Rick at work....and at his daughter's (Alyssa) party (linked photo by daughter Aimee)

Biography: Rick Ladd joined Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) in 1987 as part of the team preparing the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) program for the Shuttle's return to flight. Before that he spent over 20 years as a self-employed small business entrepreneur in both the food services industry and the entertainment industry, where he introduced the practice of using portable computers in performing on-site royalty audits on behalf of major recording artists. Rick has worked extensively at PWR as a process improvement facilitator and has gained a reputation as an articulate and thoughtful problem solver. Currently, Rick leads the SSME’s Knowledge Management (KM) team, is a long-time member of PWR’s KM team, and is the KM liaison to the PWR Program Management Office. Additionally, Rick leads the implementation efforts for PWR’s Expertise Location/Social Networking tool – AskMe Enterprise, and PWR’s meeting capture and presentation tool, Quindi Meeting Companion, as well as writing, editing, and publishing a monthly KM newsletter, quicKMemos.

Rick is currently enrolled in the Roland Tseng College of Extended Learning at California State University at Northridge in the Masters in Knowledge Management program. He received his Juris Doctorate from the University of La Verne in 1976.

Contact: Rick can be reached by e-mail at rick.ladd@pwr.utc.com for additional information about this pre-conference seminar.

Biography: Mostafa Ebrahimi has been employed by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) for 19+ years, working in the IT Architecture Group. In this capacity, he explores new IT technologies for adoption and insertion at PWR. As for background, Mostafa earned his M.S. in Computer Science from UCLA , and his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Berlin in Germany. His current project assignments include Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Enterprise Search, Document Management System, IT Training, and Taxonomy Management System.

Contact: Mostafa can be reached by e-mail at mostafa.ebrahimi@pwr.utc.com for additional information about this pre-conference session.

Title: The Net Effect of Network Effects

Date: Thursday, April 23rd

Length: 3 hours (9:00-12:00pm)

Location: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne - 6633 Canoga Avenue, Canoga Park

Cost: None

Description: Network effects speaks to the effect users of a good or service have on the value of that good or service to other people. Traditionally, network effects have been demonstrated most often with a simple discussion of the telephone. The more people who have and use telephones, the more valuable the telephone is to each user. This effect is also said to create a positive externality because users don’t intend to create value for others through their purchase, but do so nonetheless.

This workshop will explore a new network effect that is one of the basic design principles of Web 2.0. We will look at how the harnessing of collective intelligence, through such vehicles as the seemingly simple use of hyperlinking to the more sophisticated innovations such as wiki, folksonomies, collaborative spam filtering, crowd sourcing, and the phenomenon of viral marketing. We will look at how companies such as Google, eBay, and Amazon.com have benefitted from an understanding of network effects.

Recognizing that one plus one doesn’t always add up to two, we will seek to gain a better understanding of how network effects can increase the effectiveness of our organization and transform work into a highly fulfilling, collaborative journey for all involved.

Target Audience: Anyone who would like to understand how network effects have the power to change how we think about our work and our work relationships, promises to radically transform organizations.

Organizational Issues:

Objectives:

Handouts: Available for download after the Forum