in an iPod world

the role of formerly known 'opinion leaders' in the new world

One of the fundamental thrusts behind new forms of organizing, that is radically de-centered, pluralistic, and dynamic, is the reduction of communication and information search cost due to the use of digital information technologies. The use of these technologies has changed the relationship between the consumers and producers as it has reduced the information asymmetry between them. We see consumers become more informed and educated. More informed and educated consumer then directly participate in the production of various forms of contents for peer consumption. Such phenomenon have been observed in books like Wikinomics, the Startfish and the Spider, the Future of Work, the Wealth of Networks or Democratizing Innovations. In most cases, these books are focusing on the new roles that consumers (or employees) take in shaping these very different form of organizing. Stories about Orange Revolution, Korean Presidential Election in 2002, the peaceful demonstration in Philippine in 2002, and many other similar political movements all shows how the use of SMS and other information technologies have enabled ordinary individuals to mobilize massive collective actions. We hear how open source communities work. In all of these stories, the focus is often how to mobilize seemingly unlimited reservoir of intelligence from so-called Smart Mobs.

What is not being discussed as often as it should is what are the roles of those who are previously known as 'producers', 'opinion leaders', and 'gatekeepers' in this new era of Smart Mobs? How should professional producers of various forms of contents (politics, economic activities, education, culture, etc) react to this massive sea change and re-establish their roles? In the classroom of students who have ready access to Google with the latest breaking news and stock price, I confront this issue all the times. Before I finish my sentence, many of my students often race to their laptop and fire up Google to verify what I just said and often add / modify / correct what I just said.

Various news organizations are experimenting with new digital technologies like Blogs, User Created Contents, and Web 2.0 sites (like CBS is publishing their contents on YouTube). Others engage in furious legal fights in order to protect their turfs and rights. They are argue that this type of new forms of organizing is nothing but the rule by the mob in the digital world. They worry about the degrading quality and accuracy of contents when it is not carefully guarded by the gatekeepers (Wikipedia vs. Encyclopedia Britannica). The participations by 'consumers' in these processes are not new at all. We always had some level of feedback from those who consume these various forms of social contents. What is new here is the massive increase in their volume relatively to what they were before. In some sense, this can be nothing short of a civil war with different ideas about the future. It is a competition of ideas about who has a better idea about the future. Yet, it does not have to be a war. There are so many issues that need to be sorted. Different types of social institutions need to be created. Old institutions need to be repaired. New social and technical infrastructures need to be designed. These are the roles of current generation gatekeepers and opinion leaders. They should set the stage for others to produce. They succeed when they recede into the institutional background. They can still participate in the production. Of course, they will have more privileged voices and authorities than others for some time to come. They will have to participate in the competitions with Smart Mobs.

The same discussion needs to take place inside organizations who want to adopt this type of new technologies. The leaders of those organizations must realize that when they introduce these new technologies, they are introducing more than technologies. They are introducing new organizing logic that can be potentially at odds with the current dominant organizing logic. And they will soon find that they cannot get the full benefit of these technologies unless they start they own revolution inside the organization. That means, they will need to give up their monopoly of control. That will be pretty hard to swallow for many of them.

How do we know it will be better this time

Yesterday in my class, I showed the video on globalization and technology. One student wondered if people in 1900 might have similar optimism about the future and how they would use technology for the betterment of human race. This is a great point that made me think.

The modernistic utopian view of technology that came out from the industrial revolution was shattered by two world wars, atomic bombs, Cold War, pollution, new disease, urban slums, and most recently global warming. Such realization led to the rise of post-modern philosophy and much more cautious (if not critical) approaches to technology to solve our problems.

The reality is that, whether we like it or not, there are people who keep pushing the edge of the technology. And, with the continuing development of digital technologies, we now have the second chance (not the Second Life). Efforts like Massive Change by Bruce Mau, Collective Intelligence at MIT, and We Are Smarter than Me are some of the examples where we are trying to get it right this time around.

What's different now? There is a much wider recognition that informed collectives can make better decisions than a small group of smart individuals who have monopolistic access to information. Radical reduction of communication cost through the use of modern information technology have made it much less costly to share information among many and to coordinate among those informed individuals. Whereas the modernistic organizations used technology to empower the small elite in organizations, these new attempts are to inform distributed many.

Second, such distributed intelligence enabled by large scale information technology will allow us to envision new organizing forms that can address the needs that arise from the Long Tail Phenomenon. Whereas the modernistic organizations used technology to support organizing forms for mass production, these new attempts are to support extreme niche markets.

Finally the rapid digitization of physical world obliterate the traditional boundaries across the industries. Digitized information can be stored, transformed, decoupled, and re-coupled in many different ways. Whereas modernistic organizations attempt to use technology in order to separate the real world from the virtual world and technology world from social world, these attempts are to mix them to create a new forms of world that are neither real nor virtual, social nor technical.

So the question is, how are we going to use these new resources for a better future? How can we promote new forms of organizing that are more desirable through design, experiments, and education? How can we put these new resources into work to save the earth, remove poverty and reinvent the cities? What can we do differently so that the future with new technologies will not be the repeat of what we did in the last century? To me, that is a design question that is worthy of one's whole carrier.

my old interview with CoolCleveland

About a year or so ago, I interview with CoolCleveland. The interview was linked in my old blog site, which no longer is functional. I stumbled on to that site today as I was browsing on the net. This is the interview.

Is my idea better than the food

When you teach for executive education programs, you will receive feedback from the participants. They rate you on everything: contents, communication, hand-out materials, etc. Among those, they also measure the quality of food and beverage. Whenever I score higher than the food and beverage, I am happy.

Link to May 9 Archive

In my short interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, I mentioned an archive of the e-mail messages that we exchanged on May 9, 2003. I learned that it was not just me who browsed through the archive when the news about Virginia Tech shooting broke out. The messages show solidarity, love and care more than anything else. One message that was not archived but should have been is the following one:

Dear All
I heard that Professor Yoo YoungJin is in the MBA building right now. I have no idea whether he is safe or not. I hope he is safe. If I have a new information about him, I will send email to you. Please All KGSA members, pray for him and his family.

Thanks,

P.S. if the hostage continues overnight, the soccer game will be cancelled. I will let you know

This message was from the president of Korean Graduate Student Association at Case Western Reserve University at that time. I laughed so hard when I received the message because of the reference to the cancellation of the soccer game.

managing virtual teams in a global economy

I did one day seminar on managing virtual teams at Case for about 35 managers. This is the video that I showed today which is about globalization that was posted on YouTube. It has lots of facts that make you think. The PDF file is too large to post here. I will find a way to post here soon.

campus shooting

Yesterday's shooting at Virginia Tech is just horrible. I just learned that the shooter was a 1.5 generation Korean-American. I feel so sorry for those who suffer from this tragedy. I just hope and pray something good will come out of this incident.

It reminds me of the afternoon of May 9, 2003. I just hope that the day will come that we don't have to face this type of horror on campus ever again.

two classic music related innovation stories

Since I used to live in Cleveland and now live in Philadelphia (well actually on the NJ side), it is only appropriate that these stories come from these two great "classic" cities.

Last Saturday, there was the first orchestra performance in Second Life. The Red {an Orchestra} from Cleveland performed in Second Life. The performance was supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, OneCommunity, the New Media Consortium, Leonard Steinbach Cultural Technology Strategies, MediaAffect.com, JaredJared.com and the musicians of Red {an orchestra}. It was watched from an "amphitheater" at Case Western Reserve University or Machima Studio in Learning on the NMC Campus, each with 50 seating capacity of avatar. The goal of the performance was to introduce classic music to the emerging generation who may have not seen "real" orchestra performance.

And, Philadelphia Orchestra started its own podcast. Surely it may not be as interesting as the performance in Second Life, but this type of innovations by cultural establishments should be encouraged and supported. Technological innovations like blog, flickr, and YouTube have enabled the production of various creative works by average Joe and Jane. A critical question is how the cultural elite institutions who used to dominate the means to produce such creative works in the past respond to this radical change.

visiting Washington State University

I am visiting Washington State University at Pullman to give a talk. I will talk about the "experiential computing."

10 things that make me smile and 10 things that make me frustrated

10 things that make me smile:

1. When there is a radio with an iPod docking station in a hotel room, so that I can listen to my own music.
2. When I use the new Gillette Fusion with battery power.
3. When my Roomba plays a happy tune after it accomplishes its task.
4. When I use my MacBook Pro.
5. When I eat well-presented Japanese food.
6. When I touch the cover of my small Bible that is made with high quality Italian leather.
7. When I jot down some thoughts and ideas on my small Moleskine notebook.
8. When I listen to my favorite podcast using my iPod.
9. When I use my navigation system from Garmin.
10. When I was eating Bento on Shinkansen in Japan.

10 things that make me frustrated:

1. When Home Depot tells me that their delivery truck will be at our home between 8AM and 5PM.
2. When I try to clean up my razor blade after shaving with running water.
3. When my laptop and a projector cannot synchronize without any reason.
4. When I see an ugly 20% discount sticker on a beautifully designed book cover.
5. When I need to use paper towel in the men's room in my building, as I must walk back toward the inside, not toward the exit.
6. When I was told that they cannot do it because of a rule, even though they agree that it may be a totally unnecessary rule.
7. When I am put on hold on the phone by a customer service representative immediately after I start explaining what went wrong with their service.
8. When a hotel front desk person ignores me who is right in front of her in order to talk to a customer who is NOT there.
9. When I cannot find a working marker in my classroom.
10. When the printer is jammed but I cannot find what's wrong with it.

These are experiences that are result of good and careful design or no design. I had much easier time to come up with 10 things that make frustrated (and I could have made the list much longer) than 10 things that make smile. The world will be a much better place to live, if organizations begin designing and stop accepting mediocrity that is a direct result of having no design attitude. So, design no longer is simply a luxurious afterthought for a small number of premium companies, but should be the basic fundamental way of thinking that is permeated in all organizations.