In my previous blog post on Obama I wrongly quoted the numbers of fans he had on Facebook. It was/is actually 13.4 million according to Don Tapscott who, back in September, correctly predicted Obama’s victory in an interview with Stefan Stern of the FT.

Anyone who doubts the power of such social networking sites and of the internet in general should think again. I sometimes hear people questioning whether Gen Y are that different from the rest of us. YES THEY ARE. They are wired differently because of the technological landscape that has always been a very comfortable home for them. They are natives to this world. Us Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are immigrants and always will be.

Sally

I came across this very interesting talk by Clay Shirky. He raises questions about how organisations can be enablers instead of obstacles to ideas and innovation. The challenge for organisations is that, no matter how big they are, they can only employ a certain number of people - they only engage a small percentage of the total world population in helping them solve their problems.

Some organisations have done something very simple and very smart and have offered the opportunity to help them to anyone who is interested. Facebook is a good example. When they first started they did their own development. Now anyone in the world can submit their ideas and have them taken up, And Facebook doesn’t even have to pay them. Makes you think doesn’t it?

Sally