Posted by Sean Lew on Thursday, 5 March, 2009 under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, social media, Speaking, Web 2.0, Wiki |
Reposted from BearingPoint’s NewThinking Blog
There is a growing importance to use Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 concepts in human resources. Last week, I attended and presented at the Inspecht HR Futures Conference in Melbourne. The Inspecht HR Futures Conference brought together speakers covering all areas of HR, Recruiting and Technology to discuss how social media, innovation, culture and technology empower, attract, engage and evolve employees.
I presented how BearingPoint leverage Web 2.0 technologies to assist us in engaging our internal team members through the BearingPoint Wiki and shared some of my experiences and benefits using the tool in my day to day work. Following on, I explained how BearingPoint is reaching out to external information management experts through Mike2.0 where it provided us with an excellent platform to interact and discuss information management.
My presentation is below:
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 Saturday, 28 February, 2009 under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, social media, Speaking, Web 2.0, Wiki |
On Thursday, a few enterprise / web 2.0 enthusiasts / experts spoke at the Inspecht HR Futures Conference in Melbourne. It was a fantastic day with great discussions that went on from using Enterprise 2.0 to learn, professional development, usage of it in HR, general web 2.0 usage and Enterprise 2.0 for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
I had the luxury to meet some extremely smart people from around Australia and I had a great time discussing about Enterprise 2.0 in general. Kudos to Trib, WonderWebby, AnneBB, Joris and Matt from Atlassian. Thanks for the great presentations and wonderful discussions. (If you are wondering why some of the names are more like nicks, its because these are their twitterIDs)
I spoke about how BearingPoint used Wikis internally and externally, our approach and our results. I know some people are waiting for my presentation to be put online. Yes its coming. BearingPoint is putting it up on our corporate blog – NewThinking. Until then, hang in there. Below are slides from Trib and WonderWebby
Slides by Trib.
Slides by WonderWebby.
Posted by Sean Lew on Tuesday, 24 February, 2009 under Collaboration, Innovation, social media, Web 2.0, Wiki |
HBR List 2009 (See the Feb 2009 edition of Harvard Business Review for full details) is really interesting. HBR list is an annual list of breakthrough ideas for the year and ideas that would impact businesses. Out of the 20 ideas presented there were two ideas that is linked closely to social networks (How social networks network best; Harnessing social pressure) and another on semantic web (What you need to know about semantic web). Interesting enough, there were only 2 articles on the credit crisis. If you think Web 2.0 is small, think again.
I believe that most business leaders are really scratching their heads when it comes to social networking, collaboration, sharing, instant messengers, collective intelligence, wisdom of crowds and so on. On top of all these terms there are examples like facebook, digg, youtube, flickr and thousands of other examples to understand. My goodness, even when I have studied this for two years now, sometimes I still feel like its a word game and everyone has their own take on different terms.
Rising above the confusion of terms, look at it from the fundamentals – connecting people together will lead to communication, sharing and supporting each other – this what communities have done since early human existence. With all these communication and sharing done of the web, the information is stored and reusable. Web 2.0 at an extremely high level is that simple.
So to convert it to business sense at a high level as well would mean that if you can connect the most people together and get them communicate and share effectively that would mean the platform is successful. If search and reusing of information is easy for users then collective intelligence and knowledge sharing has been achieved.
Get into this really really cool phenomena. You’ll enjoy it.
Posted by Sean Lew on Monday, 23 February, 2009 under General Ranting, Web 2.0 |
Last week, I had a really interesting and enjoyable chat with an ex-colleague of mine about Enterprise 2.0 and one of the comments he made that really struck me was that Web 2.0 is an attitude. Well, we all know that. The changing face of Gen Y and the advent of facebook and youtube has changed it all. However, he went on to give an example of web 2.0 as an attitude.
There are “Pay what you want” restaurants around town and I have personally been to one. The one listed on the link believes that customers are paying 20% above the original price and the one that I have been to in Singapore gives all its proceeds to a Indian dance school just next door and the dance school is HUGE!
So the concept is simple. You and your mates grab lunch/dinner/food at the restaurant and depending on what you feel like, you pay what you want. In Singapore, where food is very cheap and an average decent dinner in a similar type restaurant would set you back approx $15, however, because I did not know how much to give and because its for charity as well, I gave $40. They have clearly made a profit from this and I have helped the kids next door learning how to dance for free.
The owners of the restaurant clearly practices some traits of web 2.0 specifically in the trust area. Its business and you allow people to give what they want. They run a risk of people paying too little. If a family of four paid 10 cents for the dinner, they would have alot of catching up just to break even. This is pure trust that people will pay what they feel.
I totally agree that Web 2.0 is an attitude but it doesn’t mean that we need technology to bring this idea forward. Well, this is alittle ironic coz Web 2.0 is about the new generation of the web and its all about technology but you get what I mean – I do not have a name for this changing attitude. This is a changing attitude in the world and we must understand how this will impact all aspects of life and business.
Posted by Sean Lew on Tuesday, 17 February, 2009 under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0 |
A recent comment I made from this post. –
Alot of us have a certain way of how sharing and collaboration works – the way Wikipedia, facebook and Linux works. However, there are really alot more to such kinds of sharing and collaboration. If you look the nature of a firm, a firm is a social network and teams share and collaborate. The only difference now is that we are moving online! So there is a place for Web 2.0 in organisations – its a matter of identifying it.
Social networking and collaboration exist since the stone age. Web 2.0 is just moving into the technological age. If we hope that a Wikipedia or Linux initiative would exist within an organisation, well all the best. It might happen, in fact I have seen it happen quite a number of times within the organisation I work for. However, these are for the highly driven and enthusiastic bunch. Not all employees are like that. In fact many employees are not like that. Thats where the 90 – 9 – 1 rule comes in. Do not expect people to contribute.
If Web 2.0 is to work within an organisation, it has to be integrated into their work. Make it part of the process, the business, the strategy, the vision, the infrastructure and the people!
Posted by Sean Lew on Wednesday, 11 February, 2009 under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, software, Web 2.0 |
In my career, I am lucky enough to meet technologist from all kinds of background, from the geekiest computer scientist to business/IT advisers. Recently, I spoke to a technical architect who commented this – Social software is child’s play, just install it and let employees run wild.
I was pretty shocked when I heard this. I was just thinking, the entire Cisco is banging their bucks on Web 2.0, organisations now are scrambling to understand how this technology can help improve their performance and Forrester / Gartner has dedicated teams trying to understand this fast changing phenomena. All these effort just for installing a software and let employees run wild?
Alot of Enterprise Web 2.0 is not just in the technology itself. I look at the Enterprise 2.0 platform as a car. A car’s objective is to bring people from point A to point B (even though some people buy cars to show off – but that’s not the point). Enterprise 2.0 platform is also the same. It helps brings the organisation to where they want to be – leverage collective intelligence, streamlined communication, real time updates on changes, better knowledge sharing, enhanced collaboration and so on. The benefits are immense! I am not saying that the platform is not important. Just like a car, some people would choose to buy a Toyota / Honda, some will choose to buy a BMW / Audi and some would choose to buy a Porsche / Ferrari. Different car deliver different performance, comfort and features. Different social platform do the same thing too! Its all about how much an organisation is willing to pay, the features they require and the tools that they need.
More importantly, before one purchase a car, one would need to plan their needs, what they want and how much they can afford. There’s a fair amount of planning, requirements gathering and cost calculation involved in the process. Enterprise 2.0 is the same. There are heaps of planning, strategy work, change management and solution design involved. If this is not done properly, the software might not be fit for purpose.
After the purchase of the car, one would need to maintain the car sending it for regular maintenance. Enterprise 2.0 is the same too. Not just the IT support and infrastructure maintenance but also managing virtual teams, information governance and “gardening” the platform. There is a lifecycle around an Enterprise 2.0 implementation. Its NOT just installing a software – its not that simple.
Posted by Sean Lew on under books, IT strategy, social media, Web 2.0 |
I bought this book last year shortly after it was released to the public from Book Depository (which is like 1/2 to 1/3 the price of what is sold at the local Borders). I did not have the chance to read this until last week. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Its an excellent read.
Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. Buy it here.
When I first saw the title, I was thinking – “Excellent word to use to describe social media and Web 2.0 technologies.” Anyway, for those who are new in this space, the authors defined Groundswell as a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.
This book is mainly about how organisations can use the power of social technologies to help organisations achieve their goals. It maps out high level strategies for organisations to folllow and a generic step by step guide to achieving it. This book uses some excellent case studies and uses it well to support their argument. They have leveraged Forrester’s research well and incorporated some good statistics into the book. This is a welcoming change as many results about social media and web 2.0 are still in the form of case studies. Another really nice thing about the book is that it has presented ROI calculations of various technologies a few times and it clearly presented their case extremely well.
This book was focused mainly on Business to Consumer type web 2.0 relationship but it also briefly touched on groundswell within the organisation (internal groundswell).
I would totally recommend this book to anyone who is interested to find out how Web 2.0 can help to communicate, connect and innovate with your customers and how the changing face of corporate marketing.
Posted by Sean Lew on Tuesday, 3 February, 2009 under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, General Ranting, Innovation, Web 2.0, Wiki |
The definition and coverage of Web 2.0 has been rather broad and loosely used by many. Sometimes, I get confused with my thoughts on Web 2.0. The amount of terms that are being used is plentiful and sometimes these terms do not have a clear definition. The basic idea of web 2.0 is about social network and collaboration. However, in different settings, different approaches are taken thus different outcomes are achieved. I hope to define some of these terms in a clearer way.
1) Consumer to Consumer (C2) Web 2.0
In C2C Web 2.0, there are a few key applications and tools out there like FaceBook, YouTube, SlideShare, GoogleDocs, Twitter, DIGG , Delicious, Wikipedia and Linux.
The key ideas behind C2C web 2.0 is all about social networking, for example in the case of facebook. To a large degree there are direct user contribution to Wikipedia and Linux where people consciously contribute and add to the body of knowledge within these networks. There are also alot of sharing of information through tools like Slideshare, YouTube and GoogleDocs. These tools allow people to collaborate and/or contribute for their individual purposes.
In general, consumer to consumer is aimed at connecting people with the same friends, same cause or same interest. Collective intelligence is a very strong outcome of such forms of social networking. In many cases, C2C Web 2.0 could be just for leisure purposes.
2) Business to Consumer (B2C) Web 2.0
In B2C Web 2.0, there are some really famous case studies like Lego, Procter and Gamble’s Connect and Develop and GoldCorp. Read these case studies for a better understanding of B2C Web 2.0.
These kinds of Web 2.0 is really getting consumers to contribute and share their knowledge, expertise and/or feelings towards their products or services for the organisation. The organisation can choose to compensate their contributors with a cash reward or not.
3) Consumer to Business (C2B) Web 2.0
There are also many forums out there that helps people solve their issues for any organisation. For example, Whirlpool is a telecommunication forum for Australians where consumers help consumers solve problems that they have with Telco companies. This is a tricky situation as in some instances, problems can be solved using free contribution from users however, it might go the other way where people start ranting and saying bad stuff about the organisation.
4) Business to Business (B2B) Web 2.0
B2B web 2.0 is about how two different and separate organisations can collaborate and share sensitive information about each other for their own specific benefits. For example, in a supply chain, organisations can tightly integrate any two or more organisations together through an online platform and share information not only about their inventory status or production output but also information about key staff, communicate via a communal platform on issues, progress, updates and anything in between.
5) Enterprise 2.0 (Internal Business Web 2.0)
This is all about the internal social networking and collaboration within the organisation. Tools like Jive’s Clearspace, SocialText and Telligent have generally focused on this requirement from organisations.
Web 2.0 within organisations require more governance and control as compared to consumer Web 2.0. The data that is being exchange could also be generally more sensitive and holds some commercial value. Many of such implementations are also done at a global level where there are different teams working on different things and they require some kind of workspace for them to operate in (think of a virtual team). These are just some of the functionality that is not available in consumer Web 2.0.
Consumer web 2.0 is purely voluntary. Users choose to put up what they want and choose what they want to do. Due to the sheer amount of people on the net contributing, sharing and collaborating, one or two less people who are not willing to join the community does not really hurt the community. However, in an Enterprise 2.0 environment, there is generally a limited amount of resources available and organisations need to leverage these resources as much as possible and the more people contribute and share information, the more successful the platform is. Change management is key to the success.
Posted by Sean Lew on under social media, Web 2.0 |
Pretty good slides on Business to Consumer Web 2.0 overview.
