Today, I am finally coming around to put up some reflections, collected stuff and interesting links that I noticed during CeBIT, expanding my live blogged impressions of the Enterprise 2.0 Summit.
Let me start with two videos, well slideshows with audio track that is, by Simon Wardley, who did a nice job moderating the conference. This is cool stuff, listen closely to the introductory notes:
and the closing notes, too:
It’s been a splendid conference, met many of the people I was in more or less virtual contact only before.
One thing that I really want to highlight is the moderation by Simon Wardley, who also did a good roundup of the day (nice slides too, I hope I can get my hands on them). Next up there’s a question ‘n answers session, i.e. a panel with Dion, Euan and Jenny on stage.
First question: is there going to be a kind of standard (enterprise collaboration) software? Euan has doubts, stressing that BBCs systems were highly customized and evolved over a long period of time.
And then the inevitable standard question on “how do we get employees to participate”?
Yes, I know this is an important question, alas, Dion offers these ideas:
– managers are important, lead by example but also demand coherent behaviour. I side with this, nobody would use SAP etc. out of their free will, but people are still using it on a regular basis.
Euan stresses that it’s the other way round: give people tools that make their lives easier, usage will follow suit, making it feasible to reach a critical mass after that things will roll on no matter what
Jenny points out the central role of positive role models in the organization, i.e. people who can even act as opinion leaders, I think this is a good idea too, and yes, that’s one archetypical application of SNA in the enterprise …
Next up some questions on collaboration between companies, cross-industry and all. Well, yes, that’s not a particularly innovative theme, is it? I’m (also) dealing and blogging about business ecosystems, value networks and open innovation at my other blog for quite some time now, thus this fascination in parts of the audience feels a little weird.
Now up are the closing remarks by Thomas Koch from Kongressmedia, inviting everyone to the get-together. Will be there too …
… on architecting participation (“Structural Holes and Space between the Tools”), some notes (Jenny, you know I’ve got clumsy fingers), her blog is here:
– people is the thing that doesn’t change – it depends on your structures, on the ways work is organized, the choreography, the inner workings etc.
– we need to think simultaneously about technologies *and* organizations, these are intertwined, no thing like Ceteris Paribus here (it’s ans AND BOTH world)
– Jenny had some concerns with the Davenport/McAfee debate, like that it omits discussion about value creation principles – again people and the structures they’re working in
Some remarks on Enterprise 2.0 SLATES, then she’s looking at Organizational Network Analysis, referring to Valdis Krebs, Rob Cross, Patti Anklam and Nancy White (crazy, I follow these people too on a regular basis). Mentions the Dunbar number, Metcalfe’s law etc.
SNA reveals informal networks, which thrive in parallel to the formal, visible structure. Yes, this allows for completely different perspectives on the social world inside organizations, on influence groups, leverage points and patterns of interaction.
Jenny offers some more insights on the importance of choosing metrics right, like when measuring only the activity of wiki edits doesn’t really provide insight – you have to look behind the history of these edits, the changing alliances in the argument, etc.
To wrap it up, this is messy, complex stuff, the most interesting things are happening in the spaces in between. The notion of network thinking is a demanding discipline, perhaps one reason that able organizational development consultants are rare in this space, yet enhancing or leveraging social capital in the enterprise is a hugely important task.
This has been one of my highlights for the conference, sadly I have been bugged in between by annoying internet connection problems, so this writeup is rather sparse. Anyway, I will exchange some words with Jenny later on, there’s a get-together scheduled at the end of the Enterprise 2.0 Summit, some beers are definitely doomed …
I missed out on Kenneth Lavrsens talk on using a wiki in Motorolas ISO 9000 Quality Management initiative, just grasped that they used TWiki as engine and that they had some adoption issues too.
Now Wieland Stützel of Fraport is talking about their internal wiki-based knowledge management: the Skywiki. Some notes from his presentation:
Basics:
– Only some basic, easy rules are imposed on wiki users
On Preparation:
– it’s important to start with some initial content
– build up a team, a committed taskforce, should represent important sectors/stakeholders
– they integrated external experience, sadly no external wiki consultant like me, but went for informal exchanges with the “Club Wikipedia e.V.” of Germany.
On Challenges when triggering off the pilot project:
– employee enthusiasm isn’t guaranteed, needs to be fostered and constantly worked for
On Success Factors:
– management acceptance
– small group of convinced “companions”
– initial contents (s.above)
– advertise, give new impulses (argh, poiting out “articles of the month”?)
– talk to potential authors personally
More (german language) information on the SkyWiki can be also found in this interview mit Wieland Stützel, in the Newsletter der Gesellschaft für Wissensmanagement (GfWM), Nr.1/ 2008 (pdf). Found via Jochen Robes.
Moreover, there’s another pdf at the Kompass website, here: Skywiki – Erfahrungen mit dem Fraport-Wissensportal
Now, last slot before lunchtime (and me meeting the guys from BlueKiwi, perhaps Bertrand ttoo?) Jeff Schick of IBM (Vice President, Social Computing Software, in the IBM Software Group) is up, speaking on the practical experiences with social software in the enterprise.
Looks back into the long past, argues for cave dwellers as early archetypes of collaborators, then only a little bit back: Usenet, whois, IRC and other early communication tools). Nodding smiles in the audience, oh the joys of nostalgia.
Interesting insights into IBMs practice
– wide spectrum of corporate blogs inside IBM (purposeful / semi-purposeful as he coins it)
– communication mashups (I would call it that way)
He argues that Enterprise 2.0 can be seen well from a very pragmatic point of view, that’s what IBM is doing. Yes, there are LOADS of bloggers inside, the reasons and rationales are diverse, but individual uses are OK.
Nice insights into the virtues of meandering around, doodling around in communities of interest. I would call this fishing for serendipity …
Another cool thing, Emergence seems to be a big theme for IBM this CeBIT, I will add my snapshot later on, batteries are runnng low now.
Now Euan Semple on the “Quiet Revolution” at the BBC and what they did at the BBC about 6yrs back. BBC’s cool, check out Backstage for a start of what they’re doing, see also Ian Forrester.
He starts off with the cluetrain, the power of relationships that’s underlying.
Tells us how troubleshooting and “helpdesk stuff” was handled in the BBC then, it was clear that they needed a way for users to find the needed information by themselves … when sharing knowledge via Email is cumbersome, distributed replies etc. make it difficult to compile and refactor “answers”
– the collective space (“Connect”) that they devised was a lightweight and very usable platform
– fostering communities leveraged existing informal communities, users were allowed to introduce their own spaces
Euan likes the term “interest group” more – as opposed to community – I can understand this, communities can’t be engineered and “ordered for”, yet they emerge around common interests and tasks.
– they added blogs to the mix, Euan shortly points out the often overlooked little things (permalinks for a start)
– wikis too, example BBC blogging guidelines, done with a Confluence wiki.
Then he diggs into some Web 2.0 tools that are in the mix too, like
– RSS readers
– tagging too, explains the rationale behind tag clouds (“a more organic way of navigation information”), mentions Thomas Vanderwal too …
– social networks as “information mediaries”, showing his Last.fm page and stream of played music, then Plazes too.
With the closing slides he’s putting on speed again, showing Innocentive open innovation network and Zopa p2p lending before leaving the stage to Jeff Schick of IBM.
Now it’s the keynote by Dion Hinchcliffe, here are some notes, hopefully giving some insights …
– Central role of social media
– Principles of web 2.0, core rules and design patterns, referring to Tim O’Reilly’s definition.
Dion ventures shortly into the mantra of “Data is the Intel inside”
Next up is this one “big hairy scary diagram” Dion loves, “Visualizing Web 2.0”
Now going into underlying principles, like e.g. network effects.
– Going from Web 1.0 Era to the Web 2.0 Era is intertwined with increasing unpredictability, variety and volume. We’re moving from central production to peer production, where control shifts from institutions to “communities of individuals”. See the slide here.
So what makes out Enterprise 2.0 according to Dion:
– blogs
– wikis
– social networks
Enterprise 2.0 depends upon emergence, freeform collaboration, refers McAfee and points out SLATES / FLATNESSES.
Dion then delves into the ways to succeed with enterprise 2.0, starting off with the need for an enterprise 2.0 strategy. He also cites Euan’s conceptualization (and Euan is smiling, seen this closely, he’s sitting just there, only a few meters away).
Also included in the implementation consultants “box of concepts” are
– understand and use perpetual beta
– watch the empty quarter / acknowledge that there’s always 2% of troublemakers
Now coming to the end of the keynote, looking into the future:
– major vendors and their suit(e)s are coming, integrated offerings are in the making
– enterprise context will be added (security, quality control, governance, …)
Next up is Euan Semple, more in the next post.