User News

 

Swarms are being used in all sorts of user applications including some we never expected. Four  group scenarios have emerged as clear leaders in the Swarming space:Business networks,  Fan/Supporter Communities,  Mobile/virtual teams and Events/Conferences.

 

Although these 4 application areas might seem diverse they are linked by 5 common themes – be it a team, community or network:

1. Non co-location: the group is distributed physically and may only occasionally meet physically - in fact sometimes all the members of such a group never meet physically.

2. Multi-channel: no single channel (e.g. email or web) suits the communications of the entire group - this may be a by-product of the first point but can also be a function of personal group member preference.

3. Fluid and/or complex group structures:  such as groups within groups, groups within communities, overlapping group memberships or different types/levels of group membership.

4. Distributed Leadership: the group cannot effectively be commanded and controlled by a single leader. For whatever reason leadership must be exercised collectively - if somebody says "working with these guys is like herding cats" it is often a clue to an unrecognised great swarming opportunity.

5. Incubation: the group has to form over time via some kind of an incubation process rather than appearing ready-made. In fact the group’sgrowth often looks very similar to an ant colony or beehive which are both exceptionally fragile until they reach “critical mass” but then they become virtually indestructible!

This is where businesses come together to achieve scale and to deliver collective services and products to the market that they would not be able to do individually. Typically this involves 10-30 small businesses plus a couple of major enterprises/prime contractors with support from applied research institutions (typically within Universities) and local economic development bodies (such as the UK RDAs). Incubation time is typically 6-12 months. This network configuration is also an ideal structure to facilitate Open Innovation.

A network like this is sometimes called a Virtual Enterprise Network. It is particularly important to use a proven collective leadership model (such as my "ABCDE roles" model) and an effective set of collective workgroups covering the key activities - typically Network Governance, Sales and Marketing, New Member Recruitment, Competency Development and New Product/Service Development. 

These kind of networks are described in detail in my new book The Networked Enterprise which also contains 6 in depth case studies plus numerous other examples. One of the best examples is the cross-border Environmental Technology Cluster(ETC) which describes the benefits of using Swarms to support the communications of a virtual business network.

By fan/supporter community I mean groups who come together around social objects or causes:

In these communities one of the biggest challenges is for the owner of the social object or cause to be able to encourage and facilitate forms of collective leadership between them and their fans/supporters. For example, in the music sector, a band wants to collaborate with its top fans (Alpha Fans) in the promotion of new gigs and music releases. Alternatively a health promotion agency seeks to develop a cadre of health advocates from within its user community.

In these fan/supporter communities, unlike small business networks, we are typically talking of membership in the 100-1000 category and with much shorter incubation periods (4-12 weeks).

In the UK we have been enabling swarming in fan/supporter communities in a project known as SwarmTribes (sponsored by NESTA). Kharma45, an exciting young UK band from Derry, on the Warner Brothers Label were one of the first bands to use swarms to interact with their fans.




3. Mobile/virtual teams

Here you have a team who are on the road a lot and don't meet very often. Such teams do not spend most of their days in their office at their desks so all the richness of the desktop internet is not available to them for their full working days. They may be dispersed geographically and by time zone. Often also they are a mix of full timers, volunteers and occasional experts. Sometimes they are also a mix of disciplines and/or cultures.

One of the biggest challenges for this kind of team is supporting collective leadership through sharing information in a timely way. There seem to be three key communication needs - all of which need to operate instantly in real-time irrespective of any team members location:

Two great examples of such teams are the Mobile Care Team at DaisyHill hospital and the Hunter New England Health Pandemic response team. 

4. Events/Conferences/Festivals

Events and conferences are a special case of a Fan/Supporter community where you are hoping to capture delegates and through the event transform them from a passive audience into a pro-active community who cannot wait to come to the next event you organize.

 

There are at least 10 great reasons for using Swarms for an event or conference including:

 

The US-NI Investment Conference in Belfast and the Sixth International SPICE Conference in Luxemborg are two great examples of how Swarms can enhance an event or conference.

 

 

 
===============================================================
Swarmteams (www.swarmteams.com) connects and empowers mobile/virtual groups and communities by integrating their  mobile messaging (SMS), Instant Messaging (IM), email and Web.  
===============================================================