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March 16 2010
Intranet 2.0 case study: Oce
Oce has 21,500 employees worldwide in 90 countries with annual revenue of 2.6 billion Euros. Oce’s business is document printing, production printing, wide format printing systems and business services (in short, they’re in the printing business).
Crisis
Oce faced a severe decline in sales, starting in the USA from September 2008; the first layoffs hit in Q1 2008. Oce lost more than 500 million in revenue since the start of the recession / financial crisis. Subsequently, the intranet budget declined from 350,000 Euros to only 5,000.
Challenge
How to reach everyone in all the countries (in light of the decline and the lack of budget)?
Solution
The intranet is primarily built on a shoestring budget and powered on the old Microsoft CMS product. Rather than build a new intranet, the Oce team of Jan van Veen, Manager Internal Communications, and Samuel Driessen, the intranet’s Information Architect, rolled-out social media tools, and an enhanced corporate news service on the existing home page.
Highlights:
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Open source – no budget, use free / open-source software solutions
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Improved news service – from 1-2 stories a day to 10 or more
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Rumorbuster – common Q&As posted to the intranet
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Wikis – one platform on for R&D; one focused on corporate information
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Blogging – 30–40 blogs (very few personal blogs; most are shared/dept. blogs)
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Idea Management – blog soliciting ideas for saving the company money
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Microblogging – using Yammer; use growing dramatically
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Social bookmarking – employees are learning to share bookmarks instead of circulating emails with links
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Oce TV – spent the budget on a camera and editing software & started making short films
Money Making
A blog called Money Making solicits employee ideas and recommendations for cost savings / saving money at Oce. The blog has thus far generated 60+ ideas; one idea was implemented and saved around 400,000 Euros. Sadly though, Oce doesn’t continue to promote use or encourage ideas and the blog has since fallen into decline (no change management = no use).
Wikis
“Wikis are here to stay,” says Driessen, Oce’s Information Architect. “What we’re finding out is that wikis are great for process information (e.g. business processes and working methods; typical encyclopaedic knowledge). Wikis are being used to collect information, refine processes, and re-engineer our work (processes).”
Lessons learned
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Money is not the issue (all tools built on open source)
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Organization is the issue!
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You can start bottom-up
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Consumerization of IT
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Cross-functional approach (Communications & IM)
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Where do I share and store my info?
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Information Architecture
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Did we teach people to be a knowledge worker?
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Culture > Ask questions
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Social Media Guidelines
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Security
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Social media lab
Also of note
Language: Does Oce have any language barriers in a global organization? “No we don’t,” says van Veen, who leads Internal Communications, mostly executed in US English (though some Spanish and Italian groups have their own communities).
Guidelines: policies for internal and external social media guidelines. In short they say, “Be smart,” says Driessen. “In other words, we trust you... until we can’t trust you anymore (then you’re out).” Our main goal, says van Veen: “Is not to police them (employees), but to protect them.”
Blogs: Oce blogs are product focused, and largely for silo-based communications (internal department communications).
Microblogging: Yammer is used principally for cross-departmental sharing: ideas, projects, feedback, etc.
March 08 2010
Employee intranet blogs wanted
If a tree falls in the forest will anyone blog about it? Do blogs beget blog postings?
As too many organizations are discovering the hard way, employees don’t want to blog. Approximately 1-2% of employees are interested in blogging (today), but most don’t have any desire to pick up the proverbial pen.
Despite its massive size and extremely technology and web savvy population IBM has found the same problem. About 5% of the employee population blogs on the corporate intranet, but a far greater percentage wants to read employee blogs. In fact, although there are more than 16,000 blogs at IBM, fewer than 900 people (less than one-quarter of one percent of all IBM employees, or 0.25%) have blogged in the past 3 months, according to an internal IBM survey of employees.
Despite the lack of blogging, IBM knows there are many benefits to employee blogs. “Employee blogging has benefits both for individuals and the organization,” say Werner Geyer and Casey Dugan of IBM’s T.J. Watson Research. “In order to inspire the creation of blog posts, we developed a novel topic suggestion system that connects blog readers with blog writers through sharing topics of interest.”
IBM’s Blog Muse is a new employee social media tool that connects blog readers and blog writers by allowing readers to make blog topic suggestions and requests of employee subject matter experts who blog at IBM. Employees can “Ask for a blog post” online and Blog Muse will automatically route the topic to those bloggers that are most likely to write about it. If a blog post on the requested topic gets posted then the requester is automatically notified by Blog Muse.
Blog Muse also encourages employees to take up blogging via a prominent tab called “Get inspired to write” which recommends topics to readers and potential bloggers. Employees can also search out content by topic and vote on blog posts.
The preliminary results (300+ respondents) and data of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010 reveal that 55% of organizations have employee or executive blogs on their corporate intranet. However, the challenge for these organizations and the owners of the blogging platforms is no different from IBM: you can lead an employee to a blog, but you can’t make him or her write.
Ensure you get a free copy of the Intranet 2.0 Global Study Report and analysis by spending 5 – 10 minutes taking the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010.
ALSO READ:
Executives should blog, not employees
Change management for intranet 2.0
ALSO ATTEND:
Webcom Toronto 2010 for a number of presentations on Intranet 2.0
Follow me on Twitter
February 23 2010
Executives should blog, not employees
Employees don't want to blog, but they do want to read blogs (and most all content) from the executive suite (see my last column Do employees want to blog?).
In fact, undertake an employee communications audit in 100 organizations, pick any 100, and I can guarantee you you'll find 99 employee populations that want more and/or better communications from senior management. To this end, a blog can be a powerful solution (not the only solution, but one in the arsenal). Of course, its easy to implement an executive blog, but ensuring its successful and well-read is quite another challenge.
A successful executive blog requires careful planning, solid writing, and an engaged employee population, which requires change management (supporting communications and education). Learn more...
February 19 2010
Do employees want to blog?
If you build it, will they blog?
For the most part, it is a moot point: employees don’t want to blog. There are always keeners and exceptions to the rule, but employees have no interest in blogging. Even at IBM, one of the most technology and social media savvy employee populations on the planet, with more than 350,000 employees, there exists about 15,000 employee blogs (less than 5% of the population).
However, more and more organizations are rolling out internal blogs. Preliminary results from the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010 reveal that nearly 60% of organizations have blogs on the intranet. Why is that?
I’ll reveal the full details in my keynote at the Cogress Intranet 2010 (the biggest intranet event in Europe, perhaps the world, with 500 or more delegates expected. Register now), but for starters, most employees have better things to do. However, employees do want to read the thoughts and plans of executives. An executive blog, even if it’s shared by several or all executives, is something that many employees will read (if executed properly).
Intranet blog deployment: blue bands represent % deployed (22% enterprise-wide deployment)
Source: Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010 (preliminary results)
A survey of more than 500 employees with one client of Prescient Digital Media reveals that 80% of employees read blogs, but less than 10% write on blogs on a regular basis (both findings are higher than the average organization). So while employees want more information, and want to read blogs, they don’t necessarily want to blog themselves.
What should you do for your employees? Well, ask them what they want. Undertake an employee intranet survey, sprinkle in a few focus groups, and unless you’re methodology is off, you’ll have your answer. Note: if you simply ask employees if they want corporate blogs, many will say ‘no’. However, most have never seen a corporate blog, and can’t envision it. The knee-jerk reaction is to say no. If you paint the picture for them, and tell them what to expect from a good corporate or executive blog, and show them an example or two, they will often say yes.
Come and check out some of the examples and intranet case studies at Cogress Intranet 2010.
Follow me on TwitterFebruary 16 2010
Change management for intranet 2.0
Social media tools (web / intranet 2.0) are so simple and inexpensive to deploy that it’s incredibly easy to be lulled into complacency until your initiative begins to fail.
Often, failure is simply a lack of use or adoption by users, sometimes its misuse of the tools – particularly blogs, discussion forums, and user comments.
Last year’s Intranet 2.0 Global Survey revealed low satisfaction levels with social media on the intranet (Take the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010 to get the free report of this year’s results):
- Only 29% of organizations rate the tool functionality as good or very good; 24% rate them as poor or very poor
- Satisfaction rates with executives is dangerously low: only 23% of executives rate the 2.0 tools as good or very good; 38% rate them as poor or very poor
There are two primary reasons for the low satisfaction levels:
1- Vanilla or free / open source solutions with poor functionality (e.g. MOSS 2007 or MediaWiki)
2- Little or no change management / communications planning
Ironically, the success of intranet 2.0 has more to do with the latter, change management (not technology). If you build it they will not come… necessarily. Most employees haven’t heard of a wiki so why would they use one? Employees need to be educated, sold, and cajoled to use these tools initially until they become a repetitive action that is part of the culture.
Here are 5 steps for intranet 2.0 change management planning:
1- Intranet governance model (if you don’t have an explicit, documented governance model for the overall intranet, you’re going nowhere fast).
2- Social media policy (who can do what, when, how, and the rules for doing so).
3- Executive sponsorship (ensure you have a senior executive in your corner to help promote your new tools).
4- Communications plan (promote these tools by email, newsletter, the intranet home page, and buzz marketing activities).
5- Active conversations (lead and promote the conversation with topical posts (e.g. new blog post or wiki) that are well targeted and promoted to potential subject matter experts and keeners).
Intranet 2.0 tools require careful thought and planning; yes they’re easy to deploy, but they’re not easily adopted without the requisite change management.
Take the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010 to get the free report of this year’s results.
To purchase last year’s full, 44-page Intranet 2.0 report of analysis & recommendations please visit: http://www.prescientdigital.com/articles/purchase-intranet-2-0-global-survey-report
February 11 2010
The best 2.0 technology for your intranet
I bet you thought I was going to tell you what technology to buy (or download for free) to power your intranet 2.0? Ha! You know me too well….
There are now thousands of social media technology solutions in the market; a few hundred credible solutions; dozens of strong emerging vendors of note (social media leaders). There is no answer to the question, “What are the best 2.0 technologies or technology platform?” Does a tree fall in the forest?
Intranet 2.0 solution leaders by market share (Intranet 2.0 Global Survey)
The best intranet 2.0 technology to invest in is the best technology that fits your particular requirements – business, technical, functional and cultural requirements. Choosing Microsoft SharePoint (MOSS) would be a safe bet – if you can afford it, don’t mind its technical and functional limitations, already have invested in a Microsoft technology stack, and aren’t looking for a ‘wow’ from your social media efforts. But what if you want something more functional without the massive sticker price?
My colleague Carm Porco is going to walk you through the steps and process of choosing the right social media / intranet 2.0 technologies in his free upcoming webinar Social media tools: the best for your intranet 2.0 strategy.
What you will learn in this webinar:
- The steps for developing an intranet 2.0 strategy (where to start)
- The correct methodology for choosing the right intranet 2.0 tool
- The social media tools best suited for your organization
- How to maintain an effective intranet 2.0 environment
- Different 2.0 technology solutions (vendor examples)
Unless you’ve already chosen a solution that will last for years, you need to be on this webinar. If you thought the content management (CMS) market was complex, the social media / intranet 2.0 market is moving at five times the speed.
For the record, last year’s Intranet 2.0 Global Survey found that there is only one clear Intranet 2.0 technology leader: Microsoft SharePoint. After MOSS, and factoring out free or open source solutions, the market is extremely fractured:
- 47% of organizations with 2.0 tools are using Microsoft SharePoint (MOSS 2007)
- Facebook is being used by employees (employee groups) in 20% of organizations
- Seven have market share of more than 4% led by MediaWiki (17%) and WordPress (16%)
- Vendors (“others”) that have less than 4% market share are present in 38% of organizations
Register now for Social media tools: the best for your intranet 2.0 strategy.
February 02 2010
2010: Year of the Social Intranet
Is your intranet ‘social’? Or is it antiquated?
Social media on the intranet (Intranet 2.0) are present on about half of all intranets (in the Western World). Once a nice-to-have or a future wish, Intranet 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and other vehicles have become mainstream – although not to all employees.
Despite the low cost of entry, most intranet 2.0 tools are merely experiments, pilots or limited to a very small audience. Social media has only been deployed at the enterprise level in about 25% of organizations (see the results of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey Intranet 2.0 becomes mainstream).
Intranet wikis, for example, are increasingly popular: as of last year, employee wikis were present in 45% of all organizations (regardless of size), but only 17% of organizations had deployed them enterprise wide. The results for intranet blogs are similar: only 13% of organizations had deployed them at the enterprise level.
Many of the experiments and pilots, the department and team level tools will be rolled-out to the rest (or most of the rest) of the enterprise in 2010. Still, more organizations that are sleeping through the social media revolution will jump on the bandwagon. 2010 will be the year of the social intranet.
To confirm or disprove this theory, we’re once again conducting the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010 to learn the latest about what social media organizations are using, are not using, and the reasons for their use (or absence on the intranet).
The following survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. Respondents who complete the survey will be eligible to win $400 (a random email address will be drawn from all responses to the survey). All respondents will also receive a full copy of the results at no cost. Please provide your contact information in order to receive the survey results and to be entered into the $400 prize draw.
Take the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010.
ADDITIONAL READING:
To download a free, summarized version of the last year’s Intranet 2.0 report please visit:
http://www.prescientdigital.com/articles/download-summary-report-of-intranet-2-0-global-survey
To purchase the full, 44-page Intranet 2.0 report of analysis & recommendations please visit: http://www.prescientdigital.com/articles/purchase-intranet-2-0-global-survey-report
January 29 2010
January 15 2010
Intranet predictions for 2010
1- SharePoint will continue to dominate
All hail the king, SharePoint. SharePoint has become the single biggest, most pervasive intranet platform of all time (present in 50 – 60% of all medium to large-size organizations). While SharePoint is still minimally used for department and team level document sharing and collaboration, more organizations are looking to use it as the enterprise intranet platform.
SharePoint 2010, due to market in late spring, is vastly improved over the former version, MOSS 2007. Many, many organizations will be upgrading to 2010, and begin to use the new platform as the enterprise intranet platform. What’s more, the cost of entry for taking on SharePoint has never been lower as Microsoft SharePoint “in the cloud” with SharePoint Online. SharePoint online already boasts more than 1,000,000 users, and unlike the previous SharePoint Online the 2010 version of SharePoint Online promises to “near feature parity” (with only small exceptions) to the install version.
SharePoint’s market share will soar with SharePoint 2010.
2- IBM will finally become more aggressive with WebSphere Portal
As dominate and pervasive as SharePoint has become, the market leader is WebSphere Portal (measured in license revenue. Although the implementation and services revenue is undoubtedly much higher than what the anemic Microsoft Consulting Services group can conjure). However, unless you follow the portal market, you would think that SharePoint is not just the leader, but a market killer.
Regardless, of how you measure success, SharePoint is a massive success, and so to is WebSphere Portal, but you would never know it by wading through the surface of most technology news and blogosphere punditry. WebSphere Portal however is arguably a more sophisticated, certainly more mature, product than SharePoint. And while IBM is happy with the WebSphere’s success, there undoubtedly more than just a few ruffled feathers by all the hype and attention SharePoint gets. Never a company to sit idly by, and as innovative as ever (IBM received 4,914 U.S. patents in 2009, the highest for the 17th consecutive year), the IBM marketing machine is not as aggressive as Microsoft’s. Nonetheless, WebSphere is due for a marketing makeover and may get more attention and marketing dollars in 2010.
3- Social media will become mainstream at the enterprise level
Social media on the intranet – collectively referred to as Intranet 2.0 – is now present on about half of all intranets (in the Western World). Once a nice-to-have or a future wish, Intranet 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and other vehicles have become mainstream.
Despite the low cost of entry, most intranet 2.0 tools are merely experiments, pilots or limited to a very small audience. Social media has only been deployed at the enterprise level in about 25% of organizations (see the results of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey Intranet 2.0 becomes mainstream).
Many of the experiments and pilots, the department and team level tools will be rolled-out to the rest (or most of the rest) of the enterprise in 2010. Still, more organizations that are sleeping through the social media revolution will jump on the bandwagon. Look for an explosion of user-generated content on the corporate intranet.
4- KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid
The “kitchen sink” design approach to the intranet home page is standard, but it’s stupid. The more you throw on a page, the more you confuse and distract users. It might work for Amazon.com, which relies on brand and SEO, at the expense of user-friendly design.
People like Google for a reason – it’s dead simple. I’ve had the pleasure to test dozens of intranet home page designs, in many dozens of focus groups. The highest rated and appreciated home pages, are the simple ones. The least popular designs are the busier designs that are best exemplified by IBM and Cisco (very good, and popular intranets, but for highly web-savvy audiences).
I’ve seen a trend towards simpler intranet home pages, just as we’ve seen on the Internet, and the trend will really start to proliferate in 2010.
5- Outsourcing the intranet to the cloud
Although it is only the beginning, some companies will finally begin to realize that professional hosts (ASPs) are better at hosting and security than their IT department.
The “cloud” refers to cloud computing that, at the risk of over-simplifying, is simply hosting – computer, server, software, and other hardware and infrastructure hosting. You’re already a cloud customer, probably many times over (someone is hosting your email, website, blog, etc. In fact, 56% of internet users use webmail services such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo! Mail – hosted email in the cloud).
Microsoft is aggressively pushing its cloud services. MS already hosts the gigantic 200,000 user SharePoint intranet for GlaxoSmithKiline (and it estimates that the hosted solution has delivered big ROI and reduced “IT operational costs by roughly 30% “).
Very few organizations have their intranet hosted in the cloud today, but perhaps as many as 5% of medium to large organizations will look to outsource their intranet to the cloud over the next year or so.
6- Death to the portal
Microsoft stopped calling SharePoint a portal solution sometime ago. To Microsoft, and most of the rest of the technology world, SharePoint is a web development platform.
Oracle killed all of its portal solutions. Now there’s just simply “WebCenter Suite.” Ditto with eXo which is no longer eXo Portal, it’s now eXo Platform.
Now the word portal hasn’t disappeared from the marketing literature or the feature sets: all of these platforms and suites still have portal functionality and features. Compared to five years ago, however, there are very few companies left selling portal products. They’ve been gobbled up by other products, other companies, or swallowed by the platform.
The only big name left with a standalone portal product is IBM, with WebSphere Portal. Per my second prediction above, look for IBM to give WebSphere Portal a marketing makeover that might include the dropping of the ‘portal’ name from the product label.
ADDITONAL READING:
Intranet 2.0 becomes mainstream
December 07 2009
Global Intranet Trends for 2010
The Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report, the annual report from Jane McConnell, NetStrategy/JMC, has been released and is fittingly subtitled ‘Towards the workplace web’.
"Towards the workplace web reflects what is happening today in intranets around the world as organizations are positioning the intranet as the entry point into the organization’s ensemble of information, applications, collaboration and communication tools," says Jane, reflecting on the state of intranets amongst the 300 participating organizations.
Of particular note in this year's report, social media and social networking on the intranet is on the rise. This finding is echoed by, and well-documented in the Intranet 2.0 Global Study (download the free version of the Intranet 2.0 Global Study findings report). Additionally, senior management is becoming more engaged and involved in the management of the intranet -- finally! Slowly, my mantra, and that of Jane and many others, is slowly permeating the corporate structure: the best intranets are actively supported by senior management. And guess what? Great intranets deliver superb value including increased sales, revenue, cost savings, employee productivity, employee engagement, etc.
Key Findings in the 2010 Global Intranet Trends report:
- Joint intranet ownership model is more prevalent: only 40% of participants have a single owner model
- Senior management is more involved: 60% of intranet Steering Committees have a senior management presence (up from 35% in 2007)
- Social networking on the rise: 30% of the participants are currently testing or “using in some parts” social networking tools
- Social media delivers value: 25-30% of organizations with some form of social media have experienced 3 general benefits: increased employee engagement, more effective knowledge sharing, and better-informed employees
- Social media concerns shifting: doubts are considerably lower about the relevance of social media to business needs
- Intranets being extended to where people are: the workplace is being extended to where the people are with home intranet access
- Mobile intranet access: a few intranets have services for smart phones today; another 25% are planning to extend mobile access
ABOUT THE SURVEY
This is the 4th annual Intranet Trends Report, and the survey population has grown from 100 to 300 organizations since 2006. The organizations range in size from under 1,000 employees to over 100,000 employees and are headquartered primarily in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Topics explored in the survey include positioning of the intranet, strategy and management, business objectives, features of the intranet, social media and measurement.
Read more about the Global Intranet Trends for 2010
December 04 2009
Blogs are about content & context, not technology
It matters little what technology powers a blog. Don’t ask me whether Drupal is better than SharePoint, or if WordPress is better than Blogger. If you ask such a question then you’re likely consigning yourself to failure. If you ask such a question, you best bring in an expert to help you because you’re missing the point: a blog isn’t a technology, it’s a tool (and like most tools, the quality of the end work depends on the ability of the user).
There are a lot of successful blogs that use free, open source software with little or no bells and whistle (e.g. www.RunningAHospital.com Paul Levy (CEO, Beth Israel Hospital). The success behind the blogs starts and ends with the writer, and is exemplified by the content, context and conversation. Specifically, have a look at some of the successful executive blogs highlighted in the webinar “Implementing an executive blog” (below) and be sure to note the 8 ingredients of a great executive blog that were culled by a thorough examination of dozens of executive Internet and intranet blogs.
ADDITIONAL READING:
8 ingredients of a great executive blog
Intranet 2.0 becomes mainstream
(intranet blogs on the rise)
Follow me on Twitter (www.Twitter.com/TobyWard)
November 25 2009
8 ingredients of a great executive blog
Most executives are pretty smart, capable people, but many (if not most) get a failing grade for social media, particularly blogs. While there are always exceptions to the rule, there are in fact very few good executive blogs. I’ve read many “leading” or “top 10” executive blogs (based on traffic and word-of-mouth, more than anything) and most are not bad, but few are really great.
Having examined many of these blogs, including other well-known and lesser-known blogs, here is a compilation of 8 key ingredients to a truly great executive blog, with good and bad examples for each:
1- Audience specific content (well-written & subject focused).
· Good example: John Dragoon (CMO, Novell).
· Bad example: Jim Estill (former CEO, SYNNEX).
2- Current, fresh content (timely).
· Good example: Paul Levy (CEO, Beth Israel Hospital).
· Bad example: Jonathan Schwartz (President & CEO, Sun Microsystems)
3- Easy to navigate (content categories).
· Good example: Bill Marriott (Chairman, Marriott).
· Bad example: Ross Mayfield (CEO, Socialtext)
4- Social media integration (bookmarking, sharing options, Twitter).
· Good example: Matt Blumberg (CEO, Return Path)
· Bad example: Bill Marriott (Chairman, Marriott).
5- Audience engagement (user comments & responding to comments).
· Superb example: Paul Levy (CEO, Beth Israel Hospital).
· Bad example: Jason Calcanis (CEO, Mahalo.com)
6- Clean design (not cluttered with ads and crap).
· Good example: Paul Levy (CEO, Beth Israel Hospital).
· Bad example: Huffington Post (not an executive blog mind you, but so, so terrible)
7- Cross promoting the business (without blatant advertising).
· Good example: Mark Cuban (CEO, Dallas Mavericks et al)
· Bad example: Ray Lutz / GM Fastlane (GM)
8- Text + Multimedia (large blocks of text turn-off readers)
· Good example: Ray Lutz / GM Fastlane (GM)
· Bad example: Mark Cuban (CEO, Dallas Mavericks et al)
So know that we understand some of the best, most important ingredients of a good blog, how do we get started? Tune into the free webinar Implementing an Executive Blog on Dec. 1 (12pm EST) for the process of establishing and growing a blog, and examples from intranet based executive blogs. Register online.
November 19 2009
Social business is nothing new
(SAN JOSE, CA) “Digital work became more social… but work has always been social,” says Thomas Vander Wal, InfoCloud Solutions, addressing the KM World 2009 conference. “Businesses by nature are social – you need to have people in your org talking to each other.”
Drivers of social media and enterprise 2.0 include:
- Office productivity tools are not efficient for collaboration.
- Social tools augment face-to-face.
- Volume of information has grown
- Gaps in enterprise tools, CMS, and other traditional work tools
- Individuals are making a difference
- Ease of sharing & connecting with others
- Easier knowledge capture
“All of this is similar to e-mail in the 1990s. It was a strange new way of thinking… and now we’re using social tools and saying the same things that we did about email.”
“Social software creates a lot of information – many layers of information. We need tools to understand this information and structure for understanding.”
1–9–90 rule (Charlene Li) helps understand the ‘who’ in social media: 1% creates the information; 9% curates it; 90% merely are consumers of the information.
SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE INTRANET
“We’re looking at our intranet and it’s an utter mess. Something is really broken here,” says Thomas, emulating a typical intranet client. “Social media helps fill in some of the gaps in the enterprise tools (example: BBC intranet: 115% wiki use in 7 years)”
When comparing Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 Vander Wal has a clever analogy: Web 2.0 is like tunneling through a mountain (it’s tough to sort out the context in the mass of information, and problems are merely small cracks in a large mass); Enterprise 2.0 is like tunneling under water (it’s easier to get started, but problems quickly become massive problems). “Web 2.0 is about numbers of users, Enterprise 2.0 is about % of users (% of employees using social media).”
We need to encourage social comfort for employees:
- Comfort with others (people to interact & share with)
- Comfort with tools
- Comfort with subject matter
“It’s been said that walled gardens are bad for the enterprise, but they give comfort to employees,” says Vander Wal, citing Andrew McAfee’s opening keynote at KM World 2009. “What we really want are comfortable walled gardens with permeable walls.”
--
Follow Thomas on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/VanderWal
Follow Toby on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/TobyWard
November 17 2009
Enterprise 2.0: key ingredients & barriers
(SAN JOSE, CA) “Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms by organizations in pursuit of their goals,” says the man who coined the phrase, Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist, Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management; Author, Enterprise 2.0.
“A key word is emergent… we’ve always been good at imposing things on people,” adds McAfee, who was addressing the KM World 2009 conference in San Jose. “What we’re now doing is not dictating what people need to do… but instead throwing out a technology blank slate, and letting people fill it in.”
Key ingredients for Enterprise 2.0 success:
- Altruism: People want to help (stop obsessing about risks)
- Process: Beware of the ‘one best way’ (use tools that let structure appear)
- Innovation: Expertise is emergent (build communities that people want to join)
- Intelligence: Crowds can be very wise (experiment with collective intelligence)
- Benefits: Real, measurable benefits (increased innovation, employee satisfaction)
- Impact: Sitting this one out is a bad idea (look at technology with fresh eyes
“I think it’s (Enterprise 2.0) as big a leap forward in the 90s as enterprise-level technology (e.g. ERP),” stresses McAfee. “We’re not going back to business as usual.”
However, McAfee emphasized that failure is common and that it is, in fact, easy to ‘snatch’ defeat from the ‘jaws of victory’ by not avoiding some common barriers:
- Declare war on the enterprise (“Its bad marketing to management.”)
- Allow walled gardens to flourish (silos kill)
- Accentuating the negative (spend less time on the risks)
- Try to replace email
- Fall in love with features (we don’t want more, keep it simple)
- Overuse the word “social”
McAfee concluded his keynote address to KM World 2009 with the following quote from futurist Norbert Weiner in 1954: “The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.”
Innovative intranets
(SAN JOSE, CA) While an innovative
intranet may be cool, and look great, a truly innovative intranet
delivers true value and advances an organization's standing in its
industry.
The Intranet Innovations 2009 report celebrates the winners of the 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards, produced by Step Two Designs, sharing remarkable ideas from across the globe.
Intranet Innovation Award winner, SabreTown (Sabre's social networking for employees)
Winning entries include intranets from all over the World including:
CRS Australia (Australia)
IDEO (USA), IBM (USA)
SunGard (USA/NZ)
NYK Group (UK)
Sabre (USA)
COWI (Denmark)
ChTPZ (Russia)
Prophet (USA)
AEP (USA).
The Intranet Innovations Awards celebrate new ideas and innovative approaches to the enhancement and delivery of intranets.Now in their third year, the awards have uncovered many innovative ideas from across the globe. Use these ideas to gain senior management support and to deliver an ever-better intranet.
For example, AEP, a US-based electric utility have created an online ideas system that has identified $8 million in savings, $2 million in the first month alone.
With winners across four categories (core functionality, communication and collaboration, frontline delivery and business solutions), there are valuable ideas for every intranet team.
The 198-page Intranet Innovations 2009 report shares the full results of the awards, including screenshots and details of the winning entries.
For more information:
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