Following on from few weeks ago where I presented some examples of Web 2.0 - 3.0 technologies and ideas being utilised in everyday life, I would like to continue that theme.  Highlighting how the 4C appraoch of social media implementation (from Niall Cook's - "Enterprise 2.0" - Communications, Cooperations, Collaboration & Connection) applies using a real world example. Last weekend I attended a "hackfest" set up by the SilverStripe Open-Source Community. SilverStripe is an open-source Content Management System (CMS) developed in Wellington, New Zealand and powers some high profile corporate and government websites. What makes SilverStripe unique though is the fact that their flagship product is free and open-source. Check out a quick video from Siguard , one of the founders for a great overview of their approach to software and open-source.

As I wonder around Wellington lately I started to realise how much Web 2.0+ (2.5, 3.0) concepts and technologies I actually interact with on a day to day basis. After looking into some of the more formal definitions of these evolutions of the web, 2.0 with the web being used as a platform for social interaction, 2.5 with its "mobile" application of 2.0 ideas and 3.0 looking at being the "semantic" web (web that understands what we are trying to find by providing extra data about our context or preferences). Here is a few of the more interesting situations and examples that are not the usual Facebook checking or Twitter tweeting.

I have been lucky enough to have been invoved in the web industry through what would be termed the shift from web 1.0 to web 2.0 but well before the term was coined by Tim O'Riley in 2004, myself and fellow web geeks simply were just trying to push the boundaries as to what we could do with the emerging technology, new scripting languages, techniques and processes with out a thought as to giving it a shiney marketable buzzword name such as the now often mis-used term "Web 2.0".

I mentioned in the last month some of the history behind why Social Media is in an absolute boom at present. Mostly this is to do with human interaction and the our social nature which leads us to find ways to communicate and collaborate over long distances. There has also been a business cultural shift towards embracing these social tools to open up a dialog with customers which is perhaps due to the changing generational mix in the workforce as Andreas Kaplin & Michael Haenlein point out:

It seems that all throughout history, human beings have been trying to utilise the latest technology of the times in order to connect, communicate, cooperate and colloborate (the 4 C's!). When I say technology it might not always be the computers and social networks of today (but I will get to that shortly). Just think of smoke signals, carrier pigeons, the horseback mail courier, the telegraph service (morse code), through to the telephone, finally entering the computer era.

The important thing here is really that humans are social creatures and we are pretty clever when it comes to finding ways to communicate even over long distances. This continues on into our modern computer driven era, if we look at some of the ideas and innovations in communication and collaborative technology dating back as far as the 1940's. From Niall Cook's book "Enterprise 2.0", in 1945 Vannevar Bush, who was then the Director of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development, published his article "As we may think" with these visions of the future of communication:

Well, just when the start of my year couldn't get any busier, semester one of my university study kicks in.

This year I am however rather excited as I will be studying some interesting topics including Social Media Networks for Business and having worked in companies and implemented some Social Media strategies before it will be interesting as to the approach taken by our lecturer and how the theory stacks up to the real world.

Part of the assessment is to keep a blog of your thoughts and reflection on the topics of social media that we study so I will be posting regularly here with my progress and hopefully some interesting and useful information that you could pick up and practically implement yourself.

Projects are set in a highly complex and challenging environment. Effective projects require the best of technical and people skills from project managers, a supportive organisational structure, teams which can perform with a minimum of conflict, consideration of project risks and clearly defined criteria of success. These key factors as discussed in this series offer an insight into the many challenges that must be overcome and managed by today's project managers. If it is accepted that in project management, “no project ever goes 100% according to plan” (Randolph & Posner, 1994, as cited in Clarke, 1999, p. 141) this can be considered and appropriate steps can be taken when beginning new projects.

The last key factor to be discussed in this series is whether or not well defined and measurable criteria of project success exist and have been agreed upon by both internal and external stakeholders at the beginning of the project (Jugdev & Müller, 2005). The different stakeholders involved in a project, such as project managers, project team, functional management and external clients may all have different perspectives as to the goals and requirements of the project being carried out (Jugdev & Müller, 2005). With this in mind there is a need to establish more objective measures of exactly when the project can be considered successful.

The majority of decisions made by project managers are conducted under conditions of uncertainty and risk. This is especially true during the initiation phase of the project life-cycle, where uncertainty is at its highest (Meredith & Mantel, 2006). All projects are predisposed to risk due to complexity and many factors that are outside the control of the project manager. However, a common factor of projects that are successful is that the project manager usually considered, and planned to some degree, the possible risks they were likely to face (Pinto, 2007).

It is important that an appropriate project manager with the right balance of skills is put in place to ensure a successful project. It is said that a good project manager must act like a “mini-CEO” (Pinto, 2007, p. 119) and must be proficient in both the technical skills of a manager balanced with the people skills of a leader.