Posted by Sean Lew on Monday, 6 April, 2009 under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, IT strategy, social media |
Dean from Infovark wrote a very real and truthful story about “the empty wiki problem“. I can really related to everything he said. In a nut shell, Dean discussed a failed Wiki implementation and how to defeat the “empty wiki problem” –
“either decrease the individual effort needed to maintain the system, increase the value that each user gets from the system, or — ideally — do both things at the same time.”
Interesting enough, I had a chat with another Enterprise 2.0 enthusiast last night and he had a similar problem as well. This is my personal point of view on how one can increase adoption of Enterprise 2.0 should work.
1) Quick wins – solve immediate problems or pain points users are experiencing. Make them happy by making their life easier straight away.
2) Integrate the Wiki (or Enterprise 2.0 platform) into the current business processes and reduce any kinds of redundant work. Remember, if it means more work, it means it won’t work. Sharing and knowledge management will always take back seat when it comes to mission critical priorities.
3) Unless its three times better, its not better. I use this simple rule of thumb from a change management article I read previously. Also three times better should be measured according to what the user’s definition of “better” not the skewed understanding of anyone else.
4) Long term strategic benefits – the CEO, CFO, CIO needs to know Enterprise 2.0 will deliver value to their bottom line. May it be tangible or intangible, value should be somewhat measurable and there are abstract ways to do that. Remember, we are in business not in a playground. Anything that doesn’t directly or indirectly make more money or save some money will be canned and make sure stakeholders can see and understand that clearly.
Posted by Sean Lew on Thursday, 2 April, 2009 under Academic, Enterprise 2.0, IT strategy |
Technology is complex. Many say its a marriage of People, Process, Technology. I believe its even more than that. It should also include policies, economic structure, environmental factors and people people (and more people).
It takes time for people to explore and understand a technology. Something that is cool might not be economically viable or people friendly. Enterprise 2.0 is the same too. We need to understand from all angles how it will benefit people. More importantly, within an organisation, there are people in different communities across the hierarchy in different geographical locations speaking different languages. How would Enterprise 2.0 benefit all these people? Benefits are seldom across the board – it depends on adoption rate, style of usage and so on.
Benefits should also be studied from different angles. For example, it doesn’t mean that a well connected company is efficiently sharing knowledge and capturing it in the right places. Adoption rate doesn’t necessary reflect increase in productivity and reduction in communication cost.
Academic theories could be a way to understand some of these benefits – Social network analysis, IT portfolio theory, transaction cost theory are just some examples of previous work we can use.
Posted by Sean Lew on Wednesday, 18 March, 2009 under Blue Sky Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, IT strategy |
When should one invest in Enterprise 2.0? While its emerging, growing or mature? I believe this is a question many executives have. Many people have some slight idea on what is Enterprise 2.0. Many have even tried – Some succeed and many failed. However, we know that the power of Enterprise 2.0 is in an enterprise implementation which is not cheap. So when should an organisation start investing?
Its interesting that the two person I spoke to today on this said emerging. “You’ve got to get in early to reap the benefits”, “first mover advantage” and so on. I actually do not think that’s the case. Yes, IF IF IF one can get all the ideas correct, the strategy, roadmap, people and technology right. Sure emerging is when one should invest in. However, life is never that sweet.
However, in the mature phase, many to most competitors would have this technology already. Even though, you might be able to replicate it easily and possibly spending lesser money to get to where the competitors are, but its too late. Its difficult to gain a competitive advantage in this case.
So I am proposing during the growth phase of a technology is when many companies should invest in. This this phase, the technology is kinda stable, people(strategist, change managers, technology implementers) know what they are saying and doing and even the general public has some levels of understanding and be more receptive to it.
I am not going to say what and where I think Enterprise 2.0 is at but I am sure its not in the mature state for sure. Whether you would want to invest or not, hire someone who knows what he/she is saying and move from there. I also feel that there is alot of fluff in this space at the moment and we need to look above the unnecessary items and identify the bits that delivers value and benefits.
Posted by Sean Lew on under Blue Sky Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, IT strategy |
I am playing devil’s advocate here.
I am proposing that an fully open slate enterprise collaboration platform can detrimental to the progress of an organisation. What I am saying is that, an organisation can’t just implement an Enterprise 2.0 platform and promote innovation across a large company and hope that it works. Below are some reasons why it doesn’t work well in a large company environment:
1) Sometimes, lower level employees do not get to see the full picture and even though the idea might be ideal in their perspective, it might not be optimal in the environment.
2) Lower level employess might not be revenue or profit driven. A good idea may not be bottom line friendly.
3) Country/region specific culture, attitudes, environment and work habits can interfere with innovation and collaboration. What works in one setting might not be applicable in another setting.
4) Cross departmental and boundaries collaboration and innovation can be very hard. Every team works differently and have their own view and attitudes towards new ideas. It will be all good if everyone was receptive and open to new changes and ideas – this is the ideal world that is hard to achieve.
What do you think? Are these valid?
Posted by Sean Lew on Sunday, 15 March, 2009 under Academic, Blue Sky Thinking, Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, IT strategy |
“Other things being equal, idiosyncratic exchange which features personal trust will survive greater stress and display greater adaptability” – Williamson (1985)
When I started thinking about this particular area of Enterprise 2.0 recently, I was pretty confused. Trust is such a big unknown. How do you trust someone? Can you trust an organisation? or do you trust the people in the organisation? Can trust be exchanged or transferred? Does the build up of trust related to how desperate the person is (when one is desperate to get something and someone says that they can get it, is the trust given to that person generally higher??) These were some questions I had. Moreover another really tough aspect of trust is that, its very difficult to measure. In this post, I plan to describe what is trust and the key areas Enterprise 2.0 implementers should look at.
So what is trust?
Gambetta defined trust as the subjective probability with which an actor assesses that another actor or group of actors will perform a particular action, both before she or he can monitor such action (or independently of his or her capacity ever to be able to monitor it) and in a context in which it affects his or her own action. Great definition but still quite high level and doesn’t tell us much from here.
At a high level, I would like to say that trust is like a chicken an egg question. When two actors connect and communicate (and even collaborate) some levels of trust must exist in the first place (generally neutral trust). I would like to propose at this point that there is no such thing as no trust for something. There is only negative trust (distrust), neutral trust or positive trust. As communication develops, depending on the situation, a positive relationship will lead to an increase in trust and vice versa.
Adler wrote a really good paper on trust and I am basing much of this blog post on his findings. He argued that there are four dimensions of trust – Sources, Mechanisms, Objects and Bases – Source of trust, mechanisms that generate trust, objects that trust can be built on and bases or factors that trust can be generated from.
| Dimensions |
Components |
| Sources |
Familiarity through repeated interaction
Calculation based on interest
Norms that create predictability and trustworthiness |
| Mechanisms |
Direct interpersonal contact
Reputation
Institutional context |
| Objects |
Individuals
System
Collectivities |
| Bases |
Consistency, contractual trust
Competence
Benevolence, loyalty, concern, goodwill, fiduciary trust
Honesty, integrity
Openness |
To find out more about the details of the above table, I recommend you to read Adler’s work. Note that even though Adler listed the components as individual items the components within each dimension is suggested to be interdependent and intertwined complements.
Here comes the important bit, we can’t assign trust to a person. Trust is earned not given and for people to effectively share and collaborate, positive trust is needed. So does it mean that if people in an organisation has a culture of distrust, Enterprise 2.0 would not work effectively? I would think so – no practical basis for what I said here though.
I believe that trust is not just an Enterprise 2.0 issue, its an organisational issue. If it doesn’t exist within an organisation, it must be looked at from a strategic standpoint and internal HR initiative. With trust, things can work so much better – I’ve been there done that.
Posted by Sean Lew on Wednesday, 11 March, 2009 under Blue Sky Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, IT strategy |
Within social networks, there is a “code of conduct” that exist within the network. This could be in the form of a formal conduct or an unspoken culture, norm and beliefs that governs the actions of individuals. One simple example would be in an organisational context, it would be unacceptable to discriminate against gender or disability. Formal or unspoken culture is an important issue in social norms. Little things like emoticons and usage or certain words like “Nah, I can’t be bothered” in an Enterprise 2.0 environment could have different effects on different cultures. Therefore its never quite easy to implement a global Enterprise 2.0 initiative as part of culture stems from the culture of the race and nationality. However, corporate culture can be more easily controlled.
More importantly, shared strategic visions, shared language / interpretations, norms of cooperation, obligations and expectations are all critical factors in generating social capital. Each of these are important factors to consider in the success of the social network. Even without Enterprise 2.0, the above are all critical for a business in general, if a global organisation do not have share visions, language and culture, it would pretty much be individual companies running by itself. According to Kaplan and Norton, shared visions and strategy is critical. Shared languages and interpretations are important as well. For example, someone might say put the file in system X. It really doesn’t say much but if there is a common understanding that when you put a file into system X, you have to update a certain field as well – now that’s shared interpretations.
Norms of cooperation, obligations and expectations discusses more around what Putnam said “I’ll do this for you now, in the expectation that down the road you or someone else will return the favor.” In a very layman’s term you could even call it “how selfish is the organisation?” or “how competitive is the environment” Also I believe that a wide spread in power between managers and general staff will contribute to a low level participation in certain areas. Putnam also added that a society that relies on generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society.
Posted by Sean Lew on Tuesday, 10 March, 2009 under Blue Sky Thinking, books, Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, IT strategy, social media |
I’ve always heard people talk about culture and change management in Enterprise 2.0 and it is very important. However no one really discussed in detail what does is involved – at least I haven’t read any so far. There are a few factors that must be considered before implementing Enterprise 2.0 – social norms, obligations and expectations, trust, rules and recognition. I hope to cover one topic per post over the next few days.
Lets start with rules. 1) Rules have a strong impact on formal organisations with regards to the success of Enterprise 2.0. Decisions made at the top can change and influence network ties and the content of the communication across the organisation. Also within organisations there positions and hierarchy which will also affect the way people communicate and the content provided across any medium. Some may argue that organisations are becoming flatter but I am arguing that there are still very traditional and old school type organisations – lets not get into this.
2) Organisations can also influence the norms and beliefs which will in turn affect the success and failure of Enterprise 2.0. For example, if in a traditional firm, innovation is frowned upon (read as authoritarian), it would be unlikely that people would suggest new ways of doing things. Or if an organisation, removes some redundant hierarchy within the organisation and creates a more accessible path to the top, it would increase the chances of people interacting more efficiently.
Rules can be a detriment or enabler for Enterprise 2.0. Make sure you know how to use it well.
Posted by Sean Lew on Thursday, 5 March, 2009 under Enterprise 2.0, IT strategy, Web 2.0 |
Interesting question Where should Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 Sit Within an Organisation? Many Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 experts would argue that this should be a standalone unit with their own budget and resources. I agree too. Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 is cross functional and cross verticals – almost like HR, marketing… However, during such times its not easy to fork out money for a new team of people which could easily cost half a million dollars just in salary, workspace and other standard overheads for a team. This does not even include the cost of software, software maintenance and IT infrastructure.
To be very pragmatic, its not easy to convince senior management to get onboard this funky bandwagon. Cost is a huge issue in such times. So, who should own this work? IT, Marketing, Human Resources or no one (just install the software and let people run “wild”)? Should Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 be split up and handled by different teams like IT, Marketing, Human Resources or no one?
Posted by Sean Lew on Monday, 2 March, 2009 under Enterprise 2.0, IT strategy, Web 2.0 |
During the last week or so, I have spoken to many people in the industry regarding Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 and I must say that it has been extremely encouraging. Not only they have an interest in learning how such technologies can help them in their business, they are also ready to invest if someone who knows what they are doing can do the job. I must say that within Australia, the Web 2.0 concept and technology is still at its infancy but if an organisation can gain the user base early and be the first mover, they would be a step ahead of all the competition.
One of the key success to Web 2.0 is in its user base and how well one can leverage it and enhance the business. We must know that users have a limited amount of time and getting the attention of a large user base is not easy. The platform must provide them with something that is worth their time.
As I spoke to a lady today regarding some Web 2.0 initiatives in the accounting / finance industry, ideas were flying through my head. My heart was thumping and I am sure my blood pressure was increasing. It got me so excited.
I am glad to see Web 2.0 taking off in Australia and I am sure there is more to come. Business leaders are slowly understanding how such technologies can lead their way into the future of their organisation and create a strong competitive advantage over its competitors.
Posted by Sean Lew on Wednesday, 18 February, 2009 under books, IT strategy |
I have just read Kaplan and Norton’s – The Execution Premium. This book is an extension of their previous books Balanced Scorecard and Strategy maps. This book provides a great overview of how to manage the organisational management life cycle from strategy to operations. It is broken down into six key steps as shown below.
Image by http://www.thepalladiumgroup.com/
By looking at the diagram, enterprise 2.0 fits in two ways.
1) Use the execution premium to manage an Enterprise 2.0 project / initiative. This is pretty straight forward. Follow the steps outlined in the book.
2) Within your organisational strategy and operations, you can use it to identify your pain points and figure out how Enterprise 2.0 could help.
I really recommend everyone to read this book. However, before you start, you should have a good understanding of balanced scorecard and strategy maps.
