Welcome to my weblog, which I use for keeping track of interesting stuff. It serves as my basecamp for the exploration of the Internet, the "Blogosphere" and life in general.
It’s often advised that Enterprise 2.0 initiatives have more chance when coming from the bottom of organisations. For good reasons too: Enterprise 2.0 is all about empowering people, but often requiring radical changes in the way they work and relate together, both with their peers and with management. In terms of both testing what works and getting the tools accepted in the workplace the best way could then very well be to start low, small and with a few frontrunners or potential evangelists.
However, after a couple of experiments at work I now have a feeling that bottom-up Enterprise 2.0 has its own limitations, especially when critical mass is important to show the potential benefits (to employees and management) and tools don’t readily overflow with personal value (it’s not all Del.icio.us!) and when people are in the pursuit of busyness.
Or did we do our experiments wrong, actually violating the rules stipulated above (with the obvious benefit of hindsight)? Maybe more called for, to get some participation?
Writing this, I was remembered by a quote of Andrew McAfee:
Enterprise 2.0 is not a hype, but it is also not easy, and will serve to separate the winners from the loser” (link)
And:
I predict that the diffusion of these tools is going to sharpen differences among companies as some work to foster the new styles, modes, and practices of collaboration and others work (subtly or overtly) to squelch them. (link)
Asked the question on Twitter tonight but no response yet:
What would the most attractive feature on an employee social network that really draws people in (providing individual value)?
At the end of last year I created a list of 20 things to do on a social network in the office. The piece was the result of a personal brainstorm. But, as you might understand a lot of “utopia” ended up there. At least from the perspective of a employee in a company that never even though about social networks, let alone done some stuff on them. So let’s get down to earth…
To repeat: What would the most attractive feature on an employee social network that really draws people in? In my opinion for, in my case “busy bankers” but it might be for anyone else new to this stuff: personal value first should be the motto
So what’s personal value on a social network? Let me think again:
seeing photo’s behind those long-known names?
keep one’s resume (for the new potential boss to see)?
learning about the interest, hobbies, careers of colleagues?
seeing what you network is doing (= writing on the personal blogs in the network)?
finding people in the same specialism, related projects etc?
seeing what is written on specific tags (this is obviously 2nd or 3rd phase stuff….)
The trouble is that considerable critical mass is required to at least get some of the personal value from the activities mentioned above, although not to the same degree.
Let me refrase my question: What are the first things to focus on when building a social network behind the firewall in terms of features (next to usability)?
“It was never about the markup anyway. Wikis are about making creating and editing content trivial, about creating structure as you go, about tracking changes and activity (plus more). The “wiki way” never demanded the use of strangle little text commands.”
“It could even be argued that the wiki way is all about usability, so wiki markup is actually opposed to the core principles being pursued. What could be easier than just typing straight into the wiki, with buttons for formatting?”
and
“I would go one step further: don’t deploy a wiki for a broad audience (or within the enterprise) if it doesn’t have WYSIWYG editing. That will start to put some pressure on the developers, and should help to speed the permanent death of wiki markup. RIP and long live wikis.”
I fully agree with James here, although I must admit I have developed some kind of blindness: the longer you are working with wiki markup the easier it is to forget this big usability and adoption issue.
So, although my colleagues in the department have finally begun to do their stuff on our wiki (MediaWiki), I am sure adoption would have been much quicker had WYSIWYG editing been in place.
I have been trying to list some of the issues around the subject of participation on the Intranet. Here is my draft outline of symptoms, backgrounds and possible solutions. Have anything to add or restructure? Please comment.
Some symptoms:
Let’s do some real work ok?
I am too busy for “that”!
I do not feel confident enough to participate.
I have enough information coming towards me already.
What’s behind these reactions:
Knowledge is power: a knowledge transfer makes me end up in a worse situation than before. I will not share anything if I am not obliged to do so by my superior or/and recognized in my annual review and compensation. Related: What does my boss think of me spending time on “that”?
What do I have to contribute to such a tool? What would be the value? I do not see that (not understanding the concept; needs training).
Technical barriers for contributing: needs training on working with the tools
Some people are just not interested in working on the Intranet. They come to do the work they are supposed to and that’s it.
People do not like the thought of their input being read and commented upon by anyone. Feel their thoughts are private and not for everybody to read. Who knows what will be the result in future?
Possible solutions:
Management should start signaling that it is generally accepted to spend time providing relevant and constructive input in the social software systems.
Acknowledgment of management of the value of the new tools to the company (e.g. actually using all collective intelligence; reducing search time for information / people; more engagement; flow of idea’s/innovation).
The company should make sure that sharing of information or participating in social network environments is part of KPI’s and the reward system. Some S.M.A.R.T. measures should be developed for that, but I am sure that is not the real problem.
Increase the weight on team results in reward systems relative to the individual result if you want people to share more and collaborate better.
Employees should be made aware of the value of the new tools and of their particular contributions.
Employees should be supported in working with the tools (how to do “this”?).
Employees should be provided with suitable equipment (e.g. RSS readers) .
What’s behind all of this? Just me “shaping my thoughts”!
Last week, my Enterprise 2.0 evangelist spirit lead me to post a piece on our internal Wiki weblog (a blog exploring the value of social software) about the things I would want to do on an internal social network.
I believe that, using the collective intelligence of all people within the company should be one of the main themes in the drive for growth, efficiency and value. Actually that collective intelligence has been mostly unused to date, just lying there. Part of the answer to change that situation, is facilitating relationships and helping people connect.
On the blog I presented the result of a bit of brainstorming on my side on the things I would want to do on an internal social network (like LinkedIn or Facebook). Things that would make things easier and joyful. Things that would also make me feel more engaged to this place!
I came up with 20 of them. Anything I missed?
Find that expert in (…any work related topic that comes to mind…) when I need them.
Post questions to my network (for everybody to see of course).
Locate colleagues interested in the same things as I am (and meet up for lunch!).
Ask for opinions on a specific route for doing things (e-mail management?).
Check out and approach the people or manager(s) at my next job position.
Market myself within the company in the fields I am good at (personal branding).
Keep my resume and personal information readily available for all and easy to update.
Check out interesting projects going on (that I may be doing also and so save some time; keep me from re-inventing the wheel).
Answer questions that actually “find me” because of my profile and network (and be rewarded for my participation!).
Create communities of people around a specific topic to focus the individual effort and passion.
Learn about the people around me (who I greet in the hallway but know nothing about).
Discuss about idea’s, experiences, lessons learned, business process improvements, tools, policies, external developments.
Being able to put out a few thoughts now and then, tag them and let them go for all to react on, learn from. And of course read your thoughts!
Be aware of what is going around in the space I am involved with and beyond.
Quickly learn about the (new) work and colleagues when landing in a new position.
Find out where people are working with my educational and work experience.
Want to know what my network knows that I should know.
Just want to keep my list of contacts (who to approach for what?).
Trace the person who knows that special person who knows about that particular topic.
Hey, I would even like to post a few photo’s of ING events to share with everyone around here.
Martin Kloos, a Dutch Web/Enterprise 2.0 and social media consultant, posted some nice questions about the unofficial role that some people acclaim for themself Enterprise 2.0 evangelist within orgnisations.
Funny enough, the reason for the post was Martin reading in my Linkedin profile the title “Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist at ING Group”.
Here are a few of the questions and my (translated) answers in italics:
How can we define the role of unofficial enterprise 2.0 evangelist?Well, for me personally it means I have seen the E2.0 light, read a considerable number of articles on the topic, blogged about it regularly, commented here and there and last but not least did a lot of thinking on how to get E2.0 adopted in my work environment. I also actively try to connect E2.0 like-minded people in our organisation, to share my believes and to give a good example I write an internal weblog on E2.0, in which I blog about case studies from other organisations, about results of our own experiments (e.g. via interviews). Sometime I also pose questions to start-off a discussion. Next to the blogging, I actively participate in E2.0 related projects and act as sort of internal social software consultant (people really know where to find you when you start blogging!). Finally, after work I surf the Internet for E2.0 related experience and try to contact fellow evangelist in other orgnisations.
How come that these roles are still unofficial?Well at my work that is simple: apart from “grass root” experiments, some of which started already in 2005, there has until now not been a budgetted project related to E2.0. By the way, I do see some change on the horizon.
Shouldn’t these roles be officially acknowledged within organizations, given the sheer impact of Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0?That would be very nice, because now the majority of my effort is happening after my official hours (while commuting and at home). But how does one define an evangelist, when seen from the perspective of an employer? By the way evangelists exist on many fields, not only E2.0. Personally I believe that if internal blogging will be succesful one day, we will see the automatic “emergence” of evangelists of all sorts. That will help identify these people and with their recognition.
What other web 2.0 / enterprise 2.0 related roles can we define in this unofficial domain?One role that has helped us a lot is a person with some Intranet server space and some technical assistance (tweaking MediaWiki and Wordpress).
By the way Martin keeps two versions of his blog (how do you have time for that?): in Dutch and in English:
Via fellow Enterprise 2.0 enthusiast Scott Gavin I found the great blog of Richard Dennison, Intranet and Channel Strategy Manager at Britisch Telecom, which I immediately added to the E2.0 section in my RSS reader.
By the way, the sentence that drew most of my attention was:
...letting people express themselves is the fast track to engagement.
especially because of the importance of “engaging people” at work and my personal feeling of what tools that offer people an outlet for their opinions and idea’s, could mean and do for a company.
Finally please find a very nice presentation of Richard:
If HR is all about attracting good people, making them better and retaining them, isn’t then HR the natural partner for a corporation-wide Enterprise 2.0 project?
Of course some support of IT is a requirement too, in terms of some minimum infrastructure.
All content on this weblog is presented on my personal account, representing my own views, and as such does not necessarily reflect the views of my past, current or future employers.
Add to del.icio.us
Comment [4] | 
posted Apr 16, 09:39 pm on Apr 16, 2008 |
category: Enterprise 2.0
/ Social software
Last week, 