frogpond

Wie Blogs und Wikis (@IBM) die Arbeitswelt verändern

Leider nur noch im kostenpflichtigen Archiv der SZ, dieser Artikel zu den Veränderungen innerhalb der IBM durch Social Software: “Im freien Fluss: Wie Blogs und Wiki die Arbeitswelt verändern“. Damals gelesen und gebookmarked, und daran anlässslich der CeBIT erinnert …

Noch gibt es kaum Unternehmen, die Web 2.0 Technologien so intensiv für den internen Informationsaustausch ausnutzen wie IBM. Dass Big Blue als Anbieter von Software für unternehmensinterne Kommunikationsprozesse auf die Technologie setzt, ist aber nur ein Grund für die starke Nutzung von Web 2.0-Technologien. Das Unternehmen wurde im Jahr 2005 vom Management massiv umgebaut und global ausgerichtet. Die dezentrale Vernetzung wurde dadurch Teil der Firmenstrategie. Viele andere Firmen sind zentralistischer organisiert und tun sich schwer damit, die Kontrolle über die internen Kommunikationsprozese aufzugeben.

Nun ja, rückblickend auf die CeBIT hat IBM meiner Meinung nach das Thema “Kollaboration” dieses Mal etwas verschenkt – zumindest wenn man das Engagement der benachbarten DNUG als Maßstab sieht. Ein, zwei kleinere Angebote am Rand des riesigen Messestands, das war es. Vielleicht auch ganz gut so – schließlich hatte ich so Gelegenheit zu einem ausgiebigen Austausch mit den IBM-/Lotus-Beratern rund um Sametime, Quickr und Connections, und speziell zu deren Erfahrungen in Bezug auf Akzeptanz und Einführungspfade in der IBM. Auch intern sicher kein Selbstläufer, wobei durchaus von wachsendem Engagement berichtet wurde.

Jenny Ambrozek @ E20Summit

… 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 …

Euan Semple @ E20Summit

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.

Dion Hinchcliffe @ E20Summit

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.