Enterprise 2.0 as a field under construction

The Enterprise 2.0 conference is over and it was all worth it. I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere, the talks and above all meeting so many people whose work I value and follow. And Boston as a town is fun too, I am now sitting in the lovely Coop Bookstore at Harvard place, hooked up on the Wi-Fi to see how Denmark is doing against Cameroon and to blog and tweet. So what’s the score for Enterprise 2.0, now that another important event has passed?

Well, I think it’s still a field under construction, all systems normal – but it’s also promising and rapidly evolving. This industry is forward-looking and the value of the field is now validated (not by numbers or cases – 1.500 attendees are pretty impressive still, as are the numbers of exhibitors – but rather by the quality and matureness of the talks and discussions and by the case studies and experiences of those engaged in it). It’s now necessary to really show and tell companies how to leverage it (less complicated for tools, way more complex in terms of Enterprise 2.0 paradigms, principles and methods) to improve business performance, processes and overall company fitness. Now, more companies begin to make significant investments in Enterprise 2.0 platforms, following the early adopters. And they all know that they are in this for the long haul (and plan for a longer journey without shortcuts, avoid cargo cult imitation and thus may head for sustainable success).

Some of my other learnings include:
- I like this town, its systems of public transportation and the attitude of its people, though there are times when you wonder a bit. I don’t like that you have to pay the equivalent of 6€ for a regular beer, on the other hand this is probably a good thing too …
- a new acronym – HiPPOs – the Highest Paid Person in the Organization via Andrew McAfee’s keynote (on the four tensions of Enterprise 2.0). I like funny metaphors.
- live-waving and -documenting during a conference is demanding (I either need more collaborators on this or a time-machine, hint). Some more thoughts on this later.
- interesting that both sessions I probably enjoyed the most were kind of “sandwiching” the actual conference, ie. the Monday all-day workshop of the 2.0 Adoption Council and Thursday’s Enterprise 2.0 townhall meeting. This mustn’t worry the people in between like the keynote speakers – the format of discussing in a smaller group like on Monday is very hard to beat.

In the townhall meeting (acting as both “time to look back and review” and forum) we agreed that integration, processes, (organizational) culture and finally metrics and the corresponding approaches to (understand) the measuring of success must be topics to watch more, as they were spared a bit from this year.

Besides this, what was missing from the mix at #e2conf that can be dealt with next time? Legal and technocratic aspects of Enterprise 2.0 (or they were sailing out of my sight, hmm, I heard some small mentioning of compliance). Dealing with the technological underpinnings (good thing). And more interestingly: Tackling the complexities of organizational psychology and the changing nature of leadership in a social web world. Organizational development and its established and able set of methods and tools (this one really should be a natural fit as its paradigms and principles are very fitting to those of Enterprise 2.0 and it may inform and help us dealing with that big, hairy thing called culture).

So I am now planning for the next #e2conf planned for Santa Clara in November (the call for papers is open). I would love to be there again and am thus thinking of handing in a proposal (there’s an idea that emerged between the european crowd in a pause outside the Westin, it needs some flesh but it sounds interesting so far ;)

ps. Yes, visiting the refurbished frogpond has to wait till next time in Boston. Above the sad reality of my trip there on Friday, all empty and no ducks or frogs in sight. But construction work is necessary at times, and it helps in building a nicer environment for us all …

19. June 2010 | Martin Koser | Tags: , , , | 6 Comments »

Looking back at the E20SUMMIT, part 3: Books and reports

Yes, right – one of my small observations at the E20SUMMIT deals with “printed paper” – and it’s importance for the advancement of Enterprise 2.0.

Gil Yehuda said at the SUMMIT that we need to choose the right words and a common vocabulary when communicating (with the C-level I think especially). It’s probably a matter of media channel too …

51j8gUn2YoL._SL500_AA240_One of the books that was discussed quite a lot was Andrew McAfee’s book “Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for your Organization’s Toughest Challenges” (Disclosure: I am going to write a detailed review soon, after all I was given the book by Andrew’s agent at HBS Publishing knowing that I’m a blogger and would probably write about it – no further arrangements have been made and I am writing my honest opinions anyway). Apparently he signed and sold hundreds of them at last weeks Enterprise 2.0 conference, the stacks look impressive for sure (see the photo by Dion Hinchcliffe who managed to be among the first in line …)

41tyESTxbUL._SL160_AA115_Next up with various recommendations from various people was Morton Hansen’s book “Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Build Common Ground, and Reap Big Results” – funny how everybody thinks this might be interesting for me ;)

I should probably check it out as well, but I may have to wait until my trip to the U.S. for Lotussphere to lay my hands upon one.
…

978-3-446-41800-4_299812157-86Frank Schoenefeld’s book “Praxisleitfaden Enterprise 2.0. Wettbewerbsfähig durch neue Formen der Zusammenarbeit, Kundenbindung und Innovation. Basiswissen zum erfolgreichen Einsatz von Web 2.0-Technologien” is one german language entry into this field, at the SUMMIT he said that there may be an english translation coming up … (Disclosure again: I was given the book by Frank Schoenefeld, all other rules and remarks stay the same as above …)

Last one in the list of “newly published” paperworks is the 20Adoption Council‘s first report on how to “roll out e20 in a large enterprise”. Sounds interesting too, and I should ask Susan or Gil about it sometime soon …

The 2.0 Adoption Council is conducting ground-breaking research on its members. As each member is screened for eligible membership in the Council, our data set is among the best in the business for early adoption of 2.0 technologies and practices.

[...] Who should buy this report?

  • CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs now engaged in or planning an 2.0 strategy and execution
  • Companies competing or partnering with 2.0 platform and solution vendors
  • IT managers charged with providing 2.0 capabilities to their enterprise workforce
  • Vendors developing community management strategies for their customers
  • KM, HR, R&D managers interested in how to leverage 2.0 for the enterprise
  • Venture capitalists, analysts, investment bankers, and advisors in the 2.0 consulting arena [this sounds pretty much like me, huh?].

PS. another meme I thought a bit present at the SUMMIT was “social business design”. One personal reason for this was the presentation by Jeff Dachis at the E2Conf in San Francisco I listened into the week before, another one Lee Bryant’s presentation on new forms of leadership in decentralized organizations (where he employed Dachis Group visualizations of social business design archetypes) and last reason’s Dion’s observation in both masterclass and closing note that it’s about competitive advantages (and those are the focus and goal of business model innovation and design) primarily when we deal with Enterprise 2.0.

That said I thought it cool to link to some more books on my reading list, as much from the design thinking as from the business model innovation sphere. Beginning with Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value by Thomas Lockwood which was recommended to me at the SUMMIT, then it’s A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business by Hartmut Esslinger and Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and inspires Innovation by Tim Brown of Ideo up on the slate.

41l9ZH-gCdL._SL500_AA240_And last but not least it’s The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the next competitive advantage by Roger Martin where it’s time to add another disclaimer: I am going to write a detailed review soon, after all I was given the book by Roger’s agent at HBS Publishing knowing that I’m a blogger and would probably write about it – no further arrangements have been made and I am writing my honest opinions anyway (be it at my other blog Business Model Innovation and Design or here).

Well, after I’ve finished my little series on E20SUMMIT learnings, part 4 coming soon.

17. November 2009 | Martin Koser | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Social capital RoI – preserving collaborative networks and work-life balance

I am in the midst of collecting interesting thoughts and remarks from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this week in San Francisco (while preparing for the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT this week in Frankfurt) and this one caught my eye. Noticed this too during the life video stream from the conference, but it was only a side-remark then, and it’s more interesting in terms of RoI and “collaborative performance” than one sees at first sight. During a panel Booz Allen Hamilton VP Art Fritzson and senior associate Walton Smith shared their experiences integrating social and collaborative software into the BAH consulting business and argued like this (via Thomas Claburn at Information Week):

Enterprise 2.0, properly implemented, can create a barrier to exit.

[...] it can help companies retain valuable knowledge workers by weaving social bonds into the fabric of the workplace.

“People think twice about leaving and giving up all that”

Sounds a bit like “silk bondage” replacing the iron cask of lifetime-employment – but I wouldn’t be so negative, would I? It’s probably more about designing a workplace people enjoy and allowing the growth of employee’s social capital is good business practice with (hard to calculate but substantial) side benefits. Preserving functioning teams (and collaborative networks) by keeping people from leaving for good is one good benefit, OK.

Yet I wonder how this ties in with a caring for work-life balance – nurturing human-relations to colleagues, partners and bosses is vital, but this isn’t the social life of people alone. Entertaining a campus cafeteria, pet barber shop and sports facilities might be good for people with work-related friends mostly, but this is worrying me a bit. What’s your take, am I too negative and “german” again?

8. November 2009 | Martin Koser | Tags: , , , , | No Comments »

Teams’ knowledge use and performance (under stress)

Just a short note – check out  Heidi Gardner’s Harvard Business School working paper Feeling the heat: The effects of performance pressure on teams’ knowledge use and performance (pdf)

Why do some teams fail to use their members’ knowledge effectively, even after they have correctly identified each other’s expertise? This paper identifies performance pressure as a critical barrier to effective knowledge utilization. Performance pressure creates threat rigidity effects in teams, meaning that they default to using the expertise of high-status members while becoming less effective at using team members with deep client knowledge. Using a multimethod field study across two professional service firms to refine and test the proposed model, I  lso find that only the use of client-specific expertise (not the expertise of high-status members) enhances client-rated performance. This paper thus reveals a paradox affecting teams’ use of members’ knowledge: the more important the project, the less effective the team. This paper contributes to the emerging literature linking team-level expertise utilization (instead of just recognition) with performance outcomes and also adds a novel, team-level perspective to the literature on inter-firm relations.

This is close to being an organizational collaboration pathology – huh? Now, it’s clear that having some slack time to build up social capital is essential (for building up trust and more – we’re talking of forming, norming, storming phases in teams) while in reality teams don’t always get that time (it’s a fast-paced multi-project world after all).

But putting on the heat on teams with an overblown performance focus seems to aggravate effects we know by the name of group think (and the related fall-back to well-established patterns when the going gets rough). And group norms kill creativity:

Unfortunately groups only rarely foment great ideas because people in them are powerfully shaped by group norms: the unwritten rules which describe how individuals in a group ‘are’ and how they ‘ought’ to behave. Norms influence what people believe is right and wrong just as surely as real laws, but with none of the permanence or transparency of written regulations…the unwritten rules of the group, therefore, determined what its members considered creative. In effect groups had redefined creativity as conformity.

Now what role may social software play in this situation? I agree that just mimicking Xing or LinkedIn in the hope of supporting and facilitation intra-company knowledge networks is bound to fail (and more, it’s following a flawed paradigm, social networks in companies should be understood as emergent properties of this complex social system we call organization). Designing the knowledge environments (and tools) for smart and action-oriented workers tasked with creative jobs is not easy (and very dependent of actual context too), letting the connections between interdependent teams simply emerge is a challenge. Just think of the various relations we entertain to people not in our actual company network (freelancers, alumni, competitors and complementors, partners, …), these are complex systems too:

Confluence-Visualization-547x400

10. July 2009 | Martin Koser | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

Extended social media strategies (or is it “social business design”?)

I am currently preparing two in-house social media workshops (both will be borrowing heavily from the Enterprise 2.0 playbook as well). While one will lean a bit onto social media monitoring, the other one will focus on using social media instruments for internal knowledge dissemination in yet to be formed professional social networks.

Now, I am trying to pursue an open ended and flexible approach to both talks and was thus looking around for some nifty visualizations to provide some additional structuring without being too restrictive (yes, I was shortly pondering the use of wordles too) . Honestly, there are a lot of nice looking social media whatever visualizations – including David Armano’s take on social business design which I bookmarked then and which served me as kind of starting point:

3639720644_d017c72e68

Basically it’s a visualization that guides us onto good questions, and a lot of room for improvisation in an adaptive workshop setting too: What would businesses be like if they were truly social?:

Imagine if a company like GM, was at the core “social”. Not just participating in “social media”—but through every part of their business ecosystem, were connected—plugged into a collective consciousness made up of ALL their constituents, from employees to consumers to dealers, to assembly line work[er]s etc. What if big organizations worked the way individuals now do. We’re actively using cloud services, mobile, networks and applications that offer real time dynamic signals vs. inefficient and static e-mail exchanges. In short, imagine if what makes “Web.2.0″ revolutionary was applied to every facet of an organization transforming how we work, collaborate and communicate? We think this is possible. And we’re calling it “social business design“.

I really like that approach, for one it’s probably one small step closer to some kind of nice and “easy as it gets to explain” consultancy “products” (probably neede for the Enterprise 2.0 field to flourish, see comments #2 and#4 at the link, alas german language), second it’s incorporating a good part of the fuzzy social stuff we all know is important into the concept, while not talking tools:

[there are four] archetypes of Social Business Design:

Ecosystem - a community of connections
Hivemind - the socially calibrated mindset of individuals
Dynamic Signal – the constant multi-faceted means of collaboration
Metafilter- a method of finding signals in vast amounts of noise

Think informal social networks and their role for the real workings of organizations. Or think of the importance of “social capital”. So while some differentiation and clarification is still necessary, this may be an interesting social media (implementation) heuristic (aka “consultant’s product”).

OK, for posts on the concept see these interrelated posts (this seems to be the Dachis team together with David and Jeff Dachis, of course):

# Peter Kim: Reflections on Social Business
# Jevon MacDonald: Taking the Leap: Social Business Design

Peter Kim: Reflections on Social Business
Kate Niederhoffer: Social Business Design: a social psychologist’s take
Jevon MacDonald: Taking the Leap: Social Business Design

Especially Jevon is expanding on the intricate tasks that arise when companies become more (inter-)active, ie. matters of organization. Lately he’s been posting Understanding the role of Enterprise 2.0 and moving towards a Social Business and then Social Business Design and the Real Time Enterprise (now I get the underlying pattern behind all those scattered posts, Jevon – all the best for the dachis team).

8. July 2009 | Martin Koser | Tags: , , , , | 7 Comments »

Upcoming part 2: Change Management, collaboration software suites and thinking about innovation

A small overview of the next things I am up to, but first a short retrospective on last weekend when I participated in the RTVC, a premiere virtual workshop on Change Management (methods, tools, whatever, overall ideas). Results are getting collected, systematized and refined by the team at the Change Management Toolbook (namely Holger Nauheimer, who was instrumental in coming up with this experiment). So far I have filled three wiki pages with notes (and transcriptions of the chats I participated in), will try to filter out the nuggets soon.

Tomorrow and the day after I will be in Düsseldorf for the 2009 DNUG (german Notes user association) conference – this time the topic is „The Innovative Enterprise – Generating Value in a Smarter World“ (yes, we’re talking about a smarter planet here, too). Two disclaimers: I got invited by IBM to this event, and IBM is a customer of mine – anyway all tweets and blog posts are still my own opinions and all, you know the deal.

Well, I guess that the Web 2.0 (heck, Enterprise 2.0) will permeate all keynotes, workshops and even the networking (geek) talk. Definitely looking forward to this, especially to see and hear more about the more general vision “smarter working”, but also what Kevin Cavanaugh, long time IBM manager will say about composite applications (mashing up mashups?), what’s the business with Linux desktops, Lotus collaboration approaches, cloud computing vs. on premise, integration et al.

Some other highlights of the program on Tuesday (some of them on conflicting time slots, alas):

On Wednesday it’s a day of workshops for me (well, sometimes you have to integrate with Sharepoint), preceeded by keynotes:

11. May 2009 | Martin Koser | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

Pre-SUMMIT Interview with Craig Hepburn

I announced this before in this (german language) post, and now here’s part 1 of the video interviews I did at CeBIT in preparing the Enterprise 2.0 summit.

With Craig Hepburn of OpenText I talked about social capital, how email is for old people, locating and leveraging knowledge in the organizations, how OpenText is understanding the Enterprise 2.0 market and how they’re tailoring their offerings.

Bummer that both lighting and the noisy surroundings at CeBIT Hall 6 prohibited a better video quality, still it’s all about content isn’t it?

12. March 2009 | Martin Koser | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments »
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