One useful flip test consists of mentally switching the order of appearance of a new technology and an existing one. At a conference years back I was sitting on a panel that was asked to talk about future of the book. As the discussion was heating up about the inevitability of the electric media, someone on the panel (I wish it had been me) proposed a flip test. He said "Let's say the world has only e-books, then someone introduces this technology called 'paper.' It's cheap, portable, lasts essentially forever, and requires no batteries. You can't write over it once it's been written on, but you buy more very cheaply. Wouldn't that technology come to dominate the market?" It's fair to say that comment changed the direction of the panel.
Most current collaboration technologies, including email, instant messaging, and cell phone texting are what I call channels. They essentially keep communications private. People beyond the sender and receiver(s) can't view the contents of information sent over channels, and usually don't even know that communication has taken place. Information sent via channels isn't widely visible, consultable, or searchable. And no record exists of who sent what to whom, so channels leave no trace of collaboration patterns.
The new generation of collaboration technologies that are underpinning Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0, in contrast, are all platforms. They're repositories of digital content where contributions are globally visible (everyone with access to the platform can see them) and persistent (they stick around, and so can be consulted and searched for). Access to platforms can be restricted (to, for example, only members of an R&D lab or a team working on a particular deal) so that proprietary content isn't universally visible within a company, but the goal of a platform technology is to make content widely and perennially available to its members. A lot of content on this blog and other writing on W2.0 and E2.0 has articulated the desirable properties of digital platforms.
So here's the flip test: imagine that current corporate collaboration and communication technologies were exclusively E2.0 platforms -- blogs, wikis, etc. -- and all of a sudden a crop of new channel technologies -- email, instant messaging, text messaging -- became available. In other words, imagine the inverse of the present situation. What would happen? How, in the flip-test universe, would the new channel technologies be received?
I imagine two main outcomes. First, users would adopt the new channel technologies for private communications, but not for much more than that. They'd quickly see that it's less efficient to use channels, and less helpful to their colleagues. In other words, whether they were thinking selfishly or selflessly they'd keep using platforms. And the endowment effect would be working in favor of the platform technologies they're already using.
Second, many constituencies would hate the new technologies, and strenuously advocate that they be kept out. In a company accustomed to platforms, introducing channels would be perceived as asking for trouble. They'd be seen as tools that would let sensitive information leave the company and jump over Chinese walls, let sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior flourish below the radar, and let people waste as much time as they wanted to chatting with each other about irrelevant stuff. What's even worse, compliance officers and other managers would feel largely powerless to stop this bad behavior, because channel traffic is so hard to monitor. They couldn't read all employee emails, and sampling would be unlikely to catch all the problems quickly enough to head them off.
For managers accustomed to platforms where all contributions are immediately and universally visible and traceable, channel technologies would seem scary. I could imagine that a common response, upon hearing about them, would be something like "No way. The risks of email and IM are too great. If people need to talk privately, let them pick up the phone. We'll set up a few email accounts so that we can exchange information with the outside world, but we're sticking with our platforms for internal communication."
What does this flip test reveal? To me, it indicates that many companies are paying far too much attention to the possible risks and downsides of E2.0 platforms, given that they've already deployed technologies that have much greater potential for abuse. I'm not advocating that channel technologies should be shut off and entirely replaced by platforms; I'm just trying to highlight the relative risks of the two technology categories. The flip test is a good way to do this.
What do you think? Am I missing something, or downplaying some important downsides about E2.0? Or is the flip test telling us what I think it is?
Hi Andrew
The flip test is a great way of looking at this but I think you underplay the role of the users in this. You make strong arguments as to how managers might prevent channel technologies, but from a users’ perspective channel technologies may be exactly what they have been waiting for - and, like the leakage that occurs now with unsanctioned blogs there would be leakage around channel communication.
We are experimenting a lot with Ent 2.0 concepts in a medium sized museum at the moment. This has been a great success in dealing with the outside world (public facing blogs that have opened up new ways to communicate research and knowledge to audiences and visitors; tagging, folksonomies and recommendations sytems for people wishing to search our collection, for example).
But getting sufficient traction amongst internal users for a research wiki or the like is currently extremely difficult - largely because channel communication is for more efficient for the current workflows of the organisation. Partially this is because of the diverse nature and multiple ‘missions’ of the organisation, and the resulting diversity of the internal user base.
I think externally things have worked because even though the lurker/participant ratio is probably the same, the user base is significant enough to create momentum for new workflows to emerge (that is, the workflow of a visitor interacting with a museum). Internally, though the user base is too small for momentum to develop and channel comunication better serves the size.
First of all, great post and a great construct. I hadn’t come across the flip test before, but I plan to use it to examine new product strategies from now on.
In a world with platforms but no channels, my view on the outcome is a bit different. It has to do with the fact that channels are a subset of platforms. Platforms with access control provide a pretty efficient means of channel communications, while broadcast via channel technologies is extremely inefficient.
For example, if I had access to a blog, and regularly used the “restrict access” feature to make certain posts available to a subset of people, the use-case for email adoption becomes a lot less certain.
Andrew,
A couple of points:
1. Channels like email do leave a trace of the underlying patterns. Yes the common public does not have access to it, but a Google certainly can be expected to “monetize” the information it gets by analyzing (y)our Gmail usage.
2. In the flip scenario, the channel should get immediate traction if there was an underlying needs of the users that the platfroms already present were not able to fulfill. I would expect the channnels to quickly grow as they would have addressed the need for long private discussion (email), real time interaction (chat) and so on.
Just my 2 cents.
Even more brilliant than usual.
I immensely enjoy reading your blog and IMO your analysis here is correct. One thing that may damage this course of reasoning are the charlatans and dreamers. They will produce anti-productive or silly web 2.0 solutions and turn the VC and public opinion against the web 2.0 revolution.
I hope that the VC community will be smart enough to distinguish between them and real advances, but what is going on today (investment wise) is not encouraging.
A fantastic post…
I think the notion of the flip test is a great way to analyze this situation. I will definitely keep this method in mind for personal analysis in the coming months.
Regarding E2.0, I believe it is an accurate assessment, especially in relation to security. If one assumes adoption, security is certainly the primary challenge facing E2.0 applications. However, you make a great comparison between channel and platform-based communications here.
Individuals are far more likely to say nothing at all if the expectation is that there will be “public” viewing and interpretation, rather than the semi-privacy provided by email. In fact, I think it’s worth noting that in some instances, channel communication enables security issues. (Think, forwards that jump from one Wall Street firm to the next...)
Great posts! Reading the past four made me reflect on a recent internal “sales pitch.”
Not long ago I tried to convince my office that we should begin using a wiki. The resistance I found surprised me. I was asked, “what will this replace?” The questioner said that they had seen numerous technologies come and go – this part I was ready for – but that each technology had levied new responsibilities and information demands on them. The questioner wanted to know which of these responsibilities and information demands would go away. How was the wiki going to reduce the information overload problem, to which every other technology had added?
My first thought was to offer up email for the sacrifice. I knew that we all spent a lot of time using email and it was the source of a lot of the information overload problems we had, but I knew that this wasn’t going away with the introduction of a wiki alone. (Heck, our email usage could potentially go up when people started asking questions about projects they didn’t know existed.) Feeling uncomfortable with email, I turned my focus to SharePoint.
SharePoint was a new technology that I knew had user frustration. It seemed prime for the sacrifice except for the fact that hardly anyone used it. How could sacrificing SharePoint reduce anyone’s information load? Not feeling comfortable with an answer, I inquired further.
The questioner explained their frustration with SharePoint in a previous organization. The boss there had forced users to post virtually everything to SharePoint. This lead to frustration in two forms. First, it added the responsibility for posting what in the past never needed to be posted. Second, it made finding anything in SharePoint nearly impossible because so much had been posted there!
“In the old days, if I went on a business trip and someone needed to know something, they would call my deputy,” he explained. “If my deputy didn’t have the answer, they’d write the question down for me to review when I returned.” No need to post anything, no need to spend time searching for anything.
So now when I think about shifting from a reliance on channels to an embrace of platforms, I see it with technical and cultural challenges I didn’t see before. Channels, perhaps because they are private, feel human and make production easy. Platforms, with SharePoint coming first to mind, feel technical and make production a chore that probably requires technical assistance. Even if it were easy to produce all that information, finding it would become a chore compared to just using a channel to ask a question of a fellow human.
These users don’t use NetFlix and they haven’t read The Long Tail. They have begun consuming information from Wikipedia, but they don’t trust it.
A really valuable exercise.
I like the comment from Rahul and wonder at the comparison between a restricted access platform and a channel.
I have an internal blog - i.e. inside our firewall. I post there nearly every day and find it an excellent means of communication and collaboration. My external blog, on the other hand, gets very few posts - I cannot be as relevant outside as I can on the inside and there is little payback for me in posting there.
As John suggests, there will be things that individuals are unable to express *unless* there is some level of restriction. It must be the case that there are some things individuals wouldn’t express without severe restriction.
It’s interesting that you seem to exclude the phone from your definition of a channel. Why is that? Is a meeting or a conversation not a channel?
In short would the channels have arisen out of platorms as a simple means of creating an ad-hoc highly restricted platform? If this is so, then as Nitin suggests, channels will get traction as a means to meet this need.
Andrew - your original stated intention, “to highlight the relative risks of the two technology categories,” seems to have produced feedback focused on platforms vs. channels. It’s fascinating how the introduction of new technologies (new anything, I suppose) ends up in an US versus THEM scrum.
A couple of other examples:
* Corporate communications – early champions of blogs and podcasts often sneered at conventional corporate communication approaches (press releases, marketing collateral, sales presentations, media opportunities etc.) as being too phony, while many old schoolers failed to see the value of new digital communications. Slowly, the two sides seem to be coming together.
* Media – print and broadcast traditionalists were agonizingly, market-share-losing slow to recognize the potential in digital media. But that’s changing. It was encouraging to see CBS President Les Moonves tell attendees at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show that “there’s no such thing anymore as old or new media. We’re just media.”
The common thread – trailblazers tend to be brash and dismissive of the status quo; while those set in their ways need to be educated and convinced that the next big thing really is the next big thing. Sort of human nature’s checks and balances system.
As time goes by, people will become comfortable with various platforms. The useful ones will evolve and thrive. Patience everyone.
excellent tool - thanks!
Another factor that I think strongly determines commnication choice is the degree to which the organization in question is secretive versus open. Many internal organizations (departments within companies, and groups within departments) are more interested in promoting their own agenda than with openly collaborating with “others” the proverbial “them” whom the group in question views as rivalrous. In such environments, I would suspect that channels would be strongly preferred over the more open and meritocratic platforms. So, I guess the preference for platform is predicated on the assumption of a certian degree of organizational health, which, in my experience, is far from universal.
I wonder if, like international economic agreements such as NAFTA and te EU that serve as enforcement mechanisms for good economic policy, e2.0 platforms can serve as ways to force “sick” organizations to be less secretive and more collaborative.
Great discussion Andrew, the flip test is an excellent exercise, both from a sales and development perspective.
Is it possible some of the downside perceptions for Enterprise 2.0 stem from several of the platform offerings being solutions in search of a problem? Take wikis, for instance. They are sold as a platform solution with no limits - a way to collaborate on just about anything with anyone inside the company. Unlike email, which solved the simple problem of asynchronously communicating with one or many people, wikis try to solve collaborative communication problems, document organization, knowledge management, project development, etc.
It’s a formidable hurdle to get over when one is presented with a package that isn’t limited to answering previously perceived pain points. As Rahul pointed out, channels can be considerd subsets of platforms, creating options for how direct communication can be. If one is presented with this range of selection, it might actually create more work to figure out the best way to solve a communication problem - should I email this to these people (direct), or post about it in the wiki (indirect)? Where in the wiki should I post it? Is this even something I should be talking about?
It’s an interesting discussion, and in my opinion enterprises need to be careful when shifting the social features of Web 2.0 directly into their organization. If a platform is naturally adopted and provides some sort of tangible ROI, it’s the right solution. If an organization finds itself forcing adoption, as in Damon’s example, it’s a solution searching for a problem.
I agree that channels are a subset of platforms. But I believe that we should compare these two mediums as we would compare a private conversation (whether it be via phone, e-mail, or oral) to a channel. A town hall type meeting can be compared to a platform. Both serve a distinct purpose and are useful.
The problem always arises when we start abusing technology by becoming servants to this wonderful giant instead of making it our servant.
I have long saved the following quote, from a review of “Understanding New Media: Trends and Issues in Electronic Distribution of
Information” (1984; Benjamin M. Compaine (Ed.); Ballinger Pub Co; ISBN 0884109771):
“...As Compaine and several other authors in this volume point out, the ‘model home information and entertainment product… provides
a broad range of information and entertainment, provides built in storage, is easily portable, integrates graphics and text, allows user self-pacing and random access to any portion of the database within five seconds, allows for branching, provides hard copy and is completely updated every twenty-four hours, yet comes at a low price to the consumer—25 cents per connect hour or less.’
“The description currently fits only that marvel of technology, the traditional newspaper....”
Andrew, this was very instructive in showing the misguided resistance to adoption of wikis by management, for example. But once adopted, let’s now examine the decision faced by the indidvidual worker before selecting whether to communicate by channel or platform. I have attempted to do just that using the Evapoating Cloud technique from the Theory of Constraints. That reveals the conflict of “act or analyze”, meaning, I would channel if were unsure of the value of my input and/or if it might be perceived as critical of the organization or my co-workers. This self doubt is innately imbedded in the “pre-meditated” nature the written word. It will require “social stroking” by management to nurture the more endowing behavior, and that may be a tall order.
Ah, but this flip testing leads to further flipping…
Channels might be welcomed as a bliss as well, because would alleviate the inevitable burden of platform clutter, ie. the tendency of platforms if becoming clogged with heaps of semi-private or junk info with no relevance to the whole of their intended usergroup.
And, as you lucidly point out, telephone messages are definitely below radar (unless you’re the NIS). E-mail on the other hand can be made traced and scanned. From a security point of view, the emergence of e-channels might thus even persuade security-centric management to severely restrict telephone use in favour of e-messaging!
The approach which you took to explain is pretty good. I can think of this in using in many other instances
Excellent and insightful article. Many IT professionals in Australia (particularly managers and executives) inhibit end user adoption of technologies/platforms because of fear, uncertainty and doubt. Many of these concerns are raised because of over sensitivity to risk which is being fuelled by major software providers protecting their own (licensing) interests.
The flip test proposed provides an interesting platform for discussion and may instigate a paradigm shift.
For those of you that are resistent, there is a difference to being open to new ideas, adoption, and over being over zealous. E2.0 is here. It will have an impact. It may provide a short term differentiator and market advantage for your organisation. Rather than resisting it, why not try to figure out how your organisation can leverage it?
Andrew - very deep thoughts indeed, and very
stimulating ; not only because of their origi-
nality but also their social implications.
My team and I have created (and are hopefully
constantly improving) http://www.powwwerpages.com -
a B2B yellow pages database and search engine. Although this is meant to serve businesses, and subsequently generate business for ourselves, the duality (maybe even trinity) of application and ofmethodology in our model is reminiscent of your
thoughts:
On the one hand, our planned advertising section
for B2B use is clearly a platform, similar to
other such providers such as craigslist or kijiji
etc.
On the other hand, sending a single and even confidential e-mail to a company one just found on our search engine would, i would think, constitute a channel.
However, wouldn’t there be a third dimension if you will, in addition to the above two : what would be, purely philosophically, the result page of our Search Engine and of course any other search engine ? Based on your definition, it would fulfill the condition of being a platform, due to its universal accessibility ; but it does not satisfy the condition of permanency, since any search result is limited to the length of perusal (research shows that search result pages are rarely left open for longer than 13 - 16 seconds, after which the search ceases to be in existence). [ i am not considering so-called
saved searches to be relevant here ].
Furthermore - and here is the philosophical part - although the entire universe and
population of possible search results (con-
sisting of billions of possible outcomes) is
certainly accessible to everyone, isn’t any
SINGLE search and search result display just a
plain old channel at the time of search and display (search and display usually separated from one another only by fractions of seconds),
since they are UNIQUE at that given time ?
Based on this, might it be appropriate to bring
in a third class of communication level which we
could call either a “funnel” (platform-like wide
at the top, being universally accessible, and
narrow at the bottom, providing information to
one recipient only), or some other simile ?
One could probably think of other examples, too.
Am I splitting hair, or is the above maybe food for thought ? If it’s worth anything (and it
may not be), there could be interesting impli-
cations and applications in communication theory and sociologically.
Comments encouraged, and thank you all. Ernie
Hi Andrew,
While the flip test does make a lot of sense to uncover a lot of implicit assumptions we may be making, I think one point which stands out from this post, and needs to be emphasized is that the net outcome of flipping the scenario would, in all likelihood, be very different from the way we see it today.
Applying the flip test here, I would expect that people would apply a few of their experiences with the platforms you mention to the channels which come later in the flip test, but more likely, this would be only a minute part of the entire scenario.
Thanks, Atul.
As with many of those responding, I too found the flip-test a valuable exercise. In today’s information hungry workplace, successful businesses leverage both channel and platform technologies effectively to facilitate communication. One clear instance of a well integrated internal communication model are web -hosting companies who regularly employ both methods as a means of providing support. System admins can deliver updates on network outages to both support staff (and even clients, if desired) using a simple platform interface such as a blog. For more technical issues, wikis can be populated with common problems to aid support staff in addressing customer support tickets.
Smart business leaders recognize the value and place of both models of information exchange.
Just my thoughts.
Even more brilliant than usual.
I immensely enjoy reading your blog and IMO your analysis here is correct. One thing that may damage this course of reasoning are the charlatans and dreamers. They will produce anti-productive or silly web 2.0 solutions and turn the VC and public opinion against the web 2.0 revolution.
I hope that the VC community will be smart enough to distinguish between them and real advances, but what is going on today (investment wise) is not encouraging.
I like the comment from Rahul and wonder at the comparison between a restricted access platform and a channel.
I have an internal blog - i.e. inside our firewall. I post there nearly every day and find it an excellent means of communication and collaboration. My external blog, on the other hand, gets very few posts - I cannot be as relevant outside as I can on the inside and there is little payback for me in posting there.
As John suggests, there will be things that individuals are unable to express *unless* there is some level of restriction. It must be the case that there are some things individuals wouldn’t express without severe restriction.
Good post! There has been a lot of research addressing the impact of Information
Technology especially the web 2.0 and Channels in world of Platforms. It would be a case to case basis in every situation.
I think that web 2.0 is overrated, the www has always been about user generated content. Some people are just trying to put a new name on it to bring the hype back.
First let me thank you for a quality post.
I certainly agree with you that the flip test reveals many companies pay a detailed attention to the possible risks and downsides of E2.0 platforms.
Very interesting discussion, I think the two outcomes you described are quite plausible - and It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out in the future.
Businesses in general can be slow on the uptake on new technologies, and rightly so why change things that could potentially create issues they don’t want to deal with.
