Making the Case for
Social Networks in
Organizational Settings
IA Summit 2009 - Olga Howard
Note: Please read the accompanying paper at http://olgahow.com/research/

Olga’s Identity
iend
Wife Artist
Mom Fr
We Are Not Just Our Work Title!
IA

Hal Got a Job
in Copenhagen

SixDegrees.com
We need
someone. Let’s
talk!
Anybody
in Copenhagen have
a job for me?

Let’s Meet Charlene
Created by Janet Clarey two years ago

home
24/7

work
9 to 5

home
broadest possible audience

work
one

home
contributes knowledge to the
broadest possible audience

work
doesn’t know who people are

home
uses new communication
technologies

work
she uses old technology

At home:
1) We can gather information fast
2) We participate within the broadest possible audience
3) Our knowledge base is as broad as we want it to be
4) We meet and get to know people through persistent chit chat in
social platforms
We want this kind of efficiency
and freedom at work!

The Small World Problem

Six Degrees of Separation

3 Steps
6 Steps
Which is faster?

Erik Johnson of Cubeless
If we think about how long it takes for a person to
• open the email,
• consider if he or she has the information, think about
• who else might have the information, add those people to a
• new forward message, and
• send, each person going through that process could easily spend....
How long? 4 minutes

In this small sample the company spent 7.25 hours
of company time looking for information!

This company spent 40 minutes of
company time looking for information!

AFTER 9/11 the federal government mandated better
communications within the Intelligence Community.

Opinion Opinion
I wrote a
John has brief on that
Good
Meh Opinion Opinion Opinion
Opinion info
The Broadest Possible Audience

Question?
If we agree that the value of the organization is its people, then we will also
agree that the value of the organization is the sum of the knowledge
of its people.
If this is true, and your organization
is operating in an email platform,
your employees only have access
to a small portion of that
knowledge.

Erik Johnson of Cubeless
“Social platforms strip away function, geography, and titles.
All that’s left is what makes us people. “

Titles are constructs created by organizations in
order to classify us into a monetary and task system.
Anders Ramsay

The 150 Rule
Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist whose research is the
basis of the 150 rule, found that peer pressure is a powerful
tool in getting people to do their best work.
When groups are larger than 150, employees start to
become strangers to each other and begin to look at things
through the framework of ‘what’s-in-it-for-me’ rather than
‘how-can-I-help-you-do-better.’

The 150 Rule
There are no traditional organizational charts, no chains of
command, nor predetermined channels of communication.

The Serendipity Factor
“As it turned out, Tom was also developing an application for mobile phones, and I soon
discovered that he was an expert on Symbian. I was elated because I had found someone
who could help me with some difficult programming problems, but I couldn't help feeling
some regret. Had I only taken any number of chances to introduce myself earlier, his
expertise would have saved me weeks of frustration.
Nathan Eagle
Nathan Eagle at MIT decided to take advantage of mobile
phones and create a piece of technology that would connect
people who don’t know each other, but should.

But serendipity is not the best part of tweeting......

In the survey I asked 4 questions:
1. Stuff in my work email box that does not pertain to me is..
2. The stuff in my work email box that I can ignore is..
3. The stuff in my work email box that I need to respond to is..
4. The stuff in my work inbox that is imperative I respond to is..

Wasted Effort
40
30
Response percent out of 32 people
20
10
0
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% of email that does not pertain to me
% of email that I can ignore

Must Do
50.0
37.5
Response percent out of 32 people
25.0
12.5
0
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% of email I need to respond to
% of email that is imperative I respond to

Imagine a social environment:
• Twitter-like feature in intranets? Everyone in the
company would know what everyone else is doing
• People would scan the conversations, and ignore
what’s not relevant.
• Once in a while, they would find something
meaningful that they could contribute to.

Imagine a social environment:
Waste time
&
Misbehave

Imagine a social environment:
Most users have ‘edit wars’ and debates.
Which is exactly the point of Intellipedia.
• Your reputation is your calling card.
• Has seen less than 1% of misbehavior.
Sean Dennehy
Intellipedia and Enterprise 2.0
Evangelist at the CIA
Current trends say people DON’T misbehave

When an employee leaves?
In a social platform there is a
contextual blue print left by the
chit-chat.

Who Benefits Most?
Yep. Human Resources

The Future of Organizations?
• Like Gore, companies will create smaller groups around products
• Companies will become flatter, less hierarchical
• Managers will become less like managers of people and more
like party planners (what person should sit next to what
person)

Who’s Already Doing This?
PBS
Cubeless
Thought
Farmer

Thanks!
olgaHOW
olgahow.com
703-627-1847