Pre-Conference interview: dbWiki – building a Web 2.0 corporate knowledge base

There’s another pre-conference interview (”Fallbeispiel: dbWiki – Umsetzung eines unternehmensinternen Lexikons mit Web 2.0 Technologie“) at the Enterprise 2.0 Forum site. Again it’s german language only, so here’s a short english language summary and brief analysis of the key points discussed.

This time Joachim Niemeier spoke with Dr. Matthias Büger, Vice President, Group Technology and Operations and Jamil Ouaj, GTO Communications of Deutsche Bank AG.

Topics of the conversation included:

  • the understanding of Enterprise 2.0 at Deutsche Bank, i.e. the focus of E 2.0 efforts – these include supporting collaboration between employees, and enhancing the social capital inside the company and in relation to partners and customers.
  • perceived benefits of Enterprise 2.0 – basically, leveraging and effectively using knowledge in social networks and communities. They pointed out that contributors can build up authority and expand their personal network in the bank, strengthening the employer (well, rather community of colleagues)-employee relationship. Well, I think that rationale is a little bit awkward. While I certainly can see the point I guess that for employees it’s important that their professional networks aren’t confined by the narrow limits of one organization (they’re no life-timers, are they?). And I am seeing more and more “natural optimizers of personal professional value” – these people value and master relationships no matter what company the other nodes are in, companies need to loosen up their borders anyway and they’re doing it in other places too (see bullet point #1 above)
  • Organizational barriers of Enterprise 2.0 (namely a lack of willingness, motivation and preparedness, like e.g. overly bureaucratic structures) and how to deal with them. Yes, it’s about fitting an ambitious concept into a context that’s not ready. Their basic advice is sound – fitting Enterprise 2.0 initiatives into the overall strategic setting. I found it more interesting that he called for a more rigorous project management than usual, but that’s probably due to the nature of the beast. Banks they put so much attention on risk management, governance and diligence that it seems hard to approach things differently. See, while I hold project management dear, I also like the light-weight aspects of Enterprise 2.0 and the swiftness it brings. Hence I would rather argue for the creativity and agility of “planned and controlled experimentation” than the security of coordination meetings, processes and all (“Abstimmungsrunden und Teilprozessen”).
  • finally, their wishes for the upcoming conference. This is something I fully join in: “let’s discuss this space, but leave the hype behind”

Entered the Web 2.0 Expo Europe blogging program

I’ve entered myself into te Web 2.0 Expo Europe blogging program and as I detailed the language of this blog to be english and german, sollte ich vielleicht besser auf deutsch weiterschreiben …

Worum geht es? Vom 21 bis 23. Oktober findet in Berlin die zweite Auflage der Web 2.0 Expo Europe (das zentrale Treffen der Web 2.0 und Enterprise 2.0 Experten, nicht nur aus Europa) statt. Richtig, das ist (wie letztes Jahr) in der Woche nach dem Barcamp Berlin 3. Die BarCamp-Anmeldung ist für internationale Gäste weiterhin offen, deutsche Interessenten müssen aber mittlerweile auf die Warteliste.

Nicole, Suw und Stephanie laden nun für O’Reilly und Techweb europäische Blogger dazu ein, wobei aber ein paar Spielregeln gelten:

The way the blogging programme will work is that we’ll ask participants to do these few things between now and 6th October:

  • publish at least 4 Web 2.0 Expo-related blog posts, podcast episodes or videocasts, e.g. announcement of the event, speaker information, speaker interviews, or any other event-related stuff
  • encourage readers, friends, and/or community to register for the event
  • display the Web 2.0 Expo logo on their blog, with a link to the registration page, until the day of the conference

Nun ja, die Punkte 2 und 3 hatte ich bereits frühzeitig und ohne besondere Anreize erledigt, und auch dieses Jahr werde ich sicher wieder von der Expo bloggen (hier sind meine Posts von der Expo 2007 bzw. vom BarCamp Berlin 2).

Andererseits ist es sehr verlockend, dass Expo Blogger auch einen 35% Discount an Leser, Kollegen, Freunde (ja, Kunden auch) weitergeben können und u.U. leichter Zugang zu interessanten Interview- und Gesprächspartner bekommen:

  • access to information about the event suitable for re-blogging, such as announcements and speaker information/interviews (when possible)

Dass man evtl. auch in die “offizielle Blogroll” aufgenommen wird, ist da nur noch ein kleiner Extra-Anreiz. Also, die Frage hier und in folgenden Posts ist: “how can we use the power of Web 2.0 (in the Enterprise)”

Web 2.0 Expo Europe 2008

Enterprise 2.0 implications and digital natives

Cool, Björn did an extensive wrap-up of the interview Joachim Niemeier did with Prof. Dr. Michael Koch of the Universität der Bundeswehr, Munich (here’s the german language full text of the interview, here’s the corresponding post by Michael Koch).

Let me add my two cents to the discussion, interpreting and expanding on one point I found especially interesting: His observation that just because students and young people are avid users of social networking applications, this has (at least for the time being) no direct business implications.

From my perspective today the students know a lot of tools and services as StudiVZ or Facebook; but IMO it is not clear to many students how these tools can be used effectively within organisations; therefore I believe that the students nowadays are not any further then the enterprises; but this generation will add some more pressure towards the enterprises in order to use social software tools – though they will not enrich the enterprise with some kind of application expertise.

Well, corresponds with my own experiences with students, derived e.g. from supporting a slew of university courses and related events with innovative e-learning and social media tools. Despite the successes we’ve had I hold that only some of todays students are “real digital natives (TM)”. Granted, most are accustomed to all kinds of services, and they use the internet as normal part of their daily lifes. But that doesn’t mean that

  • they know how to leverage these experiences for business purposes,
  • nor are they “naturally” active and creative web-people, and so I doubt that they all will (again oh so naturally) turn out to be active, creative and efficient participants in (business-oriented) Enterprise 2.0 intranets, social networks etc.

And so, while the pressure on companies to alter organizational cultures, processes and routines is surely mounting by Enterprise 2.0, it’s not alone young people entering the workforce that are causing this. Let’s keep this: age and gender are really bad indicators for “digital nativeness”, easy as they seem to be.

One might even argue that it’s rather people like Frank – well-educated, -networked and experienced knowledge workers – that are raising the pressure. Perhaps it’s the retirement of the baby boomers that should get most companies to think about Enterprise 2.0 – i.e. how to retain the considerable tacit knowledge and social capital these people have, how to enhance and retain their productivity (they’re going to work for another 30 years, don’t they?) and how to ensure that these knowledgeable people stay with us when other companies offer so much more flexibility, openness, transparency – i.e. have become Enterprises 2.0?

What do you think? I am not sure if this is a worthwhile discussion to have – and I sure am not interested in a long discussion about definitions and the like – but for understanding target groups for Enterprise 2.0 initiatives this might be interesting?

Enterprise 2.0 at Adidas – pre-conference interview

Here’s a short summary of the pre-conference interview (alas, german language) Joachim Niemeier did with Christian Kuhna, Head of Internal Communications of the adidas Group

The interview dealt with

  • usage areas of Enterprise 2.0 at Adidas
  • Adidas current intranet situation, and the aims and goals they are pursuing
  • who is engaged as an inner-company proponent of Enterprise 2.0
  • Mr.Kuhna’s expectations for the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 Forum
  • and more

Interesting stuff in there, some notes:

  • Mr. Kuhna’s professional background is in communication, he also has some experience in leveraging intranets and internal communities in M&A situations, i.e. the Daimler-Chrysler. Interestingly, he’s sometimes reminded by the “Enterprise 2.0 hot topics of today” of all the things that were envisioned before.
  • Adidas is aiming for a global intranet portal, which integrates a round of Web 2.0 ideas and technologies. Up to now they’re having a variety of heterogenuous intranets, which makes it hard for employees to find information, etc. Starting from this situation Adidas decided for a fresh start – and they’ve come far by now – during the next months the scattered solutions will be replaced by the new integrated intranet.
  • Adidas’ employees already have some experience with social networks and platforms (Xing, Facebook etc.) and the intranet team leveraged these competencies. He stressed the importance of easy participation, helping adoption off the ground. Yes, getting a voice on the intranet is getting easier and it’s no longer a monopoly of IT departments – we need to allow for easy, free-form, adaptive and emergent design of interaction and participation means. Now, we can be sure that this will also add considerable complexity …
  • How to explain the benefits of Enterprise 2.0 to senior executives? Mr. Kuhna recommends to start with demonstrating the changed nature of (internet based) communication and the emergence of communities. Sounds like a good idea – senior executive support is vital, complementing grass-roots adoption.
  • How will Enterprise 2.0 change organizations? Mr. Kuhna sees most of the changes as rather evolutionary, even when the actual speed of change is impressive. Yet I am not sure if I support this all the way, I guess it depends on how we define “most of the changes” – to me, some current changes in the context of 2.0 are going deep (well, whole industries are disrupted, but for Adidas it may yet be another thing)
  • One last thing that’s worth noting – one of Mr.Kuhna’s wishes for the future of Enterprise 2.0 at Adidas concerns „Budget“. Nothing new on that front obviously – awareness and understanding is nice, but budgets get the thing rolling …

60 Prozent der Unternehmen …

… die Botschaft hör ich ja gern, allerdings fehlt mir ein bisschen der Glaube an die Zahlen und der Optimismus geht mir zu weit (“mehr als die Hälfte der deutschen Unternehmen setzt schon heute Blogs, Wikis oder soziale Netzwerke ein”, “haben ihren festen Platz in den Arbeitsabläufen gefunden” – wirklich?). Paradoxerweise gehen mir die gezogenen Schlußfolgerungen denn auch nicht weit genug bzw. muss ich mich fragen, ob das da unten wirklich die entscheidenden Vorteile sind, die durch den Einsatz von Social Software im Unternehmen möglich sind:

Die Wirtschaft setzt auf Web 2.0 – 60 Prozent der Unternehmen wollen Blogs, Wikis und soziale Netzwerke ausbauen.

Die Wirtschaft nutzt immer stärker Web-2.0-Technologien. Etwas mehr als die Hälfte der deutschen Unternehmen setzt schon heute Blogs, Wikis oder soziale Netzwerke ein. 60 Prozent der Firmen wollen diese Technologien künftig weiter ausbauen. Mehr als 80 Prozent der Unternehmen meinen, Web-2.0-Technologien werden weiter an Bedeutung gewinnen. Dies ergab eine umfassende Studie des Bitkom in Zusammenarbeit mit Oracle, an der über 400 Unternehmen aus den unterschiedlichsten Branchen teilgenommen haben. Blogs, Wikis & Co. erhöhen die Produktivität der Unternehmen und haben ihren festen Platz in den Arbeitsabläufen gefunden.

[…]

Zwei Drittel derjenigen Unternehmen, die bereits Blogs, Wikis oder soziale Netzwerke einsetzen, haben positive Erfahrungen gesammelt. Unternehmen können Informationen schneller und einfacher recherchieren und somit besser auf neue Markttrends reagieren. Ein weiterer positiver Nebeneffekt: Die Mitarbeiter setzen sich aktiv mit der Unternehmens-IT auseinander. […]

(Pressemitteilung von bitkom gefunden via do it.online)

Hmm, warum nur 60%? Die diskutierten Vorteile sollten doch für 100% der Unternehmen Anreiz genug sein, andererseits – wer will schon dass sich die Mitarbeiter “aktiv mit der Unternehmens-IT auseinandersetzen” …

Enterprise 2.0 on z/OS

I had the pleasure to attend an IBM enterprise 2.0 workshop yesterday at the Böblingen Labs. Found out about it via Luis Suarez. Well, turned out to be a good idea, not only was I able to experience the extended version of Luis’ “Thinking out of the Inbox”, but also got some insights into IBMs mainframe business as a platform for business-critical applications. And yes, these may well include Enterprisey-2.0 stuff. And while I am still favorable of lightweight deployments, I can see their point, especially when coupled with the overall trends around virtualization, cloud computing etc.

The one day workshop (“Web 2.0 and System z”) – organized by Kevin Keller (kevkeller on Twitter) – both touched upon broad underlying motives, concepts and trends (systematized by Ansgar Schmidt under “Gutenberg 2.0”, I just loved the neologism “social translucence”) and downright IT-technological specifics.

Fot the underlying trends I think that the IBMers got it right, e.g. when pointing out the trend towards decentralized social networks, that are organized and supported by distributed players. Yes, add this to data portability and open standards and we’re on the right track. Besides, I got some nice insights into IBMs enterprise social software ideas, e.g. the internal BeeHive social networking platform (I know who called it a waste of time but am not telling …) – where already thousands of IBM employees “connect and share” and IBMs CatTail document sharing platform.

So, in addition to meeting nice people like Martin Packer, I also learned quite a bit. Yes, this is another one of the reasons why we still want to meet up with people in real-life. As Luis puts it, we want to:
– hear the story behind the argument
– confirm what we think we know (and I would also say put our ideas up for testing and refinement)
– decide what to pay attention to
– keep up with fast changing information
– feel connected

Makes a nice list of arguments for coming to the WikiWednesdayStuttgart this evening, although the planned main event has to be delayed onto the future (no I am not telling) we’ll have a nice group of people with expertise to discuss with …

Open Source platforms for Enterprise 2.0

John Eckman also moderated a panel on Open Source Platforms at the recent Boston Enterprise 2.0 conference. He talked to Bob Bickel , John Newton (of Alfresco) and Jeff Whatcott from Acquia. I like this take – if we want to achieve more adoption in the world of SMBs (that are lacking adoption drive) it’s necessary to have inexpensive, adaptive tools as an alternative to the established systems. There’s a record of the panel’s audio (mp3). And John links to various places where the panel was covered, I found some interesting things there:

He has some good points why Drupal should be considered, forget about the stabs at proprietary software and take it with good humour even if you’re non-organic …

She’s noting Socialtext’s (here) and Jive Software’s (here) efforts in open source but yes, it’s not their primary model. By the way, Kathleen has a nice summary too (“Enterprise 2.0: the good and the bad“). She’s complaining about too much talk on cultural change. Well yes, I agree but out of other reasons – I think there’s too much talk on these issues by people who basically don’t get it. It’s like the revenge of technology people for INATT (“it’s not about the technology”). Then it were people who want to cover up that they don’t understand these technologies, now too often it’s lighthearted chit-chat about organizational culture, motivational structures, change management etc. (“We’ve all read our Dilbert so we can all talk at lenghts about this fluffy stuff, can’t we?”). But hey, this is no “fluffy stuff” and that’s the real reason why these discussions are so unnerving – deep inside we all know that cultural and people issues are central and that they need to be thought through thoroughly (sic!) and not chatted about lightly