"Still wondering what X-Cell is about? Limited resources, knowledge and time stop people from embracing social media and digital innovation. X-Cell is testing, piloting and presenting new social media solutions to better respond to the needs of organizations, educational system and companies."
- Limited resources
- Knowledge
- Time
Saara Laaksonen presents the X-Cell project on her blog: "The work we’re doing includes testing and presenting new social media solutions for the purposes of local and regional organizations, schools and companies."
Target groups are:
- Local organizations
- Regional organizations
- Schools
- Companies
Who is Saara Laaksonen? My first thought was that she was from Turku. The reason was simple, she sent a Twitter note while on the train to Turku. Is that right? Anyway, Turku isn't the place where she is working. The location is Kauhajoki. Yesterday I leraned more about her. She is associated with Andrea Vascellari. That's why Saara tells about her projects and intentions on Seesmic.
"I think the possibilities that social media and web 2.0 offer are endless and I’m really excited about this project. In general the companies are really interested in the web 2.0 and social media tools in this region but the biggest problem to get them use these tools is TIME, the lack of time," writes Saara.
Andrea and myself have been blogging, Twittering and Jaikuing about the slow entry of Small and Medium Size Enterprises = SME's to Web 2.0, Social Media, and collaborative network applications. That's not unique for Finnish SME's. We can see the same trend all over Europe. I also remember someone from Australia commenting that Aussies are four years behind US in the use of blogs and social media.
Why is that? The United Europe is still a long term dream. We're still divided into numerous national states. EU-wide collaboration faces cultural, linguistic, and social barriers. Technology isn't a central issue anymore, but TIME might be interpreted as "I'm not interested, YET."
Social Media is still something for a small minority. This time it isn't the programmers and geeks but people with a social mindset. People who understand the deeper meaning of collaboration. Social Media requires a modern way of thinking. I think Saara Laaksonen and Andrea Vascellari are good examples of people with modern mindsets.
We need to set some examples and show the benefits of social networking. I guess companies want to get measurable results. Any ideas about how to produce the numerics?
4 comments:
Great post Helge! I really liked what you wrote.
It's true that at the moment social media is just for small minority. Us who live in the social media space can see all the potential and possibilities it has but most of the people don't even know what social media stands for. However, I believe that social media can give something for everyone. Our job is to bring it to the people and show them how they could benefit from using it!
Saara, you're so right. Pioneers have to work through the jungle of ignorance. Joining forces and doing together is probably the best way to go. Collaboration has helped US to advance in everything related to Web 2.0 and Social Media.
Exiting times people... exciting times...
Social media it's an open challenge.
There's a huge potential but advisers and developers have to keep in mind the set of skills of their end-users, otherwise social web innovation will be embraced only by restricted number of pioneers...
Andrea
Andrea Vascellari, You're so right. Social Media isn't difficult to use - technically. Nevertheless, the entry barrier might be what to say, what to write or what to show. In enterprises people are also afraid about disclosing too much about their companies and their products. We might not agree with that but entrepreneurs are afraid about their intellectual property. Instead they decide to be quiet.
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