Mainstreaming E2.0 Step 4

"The consumers have to culture new habits to adopt the innovation"

Enterprise 2.0 example:

Whilst I am researching for a project at work, I will always print off a paper to read it because I find it too difficult to read from my monitor - I soon have a pile of papers, which becomes unmanageable when I try to go back and re read something or get a reference. More often than not if I want to do this I will try and remember what search I did in Google and "re-find" the document. This works but it isn't ideal. However I discovered del.icio.us and that problem was solved for me. However I did need to make sure that whenever I wanted to come back to an article I had to get in the habit of tagging them.

I am involved in a trial trying to implement tagging at work, and it seems that getting people to take up this tagging habit is a step too far.

Solution?

The key thing here is that at heart we are all a bit selfish. You can advocate the exciting social possibilities of Enterprise 2.0 technologies until you are blue in the face. However unless you demonstrate to people that the technology DIRECTLY benefits them, and that the social benefits are a free bonus, people won't bother.

Tagging is a perfect example of this, as my colleague Simon keeps saying, when you tag a document you instantly get a "present" for your efforts - not only can you find the document again on your terms, but you are rewarded with other links that are relevant to your tag - ie. you get instant personal value for your contribution. Therefore I think that E2.0 technologies need to be marketed carefully - highlighting personal value before community value.

Mainstreaming E2.0 Step 3

"The innovation is deemed to be too risky"

Enterprise 2.0 example:

Everyone has heard the stories, where staff members have been sacked from their jobs, after posting derogatory comments about their companies on their personal blogs.  This will undoubtedly put people off "professional blogging". People will be concerned that their comments could be misconstrued, making them look stupid or indeed dissident. Furthermore people may be ultra conservative when drawing the line between what is publicly acceptable and what should be kept to a few people - I expect that we have all heard "urban legends" where people have accidentally hit "reply to all"  whilst being sarcastic about company communications.

Solution?

Don't set a blogging policy - this won't make employees feel happier because they know where the boundaries are, it will make them feel there is more risk because there is a clearly defined boundary that they could stray over. 

Lead by example - there is a very big cultural change that needs to happen before employees will feel completely free to write what they are thinking in a place where everyone can access it. Therefore it must be led by example at ALL levels of the organisation not just by senior managers posting high level word smithed posts.

Mainstreaming E2.0 Step 2

"The consumers do not understand the value of the innovation"

Enterprise 2.0 Example:

I come from a non IT, scientific background (the core business area of my organisation), and I know all too well that us scientists are busy people, as I imagine most people are.

We don't have time to mess around with the new technologies spilling out of our IT departments (especially considering some of the rubbish enterprise 2.0 solutions that we are forced to deal with!!). Furthermore I think we have all gotten pretty good at finding reasons so that we don't have to get involved in these projects.

So when I go to speak to my colleagues about RSS, I take the time to explain all the pros and cons of the technology, and I always get a "that's really interesting" response. Loosely translated I think they are telling me - "yup I get what you are talking about, but it sounds like a lot of effort for little gain" - which is why very few of these colleagues then go away and start using RSS. I definitely think that part of this is to do with them being busy - but I also I think that E2.0 technologies need to be seen to be believed.  For example some might think that a blog is a rather self indulgent waste of time until they find something that they connect with and they find interesting - once they see the value in blogging - often there is no stopping them (I include myself in this).

 

Solution?

I think that with Enterprise 2.0 technologies the chicken most definitely must come before the egg. I was speaking to a colleague of mine recently, and he said that he has just got into RSS - I was pleased- but also a bit surprised - I asked him how he got into it..and he replied that he had been into it for a while, but it had really taken off in his department because one of their senior managers had just started to write a blog and they all needed a way of keeping up with it. They were introduced to RSS, saw the instant benefit and that was all they needed to get hooked on it and start exploring and discovering the true value for themselves. Therefore I think that the solution to helping people understand the value of the innovation is to exemplify to the business why the innovation has value with an example tailored to the particular business area - remembering that one size doesn't fit all and that people will use these tools in ways that suit them and that can't be predicted ahead of time by people that don't know or understand their business area.

 

Technorati Tags: innovation, enterprise 2.0, e2, rss

Mainstreaming E2.0 Step 1

"The innovation may not be compatible with existing workflows and practices."

Enterprise 2.0 Example:

Traditionally within an organisation the process for writing documentation requires an initial draft to be written up by someone. Once this is done the document enters a recursive phase of editing and approval by the authors of the document, before finally being signed off and distributed as required.

Wiki's challenge this model. In a wiki, a document grows as people add content, and at the same time it is polished as people change wording and correct inaccuracies. A document is only finished when people stop editing and polishing, at which point the authors have reached a consensus. Even then a document is not really finished, there is nothing stopping people adding things and continuing polishing.

This is an uncomfortable situation for most users, as the traditional workflow of creating a document is completely abandoned, and may seem chaotic, with no one person explicitly in control. More alarmingly, for people creating documents in a wiki is the fact that a document is never officially finished, and therefore the workflow is not only different, but the destination is never officially reached.

Solution?

Therefore I think that Enterprise wiki systems should have the functionality to export a document to a file when the group have reached a decision that the document is finished.

This will not please wiki purists, but in the web2.0 space, documents are not the important thing, information is, and furthermore there is no accountability for this information. This is not the case in the Enterprise.

In the Enterprise the goal of writing a document is to finish and file it. By allowing wiki pages to be published as documents, this means that whilst the mechanics of the document workflow process are altered the start and end points are still the same - you set out to create a document - and eventually that is what you achieve.

Technorati Tags: enterprise2.0, innovation, wiki

Moving Enterprise 2.0 into the mainstream

It seems that convincing people that Enterprise 2.0 is a really exciting and innovative way to work is easy, the real challenge is in actually getting the mainstream of your business to actual use it.

I was recently reading an article from the MIT Sloan Management Review entitled "Overcoming consumer resistance to innovation". Amongst other things this article details the 5 barriers to innovation, a proposed list of factors that cause consumer resistance to innovation which are as follows:

1. The innovation may not be compatible with existing workflows and practices.

2. The consumers do not understand the value of the innovation.

3. The innovation is deemed to be too risky.

4.The consumers have to culture new habits to adopt the innovation.

5. The innovation has a poor image/branding.

In my next few

posts I am going to examine each of these barriers in turn and discuss how they apply to E2.0 technologies, and suggest ways that they can be addressed to help mainstream Enterprise 2.0.

Technorati Tags: e2, enterprise 2.0, innovation

Does my Enterprise have a long tail?

The Long tail can be represented by this diagram where the x and y axes can have many different associations.

Perhaps the best example is that of Amazon.com, in this example the x axis represents the topics of interest of the general public, and the y axis represents the number of people that are interested in each subject.

Highstreet retailers stick in the blue space - they stock only the popular items, because shelf space is expensive, so they need to maximize their revenue:shelf space ratio. Amazon is less constrained by shelf space, therefore they are able to operate in both the blue and red space, an capitalize on the niche (red) interest groups. Which whilst there is less potential custom per book, if you consider the area under the curve as potential revenue, the overall potential earnings of this sector is similar to the main stream blue section.

From an enterprise perspective I would propose that the x axis would represent an increasing number of the employees, whilst the y axis represents an increasing number of correct business decisions. Amongst other things I think that in this example the area under the curve represents the levels of business knowledge and experience that these groups have.

Controversial as this is, in general those individuals with the most business knowledge (the blue section) will be most likely to make the best decisions for the company, and will also be the least numerous, hence the hierarchical structure of most companies. The bulk of the employees don't have this experience and will therefore make less effective decisions in contrast. However the potential of the long tail effect in this sense is that if you can harness the AUC of the red section, essentially the collective experience of the majority of the organisation, you should find that you correct decisions can be made as effectively as those in those in the blue section.

Google are ahead of the game here - and have created an internal prediction market, where employees vote with their feet as to the outcomes of certain events (Google Blog). The outcome of this experiment was that the majority of employees made correct predictions on these outcomes - and therefore could have equally made the correct decisions about how to prepare for them.

The challenge is therefore to find a way to milk the collective intelligence of an organisation, and I firmly believe that this is one of the key ways in which E2 can make an impact.

Technorati Tags: enterprise 2.0, e2

Disposable Blogs

I have noticed that a number of the once thriving corporate blogs within my organisation have begun to grind to a halt.  Is this really a problem?

I am starting to think that within the Enterprise a blog is simply a way of recording miscellaneous project related information and thoughts, along with the accompanying discussions. In essence recording recording those elusive water cooler conversations. 

As such, should we worry when a corporate blog starts to tail off? I think No, when this starts to happen then the blog has already served its purpose, it has been the conduit for saving this valuable information, and if it is intelligently indexed by tagging then it becomes a searchable resource that can continue to add value, even as hits to the site are declining.

In this sense maybe Enterprise blogs should be viewed as a temporary resource for collection information and channeling enthusiasm, which even though they won't truly be disposed of, will eventually fall into the inactivity.

Technorati Tags: enterprise 2.0, blogging, e2