Planet Enterprise 2.0

I have written in previous posts about adoption models including open emergence and controlled emergence. Today's WSJ offers an article on the Wikipedia meet up in Egypt and the issues that wikipedians are facing as they deal with the aspects of growth.

The article offers insight into the tug of war of seeking to remain democratic and open, yet needing some level of organization. And although the sentiment is that Wiki has no rules, the article quotes Jimmy Wales as suggesting otherwise. It seems that as he lusts for the old days, he recognizes that wikipedia is following a path to some hierarchy and some organization. Indeed, it has rules.

This is a good article that offers some insight into the operation of one of the most successful social media activities on the web. There is likely a wiki entry and long discussion about it already.

It does seem a bit odd to me that in these days of virtual existence, that  the  guardians of wikipedia are actually meeting face to face.

In my previous post Yes, Document Management is a prerequisite I argued that in order for Enterprise2.0 to be successful, firms must have a well established document management system in place. I reinforce this opinion in Thoughts about Knowledge Management

Chuck Hollis, at EMC, writes something quite similar in this post on his blog A Journey in Social Media. His post is well worth reading. He also offers comments on the differences between controlling stuff and supporting interactions; two topics that you will find throughout posts on this blog. 

There are now many instances and business cases of the adoption and deployment of collaboration software. What interests me is the number of stories of how collaboration turned into simple file sharing and how the company is not getting all it could from the installation. There are lots of stories about the technical aspects of the adoption, but only a limited number of detailed accounts of the business side utilization and the effectiveness of the technology in satisfying business goals.

What I often hear is “it ended up being a shared file server, and it didn’t do it all that well”

The other thing about collaboration that one typically hears in most presentations and discussions is how collaboration was adopted following an ad-hoc or grass roots model. As noted in much of the Enterprise2.0 discussions, it is suggested that grass roots models rely upon the “wisdom of crowds”. More so, the point is often made that it originates from a single spark which then expands over time.

Given these two points, the question is: How did grand visions of collaboration end up as a shared file server in light of the power of the wisdom of crowds?

From my experience, you cannot totally rely on the wisdom of crowds. I have observed business cases in which unrestricted access to tools led to excitement among users and rapid growth of the tool. However, the rapid deployment caused segmentation of teams as each sought to develop their own ideas for the “best way to do something”. It didn’t develop hierarchically from the bottom, but sprang up everywhere, then went amorphous.

The good news was that these groups all tended to focus on the primary issue at hand, which at that time, was “can’t find stuff”. This consistent attempt to solve the same problem suggested that there was indeed wisdom in the crowd about what needed to be done, but not in how to do it. Also, the wisdom did not spread as past problems of communication and inabilities to integrate remained, and limited the ability to organize the grass roots effort.

Executions are badly flawed when multiple approaches emerge, and worse, the methods implemented simply mirrored the existing bad practices. Result show a great many sites that contained lots of documents, but with no structure and very little, if any integration. The underlying trap that became apparent was the focus on fixing my problem, rather than a cogent approach to broadly managing, sharing and exchanging valuable business assets.

In the long and short of it, many business adoptions ended up being quite the mess. And as noted, I continually hear about similar business cases in which “XYZ tool ended up just being a file server”.

So I ask the question again, how did grand visions of collaboration end up as a shared file server in light of the power of the wisdom of crowds?

For related discussion see my post on Enterprise2.0 adoption models

The idea Is KM Dead? was introduced during an interview with Larry Prusak , and since then the conversation about the question has been a hot topic among those of us blogging about KM.

Luis Suarez, Social Computing Evangelist @ IBM, pulled together related Is KM dead? blog content in a recent post , in which he asked if he should rewrite his job description… although I think somewhat tongue in cheek.

Here is my comment to his post.

I think the bigger question is “Is IT Dead?” something posited by Nicholas Carr a few years ago in his article "Does IT Matter?"

He was pooh-poohed then, but maybe he was only a few years too early. I have written that KM is the last great “killer app” that remains after years of isolated task solutions solving problems in selected business areas. …. but this “new KM” will be owned by the business, not IT.  (post)

Knowledge management is a process activity .. unlike document management which is a task activity. Knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and using the knowledge to advance a company’s product is more the domain of a business unit. It's fundamentally what a business is all about.

As a knowledge manager, I think you should be writing a new job description, not something completely different, just shifted more toward process and the business. You will have to shift to servicing the business and moving away from focusing on delivering IT tools and solutions. You will have to learn to deal with tacit information and how people “package” their thoughts. You will have to deal with the business when, soon, they will begin to see all this stuff as an asset and begin to accept more and more responsibility for all things currently IM/KM. You will have to focus on integration if you wish to remain a player, and working within a dynamic, recursive process. To be relevant in the future, IT (and a knowledge manager) has to fundamentally know how the business operates.

As you are rewriting you JD, I suggest that it is time to dust off Carr’s writings and begin to re-evaluate his question “Does IT matter”?

Thanks for the trackback and taking the time to further the discussion. This is fun!

A simple slide show consolidates my thinking.

In my post “Institutionalizing Enteprise2.0”, I asked:

If one believes that you can lead from the bottom (ala emergence/SIP), then why is it the many people suggest that "getting management support" is a key to success to an emergent model?

“Getting management support”, in my opinion, is a tip of the hat to the standard, hierarchical model which has built in mechanisms to drive usage and awareness. For emergence practitioners to be successful, it is in their best interest to stimulate rapid usage and maximum awareness as a means for users to accept the benefits that the practitioners know to exist. It also is a means to get some level of agreement that the vision of the practitioners serves business goals. And, it can be looked at as getting an okay to lead from the bottom, or as a means to avoid negative management support that could easily kill or stall the initiative over the long run

It appears to me that the management support of an emergence model is a hybrid collaborative approach that is an agreement between practitioners in two different models. When an emergent model is coupled with management support, one gains benefit of both models, that together, offers the best chance of success.

The request recognizes that there are benefits that exist in the standard model that can be leveraged to introduce a SIP or MIP model. The request may also recognize that there are built in organizational barriers to viral spreading that could limit the reach of deployment.

Lastly, I believe that leading from the top does not necessarily lead to success, and that leading from the bottom is more likely to result in success, since participation is a choice, not a directive. In short, “It’s mine.”

For a related content, check out the previous post “Is Management the Problem? “

In my post on adoption models, I suggested that there are 3 types: standard (hierarchical), single initiation point (SIP) and multiple initiation point (MIP).

In considering institutionalization of enterprise2.0 ( that is, getting successful deployment and use across all corporate activities, not just small groups) ask yourself this question. If one believes that you can lead from the bottom (ala emergence/SIP), then why is it the many people suggest that "getting management support" is a key to success to an emergent model?

You may also be interested in my paper "Moving From a Need to Know to a Need to Flow: Information Flow in Hierarchical Companies.

I have been involved with successful adoptions of collaboration software and have gained considerable insight into best practices. I have also seen numerous examples of failed adoptions, ...the adoptions didn't really fail, the implementation just degraded to the point that the results were unsatisfactory and didn't achieve much. I was going to say didn't achieve the goal, but in many ways, the problem originates as the goal was undefined.

Here's a short message regarding adoption models.

EDIT: In this post Michael Idinopulos VP at Wiki company SocialText pretty much agrees with my message.

"What I'm saying here, and what I think a lot of the standard talk about virality and network effects misses, is that User Virality all by itself does not generate enterprise-wide adoption. User Virality may result in some nice, contained pilot successes, but in order to go enterprise-wide you need Use Case Virality as well."

In a previous entry Thoughts in Knowledge Management, I presented the idea of Dynamic Knowledge Processing as a more appropriate  model for knowledge creation.

Well, it seems that others agree.

In his blog entry Dynamic Knowledge Transfer Capacity, Dale Arsenault notes the works of others in Knowledge Management and suggests that their work is "thought provoking". The authors not only support the idea that knowledge is a system (process) but that it requires selected behavoural characteristics to make it work effectively.

For some more insight into how dynamics systems work, take a look at Lessons Learned and my paper, Why Lessons Learned Databases are a Bad Idea.

In response to my Thoughts about Knowledge Management I was forwarded this video, in which KM experts discuss the topic Is KM Dead? Much of the discussion mirrors that of my short presentation

Larry Prusak, KM speaker and author of KM books, takes dead aim at it and suggests maybe not dead, but certainly limping. He goes on to suggest that KM is morphing as new discoveries are made about what KM is needed for.

It is my contention that KM required document management as a prerequisite, and now that many organizations have introduced shared document management, new questions arise about what is next and what more can be done to improve business practices. Furthermore, I believe that these new questions focus on process issues and ideas of how to integrate and execution.

Here's the video.. it is rather long. Prusak's the guy in the tie.

I've always been troubled by the phrase Knowledge Management and how one goes about doing anything about it. My views stem from the fact that I believe that Knowledge = Information + Experience + Wisdom. (see What is Knowledge? ) Knowledge Management surely isn't just "good Information Management" or collaboration.

Others possess views that knowledge and learning are closely linked. That is, how one learns directly impacts knowledge creation.

Knowledge management was borne out of the frustration IT had in trying to explain that there was something more than information management. IT could deal with managing stuff, but failed in effectively addressing how knowledge was created. I believe that knowledge is a process based activity, and that there is a system and method that supports it. I don't think that task-like thinking can be applied when addressing knowledge related matters.

My view is that what is needed is focus on Dynamic Knowledge Processing. Take a look at "Knowledge Management in Black and White" for my idea on dynamic knowledge processing.

Let me know what you think!

Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee, asked the question Is Management the Problem?  at a recent Enterprise2.0 conference. I wasn’t surprised at the question, but at what appears to be his expectation that management is the problem. He was advised by conference panelists that current issues have less to do with managers and more to do with users.

He also asks, "If Enterprise 2.0 tools and approaches really are so beneficial and powerful, why haven’t they spread like wildfire?"  Which I believe is rather presumptive statement, given that the number of Enterprise2.0 installations is still rather quite small.

The fallacy may lie in this presumption and may have something to do with excessive early stage optimism.  I think Professor McAfee’s question may be self fulfilling. Again, he ponders,  "If Enterprise 2.0 tools and approaches really are so beneficial and powerful, why haven’t they spread like wildfire?"

Maybe it is because not everyone senses the benefits or power.

As one follows along with current writings and conference presentations, Enterprise2.0 suffers slightly from understanding of “what it does for me” and what problems it solves. Some evangelists suggest that you just take a leap of faith and let the discovery process determine how best to use the technologies.

In “Is Management the Problem?” McAfee expresses some interesting insight into management within a hierarchical organizations, although with somewhat of a negative slant. To me, more time is necessary to answer the question, since I believe that there is insufficient information available to managers regarding real benefits, problems solved, changes to business operations, links to business goals, integration with current systems, etc.

So, let’s first explain Enterprise2.0 business benefits and power to managers, and then let’s see if “management is the problem”. Things take time, and we are barely at step 1.

A lot of what is talked about in Enterprise2.0 adoption has to do with capturing, sharing and exchanging knowledge. But, once those needs are fulfilled: What do we use this knowledge for?, How do we work the knowledge into the workflow? or more specifically, How do we process this knowledge in order to create a competitive advantage within our businesses?

If we plan on using Enterprise2.0 as a new technology, what outcomes are anticipated?

Do we create better products?

Do we institute new and move advances processes?

Do we undertake better practices?

It is my opinion that Enterprise2.0 practitioners must consider not only getting people to use the technologies but have a clear vision of how the company will reap the benefits of the introduction.  In considering an Enterprise2.0 adoption, do not look at just the technology, or at the initial condition, but at the state of the company 5 years after the introduction.

Some of my clients have shown confusion with regard to what Knowledge Management is. So, I use the courtroom as the analogy to explain it.

In the courtroom, the lawyer presents material in the form of papers, records, witness accounts, finger prints, and other items related to the crime, etc. These are the evidence. Most project or business work tasks have a similar compilation of evidence. In fact, in one company, we created the term “evidence book” to highlight the idea.

In the courtroom, the lawyer weaves a story around the evidence suggesting what happened, and possibly why. The stenographer captures every word assuring that the entire “story” is recorded and can be recalled at any time.

So, in the courtroom, knowledge management = evidence + “the story”

To be effective, the evidence and the story must exist together as an integrated record.

The evidence is virtually meaningless without the story. If the story is not captured, any future activity will have to try to recount the events, generally resulting in something very different.

In business, knowledge management = business record and documents + the story

If a business stores its evidence (business record and documents), but cannot relate what it does with the evidence, the impact will show up in lower quality in its product.

If the business does not store its evidence, and has no story, it is definitely in trouble.

Consider the result of a business with good evidence and a full story, fighting it out in a courtroom with another company with uncontrolled evidence and no way to recall the story. I know who I would bet on.

(Also from the courtroom), businesses can spend huge amounts of money if they are called to court and must produce the evidence and story required for a defense. In a poorly run operation, this “cost of discovery” alone can easily exceed the cost of implementing a knowledge management system.

So, if you are wondering about knowledge management or what it means, think about the courtroom.

I have heard both the praises, sung by many, of the benefits of SharePoint as well as the trials and tribulations that seem to follow after the introduction of the tool.

Now I am hearing about more problems that are arising as firms, who chose to switch from another collaboration application to SharePoint, are finding the transition to be difficult. Some of the underlying reasons would be obvious in cases where firms utilizing robust nesting features of a tool seek to transition to SharePoint with no nesting to speak of. (Nesting is the concept of placing collaborative objects within other collaborative objects to mirror process flow or operating practices.)

Are there other issues? Are there cases in which transition is easy? It would be valuable to uncover and share what people are experiencing and what is happening.

If you have any current accounts of your transition to SharePoint and wish to share them, please feel free to comment, or write. Maybe we can all help each other.

I have asked earlier if Document Management was a prerequisite for a successful Enterprise 2.0 adoption. My answer is yes for a few  reasons.

1.      Enterprise 2.0 is focused on improving knowledge sharing

2.      Knowledge  = content + context

3.      Content are those things that exist explicitly, like documents, physical items, like products, etc.

4.      Businesses are, for the most part, document centric operations.

5.      Most previously captured knowledge has been processed and is stored in documents.

In addition, I will argue that a successful Enterprise2.0 adoption relies on a successful document management system, and the more uncontrolled the document management system is, the poorer the results will be from an Enterprise 2.0 adoption.

That is, you can generate context or tacit knowledge but if you can’t link it to appropriate content, then the value will not be achieved.

If you are focusing on using Enterprise 2.0 inertia to create a document management system, then get that working before you introduce other technologies.

In previous post, I have spoken highly of a new style of presentation.... it follows the ideas of Scott Gavin  and are shown in his Meet Henry slide show. Meet Henry has spawned a whole series of Meet .... type presentations. 

I've been considering why this style of presentation is so powerful and what makes it innovative and interesting. Well, it seems to me to be an effective, simple "message delivery" method. In a world of large presentations with too many messages, lots of data, excess bullets, etc. I like the KISS aspect of the approach --- Focus on a single message, deliver it effectively and let it be.

I've also been considering why Twitter is also effective, and see that Twitter is built around a similar idea -- simple message delivery. Then, it struck me that the Meet Henry approach is a lot like Twitter, but applied to slide shows.... in a sense, if Twitter is "micro-blogging", then Meet Henry is "micro presenting".. short message or statement.

Applied within a corporate communication setting, heavily dominated by long and winded PPT presentations, the idea can evolve into "micro-messaging".

I will be thinking about how linking multiple, powerful micro-messages can be effectively used within companies to improve communications, increase awareness, and keep people focused on key corporate goals. Your ideas are welcome.

Does a successful Enterprise 2.0 adoption require Document Management as a prerequisite?

I have seen a bunch of different presentations about Enterprise 2.0. Most are somewhat lengthy, a lot are simply buzzword bingo, others outline the tools, and some are pretty good --- like Meet Charlie. I wanted something simple that delivered a high level message about why businesses should consider Enterprise 2.0, something without a lot of language unfamiliar to novices.

I noted this from a blogger in NZ. julian

It is not uncommon for people who have spent much of their professional careers using traditional methods of taxonomy, records keeping and information management, to be cautious of, or resistant to approaches which are inherently messier and less ordered."

This is consistent with my view that “the only constant in the world is change….. the only other constant in the world is resistance to change”  change

Although his statement is somewhat true, in my experience, people who create business value often realize that their environment may indeed be messy and poorly ordered and they will choose to do something about it. Unguided, I’ve seen people trying to use new technologies to automate a messy situation, rather than seeking fundamental issues and changing them. These solutions can easily end up mimicking the existing poorly functioning processes and do not achieve much.

However, with a bit of time spent together as a group, with some guiding hand as necessary, structure can be applied to improve the situation. A bit of structure can, in cases of skeptics, go a long way towards setting up a platform for future innovation. In creating a solution, one needs to accept this skepticism as a design input and account for it in crafting an approach that works.

What I have seen in my work is a variety of people: leaders, close followers, skeptics and curmudgeons. True success is achieved when the curmudgeon haltingly praises the effort as “useful”.

The bloggers’ statement also seems to suggest that adopting Web 2.0 technologies to improve information management and control could be “messy and less ordered”. My view of Web2.0 is that the focus will be on adding experience and wisdom to what already exists as information management. This is also called tacit knowledge. As one explores current developments, it can be seen that there is still a lot to be learned about what the best way is to capture and organize tacit knowledge. Folksonomy is one suggested approach, but could there be others? Will research and user cases develop that suggest an alternative to rigorous, meta-data based approaches of the past? Will IT organizations seek to impose rigorous methods of the past, as they also will have skeptics who will resist change? Will the ultimate approach be self-organizing? It often comes down to doing what is best for your company after making a true assessment of the culture, the local politics, the leadership, etc..

So, acquire all the requirements that define your situation and create an execution plan the works for you, ---before you simply copy someone else’s ideas.

Yes, this is an often asked question and replies are different depending on who you are talking to. The question begs more definition as people continue to struggle with how to treat knowledge as a corporate asset.

Well here are a couple of views:

Knowledge = information + experience + wisdom ... or

Knowledge = content + context ... or

more simply put

Knowledge = stuff + everything we know about that stuff.