ESME – Twitter-like experience behind the firewall

Andrea posted a video he recorded with Dennis Howlett about ESME.

Find more information on this Enterprise microblogging tool – a Twitter-like experience behind the firewall – at the SAP Network Wiki. Yes, like I said before

[…] enterprise Twitters pop up here and there. Check out some of the recent newcomers with Laura Fitton’s evaluation sheet and read up on some of my thoughts on related adoption patterns and best practices.

Add to this the ever-growing list of Enterprise Microblogging Tools by Jeremiah Owyang …

Conversations Connected with Context – Socialtext Signals

Socialtext launched Socialtext 3.0, a trio of applications for connected collaboration with context:

  • People – Social networking for the enterprise
  • Workspace – Group-editable wiki for easy, flexible, enterprise-wide collaboration
  • Dashboard – Customizable home pages that let each person decide where to focus their attention.

Here’s the 60 second video, fresh from Ross Mayfield’s blog

Now add Signals to the mix, Socialtexts Twitter for the enterprise clone …

[…] integrated microblogging for the enterprise. Socialtext Signals is social messaging for the enterprise connected with context. With the rise of Twitter, more people are learning the benefits of microblogging as a medium for conversations and sharing each day. Socialtext developed a standalone version six months ago. Using it internally we’ve learned how different usage is from Twitter, not just because it is more private, but because it is in the context of a company. The social patterns of what people say and share has taught us a lot about potential use cases. Now in private beta with Socialtext customers, Socialtext Signals will provide an integrated user experience across Socialtext Workspace, Socialtext Dashboard and Socialtext People.

Above, that’s an 18 min interview found via Robert Scoble. Yes, I believe this is an important addition and will be an essential part of any enterprise 2.0 platform. Integrating social features like easy microsharing and social networking into Enterprise wikis is just natural. While supporting relationships is a generic purpose, it needs an integrated user experience (that’s a point where laconi.ca based implementations still have a hard time), a focus on work groups and a discrete use (well, we need to ease a pain point to really make the point). See how Dennis Howlett expands on the need for context-sensitive linkage

SocialText [Signals] is providing the essential linkage between people and context with some elements of process. That’s crucial for this type of application to make sense in a corporate environment.

This move by Socialtext is all too timely, we’re seeing enterprise Twitters pop up here and there. Check out some of the recent newcomers with Laura Fitton’s evaluation sheet and read up on some of my thoughts on related adoption patterns and best practices.

Scope 08 – Zukunft des Lernens + Arbeitens

Leider kann ich heute nicht bei der SCOPE_08 in Heidelberg dabei sein. Ulrike hat mich zwar auf die Liste gesetzt aber die Workload hält mich von der – eigentlich recht kurzen Fahrt – ab. Mal sehen, vielleicht schaffe ich es ja nachher in den Livestream reinzuschauen.

Lernen kann spannend sein, mitreissend und ansteckend. Das hat die SCOPE_07 elegant unter Beweis gestellt. Und Lernen wird immer wichtiger. Deswegen findet sie auch in diesem Jahr statt. Als Scope_08.

Wer, wo, wie?
Dann treffen sich Unternehmer, Personaler, Entscheider, Trainer und Trendnasen zum zweiten Mal in Heidelberg, um die Zukunft des Lernens + Arbeitens kennen zu lernen, sich auszutauschen und zu gestalten.

Frank hat einige Links zu den im Vorfeld durchgeführten Interviews und “True Learnings” gesammelt, u.a. zu:

Gartner fuels Enterprise 2.0 too

One of the interesting things I missed out is Gartners new version of their Hype Cycles for Emerging Technologies – nice because there are some Enterprise 2.0 insights to glean from it, even when Enterprise 2.0 clearly doesn’t equal Web 2.0. As always, thoughts and/or comments are greatly appreciated.

The Social Software Hype Cycle highlights the most important technologies that support rich social interactions. Use our assessment of their business relevance and maturity to guide your investment decisions.

It’s especially nice to see that wikis are finally entering the plateau of productivity (after having traversed the phases of technology trigger, peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment and the slope of enlightenment), followed closely by Idea Management:

Two related technologies and trends that will reach the plateau in two to five years are Social Networking platforms and Microblogging. Good, we need more companies evaluating what role these communication sites and models can play in collaboration environments. Besides I really like Gartners analysis that firms should consider Web 2.0 (read Enterprise 2.0) if they want to drive forward business transformation. Noted are possible advances in the generation of intellectual capital and more effective decision-making, but I would also add more effective innovation management. But still a thorough analysis of needs is a good thing to have:

“The main message of the hype cycle is that organisations need to make sure that when they adopt technologies early, they do so for the right reasons – because it is aligned with an area where it is important for them to innovate, not because everyone is doing it”

More in the 2008 Gartner Hype Cycle Special Report podcast (mp3)

Seeing the light of the future of work …

Luis now provides a nice, little video recorded at his German “See the Light – Thinking Outside the Inbox” tour, speaking of the benefits of innovative collaboration technologies and dropping corporate email, all in all a motivational show. I attended the Stuttgart event and blogged some observations about it then (“Enterprise 2.0 on z/OS“)

[…] covering the background of why I got started with this, what it has been like, the kind of implications I have been exposed to on a daily basis, what social software tools I use on a regular basis to escape e-mail, and, most importantly, how you yourself can get things going as well to re-purpose the way you process work related e-mails. In short, I cover all of the stuff I have written about over here, but perhaps a bit more from the perspective on how it is all down to changing one’s habits as far as sharing knowledge and collaboration is concerned


See the Light – Thinking Outside the Inbox from Luis Suarez on Vimeo.

And here’s the other video Luis did, called “The Future of Work“. I promised to blog about this earlier, but various things have slowed me down (sorry, Luis). Whatever, here it is


The Future of Work by Luis Suarez from Luis Suarez on Vimeo.

[…] the Future of Work and the kind of impact that Social Computing is having within the corporate world today to help drive further into the next level the way we collaborate, share our knowledge and innovate!

Changing organisations via Enterprise 2.0 – pre-conference interview – Festo

There’s a third pre-conference interview (“Fallbeispiel: Enterprise2.0@Festo – Biographie eines Projektes“) at the Enterprise 2.0 Forum site. Like its predecessors (see more here and there) it’s german language only. So – again – it’s probably a good idea to do a short english language summary and analysis of the key points discussed.

This time Joachim Niemeier spoke with Arne Schümann of Festo didactic (Festo as a whole is best described as a family-owned global player – and, full disclosure – I know this company a little bit. One reason is that it’s main branch is located only about some 15 km from my home, another one being that some friends of mine are current and past Festo employees).

To me the main “learning” from the interview is that changing organisations via Enterprise 2.0 is both hard and (potentially) extremely rewarding (yes, also in terms of ROI). Now onto the topics of the conversation:

  • Festo had a headstart with their Enterprise 2.0 project as they already had experiences with (personal) knowledge management, life-long (e-)learning, collaboration …
  • Enterprise 2.0 is not about technologies, it’s about perceptions, attitudes and “modes of work” – well, yes, some paradigms (and principles and methods too)  stay – but there’s a need to adapt some of those, i.e. give them the place and importance they deserve …
  • Hierarchy is an ever-present issue in implementation, seen vs. the evolving trends that supplant formal and stiff hierarchy with heterarchies (and/or meritocracies, sociocracies, …). Now I am really looking forward to the actual talk by Mr. Schümann, I want to know more about how Festo dealt with this. BTW, I really I liked the mentioned term “guided autonomy”, sounds a lot like a “roman law” of Enterprise 2.0-aware design of organizational structure. We’ll see, I sure don’t hope it ends along the lines of “Regulierte Selbstorganisation”, i.e. overregulated and face-value self-organization that’s OK only when dealing with “blue sky” situations …
  • Organizational proponents and supporters of Enterprise 2.0 – seems to be an integrated effort of various stakeholders. Interestingly, at Festo the distributed local branches had more interest than the headquarter. Yes, good point – these scattered outfits will profit the most from improved communication and collaboration.
  • Factors that are speeding up change, Mr. Schümann is rightfully calling for an optimal balance of bottom-up-grass-roots and top-down-supported implementation.
  • „Don’t talk about it, prove it“ – start with actual (pilot) implementations to demonstrate the benefits. Well, yes, that’s what I am saying … so small wonder that his rant “most Enterprise 2.0 consultants are way too theoretical” doesn’t really bother me – I’m a proven Geek Enterprise 2.0 consultant (TM), but I’ve blogged about the E2.0 consulting value proposition here and here before
  • And finally, the need for effective change management in the context of Enterprise 2.0 – well yes, said that before too – here (“One word as a focal point for change – Collaboration“) and here (“Cultural change and developing collaboration capabilities“)

Stumbled upon … folksonomies, social software for innovation and collaboration

… in the form of studies, ebooks and research reports, like this one: Daniela Barbosa (from Dow Jones) published an ebook about folksonomies and taxonomies. See this for a stylish interpretation of “research report”, like it a lot.

Via Ed Brill I found this IBM Lotus “Collaboration without boundaries” whitepaper (pdf), from the intro:

Introduction: the who, what, why of collaboration

[…] exclusivity, hierarchy and solitude are already being replaced by radically different ways of collaborative working. The signs are unmistakable. People increasingly work in places other than their offices — and on teams that draw expertise from virtually anywhere in the world.

[…] Today, collaboration is the name of the game.
In today’s competitive environment, sharing information and expertise
can be critical in driving both individual and organizational success.

[…] How does collaboration yield results? By fostering innovation. In fact, true innovation is virtually impossible without collaboration. And innovation is indispensable to success. Business leaders recognize this.

They’re referring to IBM’s recent CEO study too, where “more than three quarters of the 765 chief executive officers queried cited collaboration and partnering as very important to their innovation efforts”. Now, we might see this also from a business model innovation perspective: When some talented people with lightweight technologies may disrupt your business model, it makes sense to attract and integrate them early on. BTW, this study is now available in German too (IBM, Global CEO Study, Juli 2008, Executive Summary (PDF, 91KB), mit “Registrierung für den Download der vollständigen Studie“. Nice visualizations too, but not as nice as Daniela’s.

Then, there’s another one from IBM (“IBM and Employee-Centered
Social Media: The Corporate Newsletter goes Social“) on their internal experiences with social software for collaboration and communication (found via Robert).

Need even more insights? Try Social Media – Introduction to the Tools and Processes of Participatory Economy (pdf) by Katri Lietsala & Esa Sirkkunen for an overview of social media (found this via Hugo E. Martin). This is an ebook under CC license published in the Hypermedia Laboratory Net Series by Tampere University Press. I was charmed by the fact that there’s a chapter on Open innovation, idea management and “new R&D” too, i.e. customers participating, intermediaries and innovation markets et al. Needless to say taht both CrowdSpirit and FellowForce are mentioned.