the conversation prism

The World Wide Mind

The world is made of stories, not of atoms. – Rukeyser

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THE PRISM OF STORIES: Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism is the “eye in the sky” at this time. If one wants to peer into the World Wide Mind, no better microscope is needed than the Conversation Prism. The networks and social sites within this Prism are both social and interest focused. The Prism is a living image that pulsates with our conversations, relationships and potential. And our mysteries.

THE MYSTERIES WITHIN THE PRISM: If one peers deep enough through the Conversation Prism, the resulting transparencies AND mysteries are truly profound for the individual, the community and humanity itself. In fact, one finds that transparencies (what is revealed) tend to invoke even deeper mysteries. In the words of the great and current mathematician, Grigori Perelman, “Emptiness is everywhere and it can be calculated, which gives us a great opportunity.” It could be said that the white space, the “dark matter”, the shadows within AND between the social properties in the prism offer the MOST potential. Tools like Research.ly and Recorded Future are helping humanity plumb these seemingly “empty” spaces.

THE HUES OF OUR GLOBAL MIND: I have identified one property from each shade of the Prism. These are first layers of an onion: the conscious level of our World Wide Mind, our collective psyche. The next layers are found through the conversations discovered when one searches one’s interests, customers, competitors and questions WITHIN the World Wide Mind.

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QUESTIONS DEVELOPERS SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES: Developers should ask themselves what new apps, new social properties and new functionalities lie BETWEEN these existing social properties. Which of these social properties should “mate” one another? What does a conversation between Quora and LinkedIn sound like? What does a love affair between Technorati and Disqus look like? Are there categories that have yet to emerge? Can the Prism be even more finely divided?

SOCIAL BOOKMARKS: STUMBLE-UPON presents only web sites suggested by other like-minded Stumblers. Think: Bookmark. Not all those who wander are lost. ~J.R.R. Tolkien

COMMENT AND REPUTATION: DISQUS builds active communities from comments at your website, blog or web portal. Think: Debates & Innovation via Conversation.
It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it. ~Joseph Joubert

WISDOM OF THE CROWDS: REDDIT is a source for what’s new and popular on the web. User’s vote content up and down. Think: Democracy. Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. ~George Bernard Shaw

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: QUORA is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. Think: Question Answered! Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much. ~Francis Bacon

COLLABORATION: BASECAMP is the leading web-based project management & collaboration tool. To-dos, files, messages, schedules, & milestones. Think: TeamWork. Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved. ~Mattie Stepanek

SOCIAL COMMERCE: GROUPON negotiates huge discounts—usually 50-90% off—with popular businesses. Think: Coupons. A History of Coupons Infographic. -http://bit.ly/history_of_coupons A History of Groupon. –http://bit.ly/history_of_Groupon

BLOG PLATFORMS: POSTEROUS lets you post things online fast using email. You can attach any type of file & POSTEROUS posts it to your POSTEROUS blog & social properties along with the text of your email. Think: Writers and Authors. It’s not what happens to people on the page; it’s about what happens to a reader in his heart and mind. ~Gordon Lish

BLOGS/CONVERSATIONS: TECHNORATI tracks the authority and influence of blogs AND provides a comprehensive & current index of who & what is most popular in the Blogosphere. Think: Bestselling Authors. One of the biggest challenges is how do you make that content more easily discoverable, easily consumable, easily digestible. ~Fortune Tech

SOCIAL CURATION: PAPER.LI organizes links shared on Twitter and Facebook into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Think: Journalism. Curation itself isn’t new; it’s just the way that some of us are doing it online that’s fairly new. The tools have evolved, but the goal of capturing a story and turning people’s attention to it isn’t. ~Andy Carvin (http://twitter.com/#!/acarvin)

SOCIAL CURATION 2: SPOT.US enables the public to commission journalists to do investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories. We are an open source project, to pioneer “community funded reporting. Think: Journalism. We no longer look for news, it finds us. ~Lee Mikles

STREAMS: TWITTER – The ultimate source of Interest-related information. Everything and anything is being messaged about 24/7 here. TWITTER is THE golden key to discovering INFLUENCERS. Think: Giant Rivers of Information. Twitter is a tool for “anarchic learning and peer support”. ~John Davitt

NICHEWORKING: YAMMER is a tool for making companies & organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: What are you working on? Think: Walkie-Talkies in The Factory. Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. ~Yammer HQ

DIY + CUSTOM SOCIAL NETWORKS: JIVE is THE social business solution delivering features of popular social networking, community, collaboration, and content management software in a single highly secure enterprise platform. Think: Social Business. Business Process Management (BPM). Jive enables businesses to engage with their employees and create environments where ideas can be shared, knowledge can be shared, and expertise can be shared, to create efficiencies and help unlock value. What’s missing is businesses understanding how to organize for that collaboration to occur, and how to integrate those tools to allow collaboration. ~Jeff Dachis, Founder and CEO, Dachis Group

SOCIAL PHONES: SKYPE is a software application that allows users to make voice calls and chats over the Internet. Group calls, file-sharing also. Think: Telephone
The acceleration of Skype. http://bit.ly/skype_stats2011

SOCIAL NETWORKS: FACEBOOK is THE BIG-ONE. You dream how you want to do it and you can do it here via a dizzying array of apps and methods of communicating. Think: The Ocean/Universe. There’s lots of stuff none of us have ever seen before. That’s good in some ways, but limiting in other ways. ~Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook

LISTENING & TARGETING: RESEARCH.LY allows users to build “on-the-fly” communities based around any interest. Non-branded Interest-Graphs built with RESEARCH.LY provide one of the BEST sources of real-time collective intelligence. Think: Market Research/Focus Groups
Jodee Rich, Founder and CEO of PeopleBrowsr, talks about Research.ly – http://bit.ly/about_researchly_2011

BUSINESS NETWORKING: LINKEDIN is a networking tool to find connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts and business partners. Think: Career Building/Networking with Colleagues. See Twitter and Quora as golden keys to LinkedIn. Data will be the platform of the next era of the web, of Web 3.0. This is where some massive innovation will happen that will transform our lives. ~LinkedIn Founder and Chairman Reid Hoffman

ATTENTION/COMMUNICATIONS DASHBOARDS: HOOTSUITE is a web and mobile social media dashboard that helps individuals and organizations spread messages, monitor conversations and track results across multiple networks including Twitter and Facebook. Think: Thread & Needle (this is a tool for “knitting” communities). “HootSuite was created at a digital agency called Invoke where we experienced the problem of managing multiple social accounts on multiple networks for multiple clients,” said Community Marketing Director Dave Olson. “So we set out to solve this problem elegantly. We created a comprehensive social media dashboard allowing you to manage multiple networks & profiles from one place, plus share access with teams without compromising security.”

REVIEWS & RATINGS: YELP is a hyper-local search network and app where you find restaurants, hotels, bars and TONS of other types of businesses. Think: Reviews.
How Yelp got its name from the CEO: http://b.qr.ae/yelp_name

LOCATION: FOURSQUARE gives you & your friends new ways to explore your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things. Think: Social Compass.
What do users want in a location-based app? http://b.qr.ae/users_locationbased_apps

VIDEO: YOUTUBE is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States. Also the world’s 2nd largest search-engine. Think: TV. YouTube to spend $100 million on TV shows. Plans to create online TV ‘channels’. http://bit.ly/YouTube_TV_100milliondollars

sCRM: SALESFORCE is a collaboration suite for the enterprise to connect and share information securely in real-time. Think: CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Why did Salesforce.com succeed? http://b.qr.ae/salesforce_success2011

DOCUMENTS & CONTENT: SLIDESHARE is an online slide hosting service. Users can upload files in the many file formats. It is also amongst the World’s Top 10 tools for education & e-learning. Think: PowerPoints. White Papers. Dissertations. Professional Writing.
How to Maximize the Value of Slideshare for your business? http://bit.ly/maximize_value_of_slideshare2011

EVENTS: MEETUP helps groups of people with shared interests plan meetings & form offline clubs in local communities 
around the world. Think: Circles of Interest. Mapping the genome of groups may help us understand ourselves as we behave within a broader collective. ~http://bit.ly/the_value_of_groups

MUSIC: LAST.FM lets you effortlessly keep a record of what you listen to from any player. Based on your taste, 
Last.fm recommends you more music and concerts!Think: Music Community/Social Radio. THE social property that allows one to mine the subconscious psyche of the community via music discovery. There is so MUCH hidden gold here in this endless and tapestried symphony of artists. ~Ladydust

WIKI: WIKIPEDIA is a free encyclopedia built collaboratively using wiki software. Think: Encyclopedia. A history of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

VIRTUAL WORLDS: WORLD OF WARCRAFT is currently the world’s most-subscribed Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with more than 12 million subscribers as of October, 2010. Think: Dungeons & Dragons morphing into actual economies and battlegrounds. Virtual Currencies. Virtual World Master List (flipped sideways so download this PDF and rotate clockwise: https://thesocializers.com/VW_masterlist.pdf)

LIVECASTING: USTREAM allows you to broadcast video LIVE to the world from a computer, mobile or iPhone in minutes, or watch millions of live OR pre-recorded shows. Think: Social TV. Social TV platforms and research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_television + http://bit.ly/future_of_socialTV_report2011

PHOTO: FLICKR is the largest and best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Think: Photo Communities. About image retrieval via tags – http://imageclef.org/2011

RESOURCES: The demographics and statistics on useage of specific social networks 2011 report by Ignite Social.

When the hubless wheel turns, Master or no master can stop it.

Getsuan said to this students: `Keichu, the first wheel-maker of China, made two wheels of fifty spokes each. Now, suppose you removed the nave uniting the spokes. What would become of the wheel? And had Keichu done this could he be called the master wheel-maker?’

This Zen koan identifies precisely what leaderless organizations, user-generated communities and social networks are fomenting NOW!

Who is turning this wheel, brand OR consumer? I say consumer! http://theconversationprism.com/1900 (click on wheel to enlarge).

When the hubless wheel turns,
Master or no master can stop it.
It turns above heaven and below earth,
South, north, east and west. ~ Getsuan