frogpond

WikiWednesdayStuttgart, business model innovations for Non-Profits and open-source organization principles

Yes, this is a really long title, but wait …

I am currently in my third sunday session at the BarCampBerlin 3 – and Clemens Lerche and Peter Bihr are leading an open brainstorming session on user-generated content, open source principles and more. I found about this via my post on The Web is changing the world (with Open Source organization principles) – Clemens commented and alerted me to their session.

But where’s the connection to the rest of the title? I guess it’s all about the implications (and potentials) of open source principles. And as we were discussing this (literally, well) also at the last WikiWednesday Stuttgart, e.g. innovative approaches non-profits are applying. While we started with community wiki projects, due to an interesting mixture of audience we ended at a discussion that went much farther then just discussing the potentials of social software – it touched upon business model innovations, especially structural and strategic innovations that can be employed.

So this is the idea for the next (and 7th) WikiWednesday Stuttgart: Let’s have a meeting of social entrepreneurs, innovators and social software enthusiasts and discuss this space. This must not be an incarnation and variation of SocialCamp or Social Bar, but it may well be a start to get local enthusiasts going.

One item on the agenda might be “What can we do with collaboration tools to support Non-profit work?” Well, yes, things like e.g. find experts, build up competency and “professional standing”, help our people to collaborate and communicate more easily and profoundly (all the while given that this is not coming for free but needs quite some time) …

But I guess that’s not all, so I’m thinking of inviting people like Christian Kreutz and Alex Osterwalder to do a keynote of some kind (in a very literal sense). Why do I ask them – for Christian it’s clear, he’s working in this space. And Alex? Lately he posted this:

[…] Some entrepreneurs involved in business model innovation are not only seeking for financial returns, but are also aiming at achieving social, development and environmental returns. In other words, money and fame are not their only motivators. They want to have an impact. What is interesting is that they are aiming at combining financial AND social success. These entrepreneurs try to prove that these two are not necessarily contradictory.

There are are a couple of interesting business models out there that I follow with quite some fascination. Grameen Phone is a telecom company founded by Iqbal Quadir, that has brought connectivity to rural areas in Bangladesh. What is interesting about their business model is that they partnered with the world famous micro finance institution Grameen Bank to exploit synergies.

[…]

And he did a workshop on this topic in London (“Disruptive models: The art and science of VISUAL BUSINESS MODEL DESIGN for breakthrough social innovation“) …

Making the links, i.e. how to leverage these new social software tools, new communication channels, new communities et al. in this space might be interesting for many people from Stuttgart too, like e.g. Dr. Brigitte Reiser from nonprofits-vernetzt, Thomas Becker, Cedric of course and other present and past WikiWednesday attendees.

I will coordinate the room and then announce the date via the usual channels, looking forward to this.

BarCamp Munich: Enterprise 2.0 @ SUN

Notizen meiner zweiten Session (hier die Notizen zur ersten Session zu Fachportalen) am BarCamp Munich, Constantin Gonzalez vom Raumsponsor Sun: – zu Enterprise 2.0 bei Sun.

Zuerst ein kleiner Werbeblock für Sun als 2.0-Firma, u.a. werden OpenSolaris.org, OpenSparc.net für Open Source Hardware, netbeans.org, StarOffice (bzw. OpenOffice.org) vorgestellt. Ja, auch Java soll mittlerweile “open-sourced” sein …

Was ist Enterprise 2.0 für Sun? Re-Use, Connect, Share

Re-Use (focus auf Kernkompetenzen, das Rad nicht neu erfinden, Interoperabilität)
Connect (mehr Business-Gelegenheiten, mehr Sichtbarkeit, Innovation unterstützen)
Share (“spread DNA”, neu Kunden gewinnen, Meinungs- und Kompetenzführerschaft aufbauen)

Ein paar Notizen:

Blogs bei Sun – share minds, making business transparent. Zentraler Vorteil des externen Einsatz von Blogs – Kompetenz darstellen und sich mit anderen verlinken. Für die Blogs wurden durchaus ein paar einfache Grundregeln hinterlegt. Und klar, CEO Jonathan Schwartz bloggt natürlich auch.
Communities bei Sun, u.a. Systemhelden.com-Portal, darin u.a. ein Aggregations-Blog für Sysadmins, Inhalte sind u.a. auch Podcasts. Wurde mit sehr wenig Budget umgesetzt.
Knowledge Management 2.0 bei Sun auf Basis von Confluence, darin u.a. ein Company Social Network, zielt auf die Unterstützung interner Communities, Social Document Management, vom know-how soll es zum know-who gehen, Unterstützung von (Kunden-)Pilotprojekten – genannt SunSpace …
eine interner “delicious”-Klon besteht und wird verwendet
auch Sun hat ein Akzeptanz- und Motivationsproblem, nicht alle Mitarbeiter von Sun sind “early adopters”

Enterprise Microblogging wird bei Sun durchaus gesehen, noch sind aber Mitarbeiter und FK nicht soweit, d.h. die Potenziale werden noch nicht gesehen. Mein Diskussionsbeitrag zielte daher dann auch auf die nutzenorientierte Argumentation, bspw. den Einsatz im Projektmanagement, oder für die Vernetzung und Integration der verschiedenen “Werkzeuginseln”.

Auch sonst gab es einige gute Fragen, u.a. wie der Mehrwert der Tools an die Mitarbeiter vermittelt werden kann. Eine Sun-Antwort sind interne Champions, die bereits in frühen Phasen mitlernen und dann später gut argumentieren können.

Update: Dirk Röhrborn von Communardo hat auch zur Session gepostet (“Live-Bericht vom Barcamp München: Mitmachweb bei Sun Microsystems“)

Communication (and coordination?) in complex organizations

Stumbled upon this Harvard working knowledge paper by Adam Kleinbaum, Toby Stuart, and Michael Tushman via Mike Gotta who highlighted the opening quote:

“The social system is an organization, like the individual, that is bound together by a system of communication.” − Norbert Wiener (1948, p. 24)

The paper asks which groups are most likely to communicate with others in a large organization, regardless of social-and physical-boundaries and finds that category-spanning communication patterns are demonstrated primarily by women, mid- to high-level executives, and members of the executive management, sales and marketing functions.

It is available for free download as a pdf. Here’s the abstract:

This is a descriptive study of the structure of communications in a modern organization. We analyze a dataset with millions of electronic mail messages, calendar meetings and teleconferences for many thousands of employees of a single, multidivisional firm during a three-month period in calendar 2006. The basic question we explore asks, what is the role of observable (to us) boundaries between individuals in structuring communications inside the firm? We measure three general types of boundaries: organizational boundaries (strategic business unit and function memberships), spatial boundaries (office locations and inter-office distances), and social categories (gender, tenure within the firm). In dyad-level models of the probability that pairs of individuals communicate, we find very large effects of formal organization structure and spatial collocation on the rate of communication. Homophily effects based on sociodemographic categories are much weaker. In individual-level regressions of engagement in category-spanning communication patterns, we find that women, mid- to high-level executives, and members of the executive management, sales and marketing functions are most likely to participate in cross-group communications. In effect, these individuals bridge the lacunae between distant groups in the company’s social structure.

I like the approach, and the systematization of the three types of boundaries. Moreover the results reminded me of McAfee’s empty quarter thoughts, esp. if we understand that building bridges is one thing that may emerge with the adoption of social software in the enterprise. Yes, to achieve the boundaryless organization, putting social web elements to use is a good idea – especially to support lateral, cross-division, cross-function and cross-rank communication patterns. Yet, I guess that breaking up the silos all the way, i.e. to achieve and leverage “cross-division, cross-function and cross-rank” cooperation and collaboration, will be a lot harder. Connectbeam‘s Hutch Carpenter highlights the status quo and the real issues to deal with, i.e. integrating the user experience and adding layers that do more than mere enterprise search:

Adding social computing features to existing enterprise silos certainly helps, but fails to connect the larger organization. […]

We have not yet seen the emergence of a full-suite vendor that addresses the different needs of the market. Expect to see enterprises with multiple social computing apps for the foreseeable future.

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” …

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.