Enterprise 2.0 Starting Points

I have been discussing the introduction of web 2.0 tools into a global organisation with a contact recently and a few familiar points arose relating to the introduction of these tools / way of working. So to help address them, I have broken these points down into some headings:

Understanding - There is no point in implementing web 2.0 tools for the sake of it. You must understand both your target audience internally and how these tools can improve how you do what you do. Here you must look at how collaboration is different in the new way of working compared to how it is currently being achieved. From basic principles it is about connecting people through their knowledge and expertise by providing the environment (real & virtual) which encourages them to share information as part of their daily operation. This famous "Meet Charlie" deck gives a nice introduction to the potential of what can be done:

Meet Charlie - what is Enterprise2.0?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: 2.0 enterprise)

Support / Sponsorship - Once you fully understand what web 2.0 is about ("I get it!"), you now need to get your organisation on board. There are 2 elements to this:

1. Senior Management - The initiative needs to be supported top-down by senior management in the organisation (across all divisions / geographies). This is required from the beginning, and will work in a lead-by-example method e.g. Executive Blogs. The sales pitch to this group needs to echo their needs from existing programmes. Avoiding redundant effort, avoiding repeated mistakes, taking advantage of existing expertise, making individuals more effective, making teams more effective.
   
2. Grass Roots - The initiative needs to be driven laterally by communities of practice at grass roots level. Employees need to be encouraged to participate and rewarded for contributing. The model is suited to achieving a critical mass of users to ensure trust and sustained engagement for ongoing success.
   

Education - Web 2.0 is new to many, so it is important to convert these people by demonstrating a clear benefit to them from using the tools. Removing the technical jargon for business users can help to speed their introduction to web 2.0. I am a big fan of the CommonCraft show which has taught us to focus on plain english explanations of technical tools / concepts for business users. An example of how they simplify these concepts is RSS in plain english:



Starting Points - I believe that the best starting points for the introduction of web 2.0 tools are those which have high visibility, are cross divisional / geographically dispersed and can have a quick turn-around for early results. Operations & Technology is always a good area for testing the waters in this domain. The tasks and roles in O&T divisions are suited to adopting tools like instant messaging, wikis for documenting practices / ideas, RSS feeds for monitoring systems etc. Prove the value here and the other areas of your organisation will follow.

Growth - You need champions and evangelists to drive adoption and early growth for a successful beginning for your web 2.0 initiative. It is so important to fuel the flame of enthusiasm early on by demonstrating functionality, mentoring and supporting your user community. I had posted in the past about the characteristics of a wiki champion, but they are applicable to all web 2.0 adoption really:

• Be a Clear Communicator
• Be a Coach
• Be Patient
• Be Enthusiastic
• Be Engaging
• Have Fun!
  

Measurement - This is a real grey area, as the metrics could be different for each organisation depending on the goals of your initiative. There are however some emerging examples of what organisations are measuring when it comes to examining trends and ROI for web 2.0 programmes. Things like # of unique users, # of unique contributions etc. This slide deck shows some of the metrics that Accenture use for their knowledge management initiatives:

Measuring the impact of knowledge management

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: knowledge management roi)

This is by no means an extensive coverage of this topic, however I would encourage those interested in Web 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 to use the tools online to discover more e.g. YouTube, SlideShare, RSS Readers / Blogs, LinkedIn etc.

Internal Blogging at BT

Another great post by Richard Dennison called Blogging Inside BT in which he describes how "BT management is prepared to allow its employees to express themselves and their opinions on ‘unregulated’, self-publishing platforms". It is a great read and another example of how to link the use of Web 2.0 tools to providing value internally behind the firewall.

I also like a response he has added to a comment on the post, relating to how blogs can have a longer life span than traditional discussion forums as "the owner feels responsible for keeping it going because it is part of their personal brand." I like this enterprise blogging idea, as it allows all employees to become experts in their own area, and makes individual knowledge more available to the wider internal community.

I have linked to Richard before, relating to his post on Web 2.0 adoption at BT. It seems that they have a clear vision of what they can achieve by empowering their employees with information and knowledge resources.

Anyone interested in real examples of how to formulate Web 2.0 strategy and learn from the BT examples should subscribe to Richard's blog Inside Out.

Social Collaboration on the Intranet at BT

Richard Dennison has posted a great case study about Web 2.0 adoption at BT on his blog called Inside Out. It is great to see such transparency and openness in this case, as often this type of information is considered to be the 'competitive advantage' every organisation craves.

However, in the world of social computing, collaboration and knowledge management - things are different! By sharing the experiences of the successes and failures, practitioners can help develop this emerging domain by quickly learning the best practices, do's and don'ts and the challenges they may face.

More and more we are seeing a culture of sharing and transparency amongst those who realise the benefits of the community-culture that social computing can bring to your organisation. Richard notes the challenges and cultural hurdles which understandably face the 'wiki champions' and the 'internal bloggers' when they present their ideas to the security departments and policy makers.

From my own experience, I think that senior management support at an early stage is critical. This was a key element to the success at BT also, as Richard mentions that it was their CEO who publicly announced his support for a more liberal approach.

Web2.0 - What's different this time around?

While thinking about the role of Web2.0 in the enterprise, a contact has asked the following question - "What's different this time around?"

They were referring to the language being used by vendors to sell the idea of web2.0, noting that it is very similar to the "spin" used back in the 90's during the emergence of the Internet.

This is one of the reasons I chose to tackle this issue. As I outlined in my dissertation proposal - "the adoption of web2.0 tools and methods is being prohibited by misunderstanding of purpose and lack of defined ROI for business cases".

In this context, I would say that where the emergence of the Internet created channels for business to exploit a new market with their customers (e-commerce), web 2.0 is more an enhancement of "How" organisations operate internally.

Using Wiki's, Blogs, Intranet Portals, RSS etc will not present an immediately obvious ROI like Internet Banking or Online Sales did. However, they can help empower organisations to become "learning organisations" i.e Reducing repetition of mistakes, improving knowledge retention, creating collaborative environments, and encouraging a knowledge sharing culture.

A quote I like is by Kahlil Gibran:

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than
much knowledge that is idle.

There are also externally facing uses of web2.0 for organisations emerging (RSS feeds, Podcasting, Support Wiki's etc), and as their popularity grow, we will see more exploration in this domain.

Improving “Knowledge Flow” within an organisation

By “Knowledge Flow” – I am referring to the speed and efficiency by which communications are delivered to the employees in an organisation.

Often, information is fed along a human chain of Executives, Senior Management, Local Management and eventually to team members. This is often determined by the scheduling of respective monthly team meetings or circulation of bi-monthly/quarterly internal magazines.

An example:

• A new scheme for employees is going to be launched (educational/promotional) etc. It is discussed by and agreed upon by the executive team.
• Each executive circulates this news to their senior managers at their monthly update.
• Each senior manager then relays the news to their local team managers at their monthly update.
• Each team manager “announces” the new scheme to their team.

Notice the emphasis on new. Depending on the circumstances, be it availability of individuals or indeed the occurrence of any of these meetings – the news could take up to a month to reach the people who it really affects. Laurence Prusak describes it as follows:

Knowledge flows along existing pathways in organizations. If we want to understand how to improve the flow of knowledge, we need to understand those pathways.

I like the idea of internal blogging to deliver non-confidential information to employees. To make it even easier, the name for your blog can be “The [YOUR DEPARTMENT NAME HERE] Blog”.

Once people get over the “new-toy” aspect of reading a blog, they will see how easy it is to get the latest news, find relevant past posts (using categories and archiving) and how simple they are to use.

The problem I see with monthly or quarterly internal magazines is that they end up in the trash, and you would be hard pressed to find that much of what it contained was remembered. In contrast, if I remember that there was a post about Career Opportunities or Training Courses recently on the blog, I can easily search for it and find what I want!

For the executives, it can ensure quick responses to queries and items to be addressed. It also provides an opportunity to link to relevant intranet pages where the full article or policy relating to the topic can be found. It acts as an information repository for all of the communications within the organisation, division, or department. This is in contrast to an email pointing to a policy document which is “buried” deep behind the intranet homepage:

Home->Division->Department->Team->Documents->Polices->Comms Policy

If we want to improve knowledge flow, then we have to ease the information load on our executives and managers (the serial forwarders) to ensure that information is communicated to employees in real time. That way we will have an environment where employees are always receiving information which is relevant and up-to-date.

As part of my dissertation I am going to examine knowledge flows and how they can be improved.

RaboDirect sharing financial advice via RSS & Podcasts

Online bank RaboBank, has launched a new RSS & Podcast service for sharing financial advice such as investment tips and money management at RaboDirect.ie. According to SiliconRepublic.com, they are the first Irish bank to provide podcasts to customers. Early signs are that this scheme is proving popular, as it is the #1 business podcast on iTunes Ireland today (30/08/2007)

To start, they have setup a library of Podcasts by financial experts with titles including:

• The Basics of Investing.
• Secrets to becoming a successful investor.
• Factors to consider when choosing investment funds.
• How to learn from the mistakes of others?

The RSS channel has small summary type posts with the post titles linking to press releases and relevant pages of the RaboDirect site. Examples include:

• Product Announcements
• Events (Investment Seminar)
• Web Links (Notifying Customers of Information on RadoDirect Site)

This is a great example of business adopting the power of web 2.0 tools to capture customer attention and promote content on their site. RSS and Podcasts are becoming increasingly popular and this method of marketing will surely grow as more and more people move to Feed Readers for information consumption.

RaboBank said the scheme "empowers customers to maximize their savings and investment opportunities through immediate access to a bank of knowledge from independent financial experts".

Customer facing sites are often powerful on design at the home page, but often lack the content to support this. With RSS, organisations can target customers with topical and timely alerts to new content on their site. Coupled with the links to the product pages they can "pull" customers to the product rather than "push" an advertisement to them.

An excellent COP success story

This slideshow is a championing story for all trying to get a Community of Practice (COP) up and running. The DIGWWW (A Discussion Group about the World Wide Web) is a COP which has gone from strength to strength with some amazing results.

Corporate Blogging Resources

I came across two corporate blogging resources at the Blogtronix Wiki.

1. A list of sites and blogs related to Corporate Blogging.
2. A list of Corporate blogs.

I find the topic of corporate blogging interesting. Can your organisation really realise tangible benefits from blogging? Well, personally, I think that this media will become more important as the net generation replace the current consumer market.

By net generation, I mean the teenagers of 2007, who from 2010 onwards will open bank accounts online, harness wiki's and rss for information/news digestion, and will probably no longer want to receive communication with service providers via traditional mail and postal services.

It remains to be seen whether this generation will research potential service providers by analysing the material of their corporate blog?

There is also an interesting Social Text wiki site, Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki, which has some interesting discussion on corporate blogging.