Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

Wherever I go!

I’ve often wished I could use my “Janet, we have book recommendations for you here…” information from Amazon elsewhere online. Apparently, (with thanks to the heads up from the folks over at Marketing Conversation) now I can.

There’s a concept now called APML which is basically a standard set of programming language that allows smart programmers to capture what you pay attention to online - beyond your RSS feeds (AKA your subscriptions) - which is captured by OPML. According to Abraham Harrison:

“It doesn’t care too much about your subscriptions… but it does care about how you interact with the blogosphere implicitly. It is a little like OPML + eHarmony.”

I love that descriptor - imagine the possibilities!

John Tropea over at Library Clips described these scenarios (among others) where you could share your APML files with other trusted friends:

“…when I plug my APML into a webpage, it will recommend me stuff based on my past attention, plus also recommend stuff based on my friends (circle of trust) attention.”

“I also like the idea of AutoRoll…people who visited your Facebook profile also visited these profiles.”

I think there are plenty of great uses for APML, as long as it doesn’t isolate me from different opinions.

Hanging out in the digital world is no different from hanging out in the solid world. Surround yourself with interesting people and you’ll have a much richer world as a result.

I was happy (and not surprised at all) to see that my buddies from Attensa are already all over APML - which is apparently how they track my attention in their AttentionStream “River of News” feeds.

(I do hang out with such interesting people, lucky me!)

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I ran across a post today by Ajit Jaokar that described the effects of web 2.0 technologies on enterprise 2.0 companies.

Reading it caused me to ask myself: exactly what defines an enterprise today?

Ajit, who’s a mobile futurist, noted collaboration is pushing the value of an organization to the edges:

“as the Enterprise network matures from a closed/proprietary to open and collaborative; the value shifts to the edge of the network for a company.”

Collaborative environments push knowledge and value beyond the edge (perhaps this is what he means by ‘to the edge of the network’) of a traditional enterprise structure; and into the open source.

The Value of the Open Source Knowledge Worker

I consider myself an open source knowledge worker. Why?

I pay attention, and share it.

I consult with several companies at a time, and have NDA agreements with all of them. While each client is a business unto itself, and I treat information from each one with extreme confidence; every client benefits from my knowledge of who’s talking about them, their products, their markets, their employees.

This cross-pollination occurs all around the globe - beyond the boundary of every enterprise - and it happens in near-real time.

Here’s how:

I’m paying attention for them.

I blog, and am pretty active in the blogosphere from a business (vs. personal) perspective. It forces me to (try to) keep up with news and information that’s important to me and my clients.

I’m paying attention about them.

I subscribe to news and information about every client I have using one of my client’s products, Attensa’s enterprise 2.0 RSS platform.

I’m paying attention to them, for them and about them.

One of my clients is about to install some collaboration software (Clearspace from Jive Software) in part because I was able to confirm Attensa loves it - Scott raves about it, in fact.

I didn’t have to do anything more than:

1. Position it for her in terms of value and benefits to her organization (sometimes technologists need a little translation help)
2. Point her to Scott’s blog about it and add a couple of my own examples of their use

I am not all that unusual, especially when such collaboration tools make it easy to share knowledge between and among enterprise 2.0 and open source knowledge workers; pushing the value beyond the borders of any organization; and propelling it out into the hands of many.

So as you consider the future of your organization, consider the tools you might use to facilitate value at every touchpoint in- and outside the organization. I’ve mentioned a few today.

How to select great open source knowledge workers who can use those tools and generate even more value?

That’s another question entirely…

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I’ve been working hard on creating a new brand for a client. It has been thrilling and frustrating at once, depending on the moment (as most branding projects are). I got a cartoon by Tom Fishburne and Skydeck Cartoons called “The 8 Types of Bad Creative Critics” from one of my coworkers on the project which summed it up perfectly; and really made me laugh.

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I was up on del.icio.us this afternoon, trying to find some enterprise 2.0 rss posts, and got this - the most fabulous, best error message ever:

I wish more software developers would be as transparent (and humorous) with their messages. It makes all the difference in the world to me that I know people are behind the software and systems we most often take for granted.

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