I have a ton of notes to share about the Enterprise 2.0 conference. So I’ll break them down into multiple posts, each addressing a different aspect of the experience.
First a few words of gratitude. The conference was really well crafted and managed. Despite they typical annoyances that come up, (so many sessions to choose from, etc.) the overall experience was totally high-end. And the best part is that we never saw anyone sweat. I’m sure that took lots of hard work behind the scenes.
One impression that I took away from the conference is that the community of attendees are quite informed. I did not hear many newbie questions — in fact, I noticed that people in attendance were quite informed about the challenges and concepts. This meant that speakers were not “teaching” per se, but helping level-set, share, and facilitate the conversation. Many sessions were led by thought leaders — but had other thought leaders in the audience. Let me tell you — that’s cool! There were high quality conversations in the rooms and hallways everywhere.
This transltated to three initial findings for me:
- I was right on the money when I wrote about the long neck syndrome. We continue to gel as an industry and understand each other. That’s good, sort of. The problem is that we now have to address the rest of the workplace. We need to continue to focus on translating what we know into something that we can convey to others – using their terms and with respect to their motivators. If we only gel together, we’ll create a tribal language that no one else will be able to understand.
- We get frustrated when we hear “motherhood and apple-pie” lessons about E2.0. I would have screamed had I heard one more speaker or seen one more tweet telling me “it’s not about the tools, you know. It’s about culture.” Yes, we heard. We agree. But we are past this. Let’s now talk about the nature of effective culture change. Let’s get some Org-behaviorists in the community to help us. Not just the ones who just tell us “it’s about the culture” — but the geeky ones with real data, real insight, and specific advice we can take to understand what culture change really means.
- We need to further clarify what we mean when we say Enterprise 2.0. It started to get pretty slippery at times. I heard about many Web 2.0 concepts. But fewer Enterprise perspectives. Yes, they were there. And indeed those were the highlights of the show. But I’m not going out there and telling businesses that they should allow intranet access to Facebook and YouTube in order to make their workers more productive. Really now. We’re inspired by Web 2.0, but we have to bring it to the work context.
These are all closely related. We as a marketplace of vendors, analysts, consultants, clients, educators, and implementers (etc.) understand that the Internet has changed from the way it was used 10 years ago. Some of us remember that the Internet was social and communal 20 years ago. It got commercial 10 years ago. It’s now much better in terms of being social and communal again. It’s also a much more productive platform where we can build and find functionality – and use it easily. It has a much greater demographic reach. It has a growing presence on mobile devices too. These inspire changes in thinking, and that creates business opportunities. And we found that those companies who begin to leverage these business opportunities find success – and more interestingly, they transform parts of their own behaviors and business patterns in the process.
Let me share one example of what I mean. One of the better keynote addresses was the first one: Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Chief Technology Officer & Founding Partner of Blue State Digital who spoke about the lessons we can learn from the Obama campaign. Politics aside, the use of the social computing in this campaign was impressive and revolutionary to the political process. But the reason he was there was to tell this audience about the lessons they should learn and figure out how to apply them to their environments. E2.0 buyers are not raising money in their business by auctioning the artwork that their customers create out of their CEO’s photographs. Rather, we are looking to connect people, emotions, content, and work in effective, transparent, but well-managed environments. I would have loved to hear more about the tension between the grass-roots campaigners and the professionals. How did the professional campaign strategists and staff deal with the loss of control when they saw regular people creating their own campaign messages? Did the find ways to regain control? In other words — tell us about the “culture change” process that the Obama campaign had to accept internally as it shifted into a new strategy — one that changes the landscape of politics. How did Blue State Digital get in and sell a new vision? You know what I’m looking for here. The stuff that E2.0 folks can take home and use at work.
So that’s installment 1 of my post-conference thoughts. Next week I’ll talk about vendors. Who was there to talk, who was there to listen, and which I think have something worth looking at more closely.
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Hi Gil. This is great (of course). I’m happy to see you use the word, “emotion,” in this post. Somewhere along the way as we get fixated/frustrated about the lack of real business value (read: analytics/metrics), we lose sight of the fact that the socialweb is humanizing us in a profound way. We are left brain AND right brain beings with feelings. This is the most difficult terrain, imho, that we have to get right in order to achieve success in the enterprise: the delicate balance of the leveraging the “whole human” asset.
p.s. so great to have your contributions this year, dude. group hug.
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Hi Gil-
Nice summary. I look forward to the rest of your dispatches. Ironic that we both chose the bluestatedigital keynote for our first blog post subject.
I agree that there’s definitely a growing body of applied knowledge here, and E2.0 is one of the “flatter” conferences I’ve attended, where the knowledge of the audience is as valuable as (or moreso) that that of those on the dais. Of course, this might be skewed by the fact that E2.o users are more likely to broadcast their knowledge than others…perhaps those org-behaviorists can opine on that as well…
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Good post Gil. I like your critique of endless motherhood and apple pie advice. Just saying it’s “about culture” isn’t enough to move the needle.
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Anne (@drmcewan)
Thanks. I’m going to take you up on your offer. Let’s take E2.0 to the next level of maturity. Get ready for a fun ride. I’m looking forward to speaking to you!
Hi Gil.
I have been reading your blog for the past several weeks and have regularly posted links to it on the Social Media in HR (SMinHR) LinkedIn group I have created, as well as my SMinHR Twitter account.
I’d love to talk to you about the point you made in finding #2. I have a PhD and tons of experience in Organizational Behavior, and I am establishing a consultancy to do exactly the kind of translation/intermediation work you refer to. Please feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn if you’re interested in talking further about the possibilities.
Thanks. Keep up the good work.
Courtney
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Courtney,
Thanks. I will reach out to you and let’s talk.
Thanks for your insights. Speaking as an organizational culture geek, I’m excited to hear the interest building for the “softer” side of 2.0.
I’ve posted a few thoughts on adoption / culture on frank’s blog. (http://tinyurl.com/lbkpan) The post includes a few aspects of culture to examine in order to maximize 2.0 culture fit. A few examples include shared values; sponsorship; common language; pace of change / change tolerance; internal competition; organziation hierarchy; personal “safety” and leadership ear size.
Would love to hear from anyone interested in further culture conversation!
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Here’s why I disagree to some extent (never mind that anything from Davenport already carries a red flag for me). Clearly, I do not disagree with the relevance of culture. I have several pieces I’m working on now based on that topic. I’m even one who tries to downplay the significance of 2.0 technologies, but if designed and implemented in a critical ’sweet spot’, E2.0 technologies are the means by which bad cultures (almost ALWAYS the result of poor leadership), can be threatened. Facilitating the means by which to make cultural ‘bad behaviors’ more transparent, is the great hope of E2.0.
Aligning the potential to generational attributes is tremendously flawed. Generational research has repeatedly been ‘isolated’ in it’s assumptions — too many people blindly buy into these distinctions. Have you seen one of them compare the various generations at the same age and do so on equal footing (e.g. just focus on the basics of their behaviors, not the artifacts by which the behaviors are expressed)? While there are some interesting things to consider in all of the research, the radical distinctions noted have to do with phase of life more than true generational distinctions. Why no one has challenged these researchers on such obvious biases is surprising to me.
This comment was originally posted on Collaborative Enterprise
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Paula – I think the larger challenge is to ensure that E2.0 interventions [even if done in a cultural sweetspot] align with business strategy.Challenging hierarchy by itself is not an end. Poor leadership can still choose not to act on cultural bad behavior made transparent using E2.0 or social network analysis. Assume that SNA reveals that two business units that need to be speaking to each other more are not. This could be a symptom of a larger problem – the absence of a "T"shaped management could be one of them. And that I believe has nothing to do with technology per se. It is more than getting employees in the two business divisions to speak to each other.I believe the fundamentals have to be in place for E2.0 to really work – conscious investment in human/social capital – that could include interventions like getting rid of bonuses if it leads to territorialism in the sales force for example and alignment to business strategy.
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Bonjour,
je suis d’accord à 100% avec ton analyse sur Twitter et l’entreprise.
Je pense que Twitter est un outil de communication fantastique pour les faiseurs d’opinion et les influenceurs.
La problématique de l’entreprise est différente: Il y a un petit nombre d’influenceurs internes (le CEO, le directeur de la comm, qqes experts dans leurs domaines respectifs…)et leur appétence pour ce type d’outils varie selon leur génération. Selon moi, l’enjeu principal de l’entreprise 2.0 est de faire travailler les gens dans la même direction. Et le nécessaire changement de culture pour que l’entreprise travaille en réseau et la maitrise les Outils collaboratifs, Wiki, Intranet, Espace de travail, Blogs, Bureau Virtuels, Forums , Wave ou autres Réseaux Sociaux d’Entreprise… me semblent être plus “prioritaires” que la maitrise du micro blogging.
Alain
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@ Alain > Oui tout à fait. au risque de me répéter, ce n’est pas au augmentant la masse d’infos et de données qui circulent dans l’entreprise que les collaborateurs seront plus performants (bien au contraire). Si l’on augmente le volume d’infos et données entrantes, il faut impérativement adpater l’organisation pour que cet afflux supplémentaire soit traité (digéré) de façon plus efficace afin de na pas perturber les collaborateurs (c’est la fameuse infobésité).
/Fred
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Bonjour Frédéric,
J’ai également assisté à la conférence à Boston en tant que directeur du Business Developpement de YoolinkPro, une solution de micro-partage pour les PME.
Juste deux petites remarques :
- “Je suis enfin très étonné de na pas avoir lu de mentions de Google Wave” : Pour citer Peter Kim (je crois, il faudrait vérifier), “on ne peut pas citer ce qu’on n’a pas testé”. Apparement Wave c’est surtout du slideware pour le moment et donc plutôt absent des discussions. Cette année E2.0 c’était surtout du retour d’expérience, donc effectivement Wave était relativement absent des débats
- Par ailleurs je souhaite proposer le blog suivant qui fait de très bonnes analyses sur la conférence http://www.gilyehuda.com/ (Gil était présent sur place également)
J’ai également essayé de présenter les conférences et BarCamp auxquels j’ai assisté sur le blog http://www.yoolink.fr/blog/
A bientôt,
Sébastien
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Merci pour ce résumé!
Et je vous rejoins tous les deux pour ce qui est du microblogging en entreprise …
Je ne suis meme pas persuadé que le microblogging puisse etre la cerise sur le gateau, c’est plutot un outil qui peut éventuellement etre utile dans certains cas, mais pas en general …
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@barthox je suis tout à fait d’accord. De toute façon il y a très peu d’outils qui soient utile pour toutes les entreprises, dans tous les cas.
On trouve par contre quelques cas où le micro-blogging apporte des choses intéressantes :
- Lorsque des équipes travaillent dans des lieux différents. Cela évite les mailing lists, les reply-to-all en chaine, etc. C’est une façon simple de tenir tt le monde au courant de son travail individuel.
- Lorsqu’il sert de vecteur à un certain type d’informations: la veille ou les ressources techniques par exemple. Sans vouloir faire de fausse pub, dans notre société nous utilisons le micro-blogging pour véhiculer les informations, documents, articles qui comptent. C’est donc une sorte de mélange de social bookmarking et de micro blogging qui sert de fil d’activité et de ressources.
- Lorsqu’il fonctionne comme un Yahoo answers interne. Ok ça réclame une certaine taille d’entreprise mais il y avait certains use cases à Entreprise 2.0 à Boston qui étaient fondés la dessus
Comme disait Andrew McAfee – qui a en quelque sorte introduit le terme entreprise 2.0 – Twitter ne se substitue pas à une chose que l’on avait l’habitude de faire, c’est une combinaison de 17 choses que l’on fait tout le temps. Du coup c’est difficile à cataloguer. Mais je pense que l’intérêt est là à condition de se poser les bonnes questions. La seule mauvaise raison d’installer du micro-blogging c’est “parce que mes concurrents en ont un”
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Bill, this is a great summary…I will be bookmarking this to our Social Sites portal. I also penned a short blog post on some of my observations here: http://blogs.newsgator.com/daily/2009/06/musings-on-the-enterprise-20-conference.html
Already looking forward to next year!
This comment was originally posted on Portals and KM
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Karyn – Thanks for the llnk. I am doing an interview with Newsgator for a blog story on the 15th. Bill
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Ha, ha, thanks for the humorous analogy. You might be interested in this summary about reactions to the conference http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/future-of-work/enterprise-20-conference-aftermath-32715 which is that "Enterprise 2.0" is still very much in its infancy and struggling for identity. Issues about deployment and ROI have begun to surface which is showing that the enterprise is making progress in its quest to find a heart, a brain, home, and the nerve.
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Use cases are a bad leftover from a linear-focused discipline — methods that force real world complexity into the linear reality of ‘code’.
Of all of the change that has to occur, development has to change to. There’s no need for use cases in a 2.0 world — the collaborative work does not include ‘throwing stuff over the wall’. It’s all realtime.
If the people doing the work have not been intimately involved in the conversations — the results will be sub-optimal.
Even developers are not machine parts.
Stop the madness at the very core. It all has to change.
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Love it, Hutch. Excellent practitioner-ready tips here.
I’m of the strong belief that strategy without an execution plan is one of the leading causes of failure in the enterprise.
Successful senior managers/execs are very good at not just laying out strategy but getting the organization to believe in the chosen direction. Those very senior managers need to also illustrate the right approach to executing this strategy (key success factors, risk mitigators etc). Part of this is exposing glaring differences in a status quo approach vs. using social software to radically increase chances of project success, when appropriate. If done correctly, it’s not altruistic any more – rather its casted as a key ingredient towards realizing that very strategy that the organization bought into.
It’s the project managers, e2.0 evangelists and enthusiasts that need to articulate this to those setting strategy if they don’t already have the knowledge to think of it themselves.
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Excellent summary of the corporate adoption process – it quite accurately reflects my experiences in the last ten years. The “use-case/no use case” dichotomy is a very good idea – I had fuzzily thought about that, but you make the process very clear !
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Excellent points, Hutch. Love the flowchart! I posted more of my thoughts (w/ a ref back to here) at http://bit.ly/sEEre
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Excellent post, Hutch. I shared a number of these points in my Roadmap to Successful Adoption whitepaper released last month and couldn’t agree more with the points. I’ve also had an interesting observation that social computing behind the firewall will often reveal cultural issues that may never have been openly discussed. I wrote about this several months ago, here: http://blogs.newsgator.com/daily/2009/02/what-will-socia.html
As usual, great insights from you!
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Très intéressant, merci !
Il y a aussi une discussion sur le blog de BRENT avec ce billet :
Le business condamne t-il la philosophie du 2.0 ?
http://b-r-ent.com/news/le-business-condamne-t-il-la-philosophie-du-2-0
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Marrant qu’on parle peu de l’utilisation de la Web tv et vidéo en général qui change la capacité à passer rapidement des messages, à alimenter la mémoire d’entreprise, appuyer la gestion de projets, se mixer aux réseaux sociaux…
Sur notre capacité à lancer un nouvel outil dans le cadre d’un changement plus global j’ai…un doute!
Ce qui marche pour l’instant dans la réalité ce sont des projets sous radars qui une fois qu’ils ont grossi et sont devenus des nices stories se dévoilent
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