Why Enterprise 2.0 Causes Cancer and what you can do about it

Is ENTERPRISE 2.0 BAD FOR CORPORATIONS?

Just thinking about implementing Enterprise 2.0 solutions could damage your health or worse your career.   New research by leading authoritative sources reveals a small but deadly link between thoughts of Enterprise 2.0 and diagnosis of inoperable brain cancer.   

People that have welcomed the news report that their suppression of Enterprise 2.0 related news has kept them safer.   "This news has come as a great relief to me. I feel like my current email system and file management server finally have some purpose.  I just hope others learn to be happy with what they have and not feel like they are falling behind," said one detractor. 

After a rise in news reports stating that working alone may reduce the risk of cancer and switching to rotary dial telephones can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s this new report is receiving mixed responses across the world. 

When asked about how they felt about the new report, some random people responded:

 

Oliver Marks Obscure Blogger “Yeah well, the research was done after the E2.0 projects were rolled out and the damage occurred late in the process. By then the systems are up and running. It’s a Big so what”	Andrew McAfee Author “Seems like a mixture of weird science, flawed logic and voodoo semantics. What morons! Wait, I need to Tweet that”	Niall Cook Marketing Guy "I'm going to take the high road here and assume this was not intended as an attack against E2.0 and they really have a point to make? If you have a point, please make it.”

IS ENTERPRISE 2.0 ADDICTIVE? 

It depends on how you define “addictive”.  For alternative definitions go here and here and here (please note: Mosaic browser compatible plug-ins may be necessary).   

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

The people of Oracle, Jive Software, OpenText, Microsoft, Telligent, MindTouch, Acquia Drupal and Interwoven are working to make a difference. We’re tired of being sued by every Larry, Moe and Curly with a headache and a Commodore 64 on their desk. We don't want to be bled dry by a whole new generation of 5 1/4 floppy users saying they just "didn't know."  So we'll try a little candor for a change.

As for the people we may have misled all this time: Hey, we're sorry, but business is business. 

 

Technorati Tags: relax,humor,is good,for the soul

The Promise of Contextual Expert Search in Enterprise 2.0

Image by phauly via Flickr

A few years ago I was involved in developing an exciting new product that promised to change the internet.  Let’s just say it would have added an extra dimension to an otherwise 2D experience.   

We struggled with the use

cases, struggled with the design and fought over the initial release specifications.   Most of all we agonized over how to engineer the product.  I kept thinking that someone somewhere knew the answers to our development questions but how do we find them? 

Most companies today have an employee directory.  It’s fine except it’s stagnant.  It’s stagnant because it’s usually the name, serial number, and rank formula that most employee directories model after.  You’re just a number – get used to it.  

Until WolframAlpha can accept completely free-form input and generate a relevant answer to complex issues, we need the ability to search human capabilities and expertise quickly and efficiently.  

Yet our employee capabilities remain hidden in spreadsheets or static html pages on the outdated intranet.   The issue of expert search continues to plaque corporations and as a result a huge net loss in time.  Multiplied by the thousands of employees across a larger enterprise and it quickly becomes a major issue with a major price tag associated with it.

The promise of Enterprise 2.0 includes expert search.  It must be better than simply typing in a few search terms into the intranet and hoping the right person is near the top of the search results.  It must be contextual in nature.  Meaning it must provide me the best expert for the right business need based on a set of business circumstances. 

It must also be proactive so that if I am working on a project it’s simultaneously suggesting experts that may be able to help whether the resource is inside or outside the corporation. 

Just curious, what do you think would happen to your work day if you were able to find the right person for the right task at the right time? 

Imagine a contextual expert search engine that identifies the best expert based on a set of weighted criteria.  A contextual search engine that monitors a virtual marketplace of experts that are constantly being evaluated and rated – then segmented into specific categories.  So when a search is made, the optimal experts are presented for you to contact. 

Gary Hamel’s 25 Stretch Goals for Management highlight a few areas that further emphasize the need:

7. Redefine the work of leadership. The notion of the leader as a heroic decision maker is untenable. Leaders must be recast as social-systems architects who enable innovation and collaboration.

18. Create internal markets for ideas, talent, and resources. Markets are better than hierarchies at allocating resources, and companies' resource allocation processes need to reflect this fact.

Let’s take the expert search function a step further and develop a type of FICO score that takes the weighted average criteria listed above and gives each expert an authority score.  This authority score is contextual in nature so that it scores the expert based on the search request.  

For example, if I search for Java Developer experts I receive a weighted average authority score: (see Exhibit 1).

As you can see Robert M is the best choice for the search term Java Developer.  The results are based only on the search terms.  So if we do another search for a PHP Developer - I’ll get a new set of results based on my inquiry:

As you can see, the results vary depending on the search.   That’s the power of contextual search.  

Bottom line, we don't have the ability to quickly find experts today (especially in large companies).  Skills are hidden. They can’t be found. Instead, we’re stuck with email non-responses for requests for help.   In our attempt to complete a project we then resort to substandard, mediocre work.  

The promise of Enterprise 2.0 will focus on business relationships, projects and interactions, and use expert search to deliver the right proficiencies at the right time.  That promise will be fulfilled soon and we’ll all be better off.   

Technorati Tags: contextual expert search,enterprise 2.0

, WolframAlpha

Why SaaS and the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Will Steal Your IT Job and What You Can do About it

Image by Jeff Kubina via Flickr

SaaS providers like to brag that they are eliminating the need for IT because they provide technology without the IT headache.   Like most SaaS providers, they don’t boast about having an integrated solution. They are more interested in creating a pleasant experience, being easy to use or solving a specific business need.  Updates are a snap, one click help desk chat, and no need to deal with Jim the IT bottleneck. 

In my experience this is an unfortunate reality of an overworked and under staffed IT department.  Moreover, most IT professionals were hired because they understood how technology worked not how IT can solve business needs.  That’s a shame, because more and more IT work is being outsourced to SaaS providers that better understand your employees’ business needs and treat them better than you do.  This has lead to some executives who believe that IT departments are just  lowest-common-denominator technology implementers.

More ominous for IT is the recent announcement from Amazon.  According to Steve Bjorg, they are introducing a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) that basically is a cluster of machines only accessible over an encrypted virtual private network (VPN) connection. (i.e. your own private cloud without the infrastructure).  The VPC enables you to build a bridge between your existing IT resources and your isolated resources within the AWS cloud, enabling you to use both worlds in concert.  The first domino has dropped and it’s a first step towards complete IT outsourcing.

I’ve been involved in countless ERP, CRM and other point solution implementations.  I can only recall one implementation where IT decided to do a thorough needs analysis to understand my department’s requirements.  It’s mostly been a “we’ll decide what you need and you’ll take it approach” to technology implementation.  As technologists, they forget about the people part of the equation.  

It got to the point where my team and I took control of our own requirements and implemented SaaS applications to solve them.   I knew this position could hurt me politically, but waiting for IT to implement a solution was like watching an hour glass with an endless supply of sand.  Worse, IT was usually not staffed with strategic business thinkers that understood departmental pain.  

So if you’re in IT what can you do to become part of the solution?  Stop being reactionary and start being strategic.  You should also:

1. Research then respond.  Your executives and employees are obsessed with data now.  Are you helping them solve their data issues? Proactively reach out to your department heads and ask them what business challenges they are facing.  If technology can help solve the issue, then help them build a business case to get the project funded. 
2. Educate yourself on the SaaS solutions that exist and decide if they can replace your outdated internal systems.  This is especially useful with outdated systems that are sapping your time and are expensive to maintain. 
3. Act as a consultant to the business departments when an initiative is raised that involves a SaaS solution.   Help the departments understand the potential pitfalls and integration issues if the proposed SaaS solution impacts the ERP system. 
4. Build an IT best practices wiki that covers the companies current technology solutions.  After all there may be one that solves a business need (cost savings) and is unknown to 90% of the company.   Allow employees to comment and update the content in order to understand their perspectives.    
5. Be responsive. This is the single biggest advantage you have over SaaS providers.  Not only are you in house, you also better understand the context in which your business manager is functioning. 

So, don't pretend SaaS doesn’t exist and will go away.  Be proactive, partner with the business units and just be responsive.

Be honest, how does your IT customer service compare to your SaaS providers?

Technorati Tags: SaaS,Best Practices

The Importance of Psychological Currency: Connecting Mind To Enterprise (Part 2)

 

Thinking about how people work in today’s enterprise reminds me of the movie Being John Malkovich.  You know what I’m talking about – it’s like the low-ceiling offices on floor 7½ of the Mertin Flemmer building in New York City.  The ceiling is all of 4 1/2 feet high, and they have to emergency-stop the elevator to get to the floor.  It was used by companies that wanted to cut corners; “low overhead, my boy - we pass the savings on to you!” 

Enterprise 2.0 is analogous to  pushing aside the filing cabinet and stepping into the mind of the corporation.  Suddenly we're in a surreal place where you can actually be an important person.  Enterprise 2.0 is for people who liked to be challenged and create new ideas. If you’re the type that simply likes to be force fed information, you'll probably hate the change. You have to be willing to try something different.

As discussed in Part 1, your Return on Influence (ROI) will be  largely controlled by how much value you bring to the enterprise.    Today, most people wait for their boss to to give them permission or responsibility or experiences that shape their corporate career.  

A few people, but not many, decide to shape their own career.  They push for initiatives, find important things to work on, and proactively try to make things better.   They create new projects and constantly challenge the status quo.  For them, Enterprise 2.0 is perfectly tailored to their success. 

Conversely,  let’s face it, there always seem to be a few schmucks in the workplace.  These people are the do nothing - know nothings.   In fact, if they were a stock they’d be traded on the pink sheets.  But for whatever reason they seem to skate by without being discovered.  Instead the corporation hangs onto them far too long while they subtract value from the company.   

In the Enterprise 2.0 paradigm, how long do you think this person would last if everyone saw their deficiencies? 

 simplified example

One could argue favorably that this type of transparency would motivate John M. to work harder.  After all, people respect what you inspect (or something like that).  Meanwhile, Aaron F. could leverage his reputation as a high performer to create a new initiative that he’s been dreaming up.  As likely, I’d venture that managers that want high performers would seek Aaron out to be on their projects.

One of the main goals of Enterprise 2.0 is to harness the best of the individual employee while monitoring the health of the enterprise.  Technology is one element but only a small fraction of the success equation.  People matter most, but people need an ecosystem that brings out the best in them.  Get them involved, recognize and reward them for their contributions and reap the results. 

Moving forward, it's less about office politics and departmental silos.  It's about creating an environment to make all of your employees remarkable.

 

Read Part I:  The importance of Psychological Currency in Enterprise 2.0 (Part I)

The Importance of Psychological Currency in Enterprise 2.0 (Part I)

There are so many things floating around about Enterprise 2.0 lately that touch on the 50,000 ft view, but not many that dive into the details.  Before we see mass adoption in the Enterprise like we have seen with social media outside the Enterprise, some key psychological characteristics need to be properly converted. 

I recall the early days of social networking while I was an advisor and investor to ZeroDegrees (acquired by IAC) and my friends’ resistance to joining our network.  My sales buddies didn’t want to share their rolodex or network with other salespeople because they saw their rolodex as a competitive advantage.  They wanted to remain an individual silo - disconnected from everyone else.  We now know how flawed that early thinking was. 

Had the salesperson in my example above known what was in it for him or received some type of currency in exchange for giving up his information, he would have adopted the technology sooner.  

Fast forward to today where the discussion centers around Enterprise 2.0 adoption.  Similar resistance exist but it’s now emanating from the IT department and Corporate Executives that don’t understand the power of these new tools.   They feel their employees will waste time with the tools and become less productive.  I submit another scenario which I outline below. 

So let’s dive right in and examine the following example which I represent is on an Enterprise Collaborative Intranet 2.0 site:

Ok, it’s a simple representation of a few people that obviously have projects that they’re working on.   So what?  Well, let’s continue.    

Let’s add an assumption that my boss is looking for team members to participate in a very important, high profile project.   Now let’s look at the following version:

 

So now I’ve added a little more information about the potential team members.  I see that Aaron has a much higher level than the rest of the prospects which I claim is a type of reputation score based on experience, projects completed at a satisfactory level and how people have judged their past performance.  The decision for my boss is becoming easier but I still need more information.   

I’ll add some more information which may help my boss: 

I see that Rion and Robert are experts in “M” which in our simplified example means Manufacturing.  However, Rion is working on 10 projects already and Robert only has 5.  That may be due to Robert’s low Level score, but since the project only needs a junior analyst my boss may contact him to help.  Moreover, Robert does have 180 followers so he must be interesting.  

Now imagine if this mini-stat card followed you around wherever you were on the Corporate Intranet.   I contend that you would endeavor to keep the scores high and work harder to obtain greater expertise.  In effect, you’d build up your psychological currency to amass promotions, peer respect, recognition and higher quality work.   

But the goal isn’t to roam around on the Intranet picking up points and followers.  Instead, it’s about building a personal brand by growing one’s experiences and relationships so that the Enterprise can quickly find the best people for the task at hand.  In turn, your Return on Influence (ROI!) works to your personal advantage because you now get to influence the process.  A win – win relationship in my view.   

What do you think?

Read Part 2: Connecting Mind to Enterprise

10 Enterprise 2.0 Sites that Everyone Should Keep an Eye On.

It's very difficult to keep up with news media, blogs and your Twitter followers.  Too many posts, too little time, too much noise.

Some Enterprise 2.0 blogs matter to me more than others.  Some are merely fun, some educational, and some provincial.  Others are just visionary and thought provoking .

So here is the list (not in any particular order).  Feel free to tell them I sent you. 

1. Future Changes – Always thought provoking and interesting. 
2. Collabo – Like a news blog for Enterprise/Web 2.0
3. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang  - One of the best in the business.  He’s at the center of the movement.
4. AMR future of Enterprise Business – Good content and research. 
5. Andrew McAfee’s Blog – He invented the Enterprise 2.0 term.  Some good insight and advice around the movement. 
6. Garth’s World – More Sales 2.0 then Enterprise 2.0, but I like his style.   He does cover some Enterprise 2.0 info through the use of Jigsaw.  Note he was one of the founders of Jigsaw. 
7. Fastforward Blog – Can be a little difficult to follow at times, but the concepts are sound.
8. Dion Hinchcliffe ZDNet Blogger – Visionary Enterprise 2.0 journalist
9. Oliver Marks – ZDNet Blogger – Strategy and tactics of Enterprise 2.0
10. Logic + Emotion David Armano’s blog on design and Web 2.0 make for an interesting read.  It’s more about the esthetics but certainly full of great insight. 

Ok, they all didn’t fit neatly in the Enterprise 2.0 camp but the ones that didn’t still influence the movement.   There are of course many more Enterprise 2.0 sites that we all need to keep any eye on to increase our knowledge. 

If you know of some please share it with us and our readers. Looking forward to your opinions on some emerging Enterprise 2.0 sites through your comments.

Now See SharePoint in Plain English - Video

Found this recently posted video on SharePoint in Plain English:

It’s worth a look.  We are also in the process of building a common craft style video and I’ll post it here soon.  The benefits of these types of videos are that they clear away the hype and showcase the technology in laymen’s terms.  No need to think too hard. 

Brilliant Guerilla Tactic or Sign of the Times?

I was driving out of La Costa Resort today when I noticed this Limo parked right outside of the resort.  The resort is one of the most famous in Southern California and receives a constant stream of visitors to and from the San Diego Airport.  I thought it to be a brilliant marketing tactic if used infrequently (no one wants the car parked there permanently). 

That got me thinking about online advertising and how this could translate in cyber space.  No one hates in your face advertising as much as I do but if done in long in-between intervals I can see a real opportunity. 

For example, let’s say you’re a regular visitor to the Wall Street Journal.  I typically read the personal technology articles to get caught up on all of the latest digital devices being introduced.  When I enter or leave the page I wouldn’t mind the occasional flash advertisement for buying one of the devices I just read about.

On the other hand, Forbes who constantly hits me with an advertisement prior to reading an article annoys me.  Contextual advertising is not new, but how and when it’s positioned is a science that marketers should examine. 

Bottom line, if I am surprised by the advertisement and it’s contextual and relevant, I’ll look at it.  Surprise me though and don’t let me expect the ad or I’ll ignore it. 

Do you agree?

Technorati Tags: La Costa Resort,guerilla marketing

When Enterprise 2.0 Intranet Strategies Collide

Intranet 2.0 is a new term coined recently to describe the Intranet as an Enterprise 2.0 tool.  On the one hand we still have a lot of first generation intranets that are not much more than electronic billboards. Many of them are run by one guy in IT, which means you need approval just to update a punctuation mark.  As a result, the intranet is rarely used except for an occasional look at the expense report policy.

I developed the “ThoughtBoard” above to highlight what I see as the key differences between Intranet 1.0 and Intranet 2.0.   From what I’ve seen, most Intranets were developed as an afterthought and not supplemental to the corporate strategy.  Most IT departments are focused on supporting the needs of the Enterprise and not developing strategy for it.  Their work is mostly tactical so they focus on that. Tactics are easy to develop, because they say, "I'm going to post this." If they post it, they are seen to be successful.

Intranet strategy is completely different and requires participation from all of the division heads.  Ostensibly the needs analysis is similar to implementing an ERP system because we all want different things.   In reality, Intranet 2.0 vendors are building tools that adapt to the changing needs of the Enterprise.  For instance using MindTouch, you can swap out project templates for polling templates on the same page.  Don’t like your project template, then change it on the fly (with the proper permissions of course).  Sharepoint 2010 appears to be headed the same direction, but it’s not available as of the date of this writing. 

Building an Intranet 2.0 asset so that the Enterprise can become more competitive over time is a strategy.  Sticking with an electronic bulletin board that serves as your Intranet is not facilitating the growth of your corporation.  It’s time IT becomes more strategic by understanding how their corporations need to function in order to operate more efficiently.   

 In my experience, IT is backlogged to the point of firefighting and does not have the political capital to develop enterprise operational strategy.  As a result, everyone complains about the IT department as a bottleneck and not providing tools that enable the creativity and knowledge creation of the enterprise.  

The next time you find yourself wondering why your Intranet is not providing any value because it hasn’t been updated in 6 months, you'll understand why.   Make a change and explore the new tools that are making your competitors better at what they do.  Don’t get left behind. 

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Are we all on the same page?

Image by niallkennedy via Flickr

 

Yesterday I participated in a Google Wave Committee.  It was clear immediately that we all came in to the meeting with different priorities and objectives. 

It happens all the time in the corporate world.   Sales believes Marketing should do more and Sales and Marketing both think development is building the wrong product. 

In our case, we were a group of eight that each had their own idea of what the committee’s mission should be.  At one end of the spectrum were committee members that just wanted to be educated on Google Wave and others (like me) that thought we should become experts and educate the entire membership base through whitepapers, videos and seminars. 

We spent a lot of time discussing the myriad objectives and working through each member’s ideas.   We went off on tangents, argued about seemingly minute points and circled around important points that some didn’t want to raise.   

The disconnect was caused because we focused on the ideas instead of the mission of the committee which is to provide a forum for membership to learn more about Google Wave.  It was a lot easier to talk about ideas than the more difficult task of digging into how we define the mission itself.

This is where the obligating questions became so crucial. "How do we create a forum for our membership to learn about Google Wave?”  “How do we keep the topic interesting and relevant to our membership base?”  "What resources will we need?" "Do we become Google Wave experts or do we provide access to experts?”

The at times difficult discussion about the mission was far more useful than the idea discussions.  Once we set in place the mission and objective, all of the long tail ideas disappeared.  We narrowed our focus and had a plan going forward. 

The more clarity we got about the committee’s mission, the more likely we will have a delighted membership base when we’re done.

Intranet Collaborative Networks – Adaptive Enterprise 2.0

The bigger a company the slower product cycles become. As a result, companies tend to become less innovative and less adaptive when consumer interests change. Feedback loops for continuance assessment are less frequent due to geographic constraints and locating the right expert at the right time. When things change, you need a collaborative intranet that can quickly change with your business needs.

Current Intranets like SharePoint give you a lot of functionality in the form of plug-ins and 3rd party applications but lack the ability to quickly adapt to changing business conditions. Sure you can add an application whenever a need arises, but it’s difficult to change the application without extensive development effort (and permission from the developer). So IT managers devise inefficient workarounds which only add to the problem.

Consider a VP of R&D at a Global 3000 Company who was just alerted via ReadWriteWeb that a hot new widget is being developed by his

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

chief competitor. In fact the competitor plans to launch the widget at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and all indications are that it’s going to be a huge success. CES is only 6 months away and the Company hasn’t updated its product in 2 years. The Company’s engineering and R&D teams have made attempts to update the product in the last few years but were stymied by ivory tower syndrome, lost documents, suppliers that went out of business and employee turnover. Worse, since they used email and meetings as their primary communication tools, the information was lost on laptops and email.

The VP was caught off guard and was not prepared to quickly ramp up in order to have a competitive solution in time for CES. He knew it would take 6 months just to find the lost information, conduct internal focus groups, organize the teams and find suppliers. Moreover, the company didn’t have the internal systems in place to adapt quickly to a new product cycle.

Companies might focus on measuring sales, but are inattentive to the health of the enterprise or the voice of the customer because their communication channels are trapped in silos. Relevant and timely information are not bubbling up to the surface because existing Intranet’s are not equipped to handle feedback loops or adapt to changing business conditions.

In contrast Intranet 2.0 solutions provide content subscriptions, ratings and commenting, people following and communication, content taxonomy, polling, teams, projects and so forth that set up virtual feedback loops and content organization in order to drive better decision making. Dashboards that are constantly updating the status of the Enterprise across all departments which allows quick adaption to changing business conditions. By bringing together collaborative Enterprise 2.0 tools with Intranets the health of the business is more easily discerned. The implicit becomes more explicit, providing a means to:

• Rapidly change course when necessary
• Obtain feedback for proposed changes
• Product innovation becomes a bi-product of the enterprise collective voice
• Quickly locate subject experts and include them in the process

In our example above, had the organization installed an Intranet 2.0 solution, they could have easily launched a product in time for CES. If your Intranet initiative does not include Intranet 2.0 tools how competitive can your organization be in the future? Does your IT department care? Are you taking the initiative?

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Corporate Silos are Affecting your Sales

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That's what makes them dangerous.

When someone describes a corporate situation as a disconnected entity ("a bunch of corporate divisions that don’t coordinate activities, plus a lack of communication, and no accountability, why are sales down?"); it's time to reexamine how companies are structured today. Part of the reason that your company is missing opportunities to sell is because the enterprise intelligence isn’t being utilized optimally or at all.    

Just because you’re in the sales division, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be working with operations to coordinate customer oriented activities.  Moreover, because your company has always been divided does not mean you can’t make changes today to break down those walls.  

Technorati Tags: Corporate silos,enterprise,Sales