Enterprise Social Media Maturity Model (ESM3)

This is “a maturity model [by Gijsbert van der Sleen that]
* Determines where organizations are
* Identifies which steps need to be taken to improve and/or grow to a next stage
* Offers organizations the benefit of benchmarking against cross-industry best practices, identifying quick wins and improvement areas
* Supports organizations on their journey”

Hmm, while I basically agree on the dimensions of social media maturity and the overall goals of models like these (check out the community maturity model of Rachel Happe for another take on the phases one has in socializing organizations), I am finding it hard to distill actions, recommended methods and implementation steps from these models.

This isn’t because they are overly simplistic (or only tageting static analysis) – I guess it’s more because they’re mixing a variety of criteria that don’t have the same importance? Like eg. technology in this model, which is less important than the other three in my book. Yet, all criteria are handled equivocally.

Moreover I am sensing that the criteria are of varying importance during the stages companies go through …

What do you think?

Posted via web from frogpond’s posterous

6 Responses to “Enterprise Social Media Maturity Model (ESM3)”

  1. Stefan63 says:

    Helpful to analyse, where you are. And that’s it.

  2. Martin Koser says:

    Stefan, you’re a helpful pragmactic, right.

    I guess my higher hopes for models like these (Rachel Happe’s, Gijsbert’s, Dr. Schönefeld of T-Systems MMS’) must be always disappointed 😉

    Leaves one wondering whether messing and tweaking all those static diagnosis models is worth it – helping the modeler understand the subject and topic is no goal in itself – because proceeding from an analytical and descriptive model to one that helps with designing, deciding and doing isn’t natural or easy anyway.

    Add to this the ever-present danger of over-analyzing and under-doing and it’s no longer so 2.0-ish (perpetual beta, constant refinement, experimentation and user involvement etc. – just to name a few 2.0 elements)?

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  4. Sneha says:

    Great Article. Have you tried out Injoos Teamware. I would reckon that they have the most comprehensive integrated collaboration platform. With their latest release they have added a new twist to track and execute projects “the social way”. Checkout their Blog http://injoos.com/blog/2009/10/09/seamless-collaboration-with-release-35/

  5. Martin Koser says:

    @Sneha I will check out their blog, thanks – all the while your comment comes across a little bit marketing-sided (what do you contribute to the discussion around maturity models in that post, please?). It’s OK this time …

  6. Hi Martin, thanx for the post. Didn’t notice it earlier. Admittedly, an Enterprise Social Media Maturity Model in itself is very far from being 2.0 😉

    In my experience, it is a very helpful tool to gain insight, but most of all to start the discussion in (large) organizations. This creates a common starting point and helps define the steps forward. Making Enterprise 2.0 initiatives more succesful and the adoptation easier.

    By doing just that, it makes it easier to design (next steps) and do. But yes, there is no one truth out there and all actions are organization specific. But isn’t it always…

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