Part 3: What’s in the workflow is what gets used

Note: this is the third blog in a series reviewing each of the 6 pieces of the McKinsey Article “Six Ways to Make Web 2.0 Work.”

McKinsey’s third recommendations is “Participatory technologies have the highest chance of success when incorporated into a user’s daily workflow. ” Of all of the recommendations delivered in this report, this one I believe is the most important, yet most often overlooked recommendations that one can give regarding the implementation of Web 2.0 in the workplace. Web 2.0 in the enterprise already suffers from a stigma: “it’s not real work”. And, quite frankly, people have enough work to do without adding wiki contributions and writing blogs to the equation.  If you are going to deploy new tools (at least successfully), it is crucial that they be connected back to “real work” and not just added to the pile.

The Stigma

While most new tools have the difficult task of having to prove their worth over the tools that they replace, Web 2.0 tools in the enterprise have the added weight of being associated with the tools on the open Internet, knowing only horror stories and that these tools are largely by employees’ children. When you add this stigma to the fact that it’s just seen as another thing to do in a long busy day, it’s hard to escape the illusion that Web 2.0 is just a new way to distract employees from their job.

It’s about replacing processes

In order to fully realize the value of Web 2.0 tools in the workplace, people have to use the new tools to actually do their work. If you just impose the wiki as another duty, adoption’s going to be low. This is the classic problem for knowledge management platforms: It’s easy enough to contribute, but it still requires people to do extra work, so you get less than ideal adoption.

This means during the roll out, the benefits of a wiki need to be communicated to the workforce: How can it help them do their job significantly better and/or faster? How can social bookmarking help reduce email and improve people’s access to information?  How is wiki collaboration better than collaborating via email?  While the previous recommendation stated that organizations should let users decide the best way to use the new tools, organizations will need to communicate the realm of the possible to the potential audiences. The goal should be to inspire users to change the way they do their jobs.

Liveblogging on BRIDGE at Gov 2.0 Camp

Note: this is a liveblog of a session at the Gov 2.0 BarCamp on BRIDGE about open software development for the United States Intelligence Community. His site is http://matthewburton.org/a-space

In the 1990s, every agency had their own network that did not touch. IN the late 1990s, the IC created Intelink to start to connect information at different agencies.  Alas, classification restrictions kept agencies from posting their valuable information.

A-Space is Facebook for Spies and it is supposed to be the answer to this.  It is NOT Myspace for Spies, because Facebook is far more advanced as a platform than MySpace.

Why does it take so damn long to get technology to the government? the RFP process: put out a request, months later we get bids and then years later you finally get the software that people want.  Usually, this software doesn’t actually solve the problem because the development is all done in a closed cycle without input from the people who will have to use the tool.

A-Space is supposed to, via BRIDGE, is supposed to help people get their apps onto the system.  A-Space is built on Clearsapace and is a platform on the IC’s classified network for Intelligence analysts.  BRIDGE hopes to make it possible for individual developers and smaller companies to contribute applications.  BRIDGE can be used by anybody who is sponsored into the environment (unclassified).  Bridge strives to be a sandbox for proof of concept for developers to show their tools before being pulled up to operational/classified networks.

Problem with BRIDGE is that it is low and does not necessarily have a community of users.  Another problem is that BRIDGE doesn’t offer a great solution on how to find software solutions.

BRIDGE is seeking a larger pool of web applications, which A-Space will be a platform for delivery.  BRIDGE is designed to open up the sofware development process for the government.

Forge.mil is an unrelated project, but is designed to serve as a software repository for the military domain.  RACE is designed to serve as a DISA bridge to operational domains.

PS Sorry this is incomplete and sparse, but I did the best I could.

Let the Users Decide

Note: this is the second blog in a series reviewing each of the 6 pieces of the McKinsey Article “Six Ways to Make Web 2.0 Work.”

The second piece of McKinsey’s article is all about letting the users decide the best use cases for Web 2.0 technology. In their words:

Efforts go awry when organizations try to dictate their preferred uses of the technologies—a strategy that fits applications designed specifically to improve the performance of known processes—rather than observing what works and then scaling it up.

In my experience, this assessment is absolutely dead on. It seems counter-intuitive, but I can easily imagine leaders sitting around a table trying to figure out who–EXACTLY WHO–could best benefit from an organic, flexible knowledge creation environment. Doesn’t this just sound crazy? I understand that most technologists, especially inside large organizational structures are used to the model of providing a technology that has a set purpose and a very specific target audience, but it seems very strange to me that you want to try to dictate uses for Web 2.0 tools.

Rather than trying to do shoehorn “ideal” groups into new tools and new ways of working, why not just let it happen? One of the beautiful things about Web 2.0 is that the best-of-breed software is free. That’s not to say they are without costs; however, Web 2.0 is best implemented in a “Fail cheap” model. Let users decide what works and what doesn’t.

Web 2.0 is about supplying tools for the toolbox. It’s not about setting up a technology and then trying to force users to participate. That’s just not how these technologies work. (This is not really how any technology deployment works: if it’s not in the work flow, then it’s just another thing that people “have to do” and therefore falls flat.)

Social media tools allow for emergent collaboration. They allow for self-organization, outside the formal organizational structure. They are flexible enough to work for many different projects and many different purposes.

What leaders need to do is provide the freedom and ability to experiment to see what works for a given organization (or part of an organization). Let the practitioners decide what tools fit the bill and improve the workflow. Leaders can then help spread the word about what works; they can help to tell the stories that emerge from successful use of the tool in an effort to help spread best practices and scale participation.

The article makes this point well: AT&T managers were able to help adoption “by supporting an awareness campaign to seed further experimentation”. As a final point, I do think that the article misses the boat a bit by talking about participation metrics instead of outcome metrics, but that may just be my own biases creeping back in.

McKinsey’s take on Web 2.0 – The first in a Series

Perhaps the most read, circulated, and probably influential Web 2.0 publication of 2009 so far has been McKinsey‘s article “Six ways to make Web 2.0 work“, by Michael Chuil, Andy Miller, and Roger P. Roberts. I have read this piece with great interest and feel that I needed to organize my thoughts on this paper. Hence, a blog series is born: Over the next few posts, I will muse about each of the six techniques suggested by the author as important to making Web 2.0 work in the enterprise. First up: Leadership.

The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top.

I find that this is one of the more hotly debated topics around change management: does change come from the bottom or from the top? Of course the answer is that change really comes from both the top and the bottom. In my mind, change often comes via pressure and innovation from the bottom, eventually requires buy in from the higher levels of leadership. The opposite happens as well: leaders have innovative ideas or see strategic opportunity and begin to sow the seeds of change in the base. Put simply, change needs champions at all levels.

Change, leadership, and Web 2.0

In this case, the article is right on. “Build it and they will come” in Web 2.0 is almost always a failure. And leaders who are willing to be champions for Web 2.0–especially with other senior leaders–are also key to the success of a Web 2.0 implementation. Similarly, the first step towards Web 2.0 implementation is almost always a small, bottom-up effort: everybody needs proof of concept and pilots before jumping in with two feet.

Indeed, a lack of perceived leadership support is often cited (in my experience) as a key hurdle for adoption. However, while the article talks about how senior leadership is important, I think that perhaps leadership at other places in the organization is equally important. This includes everyone’s favorite villain, the middle manager: leaders need to ensure that these folks are in the know about social media initiatives and understand where they fit into flatter organization.

Perhaps surprisingly, I think that Web 2.0 implementations are most dependent on leaders and champions at the working level. Web 2.0 requires that working level people, who are likely to benefit most from collaboration and working transparently, clearly understand and talk about the benefits of Web 2.0 amongst themselves. And for this to manifest itself effectively, working level folks have to take it upon themselves to champion Web 2.0 and share their lessons with their peers. This is mainly due to the inherent credibility with the working level, which senior leadership might not have.

The takeaway is this: success in Web 2.0 in the enterprise is dependent on having leadership through all levels of an organization. It’s not about the top, it’s not about the bottom. It’s about the whole organization.

The Long Tail of Collaboration Value

The Long Tail is of course one of the most popular and notable thoughts/books of the social media movement. From Wikipedia:

The phrase The Long Tail was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article to describe the niche strategy of businesses, such as Amazon.com or Netflix, that sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities. . . . The distribution and inventory costs of these businesses allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers, instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The group that purchases a large number of “non-hit” items is the demographic called the Long Tail.

Uh Justin…what’s the point?

Well, this may require a logical leap here, but I think that the long tail is a valuable metaphor for the value of collaboration. You see, there may be a few “blockbuster” examples and a lot of less impressive examples of collaboration. But, like those items on iTunes that sells only 10 copies, successful “collaboration events” may only be important/significant to the 3 people that were directly involved. Not something that’s “sexy” or tells a good story.

However, given that, as Rob Salkowitz notes, most knowledge work is a collection of relatively insignificant tasks that ultimately lead up to more significant outputs, these individually insignificant collaboration events add up to generate significant organizational value. So while on an individual level, collaborative interaction may be relatively banal, the sum of these events is significantly higher, if harder to communicate.

Measuring Value

This is another of the unique challenges in measuring the true value of collaboration, especially in knowledge work. Most collaboration yields relatively low value individually; however, when taken in connection with other collaborative activities, the cumulative potential of effective collaboration is remarkable. One of the great ways to make the case for collaboration would be to figure out a better way to measure the value of the tail.

Technical Solutions to Management Problems

Another of the most common issues I hear as a collaboration consultant is that managers are worried about people wasting their time with social software, effectively implying that their workers will be less productive because they will be gardening, blogging, or messing around with social networking sites. However, to me, this issue is closely related to the issues highlighted by Chris Rasmussen over at Brian Drake’s blog:

If someone posts an inappropriate poster on the wall, you don’t ban the wall. You discipline the person.”

To me (as I commented on Brian’s blog when it was reposted), I think that the issues of inappropriate content and “time wasting” are unfairly associated with social software, as if they are new problems. Instead, people are just hiding behind these issues instead of engaging in actual conversation about the costs and benefits of social software.

Not a New Problem

Here comes a shocker: people wasting time at work is  not a new problem.  People have been reading the paper, playing office sports, making personal calls, etc for a very long time.  The Internet has long been the target of all sorts of campaigns as a time waster… but there’s really no conclusive studies on the internet and productivity.  But lots of stuff like this …

Not only are these problems not new, they are actually better handled in social software environments, because of the transparency. So while someone might spend all their time doing crossword puzzles or reading sports news or sending personal emails, it can be hard to detect that activity. However, social software makes it easier: if someone’s playing on Facebook all day, you can take a look at their profile and activity and see that they wrote on 24 different people’s wall this afternoon. Likewise, if productivity is falling and you notice they are working in the wiki a lot, you can look at the contributions to see that he/she isn’t just gardening or creating frivolous content.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, managers should not fear social software applications; they should learn about them and work to understand how they can help their employees qualitatively improve their work using these new tools. After all, I advocate social software as a better way to do something, not as a cure all (so if it’s not gonna help you, don’t force it…) . It’s important that leaders understand benefits (not just the risks!) of social software and how it can improve productivity and quality of work.

Are people already rewarded for collaboration?

One of the most interesting and debated topics in my line of work is how to reward people for collaboration and/or participation in Web 2.0 efforts. This topic is worth books in itself (and many, many individual posts that perhaps I will write in the future…), but I want to explore whether this whole problem could be avoided. This is crazy, you say: you have to incentivize workers in order to actually get them to collaborate or use Web 2.0 technology. Or you have to write it into their performance objectives.

Or do you? My theory, I submit to you, is that this is unnecessary. Why? Because collaboration is a means, not an end.

Craziness?

You have to incentivize collaboration and participation in Web 2.0 in order to get people to play, right? NSFMF! There’s gotta be a benefit in collaboration that is self-evident to the people participating. Blogging, using a wiki, or social bookmarking may be inherently public/crowd-sourcing activities; but participation by good will is not sustainable. There has to be a return on investment. This is why collaboration by mandate often doesn’t work well, because people see it as “another duty as assigned” and more work, rather than part of their actual job.

Perhaps think of it this way: prior to Web 2.0 technologies, did you really write into your performance reviews that you drafted products in Microsoft Word or worked with your colleagues via email, instant, messaging, and face-to-face meetings? Not so much. Likewise, a communications professional shouldn’t get rewarded for blogging; he should get rewarded for communicating. An intelligence analyst shouldn’t rewarded for making wiki edits; she should get rewarded for high quality intelligence analysis. Collaboration and Web 2.0 are just two ways that help her get to a higher level analysis. Collaboration is a skill, like writing, research, and presenting: it’s to be developed and honed.

The Ends Justify the Means

Take a moment to think about why you work with others. Ideally, it’s not to check a box. It’s to search for new ideas, get sanity checks, and find different points of view on my work and thoughts (or provide such services out of reciprocity or sense of mission). I do these things because I want to produce something that’s better than I could do alone. No matter how smart I [may think I] am, I’m not smarter than my network. Let’s face it, nobody’s smarter than all of their network. Isn’t that the whole point of this Web 2.0 thing?

Collaboration is an input. It is one of many. At the end of the day, people in knowledge work are rewarded (in a perfect world) for the quality outputs. The point of this entry is not to say that collaboration shouldn’t be rewarded: it’s that collaboration is already rewarded. It’s rewarded because the final output should be that much better if you’ve collaborated with outside peers.*

*Granted, this is of course dependent on having managers who are able to account for said improvement in quality of output…

Social Media and Knowledge Management

I’ve been thinking about social media in terms of knowledge management as of late (a common theme when discussing Web 2.0 in a business/organizational setting). In a seemingly only tangentially note, I awoke yesterday morning and this was one of the first Tweets that I saw from @RichardDennison:

“Social media is people telling their stories” – Steve Crescenzo (@crescenzo)

My response was “I like that characterization of social media. I would also say that social media is about adding context”. Seeing Richard’s quote helped me think in a different way about what knowledge management looks like leveraging Web 2.0 technologies.

I think what distinguishes Web 2.0 technologies from traditional hosted knowledge management repositories is that Web 2.0 platforms over a greater window into process. In other words, Web 2.0 offers context, while KM repositories generally only store finished products.

Knowledge Management as a Byproduct

The advantage of working in a web 2.0 environment is that knowledge management comes at no additional cost. However, “working in a web 2.0 environment” is a difficult concept: in an ideal case, this actually requires transferring processes out of closed channels like email, Word, PowerPoint, etc (i.e. comfort applications) into the web environment. If you build your knowledge in the wiki, you can trace a product from the earliest stages to “finished” product.

Conversely, traditional repositories depend on users taking the additional step of submitting finished products for approval and inclusion in an officially vetted database. These products will exist with perhaps only a paragraph of context and a line of contact information (though probably the information of someone 2-3 working levels above the individual who actually produced the product).

An Example: Wikipedia and Knowledge Management

As a bit of a concrete example–that may require only a bit of imagination–we can take a look at the Luc Bourdon article on Wikipedia. Imagine that this article is a finished product sitting in a KM database: it’s a Word document probably accompanied by the opening paragraph as context/summary.

Now, let’s take a look at what we learn because this product is NOT actually in a KM database. You get the same content: that same finished product that can be read in a hurry if you don’t care (or don’t have time to care) about the process. However, there’s just so much more available. For example, I can see how this article started. I can also see it on landmark dates, like the day that Bourdon tragically died. And I can see what’s changed in the month of March. On top of all this, I can also see what was addressed during the Wikipedia Featured Article process by taking a look at the discussion page.

The takeaway

Asking a guy who’s a year away from retirement to sit in front of a computer entering his knowledge into a wiki is not an optimal solution (though apparently does work sometimes). Building products in a wiki is a fantastic way to capture institutional knowledge and a great amount of context around it. Web 2.0 tools–not just wikis of course–are a fantastic tool that allows knowledge capture, public thinking, and tracking the evolution of ideas over time when the work is done in public.

Facebook and Human Social Interaction

As should be expected, when a publication like the Economist writes an article about Facebook, people listen and people respond. The author noted on his own blog, “The point of the piece: to add a tiny bit to the research debates about human group size.”  The message of the article is that even though people on Facebook have an average of about 120 of friends, they tend to interact with a very small percentage (less than 10) of them on a regular basis. Furthermore, even those that have hundreds of Facebook friends tend to interact with only a few more people. The article also concludes that “people who are members of online social networks are not so much ‘networking’ as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle.”

Is this a bad thing?

While the article seems to imply that this is a bad or at least neutral thing, I still would contend that it is of value to reach those “outer tier of acquaintances”, even if the return on investment is small or zero. This simple reason is that the effort required to reach those outer tier is also small or zero. Reaching those outer reaches only increases the possibility of serendipitous interaction (a concept I have learned about from Chris and Don). Moreover, I would say that reaching these outliers is actually the best part of Facebook: chances are, you would talk to your closest friends, even without Facebook.

I maintain that the chief value of social networking services is that it makes it very easy to keep a low-level situational awareness of what your friends are doing, even if they are more distant. It’s really easy to do so, and you never know when you might come across something interesting from an unexpected source. (Plus, it really makes it easy for those times when you actually want to interact with those far from the center of your social network…I don’t understand how people can use Evite.

But what about the conversation?!?!

I think that RWW is right on when they note that if you are looking for conversation, that Twitter may be the better location for social networking. I’m still finding my place in Twitter, but what I have learned about Twitter is all about conversation. It’s fluid and can actually pass between and across social networks (which would, in my estimation, be more likely to be closed). So to me, this is just another conversation about finding the right tool for the job: While Facebook might not be the place to interact, there are other tools better suited for that job.