Podcasts
2nd December 2010
Episode 10 - Episode 10 - The Innovators
Hi and welcome to The Business Plan, brought to you by LeasePlan. I’m Jackie Allender. In this final podcast of our series, we’ll be taking a more in-depth look at who is using the web well.
In the rapidly-changing world of the internet, what’s innovative is a bit of a moveable feast. But throughout this series we’ve seen how both public and private sector organisations have used internet technologies in ways that support and even extend the strategic vision for their activities.
One of the organisations that have been particularly entrepreneurial in the way it’s used the web, is the Victorian State Government Department of Justice.
It was just over a year ago that catastrophic bushfires raged through Victoria. During that period, one of the most intense pressures on the emergency services was for up to date information related to the fires. In response to that demand for information, the Department of Justice developed a widget (that’s an embeddable chunk of code that can be shared on just about any website) that could be installed on Twitter, You Tube and Flickr to provide easy access to the latest news, pictures and public information.
It was just one of a number of forays into web 2.0 technologies by the department, which has been steadily augmenting its ability to collaborate with the community. Over the past 18 months, it has used the technologies to support a number of government programs, such as tackling excessive drinking, reducing problem gambling and speed cameras.
Darren Whitelaw, general manager of communications for the department, says the guiding principles for using the technologies have been:
To provide access to information;
To enable user-generated content; and
To go where the people are.
Among the initiatives, a website for problem gamblers that enables people to share their stories; and another site that asks people to post short messages of support for the emergency services – in something akin to a microblogging format. The site will even notify contributors by email when their comment is posted up.
According to Whitelaw, in both the public and private sectors, the big challenge is not just to make use of the new web 2.0 technologies, but to ensure that there is cultural change within the organisation to support their use.
Another Australian organisation to have taken up web 2.0 technologies is CPA Australia – the organisation for accountants. Defying the stereotype of accountants as conservative and dull, the organisation has introduced an enterprise microblogging network powered by a platform called Yammer . The platform enables members to upload their profile to the site (just like Facebook or MySpace) and to send short messages to one another (just like on Twitter), as well as enabling users to create specific networks that span internal and external contacts for example to use on a particular project.
For CPA Australia – which has nearly 130-thousand members and operates in 16 offices, including internationally – this type of networking makes a lot of sense. Zaana Howard, one of the drivers of the project, sees it as replacing ‘water cooler conversations’ with a more permanent, shareable conversation which has the benefit of storing corporate knowledge in a searchable form.
She says the microblogging site has contributed to relationship-building across business units, and localities and has enabled staff to communicate with and learn from others whom they previously wouldn’t have thought of, or wouldn’t know how to connect with. Perhaps it’s not yet replaced the water cooler – but Howard says it has definitely extended it!
New web technologies have certainly brought about change for the American Red Cross. ‘Real time web’ is a term used to describe systems that push information from the web to a subscriber, without that subscriber having to ask to see what’s new. The information provided in real time by these technologies is transforming how the Red Cross responds to disasters. Using Sharepoint software, mobile devices and air surveillance, the organisation is able to meld real time information from people on the ground to get a perspective of what response is required, or to fine-tune what’s being provided.
The Red Cross also uses Twitter and Facebook to encourage people to donate, a tactic used very successfully in the recent Haiti earthquake response.
Small and medium enterprises are the lifeblood of most economies. But it’s usually larger businesses that are seen to be innovative in their use of information and communications technologies. But it’s worth looking at how good use of internet technologies can enable SMEs to ‘punch above their weight’ in the global marketplace.
A study, published in the Australasian Journal of Information Systems last year (Australasian Journal of Information Systems, Vol 16, No 1 ,2009), shows how this can be done.
It describes how a group of European small businesses – each involved in culinary tourism – began to collaborate, using e-business tools to improve their competitiveness. The group, which began to formally collaborate in the early 1990s, were early adopters of e-business – firstly Electronic Data Interchange, then web-based systems. Their early take up of technology gave them an advantage in targeting their niche tourism market.
By collaborating, they were able to standardise their accounting, financial, marketing and after-sales functions across the whole group, which reduced costs. Over time, the group of businesses adopted a common supply chain management system and a common e-marketing system. The group also adopted mobile business technology.
According to the study’s authors, a key factor in the success of this group was the degree of collaboration and the early adoption of new technology to exploit the developing online tourism market.
But perhaps the last word in innovative use of the internet might just go to the folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, who came up with the ‘wearable internet’ – a wearable computing system that is able to show and interact with the internet on any surface. The goal of this device is to ‘harness computers to feed us information in an organic fashion – like our existing senses’.
While the system is in its infancy now, some suggest that ten years from now, it will have replaced mobile phones as our technology of choice.
Well, that’s it for this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed the final edition in this series of The Business Plan. Don’t forget, if you have a comment on this edition, go to the LeasePlan website at leaseplan dot com dot au and follow the links to ‘The Business Plan’, where you’ll find a transcript of this podcast, as well as a section where you can post a comment. I’m Jackie Allender, thanks for listening.
LINKS RELATED TO THIS STORY
http://www.volunteer.vic.gov.au/?utm_source=1&utm_medium=1&utm_campaign=vol
http://www.problemgambling.vic.gov.au/family-friends
http://dl.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis/article/view/560/444
http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html
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