frogpond

Live blogging the Enterprise 2.0 forum – part 1

Some notes on the talks at the Enterprise 2.0 Forum. Kongressmedia put together a nice agenda and group of speakers. Check out some of the tagged and tracked tweets at Twemes. I and some others were microblogging too.

Suw Charman-Anderson started off the event, I can’t give a full report of her extensive talk, so just some tidbits. She offered sound advice (I am agreeing on all accounts, this is boring I know, but hey, I guess we’re just having “shared understanding”). And I really understand and value her effort to make things understandable, but not too easy at the same time.

provide the pilot group with gripping stories, let them become evangelists (“each user can become a trainer”, yes, we’ve reached a lot if we’re at this point )
on success factors for adoption: all in all it’s preferrable to focus on user-centric adoption (yes, evangelists, catalysts, whatever we call these pivotal people)
on the importance of leadership in E.0 projects (I guess that’s herding cats) – yes, leading by example is important (yes, I too talked in my workshop yesterday about the importance of having both method- and power-sponsorship)
Enterprise 2.0 change management needs to be in for the long haul, this is a long term engagement thing
nice metaphors too – “trojan (wiki) mouses” that sneak into corporations

Next up were Oliver Nitz and Rupert Petschina of Web Innovation Institute and Telekom Austria AG. They were presenting on the potentials of social software for making internal processes more effective. There was a nice metaphor and “storytelling hook” inside their presentation, i.e. the picture of a hen shed that reminded me too that I really need to blog about Lee Bryant’s “Free the Battery Humans” presentation at this year’s reboot and some thoughts I evolved since then.

Next up was JP Rangaswamy, again no full account of the talk, but some points. Suw did an extensive post (“Enterprise 2.0 Forum: JP Rangaswami“) on JP’s talk, extensive coverage and recommended. I guess typing on a whitey Mac goes a lot faster than on my dull PC box.

cost of repair and cost of damage as equation to look at while implementing wikis
nice story on Space Shuttle design limits that derive from long-ago decisions, i.e. designing the width of rail gauges
we’re in the middle of big shifts, like e.g. distributed ability and power to publish, Internet as a nice copy machine
my price for best quote goes to JP calling to “throw the policies away” (if they are restricting you to adapt to the changed contexts).” Yes, there’s no point in following out-dated modes, when we’re in disrupted mode
one central guiding principle for corporate wiki implementation: keep the cost of transmission and reproduction low

On organizational pathologies, JP showed a spy manual on how to interfere and disturb – and even when the audience was giggling we all know that these are timeless issues in corporations. What once was sabotage is now normal mode of work.

Then, it’s Alexander Warta from Bosch, talking about opportunities for corporate wikis and experiences at Bosch:

it’s not about nifty tools, rather it’s about a new paradigm (knowledge works needs to be self-driven and distributed)
What they did? Many things like e.g. supporting expert debriefings, international expert’s collaboration and much more
presented the results of an inter-company study on wiki use (done by the Bosch team).

Perceived Challenges? He’s systematizing it into seven fields of tension:

individual effort <-> social, collective benefit
awareness <-> privacy
current information <-> trustable, sound information
structure <-> freedom (and freeform emergence of structure)
usability <-> functionalities
participation <-> coherence
media boundaries <-> media integration (binding it all together)

BTW, I have asked Alexander to present these results and some of his experiences at the upcoming WikiWednesday Stuttgart. Come and join us if you’re close.

Next up, and last talk before lunch is by Matthias Büger of Deutsche Bank (I blogged about the pre-conference interview here: “Pre-Conference interview: dbWiki – building a Web 2.0 corporate knowledge base“) but he asked the audience not to tweet/blog/whatever his actual talk. OK, no problem. Now off to lunch and “networking d’enfer”

Web2Expo as rambling ecology

Yes, the Expo conferences are a buzzing, hot-spot of interesting ideas and people – some would call it mildly chaotic – but Judy Breck puts the Chaos (with a capital C) in perspective. As she introduces the New York City Web 2.0 Expo she writes

[…] the subject matter tracks of the show […] are something of a jumble: landscape & strategy, design & user experience, development, media & marketing, finance, performance & scaling. The these tracks are all over the place. What is their umbrella theme?

then underlies it with a quote from Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organization, pp. 67-68:

Because social effects lag behind technological ones by decades, real revolutions don’t involve an orderly transition from point A to point B. Rather, they go through a long period of chaos and only then reach B. In that chaotic period, the old systems get broken long before the new ones become stable.

and concludes that this rumble jumble agenda is just perfectly normal:

[…] at the expo we can begin [to] experience the interrelationships of the many parts of the tracks into the ecology of our connected future.

Well, I guess so, still, some understanding and guidance is needed, and as that’s the most noble job of consultants I will try to shed a little light onto the program of the Web 2.0 Expo Berlin in one of my next posts (if it’s only for my own purposes and those readers who feel at home in this “ecology of our connected future”). Btw, in the past I wrote some posts on the greater topic of business ecosystems at my other blog. Brwose them if you like.

Grow your wiki goes free

Seems like I missed out on quite a couple of things lately (in the world of Enterprise 2.0 you better not go on holidays or spend endless days refining lengthy papers and other scientific work, or spend time with clients and writing proposals … so I need to blog more over the next days and play catch-up).

One of the missed things being the announcement by Stewart Mader (author of Wikipatterns book, find my favorable review and related posts on my very own wikipatterns takes and talks here) that he’s now offering (freelance) specialist wiki consulting. Thomas, Luis, Stephen and others were so much faster than me. Whatever, I think this is a good move and I heartily welcome Stewart to the small circle of (networked and vendor independent) wiki and Enterprise 2.0 consultants.

Congratulations Stewart, and I look forward to see you again, last time in Varese time was much too short – maybe we’ll venture in a project sometime. Don’t forget I am still owing you a nice german beer :*)

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“)

Upcoming: Konferenzen und (Un-)Konferenzen

Zuerst ein kleiner Überblick über meine für den Herbst geplanten (Un-)Konferenzen aka BarCamps: Ein Heimspiel – sprich das BarCamp Stuttgart macht am 26./27. 09 den Anfang, dann folgen das BarCamp München am 11./12. 10 und das BarCamp3 Berlin am 18./19. 10. – kurz vor der Web 2.0 Expo Europe.

Zeitlich näher liegen zwei andere Veranstaltungen an denen ich beteiligt bin, zum einen das Enterprise 2.0 Forum in Köln am 18. 09, zum anderen das eCollaboration Forum am 23./24./25. 09 in Frankfurt.

In Köln werde ich – zusammen mit Björn Negelmann – Wiki-Konzepte für den Einsatz im Unternehmen vorstellen, u.a. Erfolgsfaktoren und bewährte Vorgehensweisen, Lessons Learned und Auswahlkriterien für Enterprise-Wikis.

Ausführlicher wird mein Beitrag zum eCollaboration Forum sein, hier steht ein ganztägiger Workshop zum Thema “eCollaboration in der Praxis – aktuelle Methoden und unterstützende Werkzeuge für die virtuelle Teamarbeit” auf dem Programm. Wird sicherlich interessant, ich freue mich auf die Gespräche mit den Workshopteilnehmern und bin gespannt welche Themen der Workshop-Agenda ihnen am meisten am Herzen liegen:

Überblick über aktuelle Methoden und Trends bei der standortübergreifenden Zusammenarbeit
Tools für die optimale Unterstützung bei eCollaboration
Technische und methodische Implementierung
Vor- und Nachteile von Web 2.0-Technologien im Unternehmen
Innovative Geschäftsprozesse durch eCollaboration
Der Faktor Mensch: Das ist bei der Einführung neuer Systeme und Methoden zu beachten

Next week: International Forum on Enterprise 2.0

Next week I am going to attend the first International Forum on Enterprise 2.0 in Varese on 25th, right before heading to Copenhagen for reboot (flying with SAS the other day from Milano-Linate).

Here’s the program of this workshop day – will be great to meet some people for the first time after all this internet-only communication (Stewart, Thomas), and to greet friends and colleagues from all over the world (Luis, Ran).

09.00 – 09.45 Registration
09.45 – 10.00 Welcome Reception by Renzo Dionigi (Rector University of Insubria) – An Overview on Enteprise 2.0 and its Strategical Value for Companies
10.00 – 10.30 Web 2.0 comes to an enterprise near you by Rosario Sica, Emanuele Quintarelli
10.30 – 11.00 It’s not technology, stupid! Enterprise 2.0 as an organizational and strategic revolution (TBD)

Enterprise 2.0: Tools and International Success Stories

11.00 – 11.30 Building web communities that add value by David Terrar (D2C and ITBrix LLC)
11.30 – 12.00 Social network analysis: From informal conversations to tangible assets by Laurence Lock Lee (Optmice)
12.00 – 12.30 Cultivating wikis to change the enterprise and improve the bottom line by Stewart Mader (Atlassian)

12.30 – 13.30 Business Lunch & Networking

13.30 – 14.00 Social tagging to unlock the collective intelligence by Thomas Vander Wal (InfoCloud Solutions)
14.00 – 14.30 TamTamy: our reply to Enterprise 2.0 needs by Emanuela Spreafico (Reply)

14.30 – 15.00 Thinking out of the inbox: More Collaboration through less e-mail by Luis Suarez (IBM)
15.00 – 15.30 Consumerizing the Enterprise by Ran Shribman (Worklight)

15.30 – 16.00 Coffee Break & Networking

Italian Cases

16.00 – 16.30 Innovation through Collaboration: Social Networking for Sales by Diego Gianetti (BTicino)
16.30 – 17.00 Empowering the Middle Management Leveraging Communities of Practice by NN from Direzione Personale (Banca Popolare di Vicenza)

Enterprise 2.0 at Work

17.00 – 18.00 How to bring Enterprise 2.0 to your company by Emanuele Scotti (Open Knowledge), Roberto Battaglia (Intesa Sanpaolo), Roberto Mairano (Future Drive)
18.00 – 18.15 Presentation of the Course in Enterprise 2.0 by Gaetano Aurelio Lanzarone (DICOM)

Social Software für Open Innovation

Via doIT-online gefunden: Eine aktuelle Studie der Universität Leipzig zu der Bedeutung angepasster Kommunikation für das Innovationsmanagement (es gibt einen 68-seitigen Ergebnisbericht). Konkret wird auf Open Innovation-Initiativen eingegangen, u.a. mit der Diagnose, dass sich hier neue Anforderungen an das Kommunikationsmanagement ergeben und dass leider (noch):

vielfältige Chancen vergeben [werden], beispielsweise bei der Schaffung eines zukunftsgerichteten Innovationsklimas im Unternehmen und der erfolgreichen Einführung neuer Produkte und Dienstleistungen.

Einige meiner Key-Learnings aus dem Bericht:

– strategisches Verständnis für Open Innovation ist vorhanden; aber die notwendigen Strukturen fehlen
– Open Innovation wird meist einseitig verstanden: Wissen wird eingebunden, aber nicht abgegeben
– systematisch verzahnt sind Innovationsprozess und Kommunikation nur in jedem zehnten Unternehmen
– die Unterscheidung in fünf unterschiedliche Typen der Innovationskommunikation (Traditionalisten, Strategen, Taktiker, Allrounder, Spielmacher)

Richtig, der Übergang von Closed Innovation zu Open Innovation muss mit einem veränderten Kommunikationsverhalten einhergehen. Und ja, der Open Innovation Ansatz muss als ganzheitliche Strategie verstanden werden, die Öffnung des Unternehmens für externe Innovatoren kann sich nicht auf singuläre Innovationsprojekte beschränken, sondern muss u.a. durch die Anpassung von Marketing- und Kommunikationsstrategien, d.h. die Wahl des “richtigen” Mix von Massen- und Individualkommunikation etc flankiert werden.

Wo kommt hier Enterprise Social Software wie Unternehmenswikis oder Projektblogs ins Spiel? An mehreren Stellen – im Wissensmanagement, in den Prozessen der Zusammenarbeit, die jetzt mehr und heterogenere Partner umfassen, letztlich auch in einer veränderten Interaktions- und Kommunikationskultur. Der Einsatz von Social Software wie bspw. Weblogs, Wikis, Social Networking Plattformen etc. für unternehmensübergreifende Prozesse, bspw. im Rahmen von Open Innovation, ist ein Thema, das zunehmend an Fahrt gewinnt.

Für mich ist ein zentraler Aspekt, dass die Einbindung externer Partner die ohnehin hohe Bedeutung von “tacit interactions”, ad-hoc Kollaborationen, Diskussionen etc. in Innovationsprozessen weiter erhöht. Die Öffnung der Innovationsprozesse ist Kernidee von Open Innovation, die Anpassung der Ideen des Web 2.0 in Unternehmen sind eine stimmige Möglichkeit diese grundlegend zu verändern und zu öffnen – gerade Wikis sind eine “natural infrastructure” für vernetzte Wertschöpfungsstrukturen. Sie sind adaptive Infrastrukturen die genutzt werden können um Organisationsgrenzen zu überbrücken, wobei flexible Benutzer- und Zugangsverwaltungen es erlauben schnell und flexibel neue Mit-Innovatoren einzubinden und zu beteiligen.