Speaking at Confluence Community Day

Next week, Oct 29 I am attending the Confluence Community Day 2009 in Frankfurt. The organizers have done interviews with all of the speakers, including me. And because my interview is in german language I wanted to give the english-speaking community a short summary of what I’ve promised to speak about in the track “success factors of implementing wikis in organizations” (yes, some ideas are dear to me, and blogging repeatedly about them is the name of the game – Jörg Kantel is right, this is OK, there are re-re-screenings on TV too).

Well then, the Confluence community day is aimed at people generally interested in wikis, especially people who are looking for better ways to implement them, better ways to support adoption and better ways to make wikis a success. Thus I will start by defining and showing the “playing field” in which we find ourselves in the introduction of wikis, and illustrate the particular relevance and importance of the infrastructure fields in implementation. My goal is that in the end we’ll all have a more comprehensive approach to the implementation process and a better understanding of what is really important.

Dirk also asked me about my expectations about the future of wikis, and the underlying trends. Here’s the gist of what I’ve said:

I expect both a higher market adoption – particularly with SMBs – and more intensive usage of wikis. Case studies and the documented benefits attract both imitators and innovators to wikis […]

Succeeding with a wiki is no given or naturally – it’s adoption must be actively promoted, and it’s a good idea to do this together with specialized consultants (this was a hint, right …).

And on the trends that will affect the use of wikis:

First and foremost, I am watching the wiki space from a broader perspective, i.e. Enterprise 2.0 – in addition to current trends such as Twitter or social networking, wikis are virtually a constant: They are a mature and controlled technology, and its anchorage in the organizational map is understood quite well. Thus we’re able to proceed to work flexibly and creatively with the tools …

It’s the discussing time what is making these kind of meetups so important – needless to say that I also did put on my marketing and community manager hat and invited everyone to the upcoming E20SUMMIT and the WikiCamp at the CeBIT 2010.

Upcoming: CloudCamp in Frankfurt

Yes, on September 28 there’s the CloudCamp Frankfurt coming up and I am planning to attend. So, while this could be a very long post about all the implications of the cloudy future for enterprise collaboration (understood as way more intricate than the use of social software like wikis et al.), I thougt it’s better to relay you to some of the interesting discussions of late. Case in point, Andrew McAfee blogged about it here (and a lot of talk follows suit).

It’s funny how indeed many people are still puzzled and looking for clean, neat and succinct definitions, yet it shows that we’re still in the early phases of adoption and changing expectations about possible (IT)-solutions iks hard. As is the case with our views on the best way to “organize organizations” (see this german language piece), well-established approaches seem to be more attractive at the outset. Yet, I would bet that the benefits cloud-based solutions provide are pulling smart companies in quickly, particularly SMBs that can live with the few downsides and for whom “good enough is just perfect”.

Akzeptanz- und Erfolgsfaktoren für kooperative Technologien

kooperative technologien

Via Netzpolitik und KoopTech-Blog – die Studie von Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti et al. an der Hochschule Darmstadt über Kooperative Technologien – internetbasierte Formen der Zusammenarbeit (pdf):

Welche aktuellen Internettechnologien aus den Bereichen Web 2.0 und Social Software verwenden Unternehmen und Organisationen bereits? Was für Werkzeuge stehen ihnen zur Verfügung und welches Potential bieten diese für eine professionelle Zusammenarbeit und Kommunikation? Diese Fragen beantwortet eine gerade erschienene Analyse, die am Fachbereich Media der Hochschule Darmstadt (h_da) erarbeitet worden ist. In einem vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) im Rahmen der Innovations- und Technikanalyse geförderten Projekt hat die Kulturpädagogin und IT-Journalistin Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti “Kooperative Technologien in Arbeit, Ausbildung und Zivilgesellschaft” untersucht. Schulzki-Haddouti war für die 14-monatige Arbeit an dieser Studie als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin an der h_da beschäftigt. Das Projekt wurde zudem von Prof. Dr. Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer vom Studiengang Online-Journalismus betreut. Nach einem kurzen Rückblick, der zeigt, dass kommunikative und kollaborative Technologien seit Anbeginn im Internet eine herausragende Rolle gespielt haben, gibt der Bericht einen Überblick über mehr als 1000 Anwendungen. Anhand einer umfangreichen Literaturanalyse und mithilfe von 47 Experteninterviews präsentiert die Autorin einen Überblick über den gegenwärtigen Forschungs- und Kenntnisstand und identifiziert sieben Akzeptanz- und Erfolgsfaktoren für den Einsatz von kooperativen Internettechnologien.

Ich habe natürlich noch nicht das ganze Werk gelesen, aber mein Eindruck nach erstem Duchschauen ist gut. Zwar sind viele der Ideen und Konzepte für den geneigten Leser nicht neu, zumeist handelt es sich um grundlegende Dinge die aufgearbeitet und systematisiert werden (und das auf angenehmen Niveau, bspw. wenn die Entwicklungsfaktoren Resonanz und Ordnung, Bewertungen und Empfehlungen, Vertrauen, Identität und Privatsphäre und Öffentlichkeit differenziert werden), gerade das trägt aber zu einem gewissen “Referenzcharakter” bei. Sprich, man kann in dieser Studie durchaus nachschlagen und fundiertes finden.

Aus Enterprise Collaboration Berater Sicht sind die Anwendungsszenarien interessant, eben weil sie über den bekannten Unternehmenskontext hinausgehen (NGO, Nonprofit, Forschungsgruppen etc. – interessanterweise habe ich selbst schon Kunden aus allen diesen Exotenkontexten erfolgreich beraten, mit Ausnahme der beruflichen Bildung) und weil dabei auch konkrete Implementierungsempfehlungen und Erfolgsfaktoren auftauchen.

Die Bündelung in “sieben Akzeptanz- und Erfolgsfaktoren für den Einsatz von kooperativen Internettechnologien” – die KoopTech-Erfolgsfaktoren – Unterstützung flexibler Strukturen, Soziale Umgangsformen, Sensible Ressourcenerschließung und -nutzung, Nachhaltige Verfügbarkeit von Ressourcen, Unterstützung von Feedbackschleifen, Unterstützung von identitätsbezogener Teilhabe und Barrierenidentifizierung erscheinen denn auch nur vordergründig akademisch. Dahinter stehen letztlich Kernfragen (und -aufgaben) der Implementierung. Diese wird ohnehin besser weiter verstanden – es geht bei Social Software niemals um reine (IT- bzw. werkzeugseitige) Realisierung – der Charakter von Social Software Projekten rührt stets an softe Faktoren wie Unternehmenskulturen usw. und muss mit dem Kontext von gegebenen Unternehmensstrukturen und -kompetenzen sowie Unternehmensstrategien leben zurechtkommen umgehen können, manchmal auch indem das Social Software Konzept hinterfragt und modifiziert wird …

Social Networking on Intranets

Ready or Not, Here Comes Enterprise 2.0

As people embrace social media in their private lives, they naturally expect to use similar tools within the enterprise. This is especially true for younger workers who use these tools in everyday life. Open communication, collaboration, and content generation are as much a part of their standard toolkit as using a computer or mobile phone. So, how should companies deal with the increasing expectation that Web 2.0 will drive Enterprise 2.0?

* Taking the slow road means that companies will risk losing workers who expect innovation in the outside world to reflect directly on how they communicate at work.
* Going for quick adoption means that companies must find ways to overcome the risks to corporate culture that adopting these tools can entail.

via Social Networking on Intranets @ Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox

Jakob Nielsen on the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 – yes, things take time and 3-5 years is a sensible timeline for anything related to changing organizations.

In light of my mischiefous take on the tools landscape, I must concede that realistically it’s more like this:

It’s Not Just About Tools, But Tools Do Matter

[…] in truth, social software isn’t really about the tools. It’s about what the tools let users do and the business problems the tools address.

This is what we call the emergence of use, ie. grass-roots and self-organized and self-selected usage of social web instruments – and it’s helping adoption … so let users participate in actual “software usage and selection”

Posted via web from frogpond’s posterous

Andrew McAfee Talks About Enterprise 2.0 At Harvard’s Berkman Center

Found via wowfeed.com aka George Dearing

Great discussion (and hilarious at times, too – just see how David Weinberger explains the rationale behind the IRC back-channel and see Doc Searls fight and conquer a sandwich as a bonus).

But what happens in this relaxed athmosphere is nothing less than a crash course in the motives and context of Enterprise 2.0 – and one can learn a lot from Andrew’s approach (eg. how he goes about to explain the benefits of E 2.0 to regular executives, think strong, weak and potential ties / Mark Granovetter; how business opportunity management can profit from “supported and facilitated” serendipidity; …).

Posted via web from frogpond’s posterous

Elephants can dance

While I wasn’t in Boston for the e2conf I tuned into some of the live-streamed keynotes and monitored the backchannel on Twitter as good as possible. Plus there are some videos coming up, like this one from the Democamp arena, where David Berlind is talking with IBMs Suzanne Minassian about the capabilities of the new Lotus Connections (he’s opening his questions in a kind of stingy way, claiming cheekily that IBM is just a dodgy software company, hehe, this isn’t the IBM I know and Suzanne stays calm and makes the best of his rhetorical opening for sure …):

I also had the good luck to listen into the stream when BAH’s Walton Smith was talking about their hello.bah.com effort – they won the Open Enterprise Innovation award this year. So who says elephants can’t dance? Even large and mature companies can innovate with new ways to communicate, collaborate and share knowledge. Steven Walling compiles five lessons to learn from them at ReadWriteWeb:

1. Empower Evangelists
2. Draw on Past Experience
3. Know Thyself
4. Create a One-stop Shop
5. Just Solve Problems for People

Interview with Euan Semple

While posting Euans profile over at the Enterprise2Open blog I was alerted to this interview with him via the Zemanta sidebar (ah, I love serendipidity, in effect pushing me onto the Fastforward blog and it’s video collection of this year’s conference):

He discusses his effort at the BBC, as director of knowledge management, and since […] to put the emphasis on “connecting people and helping them have conversations with each other [rather] than about helping them search for other people’s badly written, out of date documents.” Euan touches on the sophisticated and subtle ways in which people search, find and use information, the “non-trivial” challenge of getting employees to engage, who’s often purchasing and owning the products that companies are using (and the attendant downside of that), and more.