Microsoft’s Vista goes on sale

Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system, goes on sale in 70 countries today. Microsoft celebrated the product launch with a Times Square bash, complete with music and acrobatic dancers.

The software – which Microsoft contends is a huge improvement over previous computing platforms – retails for $100 - $400, depending on whether the user is upgrading from Windows XP.

Some early user reviews claim that Vista offers greater versatility and a more attractive user interface.

To read more about Vista’s launch and to hear what Bill Gates has to say about it, see the CNN.com article at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/01/30/vista.launch.ap/index.html

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

Wiki of the Week: Web feeds

Web feeds

You’ve been seeing them on various web sites around Cybertown – we even have them here on the DigitalNow blog. Sometimes it’s a little orange box, or an image object that says, “My Yahoo,” or “Add to Google.” These are web feed logos. Whenever you see these logos, it indicates that you can “subscribe” to that page, which means you will be automatically notified when new site content is available.

If you’ve never subscribed to a web feed, you can get started right now by subscribing to the DigitalNow blog. In the right hand sidebar of this page, you will notice a link that says, “Subscribe to the DigitalNow blog by email.” Simply click on that link, enter your email address in the form that opens, and then whenever a new entry is made to the DigitalNow blog, you will automatically receive it by email. You don’t even have to remember to come here and check!

If you have subscriptions to numerous sites and you don't want to receive a new email each time each one is updated, you may prefer to get a feed reader. A feed reader acts like a personal web page that collects and displays updates to all of your subscriptions. So instead of getting updates by email or having to visit several different sites, you only need to open your feed reader to get a glance of all the latest information you've decided is important to you.

To learn more about web feeds and about the various ways in which you can take advantage of this quick, simple way to receive important updates from your favorite web sites, blogs, and Podcasts, visit Wikipedia and read the Web feed article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_feed

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

The Future of the Internet

Pew Internet & American Life Project published results of a survey to which 742 technology thinkers, stakeholders, and social analysts responded, giving their opinions on seven predictive scenarios related to the Internet.

The respondents’ answers reflect their personal views, and the scenarios they were asked to comment on were structured to inspire the illumination of issues. A brief paraphrase of those predictive scenarios follows:

A global, low-cost network thrives
By 2020, worldwide network interoperability will be perfected, allowing smooth data flow, authentication, and billing; mobile wireless communications will be available to anyone anywhere on the globe at an extremely low cost.

English displaces other languages
By 2020, the world will be leveled into one big political, social, and economic space; English will be so indispensable that it displaces some languages.

Autonomous technology is a problem
By 2020, human input will be cut by intelligent agents to such an extent technology beyond our control will generate dangers and dependencies that will not be recognized until it is impossible to reverse them.

Transparency builds a better world, even at the expense of privacy
Public and private lives will become increasingly transparent on a global level. Looking at the big picture, this will make the world a better place by 2020; the benefits will outweigh the costs.

Virtual reality is a drain for some
By 2020, virtual reality will allow more productivity from people in technologically based communities, than from the “real world,” but virtual reality will also lead to serious addiction problems for many.

The Internet opens worldwide access to success
In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman writes that the power of the Internet makes it possible for individuals to collaborate and compete globally. By 2020, current national boundaries will be completely blurred and be replaced by human organizations tied together by global networks.

Some Luddites/refusniks will commit terror acts
People left behind by accelerating technology will self-segregate from modern society. Some will live “off the grid” to seek peace, while others will violently protest technology.

To view the results of this study, and to read more about survey participants and methodology, download the report at:
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Future_of_Internet_2006.pdf

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

China vows to "purify" the web

According to CNN.com, Hu Jintao, Chinese Communist Party chief, has vowed to “purify” the Internet, adding that the party must “Maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of guidance online.”

Hu’s comments were made during a top-level meeting that discussed ways for the party to master the country’s more than 137 million registered Internet users - a population that grew 23% in 2006.

Read the entire story at CNN.com.

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

DigitalNow New Year's News Round Up

This is a DigitalNow New Year's news round up!

First – a reminder that the central focus of this year's conference is the "promise and peril" of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 has been a featured cover story on more than one major industry magazine – but why limit your experience to simply reading about it when you can "experience" it? Here is how we plan to bring it to life:

News-Making Keynote Speakers

• Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales – he's in the headlines, helping to define the very future of the Web and collaborative technologies.
• Chris Trimble, author of “Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution,” takes the morning of day two. He's a no-nonsense guy who draws from his experiences in the corporate – and military – world.
• "Fierce Conversations" author Susan Scott will present a keynote as well as lead an exercise in how to conduct your own fierce conversations at every level – board, staff and member.
• And finally, headliner Stephen M.R. Covey, author of "The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything." Attendees at earlier DigitalNow conferences will remember that it all started with "trust" – the commodity that we've been saying associations "own" since the beginning.

The Hottest Topics

Other conferences are geared toward associations, but DigitalNow is specifically designed by and for association LEADERS. In fact, the entire experience is designed in collaboration with association CEOs, senior executives and volunteer leaders. Many association CEOs bring their entire leadership team to the conference with them and return to the office with new strategies and plans for execution.

Here are the topics we’re presenting – topics you've told us you want to learn about:

• E-Publishing Tools for Associations
• Using Web Analytics to Understand Your Members
• Content Management & Search for Associations
• Usability Boot Camp
• Contracting for On-Demand Web Services
• Performance Management & Balanced Scorecard for Associations
• Attracting & Retaining Next Generation Members
• Communities of Practice: Getting Started
• Communities of Practice: Case Studies
• Your Association Digital Dashboard
• Making Personas Work for Your Site
• How Users are Changing the Web
• Outsourcing for Results
• Linking Strategy to Execution
• Peer-to-Peer Learning for Associations
• Forming Successful Partnerships in the Digital World
• Anticipatory Management Skills
• The Future of Association Management Systems
• IT Strategy Development
• Networking for Good: Technology & Philanthropic Organizations
• Folksonomies and Social Tagging
• Competencies, Skills and Certification Tools

Each of these topics will be covered with expert presenters, association-specific case studies, interactive sessions and more.

For more information and online registration, visit www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

Please note our special rates for past attendees, group discounts and early registration.

See you there!

The Invisible Member

What you don't see can hurt you.

What is an invisible member?
An invisible member is anyone who belongs to your association but doesn’t participate or who doesn’t belong to your association, but should. They are the members who do not know about you or do not participate using your current modes of engagement.

Why are they invisible?
While there may be many factors that make a member invisible, the most critical factors are the technology and engagement gaps. The technology gap refers to the different levels of competence and comfort your member segments have with technology. The engagement gap refers to differences in the ways various segments of your membership participate in professional and social networks and engage with your association. How can you meet the needs of both groups and work to close these gaps?

To learn more about how you can reach and serve your invisible members, download Fusion Production's The Invisible Member white paper at: http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow/upload/InvisibleMember.pdf

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

"The Starfish and the Spider"

As we move from Association 1.0 to Association 2.0 in this sea of Web 2.0 change, disruption rules…or does it?

Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, start-up veterans and co-founders of the Global Peace Networks have written a book titled, “The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations.” In this book, Brafman and Beckstrom talk about the age-old topic of decentralized management, but with a biological twist.

If you cut off the leg of a spider, you get a seven-legged, crippled creature. Cut off the leg of a starfish, and it grows a new leg. Not only that, but because a starfish’s major organs are replicated across each of its body parts, a severed leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.

Spiders are like the command-and-control models of industrial organizations—much like many associations today: If you take away a key component, the entire system is crippled. Starfish organizations, however, are organized not around a hierarchy of authority, but around a shared ideology.

So what does this have to do with DigitalNow? As the authors go on to explain the differences and characteristics of each type of organization, the example of the wisdom of the crowds and the work of Jimmy Wales are brought to light.

Back in 2000, Jimmy Wales originally launched Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia that could be used by children whose parents couldn't afford their own set. Publishing was a major task. In looking at how to publish more effectively and efficiently, wikis were discovered. Wiki is a technology that allows web users to easily edit the contents of a web site, facilitating collaborative authoring of articles around a topic. Embracing the technology, Nupedia became Wikipedia – which has grown into a starfish organization that overpowers its spider organization counterparts. Jimmy Wales will be telling the Wikipedia story at DigitalNow 2007; we'll hear more about what went on between the lines.

Regardless of how you characterize your association and its stage of development, the environment in which the world is operating requires thoughtful questions dealing with how your industry or profession and your membership will operate in a new world of decentralization. What will be the new rules and strategies to thrive? How can your association harness the power of the starfish?

Big questions require thoughtful approaches to understanding the implications to your association in 2007 and beyond!

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

Building Communities of Practice

What, exactly, is a Community of Practice (CoP)?

According to researcher, consultant, author, and speaker Etienne Wenger, "Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a passion for something they do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better."

What value can a CoP bring to your organization? How are CoPs started and cultivated?

Pioneers of Change (http://www.pioneersofchange.net) is an organization that provides education and information about the power and process of Communities of Practice. They offer a handbook that provides an overview of what CoPs are, how they are structured, and how they add value. Download Building Communities of Practice at:
http://pioneersofchange.net/services/CoP%20Handbook2.pdf

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

2007 Marketing Trends

In yesterday's post, we provided a downloadable summary of our 2007 Technology Driven Association Trends survey.

In a recent article, Kim Gordon, marketing expert and writer for Entreprenuer.com, names 10 Top Marketing Trends for 2007. Two trends that are particularly relevant to associations:

• The Internet is the primary source of information for college grads. (So if you're trying to reach the newly graduating population, online media is the way to go.)
• Web conferencing. (More and more, people are connecting to information and to each other using e-learning, webinars, and other online networking and collaboration tools.)
  

To read the entire article, please visit Entrepreneur.com.

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

2007 Technology Driven Association Trends Survey Results

Good information is the lifeblood of every healthy organization. In our world of shifting economics, fluctuating demographics, and rapidly developing technology, it is vital that we all periodically assess current trends and the impact they have on organizational imperatives and member relationships.

Earlier this season, Fusion Productions invited Association Executives and Senior Leaders to participate in a survey in order to help us measure the impact certain trends are having on the association world. This document explores the highlights of what respondents have to say about technology driven trends and the impact of those trends on every day operations.

To read a summary of survey results, please see: http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow/upload/2007TrendSurveyResults.pdf

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow

Jimmy Wales to develop"Wikiasari"

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia – and DigitalNow 2007 keynote speaker – recently announced that he is teaming up with Amazon.com to create a new search engine that is expected to rival Google and Yahoo. Wales’ vision is to create a search engine that will return results based on human review, instead of the automated algorithm used by Google.

"Human intelligence is still the best thing we have,” said Wales, “So let's let humans do what they do best, and computers do what they do best.

The new search engine will be known as Wikiasari, which is a combination of “wiki” - the Hawaiian word for “quick” - and “asari” – a Japanese word meaning, “rummaging search.”

To read more about Wikiasari, visit: http://www.slipperybrick.com/2006/12/wikipedia-founder-plan-search-engine/

DigitalNow is the proven leadership conference for associations. To learn more about DigitalNow 2007, please visit http://www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow