Enterprise 2.0 – Through the backdoor

Michael Schuster of System One offers another spin on adaption and implementation issues, the role that social networks play, the uptaking of social software and more:

How long are enterprises going to withstand the pressure from their employees that illegally install tools, use external services and setup things like wikis without caring about corporate security policies or the like? I hear from so many people who are not happy with the applications that they have, that it is very likely that those who are eager to work with efficient, slim tools are going to find a workaround and (even worse from a company viewpoint) introduce that to their colleagues and to other teams.

This sounds reminiscent of the maverick, bottom-up uses that bypass conventional IT structures (and governance alike), e.g. when employees actually use external tools like webmailers, as described in this article by the NYT. Well, people want to forward their work email to Webmail (so that they can access it from home, when doing extra work) anyway. Consequently we need policies that don’t interfere with the actual ways people work – and Enterprise 2.0 implementations must be well aware of both IT governance policies and workers needs.

Collaborate to innovate: Social networks and innovation

Crossposting from my BMID-Blog, this is interesting frogpond related stuff:

[…] on the one hand social software in the enterprise can help with the discovery of unconscious or hidden patterns (of relations, interests …) … e.g. by supporting social network analysis. But to me it’s main advantage is the facilitation of relations and joint undertakings – basically leveraging the distributed creativity and know-how in the organization, and thus enabling the emergence of new patterns (of work, ideas, etc. – you get the idea).

Blogs als Instrument der Unternehmenskommunikation

Martin Hiegl hat an der BA Stuttgart und damit quasi in meiner Nachbarschaft eine Studienarbeit im Bereich Wirtschaft zum Thema “Blogs als Instrument der Unternehmenskommunikation” geschrieben (pdf-download).

Das pdf ist überschaubar und bietet eine grundlegende Einführung in das Thema. Gut gefallen hat mir die Übersicht über die verschiedenen Einsatzarenen von unternehmensinternen Blogs, weniger gut dass die Einordnung von Blogs in den weiteren Kontext von unternehmensinterner Social Software zu kurz kommt. Das ist aber angesichts des Umfangs der Arbeit verständlich.

RSS Offers Relief from Enterprise E-Mail Overload

eWeek zu den verschiedenen Vorteilen von RSS im Unternehmenskontext. Hier wird zum einen deutlich, dass mehr zu Enterprise Social Software gehört als Wikis und Weblogs (hier eine kleine RSS-Einführung), zum anderen dass bestehende Werkzeuge der Zusammenarbeit wie bspw. Email gravierende Nachteile haben (siehe bspw. What’s wrong with Email?).

Even though it’s a consumer-driven technology, it may have more benefit for a company than for an individual user. It helps streamline existing forms of communication, so a company will see benefit right away,« said Oliver Young, an analyst at Forrester Research. »It can mean more efficient use of e-mail. It’s geared toward timeliness and what needs more, or less, attention. RSS can really drive benefit that way

Der nächste Blogeintrag integriert einige Überlegungen und Beobachtungen in diesem Kontext …

More on enterprise wikis

Some wiki links of late …

1. Socialtext Unplugged.

Socialtext Unplugged is an application within a single HTML file, which also means it is cross-platform. It downloads as a Zip file, but synching is through Socialtext’s Wiki Web Services.

Bob Sutor with excellent analysis on what this means for Office 2.0 …

That’s the wonderful thing about the future that Office 2.0 is nudging us towards: we already have the pieces! We may need some standards so we can make the different services work together better, but we’re on the right path.

2. Wikia announces OpenServing.

Wikia is launching a service offering free tools for people who want to build community websites. Interesting business model policy, letting the community sort out the business model 😉

FREE software, FREE bandwidth, FREE storage, FREE computing power, FREE content over the Internet, and GIVING AWAY 100% of the ad inventory and revenue to bloggers and website owners who partner with Wikia

and

Social change has accelerated beyond the original Wikipedia concept of six years ago. People are rapidly adopting new conventions for working together to do great things, and Wikia is a major beneficiary of that trend. OpenServing is the next phase of this experiment. We don’t have all the business model answers, but we are confident – as we always have been – that the wisdom of our community will prevail

Update: Stuart Froman focuses on the experimental free-flowing and adaptive approach Wikia’s following:

But if it’s experiments we want, then this is a good one. […] And will a sustainable business model follow?

Well, I would add that this setting may allow for the emergence of new businessmodels, where “emergence” is used in its complex systems sense, i.e. the emergence of patterns (business models) out of the interactions of independent agents … for some related ideas see my business model innovation and design blog.

3. Manuel Simoni notes challenges for wikis in the enterprise.

No Sense of Ownership: Information I put on a page could be edited away by tomorrow, and my pages seem to float in a boundary-less space beyond my personal control.
There are technical solutions to these problems (versioning and a personal dashboard, for example) but the feeling remains.
Unidentified ContributorsIt’s not immediately obvious who contributed what, which gives capitalists little incentive to contribute.
Again, there are technical (versioning) and social (ThreadMode) fixes, but they’re just that, fixes.
Shared State: As we move to an occasionally offline model of operation (e.g. Zimbra Offline client), where multiple users may edit the same page while all of them are offline, using a wiki with its simple-minded “all mixed up like Pasta Primavera” data model is asking for trouble.

Well, yes, see also 1. above for looming sharing and editing problems, where SocialText has given no answers yet.

Manuel proposes a system of intertwined weblogs, a collage approach to social software.

Still, I think wikis will have their place. So when people want to be recognized (and rewarded) for their contributions the way to go is a combination of blogs and wikis in an integrated enterprise 2.0 approach.

Blogs and wikis as Web 2.0 platforms …

Don Dodge on whether blogs and wikis can be (application) platforms …

Well, yes, they certainly are … fitting nicely in this big trend, where the web becomes the platform, e.g. have a look here or here, and for another application wiki check out this.

For the record, some notes by Don Dodge:

Application platforms are very profitable in the software business. Platforms attract developers. Developers build all kinds of interesting applications…which attracts users. Millions of users mean your platform will generate revenues for a long, long time.

Wikis and blogs are great collaboration tools, but they are now moving beyond that to become application platforms. Socialtext and JotSpot (acquired by Google) are building out suites of office productivity applications built on top of a wiki platform. Telligent and Blogtronix are building application platforms on top of the blog model.

Web 2.0 applications are more than just “webifying” existing apps. Web 2.0 applications are inherently interactive and collaborative at every level of the application. They are simple to build, easy to manage, and cheap to maintain. Increasingly they are being built on new platforms like blogs and wikis, and using new tools like AJAX and REST.

Applying Web 2.0 in the enterprise

Dion Hinchcliffe recounts a presentation by Bob Morgan, Vice President of the Chief Technology Office, American Express Technology on the Web 2.0 efforts at Amex, pointing out that.

major corporations are starting to seriously explore the use of Web 2.0 techniques in various aspects of their business

Amex is driving three initiatives combining Web 2.0 and SOA:
1) Improving the Customer Experience
2) Community and Collaboration
3) Simplicity and approachability

Note also that

figuring out how to leverage the positive aspects of the emerging best practices on the Web today, without eliminating the very benefit they provide, is one of the biggest challenges in providing a Web 2.0 “context” in the enterprise