Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Social Media Implications for Business

I spent the first week of November as Innovator in Residence at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.  As part of my activities during the week, Dean Ernest Wilson hosted a conference on Social Media: Platform of Provocation for Innovation?.  The half-day conference consisted of two panels: one on the social and technological innovation being brought about by social media, and the other on the implications of social media to business.  Each panel included experts from USC Annenberg and IBM.

The first panel covered topics on social networks, 3D virtual worlds, immersive journalism, social computing research and a number of others.  It was moderated by Henry Jenkins, who moved from MIT this Fall to join the USC faculty as Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts.  Henry, - whom I met at MIT a couple of years ago because of our mutual interest in virtual worlds, - was previously Director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies program and Professor of Humanities.

The full video of the first panel can be seen here.

I wouId like to focus this blog on the second panel, which I moderated.  The panel focused on the implications of social media to the communications and media industries as well as to organizations in general.  Panelists included Marc Cooper, Jonathan Taplin and David Westphal from the Annenberg School, and Melissa Cefkin and Steve Canepa from IBM.

The full video of the second panel can be seen here.

The MIT Distributed Leadership Forum

The MIT Leadership Center is one of several research groups in the MIT Sloan School of Management.  Its key focus is distributed leadership “. . . the idea that leadership today, even more than in the past, must come from every level of an organization or every part of an organizational network.”   Central to the Leadership Center is the belief that “the development of skilled, thoughtful, passionate leaders must be rooted in real world experience.”

Earlier this month, the Center sponsored a Distributed Leadership Forum, which brought together an invited group of people from industry and academia to explore the key attributes of distributed leadership required for effective 21st century organizations.  I am a member of the Leadership Center and was involved in the planning of the Forum.

Communications, Journalism and Media in the Internet Age

I spent the first week of November at USC’s Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism.  USC Annenberg is one of the largest and most comprehensive schools of its kind in the world, with research and educational programs in communications, journalism, public diplomacy, public relations, media, educations and related areas.  It is thus in a unique position to analyze and influence the impact of information technologies on the world’s news, media and entertainment industries, and on organizations and institutions in general.

Last July I received an invitation from Annenberg’s Dean, Ernest Wilson to be its first Innovator in Residence.  This is part of a program Dean Wilson is launching to bring people to Annenberg from different fields, who have real-world, practical understanding of the impacts of disruptive innovations, - because they have lived through it, as I have in IBM.  His letter said:

“ . . . The communications and media sectors are in a state of great turmoil.  Over a relatively short period of time, technological progress has altered everything from the media for information delivery to the revenue sources for the news, media and public relations business.  At this moment, there is a remarkable confluence of social, economic and technological change - all of which affect vital information flows in our democracy.”

“Rather than seeing these changes as threats, I am encouraging my team to view them as unique opportunities to lead and contribute to innovative thinking and action in the communication field.  The Annenberg School is expected to play a major role in shaping this future:  we need to be able to step up to meet the expectations, offering bold and creative solutions for the communications and media industries, and a meaningful education for our students.”   

Dean Wilson’s invitation letter was very eloquent, but frankly, given my strong interest in the subject, he had me at “Dear Irving.”

Education and Services Innovation

Richard Larson is Professor of Engineering Systems and Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT.  Professor Larson is a pioneer in applying technology, science and engineering to a wide variety of problems in services industries, from technology-enabled education to urban service systems.  His interests in emergency response systems have led him to organize initiatives for applying engineering principles to planning and responding to global pandemics, such as the ongoing H1N1 flu.  He also leads MIT’s overall efforts to establish an inter-disciplinary services science initiative.

I met Dick Larson when I first joined MIT’s Engineering Systems Division as a visiting faculty member, almost four years ago.  Dick is one of the MIT faculty members I have worked closest with since then, so I am comfortable referring to him as Dick instead of Professor Larson..  He is one the best role models I know of the kind of systems oriented, market-facing engineers that we increasingly need to help us tackle the highly complex, multi-disciplinary problems we are facing in the 21st century.

One such problem is education.  Dick just published an op-ed article, Education: Our Most Important Service Sector in Service Science, a relatively new online journal focusing on state-of-the-art research and development in service sciences and related areas.

CNN, Latinos and Brand Values

A few weeks ago CNN broadcast Latino in America, a two-hour documentary that explored “how Latinos are reshaping our communities and culture and forcing a nation of immigrants to rediscover what it means to be an American.”  The documentary was reported by Soledad O’brien, a highly regarded CNN anchor and special correspondent who in 2008 reported the similar Black in America documentary. 

The US has over 50 millions Latinos, and by 2050 the US Latino population is expected to triple.  Latino in America portrays this incredibly complex, diverse, fast-growing community through a series of individual stories.  CNN calls it:

“. . . an ambitious documentary initiative [that] examines the growing diversity of America, revealing insight into a changing nation on the eve of the U.S. census that is expected to officially confirm that Latino Americans are the largest minority group within the country.”

It later adds:

“As the face of America changes profoundly, CNN continues to demonstrate that we are the only cable news network dedicated to delivering a diversity of opinions and coverage,” said Jon Klein, president CNN/U.S. “This landmark series will showcase dramatic personal stories from across the sweep of Latino-American society, and move the dialogue well beyond limited partisan discussions of immigration.”

Latino in America received a number of positive reviews, thanks in large part to the excellent work of Soledad O’Brien.  But Jon Klein’s attempt to move the dialogue beyond immigration has not fared so well.