20090916 AIIM webinar on enterprise collaboration and social networking

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Notes on slide 1

Here is the agenda.

We’ll start by setting the stage for how organizations should use these tools to collaborate more effectively, regardless of the tool in question.

The first step is to determine the business problem being solved. Many organizations want to do collaboration because they saw it on the cover of a business magazine, which often addresses the question fairly broadly. Ethan Yarbrough made a good point about this on his blog: “Tell a thirsty person to buy water and chances are they will. Tell the non-thirsty they should drink 8 glasses of water a day for the general purpose of better health, and you'll struggle to get uptake on the idea.” In other words, you want to identify who’s thirsty and how best to satisfy that thirst rather than generalizing. Some tools are more appropriate to certain issues than others, so selecting the right tool is important. As the saying goes, “when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.”

Next, the organization has to develop, nurture, and sustain a culture of collaboration. Managers have to understand the business benefits of collaborating and have to ensure that their individual staff members are willing to share. Andrew McAfee, professor at MIT and widely credited for the term “Enterprise 2.0”, argues in his upcoming book of the same name, “The main shift, though, and it’s not completed by any stretch, is away from believing that hoarding information is the way to get ahead. It’s moving toward believing that sharing information is the way to get ahead.” Some of those users might need some incentive to overcome their fears that sharing what they know will make them expendable. There are a number of ways to incentivize users to share, ranging from cold cash to time off to a simple system of rankings and levels. To paraphrase Napoleon, “A person will work long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon”. And it’s important to note that collaboration isn’t always one-size-fits all. There are different considerations for security, for the capabilities of the technology, and for different cultures at the organizational, departmental, and individual levels to take into account.

One of the challenges across all these tools is that users generally don’t want to use yet another tool. However, the benefit to many of these tools is that users already know them and are comfortable with them, either specifically or at least by type. So one dynamic to consider is in-the-flow vs. above-the-flow. For in-the-flow uses, move the work to the tool: put the draft documents and meeting minutes on the wiki, etc. That’s where they will be, period. Above-the-flow uses require the user to sit, think, distill down, etc. as in the traditional knowledge base approach. This is difficult for users to make time for. In-the-flow is generally much more successful at getting users involved – the approach therefore has to be to make the tools as in-the-flow as possible.

The next step is to find champions and early adopters. The good news is they are probably already there and may be champing at the bit to use the tools. An effective approach is to find a visible champion in senior management and get the champion to use the tools proactively and visibly. It’s more difficult to discount a wiki or social network when the CEO or general counsel participates.

Just a brief note on governance before we get into the tools. Much of the coverage of these tools today is on how to control them effectively. You are probably familiar with many of the reasons – the need to provide information to support litigation or audit processes, the requirement for government entities to comply with Freedom of Information or Open Records Act-types of requests, or the need to comply with other regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley or the UK’s Data Protection Act. Governance is important for all those reasons, and that there are ways to do it. This may mean incorporating some or all of these tools into a more formal governance framework. Your existing policies on IT, communications, PR, etc. may need to be updated to address these tools, particularly commercial ones like Facebook. You may also wish to consider auditing and monitoring these tools to ensure that you know how they are being used. We’ll discuss this a bit more shortly. And the organization might benefit from implementing enterprise versions of these tools that can be run inside the firewall, connected to its identity infrastructure, and managed locally. All of that said, our focus for this webinar is more on how to use these tools effectively in the organization. You can find more information on governance-related aspects on AIIM’s website.

Now let’s begin our discussion of social collaboration with blogs. There are many different ways to use blogs in the organization, often as a direct replacement for the email that continues to overload us all.

Blogs are a great tool for project management. Instead of sharing updates to schedules, drafts, etc. through email, the project manager can post them to a blog that is available to team members, managers, and stakeholders. When a new member joins the project team, they can review the entire project to date simply by reviewing the blog.

An internal blog can also cut down on email blasts from management, HR, or IT about upcoming holiday events, deadlines for payroll, or scheduled server maintenance respectively. In short, anything that is typically sent as a broadcast to many people and which doesn’t require everyone to respond can be published to a blog instead.

The first step to effective blogging is to figure out the purpose of the blog. Is it focused internally or externally? Is it to replace the corporate newsletter or to serve as a running commentary of best practices and items of interest? Next, it’s important to determine how often to post. Lots of room here, but the key is that if it isn’t updated with some regularity it won’t get any traction. The blogs most likely to be read are those that are informative, timely, on-topic, and that use a natural, conversational tone. That means that organizations should NOT require pre-publication review. Doing so will cause two problems: the posts will probably not be very timely (or regular), and they will sound as though they were written by committee. Make sure your bloggers understand what’s appropriate and what isn’t, and then trust them.

Next, let’s look at the most recent major entrant into social media, microblogging. The most popular microblogging tool today is Twitter, which is why most of the screenshots show the Twitter interface. But there are others, both public and enterprise.

Whether you use it for brand monitoring (as shown here), competitive intelligence, or simply environmental scanning, Twitter is a great way to keep abreast of things.

It’s also a great tool for sharing links to other resources, such as blog posts, wiki articles, presentations, or even other resources in other repositories.

And Twitter is great for sending reminders of deadlines or events – and for describing them to folks who aren’t there. This year has seen an explosion of “liveTweeting” sessions and I expect quite a bit of it at AIIM 2010 next year.

The first step with microblogging is to determine whether to use a commercial tool like Twitter or internal tool like Yammer or Socialtext Signals. Next, the organization should provide guidance for user names, bios, and pictures – both that users have them and what’s acceptable or appropriate. Identify publicly whether the account is an official one, and if it is, who is doing the updating. Follow other appropriate accounts, with two caveats: First, it’s OK to not follow everyone who follows you, and second, most users and organizations should probably do more listening than posting, at least at first. Once the comfort level is established, the organization should engage rather than simply broadcast. This will vary by organization and user of course but these tools are designed to be social, not one-way. And since microblogging is a subset of blogging, follow the blogging considerations listed earlier

Wikis are an exceptional tool for collaboration. Wikipedia is probably the most well-known example of this, but wikis are making strong inroads into organizations.

Wikis are very effective tools for collaborative authoring, including but certainly not limited to documenting processes, answering frequently asked questions, drafting and reviewing contracts or other deliverables, or updating, say, a records retention schedule.

Wikis are also great for setting up and managing meetings. A wiki could be set up for a meeting to get input for scheduling; draft the meeting agenda; provide supporting documentation (including links); and drafting and publishing the minutes of the meeting.

The fastest way to get people to use a wiki is to put things they need on the wiki (and remove it from other locations). If someone asks for it, direct them to the wiki. Put some draft content on the wiki so users aren’t staring at blank pages at the start. One way to do this is to give users their own bio or contact info page that they can then edit. You could also introduce draft content with errors and ask users to correct them. And encourage “wiki gardeners” – folks who may not be the most creative but who can fix errors, improve readability, and generally maintain and improve the usability of the wiki.

Social sharing tools are generally used to share a particular type of content as you’ll see in the following slides. What makes them social is the ability to rate them, comment on them, embed them in blogs or wikis, and subscribe to them. One of the key benefits across all of these tools is the ability to share your organization’s brand, experience, and expertise in a number of different and compelling ways.

Video sharing sites, such as Vimeo and YouTube, can be used to provide just-in-time training, offer technical support videos, or share customer testimonials.

Slideshare, Scribd, and Google Docs are all great ways to share documents and presentations. Slideshare in particular will let you record audio for a presentation and make that available as a “slidecast”.

Another significant use case is photo sharing. Sites like Flickr and Twitpick allow organizations and users to share photos of conferences or user group meetings; new or updated product lines; or even set up sharing for customers or attendees of a particular event

Getting users to share is often easier than some of the other tools described, because many of them probably already are sharing using Youtube, Flickr, or a similar service. So the concern here might rather be what should (and shouldn’t) be shared and how to share: what services, what formats, etc. Organizations should also provide guidance with regards to sharing personal information, personally identifiable information about others, confidentiality, and so forth.

Like most of the other tools we’ve discussed so far, social networking can be used in a number of different ways by organizations depending on the type of social network in question.

The first business use most people think of is networking and recruiting. LinkedIn is certainly the best-known example of this. And according to a June 2009 study from Careerbuilder.com, forty-five percent of employers reported that they use social networking sites to research job candidates – both to find new employees and to screen them out.

Social networking tools can also be used to collaborate across locations, timezones, and organizations.

And many organizations use them to identify and aggregate experts and information sources relating to a particular topic, again often across organizational boundaries.

As we’ve described with the other tools, effective social networkinsg starts by outlining a policy for user names, bios, and pictures. As part of that, users should identify publicly whether the account is an official one – and if it IS an official one, who it is that is updating and maintaining the profile. Organizations should provide guidance on following/friending and on groups and comments. The Air Force has an excellent flow chart that provides guidance based on the nature of the website, the nature of the post or comment, whether it’s perceived to be just grumbling or something specific, etc. And follow the guidance outlined earlier for blogging, microblogging, and social sharing.

In conclusion, social tools can significantly enhance enterprise collaboration, both internally and with partners, customers, and peers in the industry. It’s important to look at both internal and external use cases to ensure everyone knows what to expect. Organizations should do their homework and choose the right tool to solve the issue they want to address – which may mean choosing more than one tool. Finally, provide guidance to your users on appropriate expectations, train them on that guidance, and then let them use the tools. And trust them – just like you trust them when they leave the workplace for the day, or go to an AIIM chapter meeting.

Here’s my contact information including several social media sites I use regularly. I’d be happy to address any questions you have now, or you can reach me here as well after the webinar.

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20090916 AIIM webinar on enterprise collaboration and social networking - Presentation Transcript

Enterprise Collaboration And Social Networking
Agenda
- Setting the stage for collaboration
- Blogs
- Microblogs
- Wikis
- Social sharing
- Social networking
SETTING THE STAGE FOR COLLABORATION
Setting the stage: definitions
- Collaboration: Process that allows more than one user to work on a given item.
- Social media: Any of a number of tools that enable collaboration, including but not limited to:
- Enterprise collaboration: Collaboration within the enterprise, increasingly through the use of social media
- Blogs
- Wikis
- Twitter
- Social sharing
- Social networking
- Forums
What’s the problem?
- Don’t “do” collaboration for the sake
- of doing it
- Determine the specific problems
- to be addressed
- Determine which tool(s) will best
- address the problems
Create a culture of collaboration
- Managers have to understand the value of collaboration
- Users may need incentive to share
- Collaboration isn’t one-size-fits-all
In-the-flow vs. above-the-flow
- Users don’t want to use YAT
- But they know these tools
- In-the-flow: move the work to the tool
- Above-the-flow: requires time be set aside to use the tool
- In-the-flow is generally more successful.
Find champions and early adopters
A note about governance
- Why is governance important?
- Some tools may need to be managed more formally
- Address in existing governance policies and framework
- Consider post-publication reviews and auditing
- Consider implementing enterprise versions
TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG
Use cases: blogs
Use cases: blogs
Bringing blogging to bear
- Determine the theme and approach
- Determine the posting schedule
- Keep the tone natural and personal
- DON’T require pre-publication review
ALL A-TWITTER
Use cases: microblogging
Use cases: microblogging
Use cases: microblogging
Effective microblogging
- Determine whether to use a commercial tool or internal
- Set policy for user names, bios, and pictures
- Identify publicly whether the account is an official one
- Follow other appropriate accounts
- Follow the blogging considerations listed earlier
WIKI-WIKI
Use cases: wikis
Use cases: wikis
Working the wiki way
- “ It’s on the wiki”
- Seed content into the wiki
- Ease users into it
- Encourage “wiki gardeners”
SOCIAL SHARING
Use cases: social sharing
Use cases: social sharing
Use cases: social sharing
Getting users to share
- They probably already are!
- Provide guidance on what to share and how
SOCIAL NETWORKING
Use cases: social networking
Use cases: social networking
Use cases: social networking
Effective social networking
- Set policy for user names, bios, and pictures
- Identify publicly whether the account is an official one
- Provide guidance on following/friending
- Provide guidance on groups and comments
- Follow the blogging considerations listed earlier
Conclusion
- Social tools can significantly enhance enterprise collaboration
- Consider both internal and external use cases
- Choose the right tool for the problem to be solved
- Let the users use the tools – and trust them
For more information:
- Jesse Wilkins
- Principal Consultant
- Access Sciences Corporation
- Email: [email_address]
- Web: http://www.accesssciences.com
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jessewilkins
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessewilkins
- Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/jessewilkins8511
- Direct: (720) 232-9638