Contributing to Collaborative Book Editing

Zoli Erdos notes that collaborative editing a wiki book like Wikinomics does not come easily:

that page content is not growing as much as comments are. I guess it’s easier to talk about it than actually doing it

Add this to what I’ve noted here on the benefits of short, modular and open content.

A sound observation, well, anyway he also offers sound advice to encourage participation and collaborative work, basically pointing out that wiki participation will flourish when people are bold. I would sum this up as people that have confidence, are knowledgeable, have time to invest. Overall competencies of collaboration, which entail also some other virtues …

“Being bold is necessary advice in wikis: most people aren’t accustomed to editing each other’s sentences. In a wiki participants must be bold because it is only by many iterative edits that mass intelligence can occur and wisdom can triumph over verbosity. If we are bold the content will evolve.”

Implications for enterprise knowledge management with social software are clear: A central success (or failure) factor of KM implementation is people (and organizational culture …), determining the circumstances and preconditions for emergence.

Yes, this comes at no surprise – but it’s always worth recalling!

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 …

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