Collaboration goes beyond Enterprise 2.0

There has been a lot of controversy in the Enterprise 2.0 space recently. Dennis Howlett has been questioning the promise of Enterprise 2.0 for a while now and recent posts like “Enterprise 2.0 is a crock” and “Enterprise 2.0 now we’re talking” have kept the conversation flowing. I am a supporter Enterprise 2.0, but I am stuck in the middle of this debate somewhere between the promise of improved collaboration and the term Enterprise 2.0.

Dennis makes some valid points, and the points that really stand out for me are:

• The term Enterprise 2.0 is a tough term for most organizations and many see the E2.0 tools as additional work and do not want to participate.
• Organizations have many large scale problems to solve and improving collaboration is usually not the most important problem to be addressed. 
• Organizations do not want to build SOCIAL into their applications because they fear that it will be a distraction.

But, here is where I part from Dennis:

Like it or not, large enterprises - the big name brands - have to work in structures and hierarchies that most E2.0 mavens ridicule but can’t come up with alternatives that make any sort of corporate sense. Therein lies the Big Lie. Enterprise 2.0 pre-supposes that you can upend hierarchies for the benefit of all.

Most large organizations do have a hierarchical structure and I agree that this is not going to change, however I dislike Dennis’s term “Big Lie” because I do not see E2.0 breaking down the hierarchy but instead improving communications across the hierarchy by sharing more relevant data.

Justifying Enterprise 2.0 benefits to those at the top of the hierarchy is a real challenge and one of the reasons why many organizations are not adopting a real Enterprise 2.0 strategy. Oliver Marks recently jumped in with a post called The Enterprise 2.0 Value Propositions Agenda where he outlines the difficulties justifying a Enterprise 2.0 strategy:

Collaboration comes from ‘co-labor’ and that is the heart of the enabling E2.0 technologies, but organizing that labor with evidence of improved results is arguably the achilles heel of E2.0 as a movement .……

Will the promise of Enterprise 2.0 technology as transcending business tools that extract more value from happier, more productive individual employees come to fruition? That will depend on the ability of the Enterprise 2.0 market to clearly provide tangible business value propositions and use case validations that are attractive to all levels of business users.

My thought is that it is not up to the Enterprise 2.0 market to provide business value but instead this responsibility lies at the feet of the Enterprise 2.0 advocates trying to justify these strategies, and I struggle with this every day. We have been taking about Enterprise 2.0 for almost 3 years now and we still struggle with the value that it delivers. If we can’t clearly articulate the value, how can we expect others to invest in the value?

At the recent E2.0 conference  Oliver Marks and Sameer Patel co-chaired a workshop on E2.0 strategy and execution. Sameer outlined their session nicely stating that they were trying to address:

delivering tangible value in the context of known functions and processes in the enterprise: purpose driven collaboration, reducing customer support costs via social concepts and improving product innovation via social concepts. No tools, no features and frankly no adoption. Just performance acceleration via strategic process and performance alignment.

Identifying and communicating this value is key to justifying a Enterprise 2.0 strategy. Without a justification, there is no succinct strategy across the hierarchy and we are left with point solutions to solve individual problems. This is the position that I am in right now, and that works for me.  For now, I am looking at Enterprise 2.0 as another set of tools that can be integrated where and when it makes sense. There is no Institute wide strategy for improved collaboration and I will not limit improved collaboration efforts to Enterprise 2.0.

I feel strongly that the road to improved collaboration includes more than just blogs, wiki’s and micro-blogging. We need to think past the communication to the data. We need real mashup tools that integrate with current business process and deal with data. We need tools that can search and find relevant data inside the organization along with improved identity tools to help facilitate access to data across disparate systems.

There is value in improving business process, if we focus on that and integrate the appropriate tools into the process then we all win.

Technorati Tags: Collaboration,Enterprise 2.0

Social Collaboration – Get in the Game

In the span of the next two weeks there are two different conferences in the Enterprise space that you should check out. The Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco is next week from November 2 –5 and the Defrag 2009 Conference in Denver Colorado is the following week November 11-12. Both conferences are in my sweet spot of Open Web Technologies and Enterprise Computing however complications at work prevent me from attending either conference.

The Enterprise 2.0 Conference focuses on bringing collaborative solutions and strategies into the Enterprise with many discussion tracks around implementation along with many real world examples. The Defrag conference focuses more on the tools and technologies and this year has a very social focus and lineup.

The topics and agendas for both conferences give us a nice roadmap of what organizations are looking for in the Social Collaboration space. Many organizations including my own are struggling with Social and Collaborative strategies and are looking for good examples to follow. Here is a sample of the discussion points from both conferences:

Enterprise 2.0

• Exploring Early Enterprise 2.0 Methodologies - Speaker - Dion Hinchcliffe
• Social Software in the Enterprise: Key Debates - Speaker - Tony Byrne
• Lowering Customer Service Costs Via Social Tools - e2 Moderators - Oliver Marks & Sameer Patel
• Is Enterprise 2.0 A Crock? - e2 Moderator - David Berlind

Defrag 2009

• Collaboration: Why Where You Live Doesn't Matter Anymore – Speaker - Gabriel Blanc-Laine
• Successfully Deploying Social Media in Your Organization: Adoption, Rollout, and Support
  - Speaker -  Scott Welch
• Fragment: The Flow-Past Web –Speaker - Kevin Marks
• Cluetrain at 10 - JP Rangaswami, Chris Locke, Doc Searls, Rick Levine

Adoption of Social Collaborative technologies on the internet is fairly easy, however bringing these same technologies into the organization is hard. These technologies require a culture of trust and transparency and that can be difficult in a very competitive organization. I really believe that this is not some FAD but a real change in how we communicate, and eventually these technologies will permeate all organizations. So for me you have a choice, you can sit on the sidelines and wait for it to happen or you can get in the game and become an early adopter which will put you in a position of influence when it comes time to adopt or innovate these technologies.

Technorati Tags: Enterprise 2.0,Defrag,Collaboration

Influence, Respect and Teamwork

As a Technical Manager I often focus on technical topics and issues, however another aspect that every technical manager needs to master is Influence, Respect and Teamwork. The end goal here is really Teamwork which is something that takes time and usually grows out of respect and trust for each other. As a manager, respect grows out of your communication and actions. You need to lead by example and always be the role model for your team. You need to build successful relationships with all of your team members and be very fair and consistent in your communications and actions. As the manager you need to be able to deal with the toughest problems facing the group and work to remove all obstacles facing the group. You need to consistently say what you are going to do, and do what you say. And that is just the beginning.

Communications:

It is always easy for managers to throw their opinions around, however without a trusted relationship between the employee and the manager, all the talk could be going in one ear and out the other ear. To be an effective manager you need to know that your directs understand your communications and are acting on them. A couple of strategies that I use for building this trusted relationship is to have frequent One-on-Ones, and to always have an agenda to follow. The agenda helps with current priorities and is a good reference for past accomplishments and problem issues. My model is a weekly staff meeting with bi-weekly One-on-Ones with everyone.

Feedback:

Another strategy that I use is the feedback model identified by the Manager Tools team. Frequent feedback both positive and negative, delivered in a consistent manner helps everyone to know where they stand. Often the feedback is positive, however there are times when a little direction here and there go a long way. This frequent communication strengthens your relationships and builds influence and respect. Weekly staff meetings with a written agenda coupled with bi-weekly One-on-Ones with a written agenda also ensure that the common goals and projects are identified and communicated to everyone. This makes it easy for the team to track projects and to provide feedback on the strategies and direction.

Consistency:

The key to all of these strategies is consistency. When you are consistent in your communications and actions that sets the example for your directs and enables your peers and senior managers to better understand who you are and what you believe in. As more people in your organization get to know you and understand how you work, your circle of Influence and Respect will grow and that reflects nicely on both the manager and the team.

Technorati Tags: Teamwork,Influence,Respect,Communications,Feedback,Consistency

Windows 7 – Just Do It

I have been using Windows 7 since Windows 7 Beta and feel that it is stable enough to start using on a fulltime basis. I also had access to Windows 7 RC and I became a beta tester at work and had access to Windows 7 Enterprise version at work. Thru all the testing, all of our work applications were fine with no changes or rework required, everything just worked.

I have installed Windows 7 on 4 different brands of laptops and in each case it just worked, I did not have install extra drivers, instead everything just worked. Both performance and the graphical experience is better than XP and much better then VISTA so I would recommend moving to Windows 7 as soon as it comes out.

If you do not believe me, just listen to the clip below from Cali Lewis at Geek Brief Tv, other experts agree, Windows & is ready for prime time .

Technorati Tags: Windows 7

Technology People to Follow

I follow over 400 blogs using the NewGator FeedDemon RSS News Reader, 75 different podcasts via iTunes and almost 1000 people on Twitter, Friendfeed and Identi.ca. From this collection of people, organizations and content providers, I thought I would share with you five people that I follow and urge you to do the same. There are many other talented and creative people working hard and sharing content on the web and I do not mean to slight any of them, but instead I suggest that you start here and you will certainly find many more on your own.

My focus is primarily is in are areas of Open Web Technologies and the Enterprise and that can cover a lot of ground, so I decided to identify individuals with different technical interests from the Enterprise, Open, Social,  Media and Cloud space. These gentleman have these four traits in common:

• They all have worked in the Technology field for many years.
• They all have a passion for Technology and sharing their thoughts and ideas.
• They all produce great content.
• They are very innovative.

Dion Hinchcliffe  -  http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/ -  Full Bio

Dion Hinchcliffe is the consummate communicator. He is the founder and chief technology officer at Hinchcliffe & Company and Dion writes the Enterprise Web 2.0 column at ZDnet which is where I find most of his thoughts and content. Dion often writes about Enterprise 2.0 however he also covers all aspects of the Enterprise from architectures to development strategies. He can be talking about Enterprise 2.0 one day, SOA and the Semantic Web the Next and Cloud Computing on the next day. His ZDNet posts are closer to white papers than blog posts, and Dion often goes into great detail explaining and outlining his points. Dion is known for his original graphic representations of Technology shifts and innovation including these:

• Rethinking Enterprise Architecture
• How to make Enterprise Data more open and consumable
• A Map of the 2009 Enterprise 2.0 Marketplace
• Cloud Computing Commoditizing Economies of Scale

Chris Messina aka FactoryJoe  -   http://factoryjoe.com/blog/  -  Full Bio

Chris Messina is an Open Advocate who is actively involved in the Open Source, Open Web, Diso,  microformats, OpenID and the OAuth projects. Chris runs Citizen Agency, a consulting company focused on the effective and appropriate use of social media combined with open source values and practices, and can of the be found at many technical conferences speaking about open values and strategies. There are many active and involved people supporting Open activities and Chris really sets himself apart with his work developing solutions, documenting standards and aggressively communicating  the pros and cons of Open products. I first learned of Chris from thesocialweb.tv, however after finding his blog I could see that he has a real rich history of supporting Openness. Here are a couple of posts that I really like ….

• Stop Building Social Networks
• The Open Social Web
• Twitter and the password anti-pattern
• Steve Jobs hates the Appstore

Chris Brogan - http://www.chrisbrogan.com/  - Full Bio

Chris Brogan is one of the original Social Networking Experts. He is the President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency and home for the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences and Inbound Marketing Bootcamp educational events. Chris has been working and innovating in the social space for many years and often talks about reputation, trust, and empowering instead of marketing. He is genuine and sincere and that really comes thru in his blog and when you meet him. What I love about Chris is his continued efforts to help other people. If your organization is in need of some Social Networking, Social Media help, then I recommend that you reach out to Chris.  Here are some of my favorite posts from Chris ….

• Shaving My Head for Charity
• 10 Things You Could Do Better Today
• What Makes a Story Work
• 20 Blog-Topics to Get-You Unstuck

Leo Laporte   -  http://twit.tv/   -    Full Bio

Leo Laporte is a New Media Machine and you should check him out. Leo is an articulate author, speaker, and broadcaster focusing on technology coverage for radio, television, and the Internet. If you are interested in Technology then you need to find Leo and his TWIT.tv group of netcasts. Unlike many other Media producers, Leo covers the entire Computing industry with shows that feature Windows, Security, Mac, Floss, Google and many more. Leo story is a great one working for a large media company and starting his own media company. I listen to many of Leo’s shows on a weekly basis and here are my top picks …..

• This Week in Tech
• Windows Weekly
• Floss Weekly
• This week in Google

John M Willis aka Botchagalupe     - http://www.johnmwillis.com/ -  Full Bio

John Willis is an old IT guy who saw the advantages of Cloud Computing and started investigating, writing and communicating about Cloud Solutions. John is the editor of the IT Management and Cloud Blog and produces two podcasts on cloud computing called “Cloud Cafe” and “Cloud Droplets”. I first learned of John from the “IT Management Guys” podcast produced by Michael Cote of Redmonk, and quickly learned of John’s experience and skill working in the Enterprise. John has worked in the IT management industry for 30 years and is CEO of his self-funded Zabovo Corp but what I really admire about John is how proactive he is and how he shifted his focus from IT Management monitoring to Cloud based support. Here are a couple for links from John.

• Demystifying Clouds
• Cloud Vendors a-to-z
• Top 10 reasons for not using a cloud
• Cloud Podcasts

The Internet is a great platform for sharing ideas and content and there are many talented and technical folks doing that on a daily basis. These five guys are just the start of my list as there are many other men and women that I follow on a daily basis that help me to stay current in the Technology space. Thank you to all for sharing.

Technorati Tags: Enterprise,Open,Social,Media,Cloud