These observations suggest that participation is here to stay, but stimulating continued high-quality participation is complex. It requires a subtle balance of rewards and effort, a thoughtful segmentation of participants and a comprehension of the social structures of participation.

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We have just published an article on the McKinsey Quarterly site about something we call the Internet of Things, i.e., sensors and actuators embedded in physical devices, connected by networks to computers that analyze the data.

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Despite the broadening of participation, the overall ratio of contributors to users is still relatively low, and amongst contributors, only a few create the content that is widely seen, leaving a classic long tail of content generated by other users. Even now, up to 90% of the sentences typed into Wikipedia are left unedited. Previously, roughly 5 to 6% of total contributors generated the content that led to 80% of the audience consumption on social media sites, and today the same “power curve” remains.

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A few years ago, the distribution of participation was skewed, with only a small number of individuals contributing significant amounts of widely relevant content on social media sites. A few years can make quite a difference. Participation rates have grown significantly, with many more opportunities to participate actively on a variety of social media platforms.

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User participation is now an established feature of the economy, spreading from product development and software to a much broader base of activities, such as marketing and manufacturing, and sectors, including social media, automotives and cosmetics, among others. But is it living up to its promise and how do we do a better job of harnessing it?

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Transformational outsourcing has long been hailed as the next big step in the evolution of outsourcing and offshoring. But what exactly is it all about? Bigger and more integrated deals? New service and operating models? Deals with SLAs focused around business value rather than traditional metrics?

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In many organizations the annual planning cycle is well underway. Some CIOs and CTOs enjoy a privileged position and are at the heart of shaping the future of their organization through this process. Others are at the receiving end of this process and work under constraints that make it hard to deliver technology-enabled value creation for the enterprise. The difference sometimes comes down to personal characteristics: charismatic leaders, strong communicators and proven relationship builders often achieve greater impact. But there is also an institutional aspect. A good understanding of the role and value of technology among all executives in the organization makes it much easier to deliver impact.  How can this be improved?

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A recent study of global CIOs by IBM shows that what keeps CIOs up at night isn't necessarily just  short term IT cost pressure. The study indicates that  intelligence & analytics (cited by 83% of respondents) and virtualization (cited by 76% of respondents) are top of mind.

This makes sense and suggests  that CIOs are thinking ahead in terms of how IT can help position their companies for success in the new normal.

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Three European telecom operators at a recent conference talked about some of the benefits of outsourcing that are not always obvious. This includes drastically reducing the number of time and materials contractors as well as their IT costs. In addition, time-to-market has not suffered as a result of outsourcing & offshoring but actually has improved. And while the telecom operators have reduced costs, they have created scalability, meaning they are able to better adapt to demand variations.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that technology companies are beginning to increase advertising budgets in hopes that IT purchasing is going to turn the corner and begin to pickup after a slow year due to the recession.

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