Wiki usability and Enterprise software sexyness

There’s an interesting debate going on, which is definitely worthwhile to follow. Arguments are exchanged whether, and if so how enterprise software can be as “sexy” as the all new web. Robert Scoble triggered it off (but somebody else called for it in the first place), got criticized and even flamed badly, others came to help, and so on. You know the game, see Techmeme for more. I am sure you will be enjoying the discussion in all branches and forks as much as I am.

While discussing UI, usability, user-friendliness and all is interesting (though putting lipstick on a pig really doesn’t help much) – well, even the endless arguments of “industrial-strength-software proponents” are entertaining in a way because we know better (this is dire stuff, and I ask myself if those guys ever worked with enterprise-style-software like R/3) – I want to chip in some observations from another perspective.

As a long-time enterprise software user, developer (yes, I was – years ago in my old life) and today enterprise 2.0 & enterprise social software consultant, I want to offer look at this from a position of wiki advocate (-evangelist, if you want).

Are enterprise wikis sexy? Most people don’t think so – but I think they get it wrong: Enterprise wikis are interesting not because of their advanced technology, their polished user interface or their neat mark-up language – in fact these are kind of disadvantages most of the time when we want corporate adoption to take off. Like when people doubt whether the wiki markup language will be accepted in their companies – they sure don’t deem wiki markup sexy. Yes, these are no shiny tools, they don’t offer eye candy, but they are well suited for doing their job.

The key is to start from business applications and needs – not tools. If the starting point is a specific business application like e.g. project management or business development support, users will judge the sexyness of the application in a different way – they will look for personal use and business value primarily.

Wikis soon gain “cool tools status” – just because they offer room for flexible emergent uses, coupled with great simplicity. In this light Dave Snowden opens a can of worms, which should attract more discussing, when he’s pointing to the inherent differences between complex social software and standard enterprise ware.

So yes, wikis can even be fun to use, and while sexyness is always a matter of taste, this is a good start and adds to the other wiki benefits like scalabity, connectivity and cost effectiveness that stand on their own anyway. This is no “fantasy land”, this is today, the 21st century and the changes will be great, and they won’t be about technology or tools:

Enterprise 2.0 is already upon us, providing us attractive, usable, reliable and secure applications. We just haven’t made the move to adopting it. But it’s happening now, with Generation M, mobile, multimedia, multitasking and here. Now.

An Inside Out perspective

Tracking down the presentations from last weeks Intranet 2.0 Forum in Zürich I also checked out the blog (called Inside out) of Richard Dennison, Intranet and Channel Strategy Manager at British Telecom, which I can easily recommend – a blog with a tag line as his must be good (see for yourself, please).

I particularly enjoyed his article “Five reasons not to let social media tools onto your intranet“, which dissects common contrarian attitudes towards social software in the enterprise (mostly by providing pointers to other pragmatic pieces in the same blog). Even when I don’t buy into all of his ideas and concepts I’m subscribed and look forward to more insights like these from the BT organism.

Intranet 2.0 Forum am 7. Dezember in Zürich

Leider musste ich meine Teilnahme am Intranet 2.0 Forum in Zürich kurzfristig absagen. Das ist sehr schade, ich hatte mich bereits sehr auf das Wiedersehen von bekannten (Stephan Schillerwein u.a.) und unbekannten bzw. bisher nur internet-bekannten Menschen (Leila Summa u.a.) gefreut. Mehr als ein kleiner Trost ist aber die ausgezeichnete Berichterstattung in verschiedenen Blogs, die mir die Aufarbeitung der Veranstaltung ermöglichen. Nicht dabei ist aber nicht dabei und nichts ganzes – ich bin froh dass die Gelegenheit zum direkten Gespräch und zum lockeren Wissensaustausch beim Kaffee (und ein oder zwei Nusstängeli) dank Kongress Media bald wiederkehrt.

Zu den Berichten:

Leila Summa verweist auf ihre Slides (pdf) zum Vortrag “Wanted Mitarbeiter 2.0: Wenn Technologien auf Nutzer warten” und linkt auf Kommentare dazu von Jürg Stuker, CEO von namics.

Saim hat hier eine kurze Zusammenfassung gebloggt, u.a. mit diesem Originalton von Jürg Stuker (meine Hervorhebung):

Jürg Stuker, CEO von namics, zeigt sich von der Wiki-Idee begeistert. Er schildert den Einsatz eines Projekt-Wikis bei namics sehr praxisorientiert. Der Grundgedanke: Je weniger ein linearer Prozess vorliegt umso besser funktioniert ein Wiki, das Änderungen und Aktualisierungen in einem Projekt, durch teamorientiertes Erfassen des Projektgeschehens, sehr viel besser dokumentiert als irgend ein anderes System. Es ist dabei sehr wichtig das gegenseitiger Respekt, Wertschätzung und Vertrauen die Grundregeln eines Wikis sind. Die Einhaltung dieser Regeln wird durch die Verwendung der eigenen Namen und Mail-Adressen unterstützt.

Schön dass er hier selbst noch die wichtigen Erfolgsfaktoren der Implementierung zusammenfasst (“Tipps für den erfolgreichen Wiki-Einsatz in Firmen”, Slides als pdf):

– Ängste aktiv im persönlichen Gespräch adressieren (nicht im selben Medium)
– Ergebnis dauernd über Hierarchie stellen
– Alles was nach Silo oder Wand aussieht, sofort abreissen
– Keine Zugriffs- oder Editierbeschränkungen! (alle User dürfen alles)
– Alle Projektinformationen sind im Wiki zu finden (Vertrauen schafft Vertrauen!)
– Jeder User schreibt seine Wiki-Inhalte selbst!
– Nur persönliche Usernamen und E-Mail Adressen nutzen
– Es braucht einen WikiGnome
– Aktiv Anlässe schaffen, das Wiki zu nutzen
– Min. eine Schlüsselperson (z.B. Schutz vor Ressourcenabzug, Rückendeckung bei Entscheiden) muss zu 100% im Boot sein.

Ich bin zwar mit der Maximalforderung “alle Nutzer dürfen alles” nicht einverstanden weil sie in den Anfangsphasen der Einführung nicht praktikabel ist – stimme ihm aber zu dass dies für viele Unternehmen ein lohnendes Ziel wäre.

Die umfangreichsten Berichte hat ohne Zweifel aber Webonomy von Swisscom gebloggt, Frank hat hier die verschiedenen Posts kurz angerissen und verlinkt, aufgefallen sind mir persönlich der Eintrag zur Präsentation von Leila Summa

[…] im Bereich Intranet vielen Firmen meilenweit voraus und hat erkannt, dass dies ein fundamentales Instrument für den Mindchange Richtung Enterprise 2.0 ist.

und zu Richard Dennisons Vortrag (“Social media im Unternehmensumfeld bei der British Telecom“), interessant:

Lessons learned beim Einsatz von “social media” im Corporate Umfeld:

– Nicht auf die Risiken fokussieren, sondern auf den Nutzen!
– Start small and build slowly! Die Benutzer sollen die Richtung und Geschwindigkeit diktieren.
– Binde die Benutzer so früh wie möglich ein – suceed or fail quickly … and cheaply!
– Binde Legal, HR, Security etc. ein und zeige auf, dass es bei der Einführung von “social media” Funktionen nicht um eine Revolution geht, sondern um eine Evolution.
– Realistische Erwartungen setzen, um Enttäuschunge zu vermeiden
– Den Enthusiasmus der Enthusiastischen nutzen – vor allem wenn es “Seniors” sind.

Daneben hat Webonomy auch noch Jürg Stukers Vortrag ausführlich dokumentiert – vielen Dank.

Web 2.0 is gaining traction in the corporate world …

is this really reality? Now, I’ve been collecting and compiling some serious stuff on Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 adoption lately, some of them are worth pointing out … especially given a discussion I’ve had lately and that was revitalized today.

There’s this HBS Case on How Wikipedia Works (or Doesn’t) and the related discussion (“Wikipedia in Pinstripes”), that handles a lot of the adoption challenges social software has in the enterprise:

[…] Wiki is another experiment in how to generate more collaboration inside companies, but I’ve seen mixed results. It can be as simple as “We’re having an office party, please sign up on a wiki page, and tell us what you’re going to bring,” to “We’re going to run this project, bring in all your knowledge assets together, and then we can self-organize.”

What Wikipedia has shown is that self-selection is critical. Peer review is critical. So there is a challenge for firms that are used to managing employees and allocating the resources in a very top-down kind of way. Now we have a technology that enables self-selection, transparency, openness—how does a manager or management deal with the technology? Do they implement it in a way that’s true to the spirit, or is it top-down? And, again, there are some very successful examples and some not so successful examples.

Video on how to grow wiki adoption in organizations

I am catching up with some social software related videos I bookmarked in the past few weeks, and I wanted to point out one that I really enjoyed:

Stewart Mader on the enterprise wiki: why it matters to business, use cases, and how to grow wiki adoption in organizations.

It’s a pity that the slides that he used aren’t online (Stewart?), but still it’s a good one to watch.

The digital native will drive adoption …

Found this via Lou Paglia: ‘Digital Natives’ are Driving Web 2.0 Adoption into Your Business, which reminded me of the experiences some people reported at the IEEE Web Collaboration workshop, namely that companies that want to attract and retain good employees are well advised to provide them with the knowledge work tools these people need. This includes social networking tools, but also blogs and wikis, which they use to build up and demonstrate their expertise:

As these digital natives grow up, they’re moving into the work force, taking with them blogs, wikis, mashups, RSS feeds and other so-called Web 2.0 social networking tools that will enable them to collaborate more freely in an enterprise environment […]

and

They bring with them a set of expectations of how they will interact and the tools they’ll use to interact, and they can be woefully disappointed walking into organizations that don’t have some of the Web 2.0 tools that they’re used to using for building relationships and getting things done […]

So yes, even when we they aren’t really “technologically literate”, they are socially literate, i.e. they are building up and leveraging their own informal networks, and they see the benefits of fast and flexible (Web 2.0) tools, especially when they learn from their peers that the time and investment to come up-to-speed are quite low.

How to teach digital immigrants in non-profit organizations …

In Jon Udell’s Interview series with innovators, this time it’s Beth Kanter (more at ITC). In the podcast she

[…] describes the strategies she uses to teach digital immigrants in non-profit organizations how to use Web 2.0 strategies to communicate and collaborate more effectively. Tools and techniques are abundant, but there’s truly an embarrassment of riches. The challenge is to connect people with solutions that make sense to them. How? Look for teachable moments, rely on enlightened self-interest, and take small steps.

I like her perspective on change management and adoption, these are good ideas also for “standard” implementation settings in companies. Here’s the mp3.