Brian Bailey and I had coffee with Headshift’s Anne Bartlett Bragg a few weeks ago and we discussed a range of topics around social media and beyond. Actually, we had so much fun chatting with Anne that we completely forgot the time and cafe almost kicked us out for over staying our welcome ;-)
Anyway, I noticed that TechNation Australia interviewed Anne recently and one of the questions asked and Anne’s reply was:
How does the social media/web 2.0 scene in Australia compare to that of the UK and Europe?
“Currently Australia is 2-3 years behind on a corporate basis, namely in implementation. As I mentioned before, alot of companies are now talking about it, but few are actually ‘doing’ it.”
This matches my own assessment of the market in Australia (there is a familiar pattern at play) and while frustrating at times, on the upside if your organisation is only just starting to “get” social media then remember you are in good company!
Of course, what is significant to notice about Web 2.0 is the pace of change – and Anne and I are right, if you hope that social media or Web 2.0 might give your organisation some kind of advantage (in what ever form) then now is the time to do something about it.
The big difference is in the Australian arms of global companies. There are some serious and advanced enterprise and web 2.0 initiatives already well entrenched with organisations such as IBM and SAP and across many of the business consulting firms.
ReplyDeleteThe lessons are there to be learned, and Australian businesses should use this as a way to accelerate their uptake and transform their approach to innovation. Holding my breath ...
That's a good point. What might be missing is the need to localise those experiences so they are meaningful to Australian organisations and the business issues and challenges they face.
ReplyDeletePerhaps 2 - 3 years may be right. On the one hand, the economic downturn may drive an earlier take-up as marketers realise they need to connect with customers using social network sites and social media.
ReplyDeleteThen theirs the cultural change necessary to embrace collaboration and transparency. We may see more action in terms of sites and interaction, but I would bet the participants are likely to be just those who are digital literate - in the full sense of the term.
What about the public sector James? Anyone care to make comparisons there?
Probably a good person to ask is Craig Thomler, over on the eGov AU blog at http://egovau.blogspot.com/ :-)
ReplyDeleteYup,
ReplyDeleteWe're definitely several years behind in Australia - particularly in the egovernment sphere.
There's some great work going on in the commercial sector however.
Cheers,
Craig