I wanted to take a step back and look at the big picture of what social media is really accomplishing. You often hear about the new feature on Facebook or Twitter and what cool thing it is going to allow you to do. But it is not very often that we take a step back and look at how all these great tools are changing how we interact. I think it is very simple, increasing connectedness and making the world an easier place to live.

Social Media is Gutenberg’s printing press of our times. Think about it. With the creation of the printing press humans were able to connect through the written word, no longer having to meet face-to-face to share knowledge. Instead of the individual having to travel, the written word went on the journey. Masses of people could be organized around ideas and beliefs, people could be mobilized around calls to action. It helped bring about the scientific revolution and the renaissance, shifting the balance of power and influence away from the church. It had a major impact on improving the lives of people

Now I don’t know if social media will bring about revolutionary changes like the printing press brought about when Gutenberg first set type around 1440. But it is already having some major impacts. Twitter has emerged as a major information source, and organizational tool for protesters in Iran. It has allowed thousands of people to mobilize and make sure their voices are heard around the globe. Who knows? It may help bring about true democracy in Iran.

Facebook groups allow like minded people to unite, and share their interests. You can become ‘friends’ with someone you have never met, and have a real relationship, even if you never do meet. In short, social media is making the world a smaller place, connecting people from different corners of the world, increasing free speech, and uniting the world as Gutenberg’s press did centuries ago.

A comment we sometimes encounter at Rypple is “I like to give my feedback face-to-face so I’m not going to use Rypple”. I always found this to be an interesting concern. If you think about what Rypple really is, it’s a tool designed to help people help people. The internet, the printing press, social media are never going to replace face-to-face interaction, but are simply tools to make communicating easier. Any tool that introduces profound sociological change starts off by creating fear of that change in everyone but the earliest adopters. We expect the same for Rypple, since we’re shaking up the world of feedback and challenging many of the long held assumptions about the role it plays in productivity, interpersonal relationships, and the workplace.

“… the realm of the technical, as thus defined, is not to be considered as evil in itself; if we think of it in itself … a technique is rather something good, since it amounts to nothing more than a specific instance of our general application of our gift of reason to reality.” – Gabriel Marcel “Man Against Mass Society”

Tags: change, facebook, Feedback, twitter

Community Marketing

10592 commentshttp://rypple.com/blog/the-fear-of-change/The+fear+of+change2009-06-30+18%3A08%3A01Nathaniel+Rottenberg

In the market for some feedback? Great! You can always turn to the usual suspects: email, surveys, or even a face-to-face chat.

Still, many are finding that the outlets they’ve traditionally leveraged to garner feedback, don’t circumvent or eliminate the social and cultural barriers that prevent them from consistently yielding useful insights.

Being in the feedback business, I speak to people everyday who share stories about their quest for feedback and the key challenges they face.

Based on these stories I’ve compiled the top 3 for your viewing pleasure, along with insights about how we at Rypple seek to address them:

Ego

The Barrier: You want totally honest and candid feedback, but many people are simply not comfortable giving critical feedback face-to-face, over email or in any other forum where they can be identified. Interestingly, many say that the fear of internalizing critical feedback  is a key reason why people don’t ask for it in the first place!

Why Rypple?: By allowing advisers to submit feedback anonymously, they can feel completely comfortable about sharing their thoughts. It also reduces the amount of emotional capital you need to ante up in order to request the feedback.

Speed & Scope

The Barrier: So your big event just concluded and you want to know what the highlight was for your attendees. How quickly and easily can you capture their sentiments? Ego and anonymity aside, if all you’re after is a quick snapshot of what people think, is that worth setting up a whole survey? Would people have the patience to fill it out? How will you make sense of all the data you collect? Would you even have contact information for everyone in your target audience? Get the idea?!?

Why Rypple?: By allowing you to:

• setup one-question feedback requests
• distribute them quickly via email, Facebook, Twitter, your blog/website, etc. and
• allowing advisers to respond easily via the web or wireless device,

keeping your finger on the pulse of your audience has never been easier! (Don’t believe me? Tell me what you thought of this blog post by clicking HERE…see, and I don’t even know who you are!)

Brevity

The Barrier: Pop quiz! You’re waiting by the elevator to head home for the day when a colleague approaches and says “Hey! Can I get your thoughts on something?“. The first thought that pops into your head is:

1. “I’m honored that someone values my opinion enough to ask for my feedback!”
2. “Sure! I’m totally cool with hanging out by the elevator and having a long chat about whatever this person wants!”
3. “Arggg!!! How long is this going to take?!?”

If you chose 3, you’re not alone. The truth is, people really do want to be helpful, but these days everyone is super-busy and many simply don’t have time to engage in long chat, never-ending email thread, or lengthy survey.

Why Rypple?: Rypple’s “one question at a time” methodology combined with a fixed character limit for both questions and responses promotes brevity. That way, regardless of what end you’re on, everyone will recognize that a Rypple transaction will always be quick, focused, and easy (even if you happen to suffer from L.E.S.!).

So the next time you’re in need of some quick feedback for yourself, your team, or your business, think about whether or not circumventing some or all of these barriers will help you get the real insights you’re looking for!

Tags: barriers, Feedback, social

Product & Community

9900 commentshttp://rypple.com/blog/top-3-barriers-to-getting-really-great-feedback/Top+3+barriers+to+getting+really+great+feedback2009-06-25+16%3A20%3A32David+Priemer

The phrase “learning is work, and work is learning” means a lot to us at Rypple.

We think of learning as something that is deeply connected to the successful execution of our service and our vision. That’s why the most productive and satisfying work we do every day is related to learning. In fact, we believe that in order to enjoy and be good at your job, you have to be learning, all the time.

What’s interesting though is that process of learning becomes much quicker and easier with feedback.

Often when I encounter something new, I want to talk about it with friends and colleagues. Discussing a new idea helps me understand it better because other people’s feedback frames the concept in ways I often wouldn’t have thought of.

But at work, the things that I need to learn about are not abstract ideas. They are tangible. Usually, when I’m trying something new at work, I want to know:

• Did a new approach, idea, or practice result in desired change?
• What do our users and clients think?
• What worked and what didn’t?
• What does our team think?

Courses, books, and blogs are wonderful ways to gather new approaches and specific knowledge. But to really *learn* I need to understand and apply new knowledge in real-life. As a result, I’ve found that my most meaningful learning comes from trying something out and then seeing what happens.

We hope Rypple can bridge this divide by helping people get regular feedback whenever they try something new or when they want to enhance what they’re already doing.

Regular Ryppling is a simple, cost-effective, and easy way to build a repeated cycle of learning into your daily work life.

Tags: Feedback, knowledge, learning, Rypple, work

Daniel Debow is a co-CEO of Rypple. Daniel was one of the founders and the VP of Corporate Development and Marketing for Workbrain, an enterprise software company. He holds a JD and an MBA from the University of Toronto and an LLM in Law, Science & Technology from Stanford University. He's a huge music fan, plays the bass (badly), and spends far too much time online. He lives in Toronto with his wife.

10500 commentshttp://rypple.com/blog/learning-is-work-and-work-is-learning/Learning+is+work%2C+and+work+is+learning2009-06-23+18%3A13%3A07Daniel+Debow

John is head of talent and organization for IDEO, where he leads internal efforts to help the firm stay at the leading edge of design and innovation consulting.  John also works on IDEO client projects to assist and guide organization design components.

I’ve just starting working on a new project with the folks at Rypple. You may have heard about them recently as they are getting some great coverage from traditional media like The Economist and Business Week, and blogs like ReadWriteWeb. We’ve been using it at IDEO and finding it very useful.

One thing I love about their approach is that it’s free for individuals, which makes it very easy to, well, just start using it. And once you start using it, you get nearly immediate benefits, so you are likely to keep using it. These benefits are summed up well by one of their CEO users: “Those who learn fastest win.” Rypple helps you learn faster.

But when you consider “pushing” Rypple into an enterprise context, there are some important issues to consider:

• Cultural implications: How do you get more people to use such a tool without corrupting the self-directed ethic? Are there unique cultural issues when a person asks for feedback within each organization?
• Group dynamics: Is it possible to use the information discovered by the individual for more than personal awareness? Can you use it to assess groups of people on engagement or decision making?
• Performance management: Could it be used to construct learning or performance goals that effect performance evaluation? Is it possible that this platform could supplement or even replace other enterprise tools used in employee assessment or (dare I say it?) performance management? We think so. In fact we don’t do performance management any more. I’ll post more on that another time.

So I’m very excited to announce that we’re launching the Rypple Learning Collaborative (the LC). Recently co-founded by IDEO and Rypple, we expect to publicly announce some very interesting member organizations as soon as we’re able. The LC will be an exclusive set of forward-thinking organizations that will work together in a design process to explore and share their experience of Rypple in the enterprise context.

• What are the goals? The LC will push the boundaries of giving and receiving feedback in companies. We will help each other get better at this important capability. These ideas will also feed into Rypple for further product development where appropriate.
• What does this mean for you? Feedback is an integral part of every successful business, yet it is very illusive and difficult to cultivate. Learning to listen to the ideas and opinions of those around you is a critical step toward high performance. The LC will be exploring these topics and sharing them so that people everywhere can benefit.
• How can I get involved? I’ll keep you posted here on what we’re doing as the whole thing unfolds and we welcome your comments, suggestions, and feedback. If you’d like to be more involved, possibly as a member of The LC, please contact me.

Tags: ideo, Rypple, rypple learning collaborative, the LC

9922 commentshttp://rypple.com/blog/introducing-the-rypple-learning-collaborative/Introducing+the+Rypple+Learning+Collaborative2009-06-10+16%3A40%3A38John+Foster