It seems as though 2012 has been an exceptionally busy year for me. This has led to this blog being neglected for a bit. I apologise and hope to deliver a lot more content this year.

I had another long extended trip to China where I learnt a great deal about how China is using the web in business contexts. It is a very exciting time for the Chinese in terms of business development as well as innovation. 

Of course 2012 saw the elections in both China and USA therefore bringing about a stability in the world's power houses. I hope that this will lead to an upturn in the markets for I know that there are many businesses out there that can do with a bit of help. 

In any case whoever you are and whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck.

By Wang Guowen (gw.wang)

Surreal Olympics

I gave up coffee one time and noticed my kidneys started to hurt, so I had to go back on it only to ween myself off it. Now four years later I am still a non-coffee drinker. 

This year I intend to give up chocolate, ice cream and all things sweet. (I'll still take naturally sweet things like fruit, honey and my wife.) I'd give up smoking and alcohol but I no longer do them either.

I think Lent is a good thing. It offers the second chance of the year after New Year's Day to make a new start on things. 

What are you giving up?

Image by _SiD_

China has 1.3 billion people (or a fifth of the world's population). The people of China have an interest in the goings-on in the West. China has internet retrictions whereby some websites are blocked. You can view a list of websites blocked in China.

Image by hey mr glenIf you were to start a blog on Wordpress or Tumblr and spent a few years on it garnering a build up of traffic, and then you decide to sell stuff then you'd have no visiblity in China. Next week I'll be building overhauling the website of my composer friend Ed Bennett. Now Ed might not have any plans to play in China any time soon but he may get a call in a couple of years saying that one of his orchestral pieces will be played by Beijing Symphony Orchestra. If the Chinese want to find out more about Ed, subscribe to his gigs or buy his CDs it would be good if they could access his site.

I should say also that SquareSpace is pretty good. They are very responsive when it comes to customer service and seem to be working hard to develop their service offering all the time.

So next time you go to Wordpress, Tumblr or Blogspot to start up your new blog, think twice.

So without any further ado please send in your funnies.

Image by Eugene Hamill

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. Basically I went on holiday and Nick moved house. We could have updated but hey, it was Christmas. We ate - and didn't drink alcohol!

What do you think about it all?

Image by joe adams

Here is a great video explaining it all.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

He has polarised society mostly with this remark: some say he should be sacked by the BBC (which frankly I can't see as his show Top Gear is the Beeb's largest export); whilst others think it was a huge over-reaction. Anyway this was a few days ago now so it may have been forgotten about already. 

And so I am bringing him back into the limelight! 

The pic below was taken by my uncle Patrick J. Heron during a break in the studio shooting of one of the Top Gear shows back in 2008.

Well done to Gerard Brightman who wins the accolade of best caption in last week's WC.

Image by Patrick J. Heron

So what's being said. Test yourself!

1. Many hands make light work

No one person can build a Formula 1 team. The fastest cars in the world can only be consistently so when people collaborate. Take away the collaboration and they fall behind. The same can be said for organisations. OK you may have the brightest people in the industry working in your team, but if they are not collaborating you are missing a trick. Collective knowledge is better than individual knowledge.

2. A problem shared is a problem halved

A continuation from point one, it's easier to find the answer to a problem when you apply more brains, skills and ultimately people. 

3. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy

Work can be fun, and easy. Wikis can promote collaborative working by making the process of working together easy and fun.

4. Employees cherish a sense of inclusion

Wikis can create a greater feeling of common purpose - by, for instance sharing the thinking going into policy creation and encouraging participation. The result is a greater sense of ownership for the work produced. This all brings about a greater sense of respect for the company that they work for and for the work that they do. 

5. What's your problem?

Wikis are great for dealing with bottlenecks in an organisation. Social Media guru and Deloittes Director of the Centre for the Edge John Hagel once told me an example of a bus company using social software for dealing with broken down vehicles and locating spare parts. When you think of social software bus companies don't spring to mind yet this was a great example of how social media was applied to a problem area in a "non techy" organisation and delivered amazing results. 

6. This I have seen before this I have seen this before this I have seen.

Wikis can enable duplicated work easier to identify and co-ordinate, particularly if wikis have wide accessibility.

7. Who's not looking over your shoulder?

Make the best practice process open and available to all. Why would you want to shut out the extra brain power of your organisation? 

8. Team building on the best parts of the team

Create a greater sense of unity within a team or group, or organisation by letting all contribute to creation of documents bringing their particular strengths to bear. 

9. That's my idea!

Wikis can enable contributions e.g. seed idea, to be identified and rewarded if that is the culture of the organisation.

10. Reduce time getting up to speed

Wikis can enable faster integration of new people into the organisation and more rapid payback, because they can get up to date information on "how-to" to reduce onboarding time.

11. Reduce travel costs

Wikis enable instant communication via the web. This means that meetings can take place for example of the phone and notes can be captured via the wiki.

12. Know what you are talking about

How many times have you gone into a meeting without knowing what the agenda was. By posting an agenda on a wiki you can get the answers thrashed out before the meeting takes place.

 Image by Jinx1303

This brief list highlights potential benefits of using wikis in your organisation, and outlines how much of it applies to organisations of any size.  We use wikis to work together in our two man band. Arguably the benefits are greater the larger the organisation.

The benefits of using wikis are magnified the more people who have access to them, but of course some risks are magnified as well. The main ones being loss of Intellectual Property and staff thinking that the knowledge gained enables or entitles them to do things they are not qualified to to do.  All risks can be mitigated, but that's another topic.

I could go on and on with advantages but I thought 12 is a nice number to digest. What are your thoughts on all of this?

Definitely kind of creepy indeed!

Image by zoomarThanks to Lance Morrisey for last week's comment!

Coogan made a good point yesterday in the Leveson inquiry which was that in the olde days a scandalous story would be forgotten about in tomorrow's fish and chip paper but now, with the web, it stays forever.

What I particularly like about Twitter is that it allows you the freedom to publish your own version of events. Coogan unfortunately has yet to join the Twitterverse which is a shame as I feel he would probably be as frank and entertaining as Stephen Fry.

Anyway here he is a photo I found in Flickr which has Creative Commons licence. It's Coogan in conversation back in 2005. Send in your funnies.

Image by Mirka23

Special thanks to Arthur Peffers, Sybil Wieners and Kurt Whitner for their great comments in last week's WC.