Intranet Distribution vs Attention
The recent personal ordeals of Danah Boyd at Web2.0 Expo resulted in a Blog that is a real revelation about what it is like to present at an innovation based event with a public-facing twitter stream projected behind you that destroys your connection with the audience and in turn your own self-confidence.
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/11/24/spectacle_at_we.html
This blog of such an emotional experience fortunately links back to the excellent text that the actual presentation was attempting to deliver. Within that I just want to focus on one quote :
“Thus, the power is no longer in the hands of those who control the channels of distribution, but those who control the limited resource of attention”.
I continually explore this idea internally when we describe where Claromentis is heading and where intranets offer real value. I find the continual differential in the understanding of this message across different companies and cultures both puzzling and frustrating.
On the one sense of course this is just about push versus pull. In the wider world of the general internet, this is totally understandable – and indeed, almost verging on yesterdays news.
But in the world of the corporate intranet if we discuss these ideas it is as if we are promoting some brave new paradigm.
For many companies even creating a new intranet to ease the outward flow of communication feels like breaking some innovative ground – after all they are embracing a new, attractive, internet based platform to distribute their message.
They are just pushing.
Often they don’t measure value and engagement with their platform based on the fact that they offer such a broad choice of interactive communications that stakeholders are continually – actively – selecting which  information to pull from an ever widening choice of interactions, information streams and enriched media.
They just selectively push information to staff
As Claromentis starts the delivery process for Innovate – the central application of the Claromentis 6.0 platform – we are really optimistic that we are delivering tools that will promote corporate innovation through individuals proactively allocating their attention within a truly rich information stream that is a mile away from simply pushing corporate information.
Lets see if we are right, or like Danah our important message risks getting lost in the delivery.