:

“It is important that care providers can share relevant medical data with each other in a safe and trusted manor. That makes the chance of medical data smaller and supports the collaboration between doctors better.”

I mean, really, any student could have formulated such a sentence. There is not Web 2.0 ambition in it anywhere, it’s plainly Web 1.0 with a central digital information facility where stake holders can read / write. I mean, in a country where it’s people already are complaining about too much regulations, the government should show a clearer benefit than just some words like ‘important‘, ‘chance of‘ and ‘collaboration‘.

Minister Klink should have more balls
Minister Klink is the person who prevented a group of failing hospitals to go bankrupt and saved it with an organized take over. I mean, hospitals are not banks right? Clearly failing companies must go bankrupt, just look at the automotive giants in the US.

As I’ve blogged before, Enterprise 2.0 can only become a success if such projects / visions are lead by leaders who understands and really do 2.0 stuff. So it’s quite logical that with a leader like Minister Ab Klink, who probably went directly from University, through Science, into Politics, healthcare in the Netherlands will not have a 2.0 vision. Just look at his Linkedin profile, it’s really not up-to-date. Probably he read somewhere that everyone is on Linkedin, but failed to understand that a profile is useless unless you really make it complete and do something with it. See … probably he has no clue about what 2.0 is!

I mean, he doesn’t even have a blog. I personally would, especially if I saw how many blogs write about me (over 200.000 results on ‘Ab Klink Blog‘. I mean, a perfect chance to market my self ! Ok, I should stop now, I really did not have the intention to bash Ab Klink when I started this blog. Back to my point … he should have more balls to name numbers that will support his ambition, like:

• From 2011 – it will be publicly visible how often / good the central facilities have been used by the cares supplier, as it will be mandatory to use such systems from the end of 2010.
  • How many consults were there in general vs how many e-consults have been given?
  • How many times did it lead to activity in the EPD?
  • What is the rating for the e-consults / normal consults / availability / communication / after care of this health care supplier?
• By 2012 – every care supplier who makes mistakes, that could have been prevented by appropriate usage of the central systems like the EPD, needs to face consequences
  • Will get on a public list of doctors who had mistakes that could have been prevented.
  • After 2 warnings will get a XXXXX fine, up to XXXXXX Euro
  • Can loose their license if it keeps on happening
• By 2013 – 40% of regular consults will be e-consults, supported through a mandatory online appointment system.
  • Increasing the capacity of total consultations with 10%, health care suppliers can see their income increase accordingly.
  • Decreasing the length of waiting lists with 20%, that should result into additional preventing of fatalities.
• By 2014 – we will have decreased the amount of fatalities by wrong medication with 80%!
  • saving XXX fatalities
  • saving XXXX medical mishabs
  • saving XXXXXXXX Euro’s per year on wrong medication / procedures to correct mistakes
• By 2015 – saving each person in Holland XXX Euro per year on insurance money
  • Saving Holland with XXX MLN Euro’s per year for the whole population
  • While at the same time providing better healthcare.

It always starts with yourself
As I do believe in the possibilities and benefits of Health 2.0, I will start myself (and convince BT to help me) to micro blogging about my soon to be here newborn about his / her health situation. And I will try to push this facility to the doctors who will treat my baby.

And from a professional point of view, I will lead Componence to produce a new Health 2.0 productline for the future portals of hospitals. With such actions I hope that Componence will help many societies to improve their healthcare in order to save lives and improve the experiences of their patients.

A personal note to Mr. Ab Klink
Mr. Klink, if you’ll ever read this blog, please do respond or start your own weblog to show us how you’ve intended it all in your scientific mindset. And if you’re not weary of criticism, do invite me through Linkedin to help you in your process to really do Web 2.0. I mean, just look at what Obama 2.0 brought And if you really want to save some money, don’t give out subsidies for thinktanks that will just write reports that lack the path to execution.

There are many professionals in the Netherlands who would gladly provide the advice for free, saving some taxpayer’s money with it. I mean it’s for our healthcare, including our children! Just send me a message and I’ll organize something for you.

It’s time to let the old year in the past and to look at the new year. Listening to the sounds of the crisis upon us, the disastrous stories about of the great automotive industry, the surreal amounts of money that are necessary to ’save’ the economy, the continuous climate change    … it would almost make you depressed and think that the world has come to an end. That would be such a waste, a crisis like this will give learning and innovation possibilities that will make us all better.

WAKE UP EVERYONE!!!
We are humans, we are the dominating on this planet. We’re not talking about an asteroied crashing into earth or something like that (some even say that such an event created earth). This whole financial system is an invention of ourselves, so we can also fix it! And it’s not the first financial crisis, though it’s one of the toughest, mankind always came on top. All the industries that are now suffering, some will even perish … so what … that’s just another side effect of a competitive market driven economy. If the service or product that a company delivers is not good enough to be bought, then there is just no space for you in the market.

We must fix it ourselves
In times like these help is not easy to get help. We all just have to look at ourselves and reach deep to get the best out of it.  Although  the comparison is fiction, anyone who has watched movies like Independence day or Deep impact or Armageddon understands how a big crisis can only be solved if people join forces to solve the problems. The bigger the problem, the better the solution … only intense collaboration will get you there. Just image … if there would be an alien force coming to destroy earth … would mankind still quarrel about religion and money? When there is a necessity, mankind usually does find a way.

We have done it before
At Componence we did it before, that’s why we got so far. Collaborative innovation, I think it’s called, but actually nothing new. I’m lucky that at Componence there is a sound mentality to collaborate and innovate. Many of my fellow Componence team mates might not see it, but we actually change and learn continously. I mean, we’ve been doing Enterprise 2.0 before anyone of us had even heard about the trend. And it’s definitely working for us, 2008 was one of the years that Componence achieved the most improvements with a very tight budget. A new strategy, stronger and new units and a productline that has never been so innovative.

Urgency is needed, especially when things still look fine
Although the words of crisis are all around us and reach us continously through all types of media, most of us are not really feeling the urgency to do things differently. Why? Because things aren’t really changing for us. As long as we all get paid and have our jobs, the crisis is not really hitting us right? The Netherlands are a decent country, here personel is not asked to take salary cuts like in India or in Ukraine. Of course no company wants to resort to such actions, but would it be better to have a company go down or see more colleagues get fired? No, of course not, urgency is needed to prevent the worse .

That will my mission for this year… to make my people, especially my seniors, rise to the occation. Because regretting that we should have worked harder or have been more pro-active will be useless once it’s too late!

As another year has passed I can say that 2008 has been a unique year with great joys and sorrows. Although some actions may have been more severe than in any other year, I’m quite sure that we all have seen how crucial those steps have been.

Great achievements have been accomplished in Ukraine and India as both teams have grown and improved substantially, allowing us to successfully replace the 50 people that we´ve had in EPAM around this time last year. The closure of our Kiev unit may have been regretful, but it left us a healthy and competitive environment for our Lviv and Jaipur team.

Finally, 2008 allowed us to increase our levels of structure in the fundaments of PIM, enabling us to improve our skills to control our clients. Further challenges lie ahead for us to use our new skills to increase our capability to guide our clients towards portal implementations where standard and custom software are well rationalized with a decent ROI. We are still steady in our path to become a true Enterprise Solutions provider where software reusability and sound investment remain key aspects of our solution offering!

In that mindset I would like to end 2008 as a year where carefully consider the state of the society and to understand how fortunate we still are to have such opportunities ahead of us. There has been no other year like the last where mankind has become so aware of the necessity to live our lives in balance ecological and financial ways with the world around us.

So to enter the seasonal festivities I would suggest you to appreciate the basics in life and to understand that we’re all responsible for the long term success of the communities that we participate in. Componence will not neglect our own possibilities to make our contributions:

• To our communities through different charity projects in Ukraine and India;
• To our environment through compensation of the CO2 footprint that we leave on this earth with our travels;
• To our teams to help you understand that a community can take care of its people and that there is always space for the long term goals.

Shortly more information about our actions will be disclosed on the wiki. In the meanwhile I do encourage you to find your own ways to make your own personal contributions! My own personal contributions:

• Helping out small entrepreneurs in developing countries with micro credits. Kiva has made this easily possible in a very Web 2.0 manner;
• I’ve compensated 46.25 tons CO2 for my own personal usage last years travel through air and on land with Trees for Travel.

Happy festivities and enjoy the precious moments with your family and loved ones,

Ha

Monday evening Yonathan and I arrived in the City of Jaipur. We had just come from Mumbai, from a meeting with Ravan Boddu, CEO of a partner who wants to do sales with us in UK. Upon arriving we found Jaipur to be very tranquil and well organized. Kumar and Naren, the two directors of our Jaipur unit, were there to pick us up and drove us back to the apartment.

Back to basic
On our way back Kumar started to manage our expectations and warned us that the appartment might not be to our liking. But we insured him that we would agree quite easily after having staid at a very small double room at the Kamran Residency in Mumbai. The appartment turned out to be very spacious and had 4 rooms, 2 bedrooms, 1 living room and a kitchen. Kumar was kind of nervous showing us the 2 bathrooms, 1 toilet and the 4 beds that were ready.

Just after we said that the appartment was really fine for the tenth time, Kumar announced us that there was no warm water, but that it would be there by tomorrow. So the next morning I could experience a cold wash, with water from the bucket. The last time I had an unwanted cold shower was in Lviv, Ukraine about 3 years ago. The breakfast was simple, the next day I was all fresh and ready for a hot day at work

Good results from the team
Of course Kumar was proud to show that he had grown to practically double the amount of people working at the office. The additional office space was painted with the same orange / blueish style to match Componence colors.

In the coming days we would find ourselves in different meetings that resulted some clear lessons learned that showed that we in the Netherlands would sometimes behave the same towards our Indian colleagues, like our clients do. And other talks would show that they had the same issue as ourselves; the developers who were not getting the right information on time from our Dutch team also showed the same behavior towards their internal QA team.

Another exiting meeting was the kickoff session for a new product, a caching layer that will allow portals to perform much faster than it is now. This time it was not just a technical talk, but the complete picture was discussed starting from the businesscase. This new product is really exciting, as it’s results can really improve the throughput of any Weblogic or Websphere portal with at least 10 times. That’s solution thinking! The team was really excited about this development, as the whole project will lie in their hands, from requirements to delivery. Of course we’ll help out, but it’s exciting to see if our Indian unit can do total job like this.

And as the week ended we were able to win back some time on a crucial project, I guess we could expect nothing less as most of the days were from 10:00 – 21:00. Yonathan was very pleased to see all the progress and Krishan seemed to be happy too.

Great vegetarian at Urban Bistro

Since last March a small restaurant had settled in the Anchor mall at Jaipur, Urban Bistro. Upon first sight it looked like a small diner, with just a few simple fast food dishes. But after returning for the 3rd time it became apparent to us that the owner knew our unit quite well, we had custom menu’s made for us every time we got in. So after 5 days of vegetarian food we have tasted many delicious dishes from different regions of India. Indian cuisine has a strong vegetarian side and is quite satisfying in this climate. Personally I thought I would crave for at least 1 piece of meat during my stay, but none of such … The place was even so good that we went out to celebrate the birthday of Coen, the support coordinator who is working closely with our Indian unit

It’s Componence time!

And of course the week could not end without a presentation and a company diner. As 18:00 was approaching I could just see every one standing and waiting for Naren, Kumar, Yonathan and me to leave to office towards Hotel Hawa Mahal (wind palace). In March we also had the presentation here and for Yonathan it was a trip down memory lane as he was staying at this hotel last time. This time the group was bigger, no more U-shaped conference setup, but just straight rows to give enough space.

And this time I was acquainted with the surrounding and gave a presentation with some new slides about Componence, why we’re so cool, about Portletsuite 1.x and 2.x and some slides about why we need our Jaipur unit to increase their quality and individual capacity.

And probably Yonathan and I performed a good job as this time more hands were shown and there were definitely some people standing up to give some discussion. That´s what we´re aiming for, more initiative! One of the persons that I´ve met during this trip showed me that this unit is really going in the right direction. Sudesh, our system administration, turned out to be a powerful personality who really wants to contribute to this world through his work.

So talks and foods followed, giving me some chance to speak with more of young team members. It was definitely a big releaf to see that here India women do IT!

Ok … that’s all for now, time to go to bed (it’s already 02:23). Tomorrow we’ll hit the road to New Delhi, as Mumbai would not allow our relatives to be at ease. Anyhow, terrorism is a part of life in India and it can happen anywhere. Hopefully just not tomorrow in New Delhi

I’ve just posted my contribution on Change.gov:
“Dear Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden,

First of all congratulations with your historical win and I thank you for the hope and the energy that you have given so many all over the world.

America is the country where the ultimate dream can be achieved, but in any case of balance, it’s also the country where still so many are poor and only live to work so that others can have that dream.

By all means please keep the American dream alive, as it gives the the people all over the world a vision how democracy can work out. But I urge you to find a way to keep the American dream enduring for another 100 generations and not just 10. As a leader of the world America should set the right example in areas that will help mankind to live on this world with longer perspective.

It is time to get America into a nation where

• Every year the bottom line gets better for EVERYONE, while the ultimate American dream stays alive, but maybe the top 5% might have to do it with 10% less and the top 10% might have to do it with 5% less. But still 90% of the current American dream is still a dream that is at least 100% better than the dream in any other country.
• Every year the US gets more independent from natural resources. By only becoming independent, the foreign policy can be more in balance and in grace with other nations. This in itself will give challenging countries like China, Russia, India and Brasil less reason to treat America as a threat. This will eventually allow a more consistent and increasing constructive dialogue between the top nations in the world. Once this is achieved, you can be assured of a better global alliance to fight the forces that want to bring down America as a symbol of democracy and capitalism. Like S. Covey theory, one can best think in win-win when one becomes independent.
• You also learn and benefit from experiences and results in care systems like Scandinavia or the Netherlands. These countries have a very affordable health care system (about 1.500 – 2000 USD per year per person), high education (2.000 – 2.500 USD tuition per year), substantial pension capital (worth 30% – 100% GDP). There should be no threat in taking more examples from these cultures as the American dream is still at least 10 times the dreams of these countries.

But most of all, please keep at least this promise during your Presidency:

“But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.”

Like any president you will also have to do things that you promised not to do and you will do things that you promised to do, that’s the fate of any elected president or political party. But I just hope that you will continue to use the internet to listen to the voice of normal Americans. In the dark days ahead your messages on the internet can stimulate, convince and provide understanding.

Whether you will keep your election promises, time will have to tell. I just hope that he will keep on using the internet to stay in touch with the people that have been touched by you.”

Still trying to get the message out
And when I submitted my message, I was asked to spread the word about this website to all my contacts, just see the picture of this post. For me this was unexpected, while I know that many community portals use this trick to get people. But who would have thought that Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden really want to read / collect as many visions as possible about America?

So how will Mr. Obama continue his 2.0 Presidency? I’m not sure, but I will keep track …

November 4th 2008 – A historical day

“I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didnt start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington – it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.“

It seems that I’m lucky enough to live in an era of extreme events. Lately it seemed to me that the world had more eyes and ears for the climate change and it’s negative effects and the financial crisis. And while our world is facing great challenges and threats, days like today show that mankind can achieve the sometimes unimaginable.

Today is a the first day in a new age for America, with President Obama to lead the country that is mainly responsible for so many of the problems (and great things) in the world. By beating the Bradley effect he is the first black president in this conservative country (yes, America is a conservative country).  This means hope and that is exactly what the Americans need nowadays as they are suffering one of the worst economic crisis in the last century. Obama will have to change the way America is operating as a leader in the world. Internally Americans always are very strong for their democracy, not to say how true that is, but it will be essential for America to also act on this in their international relationships.

A very hard time to become the president of America

“For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.”

I think this presidency is one of the hardest any American president has faced. Of course President Roosevelt had to solve a World War, but now President Obama has to solve a problem that is changed the forces of nature itself. And the cause is of course from human origin and huge investments need to be done to make the world a lot greener and more balanced. That’s why this presidency will be extremely hard, because America needs to invest while their financial burdens and costs of finance have never been so high.

America needs to unite and endure the hardship as a nation

“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.”

The coming 4 years might just be enough to see the financial sector gain the necessary trust back. That’s why it’s such a relief that Obama has been addressing these issues firmly during his campaign. I believe that he truly understands that he has to reform America’s way of energy consumption. Hopefully he can urge American companies to invest in R&D again, they used have the biggest R&D budgets. I truly believe that once America puts their head to it, they can overtake Europe and Japan in green technology. And I believe they will, they will take their financial pains fast and hard, while Europe will take it slowly but long. In such doing Americans will need a leader that can unite the whole country in order for America as a whole overcome the challenges faster.

Will he continue as the Web 2.0 president?

“But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to – it belongs to you!“

I’m quite sure the campaign managers of Obama have shown their great understanding of the long tail in politics (more examples of long tail), because the amounts of campaign contributions they’ve been able to get are enormous. Obama alone achieved to get more contributions than Hillary and McCain together. I heard that he really is really twittering and he has about 4 times more friends on Myspace and Facebook than McCain. Through the web he has been able to reach millions of young people and people who did not go voting in 2004. With that he turned more than 10 states that were voting for Bush in 2004, just compare the situation in 2004 and the results of today.

“But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.”

But like any president he will also have to do things he didn’t promise and not do things that he did promise, that’s the fate of any president or political party that are in the government. But I just hope that he will continue to use the internet to listen to the voice of normal Americans. In the dark days ahead his messages on the internet can stimulate, convince and provide understanding. Whether he will keep his election promises, time will have to tell. I just hope that he will keep on using the internet to stay in touch with the people that have been touched by him.

Click here to find the full speech of Mr. Obama in video and text.