Web and Enterprise 2.0 - Governance Techniques
by Darren Wood on Aug 30, 2009
- 1,737 views
Don't forget to look at the Slide Notes (the tab next to the comments tab) ...
Don't forget to look at the Slide Notes (the tab next to the comments tab)
- Understanding the governance challenges created by web 2.0 tools and applications
- Crafting social media guidelines taking into consideration the organisation’s terms of use and other related policies
- Encouraging staff to utilise the tools and applications
Accessibility
Categories
Tags
More...Upload Details
Uploaded via SlideShare as Apple Keynote
Usage Rights
Statistics
- Favorites
- 3
- Downloads
- 37
- Comments
- 1
- Embed Views
- Views on SlideShare
- 1,698
- Total Views
- 1,737
Steve Brewer
1–1 of 1 previous next
In today’s talk I’m going to be focussing on the ideas and techniques used in Web2.0 and how we can incorporate some of that thinking into your intranet.
Ok - those were all very good answers, but I’m afraid you were all a little off the mark. Web2.0 is:
These images are a fine example of what the web2.0 is all about. In a nutshell it’s about being apart of a community and being able to share, create, interact and socialise with other like minded people. When you put enough cat loving people together they end up inventing LOLCats.
But in all seriousness it’s very difficult to define web2.0. It’s a million different things to a million different people. So in order to try and find a suitable definition of web2.0 I resorted to the best source of information on the internet: wikipedia!
Although the name suggests that web2.0 is a new version of the world wide web it doesn’t refer to any technical specifications - rather it refers to the way in which developers and end-users are using the web.
Were web1.0 was more of a one-way push of information web2.0 is for more of a discussion. Web2.0 gives control over to the users. Users now own and control the data. It’s this architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.
I guess you could say Web2.0 is the Participatory Web.
By looking at the above word-cloud you can see that shine through loud and clear. Just look at the largest words: participation; contribution, social, user...
“The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential”
It’s this idea of communicating by sharing ideas which I think is the most important part of web we now use.
The web lends itself nicely to the formation of communities. Even from the earliest days of the internet users have been interacting in groups and creating communities. Lets have a look at some of these online communities.
IRC or Internet Relay Chat was probably one the first online communities to exist and is still going strong today.
Forums are now days a very common part of the web. But was around way before the internet we know today: BBS
A more modern take on online communities is the good old blog. Huge communities can be created around blogs.
I’m only including the obvious examples of online communities, but essentially any place where people can create content and interact on their terms is more than likely an online community. This could be leaving a review on an online store like Amazon, or it cold be posting that funny cat picture to your work intranet.
During the next 30 mins or so I’m going to share some of what I’ve learnt from existing in these online communities and hopefully give you some ideas you can take back and use within your intranets.
A vast majority of your employees are already using these web2.0 tools. Things like facebook and twitter are very nearly household names. People know how to use these products and are familiar with their rules and guidelines.
Web users are becoming very savy.
A recent example is the backlash that facebook has recently faced regarding their term and conditions. I know - it’s weird - people are actually taking the time to read all this legal stuff. It really only takes one person to start preaching the word and it very quickly filters through the entire network. As the provider of this service Facebook has no control over the spread of this information. The social web is one of collaboration and sharing. People are going to create any content they want and it’ll spread like wild fire.
An example of the perils of neglecting your users:
Who has heard of Ofoto? Snapfish? Shutterfly? OK - what about flickr?
Ofoto, snapfish and shutterfly were all photo sharing websites who lost sight of their most important goal: keeping their users happy and giving their users what they really want. They thought their users wanted cheap printing. So these guys effectively undercut each other out of the market. “We can provide cheaper printing than that other guy...”
Then came along this new player - flickr. These guys didn’t really care about printing costs.
They cared about creating an environment where people could use and share their content in smart and interesting ways.
Flickr allows anyone to leave comments or tag. You can become friends with anyone and it doesn’t have to be reciprocal.
Flickr recognized that people wanted a better way to share their photos. They also recognized that people might have myriad ways of doing that.
Flickr lets people derive their own value from sharing photos.
This is the sort of attitude you need to take with your employees.
All of them use facebook or beebo or youtube or flickr. They’ve become accustomed to having control of their experience within a web browser. There’s no need to be any different on the corporate intranet.
The very first line of defense is to craft a simple set of rules and guidelines. This doesn’t need to be a 50 page document outlining every possible thing that could go wrong. Start small and iterate as time goes on.
Remember that your employees make use of social media outside of work already. Embrace this - use it to your advantage. Give them a place that is familiar to them. This effectively lowers the barrier to entry. And once again start small and iterate often.
Give your users the tools to police themselves. This will lower the overall amount of time your intranet managers spend moderating stuff. Give that job over to the people who use the intranet on a daily basis.
There is a world of social media out there but sadly it’s overrun but the misfits and the antisocial types. The trick is to take your current company policies and sculpt them into a simple set of rules that would best suit the online world.
It’s also a good idea to involve a large cross section of your company to create these guidelines and help run and moderate your intranet. Traditionally intranets are run by either the Tech people or the Communications people. I would suggest trying to involve members from all teams within your company. Try to get representatives from each department and use them to be your Intranet Champions.
At my last job - which was at a fairly corporate company - I heard probably the best articulated bit of advice. There were a series of posters stuck around the office with advice for being an effective employee. The usual stuff like, “Help those around you”, “Always be closing”, “Lead by example”, etc - but the one that stood out for me was the following bit of frank advice:
I know it’s a little crass - but it’s simple and to the point. Many online communities have this or a variation of this high up in the guidelines. I like the way flickr puts it:
Their guidelines start off explaining what their users should do in order to have a good experience on their site.
Don’t tell your users what they cant do - instead tell them what they should do and how they should behave.
Your set of rules shouldn’t be intimidating.
The last thing you want to do is scare people before they’ve even had a chance to use your intranet.
Chances are your employes already use online communities and social networking applications so try to incorporate some of those common devices on your own intranet.
And as your intranet users start to interact with each other certain common interests will begin to arise.
I suggest swift moderation on groups that a little too subversive. There will almost always be that person who thinks they’re clever and misunderstood who will create a group that is a complete act of trolling.
I might take this opportunity to rant about trolls.
You more than likely will encounter trolls. They exist on all online communities. Their sole purpose is to provoke a reaction. They will prod and disrupt. They will write controversial, inflammatory things. They will cause trouble.
There are some techniques for dealing with trolls. Most of which involve ignoring them completely. There is a really interesting technique used by some online communities which I think is total genius. It has a really catchy name:
This is a genius piece of moderation that quite simply mutes the offensive user to the everyone except themselves. They can happily troll away but no other users are able to see their posts. I don’t know how effective this would be on your intranet, but it’s these sorts of ‘out there’ ideas that work.
In a lot of cases the best way to keep your online community a safe place to be is to let your users take care of the heavy listing.
There is a concept that is central to a lot of online communities - and that is the concept The Wisdom of Crowds.
About 98 years later a guy called James Surowiecki finally wrote down these findings in a really good book called “The Wisdom of Crowds”. If you haven’t read this book I suggest you do.
One of the elements required for this concept to work is to give your crowd a simple task like guessing the weight of a bull - or marking a comment useful or not...
These techniques are used throughout the social internet. The ‘is this comment useful’ technique is one of the driving techniques behind the success of websites like Digg and Slashdot. Users are asked to vote for articles. The less popular ones never bubble to the top.
Flickr makes good use of the Report This feature. This allows their community to flag offensive images and videos.
Wikipedia has had great success getting the citizens of the world to write their encyclopaedia for them. But as you can see by this page, an awful lot of edits and rewrites have to take place to get to the perfect end result.
It’s important to choose a wiki tool that will allow you to keep an eye on these sorts of edits and reworks. It’s very useful to see who is making edits as it can help you spot the Intranet Champions and conversely the Intranet Trolls.
Remember to keep your rules simple, your design friendly and utilise the social nature of your intranet to help take care of itself.
I’m speaking about those pesky web2.0 websites your employees insist of using!
Blog, forums and social networks are becoming increasingly popular so it’s important that your staff know how to conduct themselves out there.
I’m going to share with your 5 things you should consider when creating your Social Networking Policy.
Social networking means different things to different people.
Are forum’s social networks, what about email lists?
Name specific sites and technologies.
Make clear whether employees are allowed to identify themselves as representatives of your company.
Remind them to be professional when representing your company
Blogs and other personal posts contain disclaimers that make it clear that the opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of the company.
In 2002 a blogger by the name of Heather Armstrong or Dooce was fired from her job because she had written satirical accounts of her experiences at a dot-com startup. As a result two things happened:
1) She learned never to blog about work, and
2) a new word was created. Dooced. To be dooced it to be fired from you job because of your website.
It’s therefore important that your social networking policy should make it clear that employees are not to reference any clients, customers, partners or coworkers without obtaining their express permission to do so.
You may already have policies in place that cover the dissemination of the company’s proprietary or confidential information, trade secrets, etc.
Reiterate this and provide specific examples as they relate to social networking sites
Social networking sites can be good tools for developing business relationships, but they can also turn into big time-wasters.
As with the “six martini lunch,” appropriate use often slips gradually into abuse without the employee even realizing it.
That’s why it’s important to set guidelines and priorities.
Your policies should make it clear that social networking activities are not to interfere with the employee’s primary job responsibilities.
Flickr community guidelines
Good copy writing, friendly tone
Jacob Neilson wrote a pretty thorough white-paper on social networking on intranet. well worth checking out
10 things you should cover in your social networking policy
How to write a corporate Twitter stategy
Great article about how flickrs polices their online communities. they have 30 million members who have psoted about 3 billion pictures...
My slides are available online at http://slideshare.net/darren131
Any questions?