This is the fourth in a series of posts looking as how aspiring leaders can learn from Web 2.0 practices and theory. On The Web: On the web, users are accountable for their own behaviours in a community and in most cases, the community will create its own champions and police those who don’t meet community standards. The community will learn from its mistakes and get stronger, faster, better over time. Take Wikipedia as an example – as most people know, not every entry is 100% factually correct, but the community’s passionate, engaged users they have learned how to correct most of the mistakes themselves.  If Jimmy Wales hadn’t given them this trust, Wikipedia would have faltered early and often and would’ve ended up no better than the Encyclopedia Brittanica or World Book. Another example of how communities deal with ‘failure’… If Ralph writes a horribly inappropriate comment on Jane’s blog,  Jane’s community (the audience) has several methods of policing itself.  It can chastise the behaviour within the community (in the comments) or it can flag inappropriate behaviour directly to Jane.  The key is that Jane doesn’t necessarily have to be the first one to act every time someone is offensive – in ...

This is the third in a series of posts looking as how aspiring leaders can learn from Web 2.0 practices and theory. On The Web: Take the example of two different types of bloggers. Jim has a great looking blog with very compelling content. Sandra has a basic template blog with relatively average content. BUT, Sandra has a healthy stream of visitors to her blog every day, while Jim is quickly fading into obscurity. Why does the mediocre blog win the race?  Because Sandra participates in online communities that are related to the subject matter of her blog.  She comments on other blogs, participates in forum discussions, and generously helps other bloggers where she can.  As a result, Sandra is seen as a valuable community member.  Other community members have gotten to know her and, as such, visit her site regularly. On the flip side, Jim knows he’s got a great blog, but can’t be bothered with stooping to comment on other, inferior blogs.  He knows everything about his subject matter and adamantly believes that once people ‘find’ his blog, the crowds will come pouring in. Unfortunately for Jim, they won’t. As A Leader: You can’t just hire people and let them loose.  And you can’t force people ...

This is the second in a series of posts looking as how aspiring leaders can learn from Web 2.0 practices and theory. On The Web: What is it that defines Web 2.0? To me, it’s interactivity.  If Web 1.0 was a one-way ‘speech’ to the crowd or a ‘push’ of information, Web 2.0 is a dialogue, a conversation, and a two-way exchange.  Whether it’s the ability to upload photos to Flickr or videos to YouTube, or to add and edit information to entries on Wikipedia, or even to just comment on a blog, Web 2.0 is ALL about the engagement of the community. And what happens to a community that is truly engaged?  They create astonishing value.  They come back to your site more and more regularly.  They participate and contribute more and more regularly.  They tell others about the great experience they’re having with you.  They CARE about you and your site! As A Leader: Much like a web community, a successful team in an organization is an engaged team.  And – shocker! - the methods to increase engagement on your team are the same as they are on the web. Make meetings two-way conversations. Don’t make decisions in a silo – solicit input ...

I was recently in a seminar about leadership and in the middle of the day, I had a revelation. The theory behind being an effective leader and leading a high-performance team is based on almost the exact same theory as Web 2.0.  I’ve created a series of posts revealing ‘The Leadership Secrets of Web 2.0’, which details some of the core tenets behind Web 2.0 theory and how they apply in real life situations as the leader of a team. Secret #1: Give Up Control - The Power of One Vs. Many. On The Web: Wisdom of the crowd (crowdsourcing) CAME from the web.  The web discovered the massive power, knowledge, and efficiency that results from letting go of control and trusting the community to help solve problems and come up with better ideas.  This is core concept of the Open Source movement and projects like Wikipedia – turn over the keys to the community and let them drive. After all, a few million brains are almost certainly more powerful than just yours. As A Leader: The wisdom of the crowd is almost always greater than the wisdom of the leader, too.  Many leaders' natural instincts tend towards control ...