Enterprise 2.0 Exchange Symposium

Enterprise Social Media: Why we need to rethink systems management Strategic Research Initiative Enterprise 2.0 and Corporate Social Media
Dr. Paul Scifleet, Discipline of Business Information Systems, The University of Sydney
Dr. Kai Riemer, Discipline of Business Information Systems, The University of Sydney,

Example: A research initiative into Enterprise Microblogging
Initial questions:
What are the benefits? Will it improve knowledge sharing?
What are management challenges?
A more pressing question emerged:
What is Microblogging?
Research into enterprise use of Twitter-like services (e.g. Yammer)
12/12/11 Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School

Microblogging on Twitter
Study by Naaman et al. 2010
41% of all posts: information about oneself ( “ I'm tired ” )
25% random thoughts ("Blue sky in Winter ” )
24% personal opinions ( “ Great game yesterday ” )
21% exchange of information ( “ New Study on Enterprise 2.0: http:// ... ” ).
About 80% of post classified as largely hedonistic, self-referential forms of communication
Me-formers
Only 20% of users said to be Informers
Twitter has largely shaped the perception of Microblogging
Twitter motto: What are you doing?

Microblogging in the Enterprise? Controversial discussion in the ‘blogosphere’
Social Media Opponents:
“ Social” has no place in business
Importing Social Media into the Enterprise will lead to importing the same behaviours as seen in the Public Internet: Procrastination, time wasting, ‘chatter’
Leads to chaos – too unstructured, no guidance, detrimental to info management
Yet another platform: “enough already”
Social Media ‘Evangelists’:
Enterprise Social Media (Enterprise 2.0) will radically change the way organisations operate: breaks down information silos, re-engages employees
Flat hierarchies; network/idea/reputation-based authority, rather than role-based
Democratic communication structures
 Largely opposing positions

Study Overview (October 2011)
Four organisations so far
Communardo:
Software company
Communote platform
Team context
IREKO:
University context
Communote platform
Cross-project interaction
Capgemini:
Consultancy business
Yammer platform
Enterprise-wide
Deloitte AU (early stages)
Consultancy business
Yammer platform
Enterprise-wide
1 2 3 4

Enterprise Microblogging

Genre Analysis
Genre repertoire
A limited set of genres to describe the communication practices of a group
Genres
are “ socially recognized types of communicative actions […] that are habitually enacted by members of a community to realize particular social purposes. ” (Yates et al., 1999, 84)
Genres are the result of interpretation, cannot be directly observed
Genre Analysis:
Observation or recording of communication events as instances of genres
In our case text utterances captured on the EMB platform
Analysis of these traces of communicative events to identify genres
Identification by purpose
Overview

Two examples (translated from German) 12/12/11 Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School Blog post #1 “ Connection problem with #ALE is solved. But there is another problem emerging: The configuration of … @jkl can you please handle that? Btw, we should prepare a support offer for #OJO. There is demand for support from them right now. ” Blog Post #2 “ WuLa-platform is #Live! Great @ejc @lue @esa Need to send out support offer. #Essa is next topic We get a reference release from #HAS @oha how do I do that? ” Update task Notify of emerging problems Delegate To Do Social Feedback To Do Update event Ask how-to questions Genre codes

(1) Communardo Genres  Individual focus: why does someone post on the platform? 12/12/11 Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School

(2) IREKO Genre distribution Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School 12/12/11

Comparison between cases (1) and (2): what is microblogging?  striking differences Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School 12/12/11

(3) Capgemini Genre Repertoire Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School Genre Repertoire Information sharing (12.0%) Post links & references Notify of upcoming events Others (8.2%) Provide social feedback Self Marketing | Note To do Opinion & Clarification (44.3%) Ask for opinion | Voice opinion Ask for clarification | Provide clarification Problem solving & support (18.8%) Ask for solution (how-to) | Provide solution Ask for resources | Provide resources Updates & notifications (16.7%) Ask for status update | Provide status update Ask for task update | Provide task update 12/12/11

Microblogging as contextual practice Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School Twitter Capgemini Communardo IREKO 12/12/11

IT management is modelled on the basis of traditional systems thinking A System is in state A: e.g. “as-is process” e.g. ERP Messiness of the everyday world Appropriation, “unfaithful use” Does it work ? B Change management B Intended systems state B e.g. “to-be” process” Intervention Systems implementation & Rollout. ! B*

Traditional systems thinking
Planning : Orderly process, top-down, guided by rationality
Fit : Focus on task, individual and the technology  create “fit”
Causality : Assumption of (linear) causality of intervention
Constraint : IT will prescribe ways of working
Solution : IT as bearer of knowledge regarding process, best practice, task
Principles

Emergent Social Software Platforms
K ey principles of emergent social software platforms (McAfee 2009) :
S implicity : providing only as much functionality as needed,
P articipation : users on these platforms are not merely consumers, but producers i.e. write, edit, rate and comment on content
I nteraction and communication : either indirectly through facilitating shared context and relationships among users, or directly as communication
McAfee (2006): Enterprise 2.0 = use of emergent social software platforms

Complex Adaptive Systems 12/12/11 Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School A B ? C X D Y

Complex Adaptive Systems 12/12/11 Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School A B C ? X Co-evolution of organisational system and technology Safe-to-fail experiments E Z

Complex systems thinking
Experimenting : Series of safe to fail experiments (exploration)
Appropriateness : It has to make sense in the particular context.
Adaptation: Mutual adaptation rather than (linear) causality
Guidance : Leadership and guidance to constrain the space for experimenting (promoting via ‘use cases’)
Self organisation : Engaged users will see the benefits and start promoting the service
Co-evolution : IT and work practices evolve at the same time (what the IT is becomes defined only through use in a context)
Principles
12/12/11 Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School See also: Dave Snowden – Cognitive Edge blog

E2.0 Project initiative: team and activities 12/12/11 Enterprise Microblogging Research @ USYD Business School Dr. Kai Riemer University of Sydney Dr. Paul Scifleet University of Sydney Dr. Alexander Richter Bundeswehr Uni Munich, Germany Group of Eight International Linkage Grant: Consortium Building w/ Munich Sydney University Business School Strategic Research Initiative Grant: Organisation of E2.0 Symposium Yammer Inc Research Assistance Grant: Yammer Data Analysis 1 PhD student early stages, 1 more prospective So far 4 short student theses on EMB topics One more currently ongoing.

Publications and theses on EMB
Riemer K, Diederich S, Richter A and Scifleet P 2011 'Short Message Discussions: On the Conversational Nature of Microblogging in a Large Consultancy Organisation', Proceedings of the 15th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems PACIS 2011 - “Quality Research in Pacific Asia” , Brisbane, Australia, 11th July 2011
Riemer K, Altenhofen A and Richter A 2011 'What are you doing? – Enterprise Microblogging as Context Building', Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Information Systems 2011 - "ICT and Sustainable Service Development" , Helsinki, Finland, 11th June 2011.
Riemer K, Richter A, Diederich S and Scifleet P 2011 'Tweet Talking - Exploring The Nature Of Microblogging at Capgemini Yammer', Business Information Systems Working Paper , Sydney, Australia.
Riemer K, Richter A and Boehringer M 2010 'Enterprise Microblogging', Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE) , vol.2:6, pp. 391-394.
Riemer K and Richter A 2010 'Tweet Inside: Microblogging in a Corporate Context (Winner of The Bled Outstanding Paper Award)', Proceedings of the 23rd Bled eConference 2010 - "eTrust: Implications for the Individual, Enterprises and Society" , Bled, Slovenia, 23rd June 2010.
Ruwen Reddig (2011): “Yammer @ Deloitte AU” (early stages)
Philip Overfeld (2011): "Sensemaking in social media adoption: Investigating user conversations during Yammer appropriation at Capgemini" (Capgemini case)
Stephan Diederich (2010): "Microblogging in the Enterprise: A case study comparison with Twitter" (Capgemini case)
Friederike Althen (2010): "Adoption of Enterprise Microblogging: Exploration of User Types and Communication Behaviour" (Capgemini case)
Alexander Altenhofen (2010): "Enterprise Microblogging in group work: an exploratory case study using genre analysis” (IREKO case)
October 2011

Enterprise 2.0 Exchange Symposium

by Kai Riemer on Dec 12, 2011

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Enterprise 2.0 Exchange Symposium — Presentation Transcript