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Enterprise 2.0, french touch : the white paper

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This collaboratively and collectively written book about Enterprise 2.0
is the English version of the original French, pub...
Social Innovation: The Power of Communities to Innovate


The enterprise lies at the heart of fast-paced social change. Co...
openness and a shared sense of purpose. Sharing and dynamically leveraging
knowledge in this way implicitly puts employees...
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Enterprise 2.0, french touch : the white paper

  1. 1. This collaboratively and collectively written book about Enterprise 2.0 is the English version of the original French, published online at the end of last year. This translation was made possible by a partnership with the company LinguaSpirit, who carried out the work for us. We would like to thank them for it. LinguaSpirit is a translation agency with a particular focus on web communication, working to make translation adaptable and accessible. Our team is made up of professional translators from a variety of backgrounds with wide-ranging language and technical skills. We offer our services to NGOs and charities on a voluntary basis via FreeSpirit and provide free translations to blogs of all kinds. Translation is our profession, but breaking down language barriers is our calling.
  2. 2. Social Innovation: The Power of Communities to Innovate The enterprise lies at the heart of fast-paced social change. Consumer behavior, lifestyles and uses are undergoing paradigm shifts. As product offerings are constantly rolled out, novel approaches are emerging to foster loyalty and shape new services. Never before has so much information been available to so many people at any one time. Not a day goes by without the launch of another innovative device that quickly becomes an ubiquitous part of our everyday lives. In the enterprise, employee expectations are evolving as a new "wired" generation of Internet-savvy people enters the market. New business models are emerging to hone firms' competitive edge, which in turn are spurring new needs and uses. To stay agile and stay ahead of the curve, companies must open up and adjust to all this change. The answer lies in devising new ways of imagining, creating and innovating collectively by connecting knowledge, skills and talent. Employers must also learn how to uncover, recognize and leverage talent more dynamically, harnessing both individual and collective contributions. Much more than simply implementing specific tools, today's enterprise focuses more on
  3. 3. openness and a shared sense of purpose. Sharing and dynamically leveraging knowledge in this way implicitly puts employees at the heart of the process. In Enterprise 2.0 companies, employees are discovering new ways of learning, interacting and understanding. At the same time, it is up to the enterprise to provide an environment conducive to exchanging and connecting ideas, as well as organizing its wealth of intellectual property. The key to connecting teams, processes, information, data and virtual experiences lies in empowering organizations and their various job families to expand their horizons, allowing them to interact and collaborate across organizational boundaries in order to spur innovation. As part of the quest for innovation, companies must also look beyond the confines of their organizations to include their entire customer, partner and user ecosystem, fusing the imagination of users and consumers with the insight of their design teams. Enabling everyone - from employees to customers, suppliers, users and consumers in general - to play an active part in innovation processes is the underlying principle behind the Dassault Systèmes (DS) Social Innovation strategy. This approach was given renewed impetus two years ago following the worldwide deployment of the DS SwYm community platform across the Group's entire organization. Several companies have already embraced 2.0 Transformation, which is where the future lies for enterprises of all sizes and in all business sectors. Enterprise 2.0 is today recognized as a catalyst for sustainable innovation. Pascal Daloz is Executive Vice President, Strategy & Marketing, at Dassault Systèmes. Prior to this, he was Research & Development Director in charge of Business Development for the Group. Pascal has extensive experience in strategy with investment banking and consulting firms, including five years at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he served as a senior technology analyst, and five years at Arthur D. Little. He is a graduate of the École des Mines de Paris engineering school in Paris.
  4. 4. When we think of about "Enterprise 2.0" since 2006, the year that Andrew McAfee coined the term, we see that there has been considerable experience feedback in France in 2010. The term is certainly employed more on the Web than it is by companies, but whatever the term, the results cannot be ignored— there are a large and growing number of these types of projects. It seemed beneficial to address the subject through a variety of lenses, supported by consultants, operational staff, and editors. All too often the idea of Enterprise 2.0 is reduced to a set of tools that are applied through a collaborative platform or an enterprise social network (ESN) and with a uniquely internal focus. That is to say, the implementation of collaborative processes surrounding these tools and the affect they can have on organization and governance. I wanted to address each aspect of Enterprise
  5. 5. 2.0 that make it an all-encompassing enterprise I believe to be made up of 3 elements. The first and most common element is the creation of a business network, often a community, in order for employees to work collaboratively. It is not a pilot project or an extra layer added onto other processes, but rather the backbone of an organization around which are organized all of the businesses processes. The second element, has to do with managing external stakeholders, such as partners or clients in community management way. Unlike managing a social media presence, this means the complete administration of a ―personal‖ environment (not a Facebook page), where one is free to establish their own rules and manage the community. It’s from this community that you’ll generally find your ambassadors. Once again, a collaborative working approach with stakeholders is needed in order to benefit everyone involved, perhaps resulting in co-creation. The third element has to do with engaging the business in social media. Business is not self sufficient, "no one is an island"; it is connected to the rest of the world, especially by social media. This engagement begins with monitoring, in preparation to interact—whether it be to find an idea, to increase your exposure, to find clients, to respond to criticisms etc. You need to create value for your business, not only through the use of a conversation manager, but with each and every colleague in the business. In closing I'd like to thank two people who helped me with the practical details of this project: Frédéric Domon for the layout and the graphics and Tarik Lebtahi for his help in obtaining such a prestigious preface author. Of course I'd also like to thank all those who contributed to make this project possible. Happy reading
  6. 6. pg. 3 Preface by Pascal Daloz pg. 10 Training by Claire Leblond pg. 15 Positioning in IT by Cécil Dijoux pg. 21 Collaborative Platforms by Arnaud Raynole pg. 26 ROI by Bertrand Duperrin pg. 31 Change Management by Frédéric Charles pg. 39 Labour Relations by Vincent Berthelot pg. 44 Governance and Management by Anthony Poncier pg. 49 Monitoring by Aref Jdey
  7. 7. pg. 53 Knowledge Management by Christophe Deschamps pg. 57 Storytelling by Camille Alloing pg. 61 Social Learning by Frédéric Domon pg. 67 Integrated and Responsible Participative Innovation by Muriel Garcia pg. 72 Internal Communities and CSR by Fabrice Poiraud-Lambert pg.79 BtoB by Alain Garnier pg. 83 Personal Branding by Fadhila Brahimi pg. 89 Generation Y by Julien Pouget pg. 93 Employer Brand by Franck La Pinta pg. 98 Social CRM by Mark Tamis pg. 105 Social Media by Emilie Ogez
  8. 8. SKEMA Business School is the result of the merger between CERAM Sophia and ESC-Lille. SKEMA’s strategy prioritizes training future managers, pioneers of the knowledge economy who are "able to understand and adapt to their environment and create sustainable performance." The role of the school’s faculty is therefore to "train 2.0 managers" who cooperate and share in order to create value together. The task is not limited to using tools, but also involves mastering the practices that make the participating students evangelists within the workplace, able to fulfil the expectations of businesses whilst being aware of impacts on the environment.
  9. 9. The Geemiks (a team of community organisers and research assistants at SKEMA), have up to this point focused on connecting individuals with information (publications, databases, learning platforms, information portals, thematic environments, resources training…), but from now on they will turn their attention to a second level of connections: connecting individuals to each other (students-teachers-speakers-colleagues-businesses). This involves making introductions, promoting connections between people in networks and creating spaces and tools to facilitate sharing, exchange and involvement. The aim is for each individual to develop their own ecosystem, which is not only informational but also social, building on the professionalization of internet customs and practices. This second phase is taking shape today with the development of a concept (La Fusée) designed to provide all the conditions necessary for the discovery and affirmation of talent—giving the people at SKEMA the opportunity to make the most of their skills, passions and values. The development of this idea involves, on the one hand, creating a space which encourages sharing while taking into account people's work place, conditions and hours; and on the other hand, offering new training formats that incorporate a process of distinguishing individuals as a benefit to the group. The space is located at the Lille campus and is unique in that it is multi-purpose and flexible. There is room for all the different stages of a project, from brainstorming to final decision-making. Individual needs are also catered to, with a layout and an atmosphere encouraging relaxation, reading, the exchange of ideas etc. The space is the result of a long period of reflection and is complemented by a virtual space that aims to use the web to break down physical barriers. SKEMA has sites in many countries and it is therefore necessary to give remote teams the chance to participate.
  10. 10. Although the Paris campus does not yet have this physical space, the concept is still being put into practice. Because there is not enough space at the two Paris campuses, we are trying to make use of other spaces elsewhere in the city. This option often has advantages because it allows us to think outside the "academic" box, encouraging innovation. With regard to learning models, we are setting up training-discovery modules, which allow a different way of learning. These modules have several different forms, adapted to various needs and preferences. Amongst these modules there will be:  Digital workshops: 45 minutes designed to discuss professional applications of the internet. We offer topics such as managing digital identity, use and validation of digital resources, monitoring techniques and a presentation on the law and the internet. These workshops do not have a defined programme. The aim is for the programme to adapt to demands made by students in order to better meet their needs and make them active in their education.  Cafés découvertes: share a coffee with some interesting people (artists, travellers, entrepreneurs…) in a friendly environment. As with the other modules, the content should eventually be determined by the students.  Babel café: learn a language in a friendly atmosphere by discussing current affairs with people from different backgrounds.  Training to develop creative potential, personality and talent; learn to overcome fears; understand how to form a team with reference to complementary skills; experience and develop creativity in order to innovate. This time-consuming training is offered by Isabelle NORMAND to a small number of students. However, this approach is also reflected in projects that we are setting up with students, such as the Creatinove
  11. 11. project. This will be a year of discussions on MOBILITY, with approximately 30 students working on the many dimensions of the word, creating content from meetings and readings, to eventually organize and stage an event in March 2011.  The establishment of a shared monitoring system to learn how to share knowledge on target topics and co-operate in the creation of a common knowledge base.  The exchange and implementation of modules on managing digital identity. These will raise awareness and help students understand internet mechanisms and logic and to develop intelligent habits. Today we are immersed in the internet from a younger and younger age and do not always have a detached view of our activities. Lastly, making the student an actor and also an author presupposes that they will be allowed to share their vision and knowledge and use skills within the group that they do not usually use in an academic or even a professional environment. To do this we encourage students to lead workshops, organise cafés découvertes, write tutorials, share their experiences in a blog entry, to contribute to a wiki school of established themes, to collaborate on projects with teams in different places etc. The introductory training module becomes their own module, which they lead and develop. At the end of the day, doing is the best way to learn. The modules are designed with our ―school audience‖ in mind. This not only includes students, but teachers, researchers, partner businesses and professional networks. The ultimate goal is to participate in the creation of a knowledge and know-how network, involving both the school and external
  12. 12. participants, and is led not only by employees, teachers and the media library, but also by the students themselves. What can Web 2.0 bring to all this? Basically, by facilitating the development of these practices by building on tools often used simply for fun, participation in the community is encouraged. The next step: bringing together know-how! Claire LEBLOND is a "Geemik" and a Facilitator for the "entrepreneurial" community at the SKEMA Business School— where students, researchers, professors, businesses and people with business projects from the TONIC business incubator all come together. Part of Claire's role as a Facilitator is to promote a dynamic of sharing within the community. She usually works from one of SKEMA's two Paris campuses (at La Villette and La Défense) and also teaches courses in strategic monitoring and Business Intelligence at ITEEM. Claire is co-author of three blogs: "geemik", on our profession; "S’informer pour se former", a result of monitoring entrepreneurial trends and news; and "YouOnTheWeb" (on professional Web uses).
  13. 13. Social networks are at the doors of the business world. The question we need to ask is how can these collaborative platforms be integrated into IT management strategy? Over the last few years, companies have invested massively in analytical systems that enable them to streamline and optimize Enterprise Resources Planning—ERP, Customer Relationship Management—CRM, Supply Chain Management—SCM and Product Lifecycle Management—PLM. In his enlightening book on PLM (1), Michael Grieves proposes a map that illustrates PLM's position in relation to other analytical systems within business.
  14. 14. The goal of this article is to extend the map in order to show how Enterprise Social Networks—ESN can be integrated into this strategy as well as how they complement existing systems. Business Systems 1.0 Figure #1: Enterprise Business Systems 1.0 In Grieves' chart, the Y-axis identifies the different functions and activities of the company, and the X-axis, the different areas of expertise. The simple diagram shows where the systems intersect as well as the essential need for integration. For educational purposes here, the diagram has been modified to illustrate a basic problem in business that does not appear in the one above: managing non-captured tacit knowledge. The column widths (PLM, CRM, SCM) and the ERP line have been reduced to emphasize the fact that the systems do not cover the entire scope of the activities.
  15. 15. The fluid nature of ESNs As Andrew McAfee noted (2), these systems are designed to structure and control the activities of knowledge workers; they have clear limitations and a strict framework of responsibilities. On the other hand, Enterprise Social Networks are completely different. If ERP, SCM, CRM or PLM are complicated products with limited responsibilities, ESNs are systems that are "easily accessible, open, emerging, and in principle, without structure" (A. McAfee). Via the internet, these tools have shown their amazing ability for a wide breadth of collaborative projects and their easy to use nature makes them easy to adopt. They capitalise on the network effect to bring out new uses and their application can evolve according to need. In other terms, rather than forcing the user to adapt, ESNs adapt to the uses of the knowledge worker. This gives ESNs an element of fluidity that enables them to infiltrate and fill in the areas left unaddressed by other systems. ESNs have no predetermined form, they adapt to the form of the environment in which they operate: the type of activity and the area of business expertise or, at the very least, the corresponding knowledge captured in the information systems. Knowledge Capture ESNs are particularly useful for information capture. First off, it much is easier for knowledge workers to capture informal units of information into collaborative platforms (wikis, blogs, forums etc...) than as
  16. 16. formal entries into legacy enterprise systems whose reputation of complexity and lack of user friendliness intimidate users. Beside, these collaborative platforms also offer a single entry point for researching information, no matter the type of document (blog, MS Office, announcement etc.). This contributes to significantly reducing the time spent on researching information. Knowledge and Innovation Communities The second ESN core feature that contributes to this fluid nature is the idea of communities. The collaborative tools naturally contribute to the creation and the activity of transverse communities that, within the context of the company, are structured around certain areas of expertise, trade knowledge and know-how. These communities put the abilities of different experts from various fields (technical, architectural, product marketing, commercial, consultative) side by side in one particular area. This allows for the construction (and the capture!) of multi-dimensional expertise for specialized problems. As a result, by encouraging conversations between a variety of experts in different branches of the organization, ESNs allow for the clash of viewpoints on different ideas, which we know from Mark Granovetter (3) or Ronald Burt (4) is a great way to initiate innovation. Integrating Process Finally, the fluidity of these open platforms allows them an easy technical integration with other systems and by doing so, better integration of business processes (*Business Process Management—BPM). On the internet, online services (API) like Flickr, Twitter or Facebook are enjoying considerable success, in large part because of their simplicity. For
  17. 17. BPM (5) purpose, social networks provide an alternative light and fluid strategy to heavy and complicated Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Software vendors have quickly addressed the opportunity. SAP offers StreamWork, which integrates into its ERP ; Saleforces proposes Chatter an Enterprise Social platforms which integrates with their CRM while with 3DSwYm, Dassault Systems proposes an integrative community platform for its PLM V6 Platform. Business Systems 2.0 Figure #2: Enterprise Business Systems 2.0 The position of an ESN in a company's IT structure: a driver that facilitates knowledge capture and sharing, the creation of transverse communities and an easier integration of work processes.
  18. 18. (1) Michael Grieves: Product Lifecycle Management, Driving the Next Generation of Lean Thinking (2) Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Company Toughest Challenges - Harvard Business School Press (3) Mark Granovetter: The Strength of Weak Links (4) Ronald Burt: The Social Origin of Good Ideas (5) Forrester: Social Technologies Will Drive the Next Wave of BPM Cecil Dijoux has been working with Information Systems for more than 20 years. His work has taken him to large business groups, to start-ups, and abroad. He is currently in charge of the Development and Architecture Platform teams at Lectra for Lectra Fashion PLM, a Product Lifecycle Management solution for the fashion industry. Cecil has been blogging about culture, various organizations and social media for 3 years at #hypertextual.
  19. 19. Communication is Operation While some people see conversation and discussion as a futile exercise, in the era enterprise 2.0 engaging in communication will give an advantage to organizations that learn to master it. Email is in fact today's primary manner of collaboration It's a fact: the primary means of communication within companies is email messaging. Information is exchanged, meetings are organized and documents are sent. In the best cases, email is used to send notifications and contextualize documents that are accessible using a link. It's not wrong to have tried to structure the approach by planning or equipping with groupware. Exchange takes precedence over sharing. Primary needs rely more on exchange and
  20. 20. interaction than on disseminating or sharing resources. In any case, the extra effort needed is prohibitive. Is it an inability to move towards collective austerity? or a pragmatic need? When planning structuring projects, micro projects pop up, and these are spread out: their rollout is minimally planned and the people involved and the objectives change. The sprawl of the 'project mode' lead to a weakening of methodology: the requirement of collective work for communal practices resulted in the smallest common denominator winning out. The idea of collaboration has changed due to increased communication possibilities, or has at least become more broad. Or the limits of a document-centric approach? Is it the failure of structured collaborative processes? Or of traditional sharing platforms, i.e. "Groupware"? In any case, it is an endpoint for their claim to universality in the field. Let's look at some of their limitations:  document-centric platforms: difficult to share closely related information, even in the work version that allows for contextualisation that we just outlined for example. Sometimes we use a forum, but the segmented construction imposes disassociation between documents and discussion. So much so, that we use these spaces to create a complementary document reference system out of the platform of exchange that is still email messaging, creating extra complications in the transmission of resources for sharing within the project.  platforms requiring pre-defined organization: diagrammed structure, member list, options for space etc. This indicates that organization and structure needs to be anticipated at the beginning of a project.
  21. 21.  a space to be administrated: imposed so that all colleagues can have access. This option is generally avoided due to (justified) fear of the proliferation of interactive spaces or of centralized management of spaces that lack reactivity and are harmful to micro-collaborations. Collaborative management solutions remain adapted to project professionals, and may even be reserved for them. Our vision of collaboration has to recognize this and no longer systematically associate it with a need for document sharing. Introduction of organizational modes in a network Enterprise 2.0, as a scope, generates new requirements for collaboration. This is linked in part to new easier methods of exchange and connection between individuals. The new collaborative contexts Each project—or collaboration rather—leads us to work with new people. Motivation and level of involvement varies from one person to another. Less and less centred on process, the issues of collaboration are moving toward the capability to identify good partners, unite them, involve and even mobilize them. Practices that bring the social capital of each person to the fore are reinforced in proportion to the collaborative spaces that extend outside the borders of the company. Soft collaboration* In this context, new softer forms of collaboration that are focused on conversation and discussion are emerging, facilitating the understanding of others and based on organization within a network. It is up to each person to
  22. 22. initiate conversation and discussion with others in order to coordinate an action into which documents can eventually be inserted. By coming together, the discussion within a community can be organized and, if necessary, the information even structured. Information management; the entry point of which is the participants, the timeline and the keywords associated with the group. The presentation of the information is centred on the individual. Finally, it's about an organized version of existing email practices today. Diagram: Social collaboration - Sharing all information that relates to an activity within a conversation A complementary addition for existing collaborative forms It doesn't completely replace the existing tools—email or document sharing. It completes and works well with them, in a way that refocuses usage on the strong points of each one. This soft collaboration is upstream of the production process. Ideas and coproduction can be organized around conversations and their production is poured into a reference document project. It also has to do with less formal collaborations. It also allows for a refocusing of email use.
  23. 23. A paradoxical break in use Though this collaborative form is complementary to shared spaces and close to existing email use, it also represents a break in use that is sometimes difficult to deal with. Until now, I explained this mainly to try and position a new tool alongside email and existing sharing tools without providing any real explanation; the situation marked by the low adoption of 2.0 concepts and even more so by the lack of their implementation in business strategies. In other words, tooling steps often lack direction. I think that the issue surrounding the development of uses is better understood in large organizations today. I also don't doubt that next, creators will propose gateways with traditional sharing spaces and email. *Term used to qualify the fact that these new collaborations begin mildly and implicitly. They require no preparation and can start before any commitment to a team or a project. Arnaud Rayrole is the founder and Director of Lecko. For 10 years now Lecko has been consulting and assisting organizations to modify and achieve their Web projects and to develop new target uses. Arnaud has led several benchmark studies in his field, including on business social networks. These can be downloaded for free from the USEO community.
  24. 24. The question of ROI is the most debated and controversial subject in enterprise 2.0 due to the apparent contradiction of two basic premises. The first is that all investments are justified, whether in money, time or attention. The second is that the power of a 2.0 project lies in making an organization more adaptable, flexible and gives it the ability to react to unforeseen circumstances and solve problems that, in addition to regular tasks, are the norm for today's employees. As the system is designed to better respond to the unexpected - which is fast becoming the norm - it is impossible to anticipate the resulting benefits, precisely because of the unpredictable nature of the events we are dealing with.
  25. 25. It has long been said that there is no need to prove ROI and that the value of a project is intrinsic. General Electric acknowledged, after the fact, that their intranet '2.0' was "the heartbeat of the company." Easy enough to recognize in hindsight, but difficult to grasp inside the majority of organizations because there is no need to justify or address the issue. Does this mean that these types of projects can only see the light of day inside organizations that are "believers" or already convinced? Not at all. ROI needs only be studied and applied where suitable. Just because we can't plug the benefits into a model doesn't mean that we can't anticipate or measure them according to financial or other relevant criteria in order to discuss their value. Enterprise 2.0 is never an end in itself. It's a tool for businesses, for their strategy and operating methods. It stands to reason therefore that if nothing has changed after its implementation, the project probably shouldn't go ahead. This also leads us to view the problem in another light: if the project is only a means, the project objectives must also be evaluated. Innovation? Reinforcing the sense of belonging? Collaboration? Coordination. These are all measured in terms of ideas, of development cycles, of numbers of meetings, of the time needed to solve a problem, of the length of a sales cycle if targeting a commercial environment, of market conditions etc. The list of these micro- indicators, adapted to the working point of the company or of an individual employee, is long. It is simply a matter of isolating the ones that make sense in a particular situation, then it will be easy to measure any changes over time. After the question of measure, there is the issue of forecasting. It must be understood that within the framework of an enterprise 2.0 project it isn't the tool, but the work practices and the operating methods it enables that renders value. From that moment on, any rationale to establish and formulate quantitative individual behaviour is biased and, if at all reassuring, guarantees neither the accuracy of the forecast nor the improvement of the indicators mentioned above. This doesn't necessarily mean that the value of the project will ultimately depend on the goodwill of certain individuals in a best-case scenario and on chance in the worst. The confidence of obtaining expected benefits increases
  26. 26. by developing new daily work practices; and more so on their adoption rather than on the tool itself. Many rules, implicit or explicit, that are followed on a day-to-day basis, are subject to the restrictions of work tools that don't allow for certain methods of interaction or collaboration. When talking about tools that lift the restrictions in question, one has to consider rethinking the way we work. It is the only way of actually guaranteeing that increased collaboration and more flexibility in organization enable the achievement of the targeted objectives. It isn't about demanding more sharing and collaboration from employees, but demanding that they really think through the scenarios for employing the tools adapted to the objectives, needs and limitations of each person, the small daily routines that little by little transform their work. Only on these terms can we start off on the right foot. Enterprise 2.0 tools have no ROI; it is found in the new operating modes, procedures and processes the tools will support. Everything that is enterprise 2.0 comes from what is called the company's 'intangible capital'. This includes employee skills that are developed, the ideas and solutions they bring to the table, ties between employees that enable stronger collaboration, flexibility and information generation etc. Historically, companies struggle to capitalize on this potential in which they make significant investments to create more value. The reason is simple: until now, the tools available to employees hardly enabled them to be identified, mobilized and therefore utilized. This is changing with "social software", but only if the processes used to create value through work relearn how to take advantage of this capital that they couldn't count on before. Until now, the only goal of many "enterprise 2.0" strategies was for users to accept and use new tools. Following some success, they didn't necessarily manage to systematically create value. There is no use identifying an expert whom no one has the right to consult or who doesn't have the right to make themselves available. There is no use in developing ideas boxes to make an organization more innovative if the people in charge of innovation don't even
  27. 27. consult them. And there is no use in promoting the exchange and sharing of best practices if employees aren't allowed to use the new solutions in their daily work. Alternatively, take for example a company like CISCO, where decision-making and concept processes for new business models are constructed based on a network function and the ability to identify and mobilize a variety of expertise. The result is concrete numbers throughout the development of company plans—on what benefit they brought to the company and on the capability of the organization to take advantage of market opportunities. As Norton and Kaplan outline in their work "Strategy Maps", intangible assets only bring value when they are used as an integral part of a business process. From now on, the question of enterprise 2.0 isn't about demonstrating automatic ROI, but the transformation of human and social potential, made up of knowledge, ideas, individual or collective problem-solving ability and a tangible value at the operational level that will ultimately improve value creation. We don't need to find or reveal the potential of value; we know and can identify it. Rather, it is the capacity for value to become more than just potential that is in question. All of which leads us to look at the question of the ROI of enterprise 2.0 from a different angle, starting with a good set of premises and asking the right questions:  The "tools" of enterprise 2.0 have no intrinsic value. Rather than looking for the ROI of the tool, look at the ROI of the project(s) that the tool is facilitating.  The question is no longer asking how a certain tool will create value but how an organization will use the tool to create more value. An "enterprise 2.0" tool doesn't create any value in the organizational status quo.
  28. 28.  Rather than asking "what is the benefit of €1 invested in an enterprise 2.0 project", it's better to establish clear strategic and operational objectives, elaborate them in practical terms and then identify the tools that make them possible. The ROI of the project is to achieve more ambitious objectives using new operating methods.  To reduce the uncertainty that surrounds the realization of potential, the relationship between the enterprise 2.0 project and the company must be thought out in order for the project's contribution to the functioning of the company to be made as automatic and systematic as possible, even if other uses can no doubt be developed outside of this scope.  Finally, the costs of inaction need to be taken into account: leaving fertile potential fallow while investing in its development, maintaining bottlenecks on collaboration, and depriving oneself of the potential for employee innovation in an economy whose cycles are growing increasingly shorter all has a price.  Rather than thinking of ROI, think about added value and new methods of value creation. As a consultant at Nextmodernity, Bertrand Duperrin assists companies in establishing new collaborative processes and new methods for value creation. A recognized expert in issues concerning business social networks and their place in the process of value creation, Bertand is the author of a blog on the subject and participates in a number of conferences in France and abroad.
  29. 29. Change at the heart of the Business Social Network A business social network (BSN) connects employees within a company and thereby facilitates collective intelligence—the capacity to share information and collectively produce knowledge and know-how. A BSN complements document-centred activities, such as document or knowledge management. It relies on the ties between employees, and not on a search engine, to filter and make sense of information, sometimes is quasi-real time. For a company to arrive at this level of operation, the dominant factor is definitely the human one. Implementing a BSN requires leading major changes. On the other hand, the network is a great lever for change and for
  30. 30. decompartmentalizing the company—especially for companies that need to adapt to markets that are going through major changes. This two-sided dynamic is fuelled by change; properly managing this over the medium-term is definitely a factor in a company's performance. This article focuses on the internal aspect of a company and doesn't touch on change when it concerns the rollout of an external BSN with clients. What is change management? When talking about change management, we mean the capacity to implement and lead a support program that includes several aspects:  ongoing and varied communication,  developing skills (training, coaching, ...),  developing organisation and operations,  adapting management methods. Change management happens through the use of the system of the future, and in the case of BSN, on it being deeply rooted in company operations; the singular goal being that a "critical mass" of users take advantage of all the BSN has to offer. Two failures to be avoided are under-use and misuse. Under-use, because putting a BSN in place is an investment. Even if return on investment is seldom the primary objective for its implementation, under-use reduces any potential gains accordingly. And in a more empirical way, to benefit from "Metcalfe’s Law", which states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system: so if there are two times as many users, there is four times the value for each member. The ever-present risk of rejection can lead to under- use.
  31. 31. Misuse is a traditional failing of recently implemented systems. It remains something to watch for in the case of BSN but isn't always necessarily something negative and is therefore more difficult to value. If new, initially unanticipated, uses emerge, they can benefit the company through the use of the BSN and by the results they generate. How can we address these two risks? Let's start by identifying the changes The first step in this type of program is identifying resulting changes; the things that will impact the implementation of the network. The primary resulting changes identified are:  not knowing beforehand who will read what is written to them; a big difference compared to email, which remains the company's principal means of communication.  the creation of an internal digital identity that includes a trace, open to everyone, of all someone's comments. Also open to all are simple things like someone's photo (unbelievable but true!)  a reconsideration of established hierarchies—seeing as everyone can comment on any subject. Who is that and on what authority do they speak to that subject?  changes in behaviour such as "the principle of sharing" and "the right to err"; uncertain answers like "I don't know but ask so-and-so..."  increasing the speed of getting information out and around the company—observed several months after implementation,  etc. It is also identifying opportunities for change that can be introduced by implementing a BSN:
  32. 32.  decompartmentalizing services,  the possibility of addressing diverse and broad themes such as innovation, ethics and security, without needing to create a specific organisation in order to do so,  the return into operations, with a greater visibility, of employees and networks that are sometimes "buried" in the company: archivists, knowledge managers, analysts etc.  etc. The work of identifying these opportunities is difficult to execute in a "theoretical" manner prior to implementing the BSN. Experience feedback from companies that are more advanced in their implementation should therefore be counted on as much and as early as possible, and then extrapolated to one's own business. Be smart from this point on when making comparisons within a certain business sector and count more on the "cultural and social proximity" of a company before drawing any comparisons. That way, two entities from the same sector— one hyper-centralized with a national brand and employees who have been with the company for 20 years, and the other hyper-decentralized with a local element and a major recent recruiting push—won't have much in common when it comes to the resulting changes and opportunities for change for implementing a BSN. The program for change management Based on this analysis, we're going to work on the 4 aspects of the support program presented above: communication, skill development, organization and the development of professions. Communication plan
  33. 33.  Primary communication is essential. It's the name of the platform! and its logo if possible. It can't be neglected—it's very hard to bring back. SwYm - See What You mean (Dassault Systems), Join (GDF SUEZ with the "in" de Linkedin), Engage (Alcatel-Lucent), LIO Plaza (Lyonnaise des Eaux) were the first ones to sign on (internally, understandably) and spur the question of whether or not to join a BSN.  Get rid of the domain names associated with the business. Tomorrow's BSN will no doubt be about collaborating with your partners under the framework of an extended enterprise 2.0 on the Web.  For the "big bang" or "viral method" migration strategy, prepare communication that is adapted to the launch. In the first case, a countdown prior to the launch and a tease inside the company. In the second case, a kit (email, information pamphlet, tokens...) for the first participants to go out and recruit people themselves. Teach them how!  The goal of early communication is to explain why the change is happening and why it isn't possible to remain static: too much knowledge loss within the company, email is becoming unmanageable, compartmentalization is obstructing innovation etc. Next, show why the change is attractive, what it will bring to the company and to each individual; this can be targeted and job-specific. Finally, demonstrate that no one will be left behind and that there will be an effort made to help bring everyone on board.  In any project there are 10% who oppose it, 10% who are fans of it, and 80% undecided. Obviously, the priority is to convert those who are undecided into fans before trying to change the minds of those against it. At first, the latter will cite over-exaggerated risks (confidentiality, legal, social etc.) that don't reflect the reality of implementation. At that stage, the risks are only potential, so monitoring the level of actual risk is important in order to progressively adapt to increasing risks. But under no circumstances should you plan a security device from the beginning
  34. 34. that is out of touch with uses and is definitely a deterrent to new membership.  Because growth is progressive (leaving time for the change management program to adapt), publishing planning boards or other items for internal communication—usage figures, ideas, examples, interviews etc.—will maintain interest and convince personnel while respecting the rhythm at which they sign on to the new changes. Skill development plan  An absolutely essential aspect to respond to the resulting changes, particularly those affecting behaviour: sharing ideas, documents, photos etc. A BSN Terms of Use is the first step, though rarely pedagogical.  Coaching the community leaders before the users is essential and should be a priority. Because the platforms are very user-friendly, the approach is often intuitive. What is not intuitive however, are the concepts and the leadership techniques. There's a "Community Manager" inside every employee! Start by drawing out the ones who will recruit, successfully set up the initial communities and ensure the platform's expansion for you. Identify these future leaders prior to the launch. Using the rule of 2% leaders, 8% contributors and 90% users, the number of people needed for a community of 100, 500 or 1000 people is easy to determine. Anticipate the fact that only 70% of them will be drawn to a well-established community.  Experience has shown that at first there is often confusion between a BSN and a company community portal. Training leaders can help avoid this situation, pass by down-the-line communication and engage the members in conversation. The positioning of a BSN within an intranet requires a lot of company maturity from the beginning. It seems more simple to do something separate so that users understand that they are
  35. 35. taking part in something new before bringing it forward as an essential piece of the intranet.  Skill development is also recognizing and placing value in good habits and know-how. It is a bit Pavlovian, but think about Foursquare, a growing social network that uses geolocation to indicate places the user has visited. What would it be without rewards and challenges for user actions; its Badges and the "ability" to become the mayor of a location? Development of Professions  The main subject here is the change in management. It might be a bit early for feedback within the company to go into detail about specific actions, but the business of managing an enterprise 2.0 is changing (read through the chapter on Governance & Management). One impact will probably be less technical operational support (the employee can get it themselves through the BSN), but more personal coaching and development. Integrating "generation Y" into businesses would be very helpful for management to adapt—or not.  The job of a "community manager", to lead external communities where clients (loyalty), communication, marketing and sales promotion all intersect. This job can't carried out by a "snipper" who is isolated and outside of the company, it needs an active internal component for the different jobs to increase efficiency and coordinate actions within external communities (Facebook, LinkedIn etc.). Organisation  At the organizational level, the priority is to implement something that enables you to manage the BSN. Even if launched by a functional department such as Communications or IT, it's essential that the platform becomes the company platform. A BSN governance committee has to guide the evolution and make decisions on rules as necessary. Should
  36. 36. YouTube video links be allowed?; did two different Department communities that were too "similar" reduce BSN readability; do the Terms of use need to change? etc. These are the first subjects for the committee to tackle. It can also have a relationship with an existing committee, like the Intranet committee, which is often already quite broad.  Steps for organisational change might be required to make the most out of contributions and optimize company efficiency. At this stage, the BSN has been successfully integrated into the process as a work tool for some employees—generally leading actors in the company network (Quality, Security, Monitoring, Innovation etc.). A real and encouraging sign of the impact of the BSN! Change management shouldn't be underestimated, even if there isn't an enormous commitment of resources. It shouldn't become an end in itself, but remain a catalyst: a chemical component that speeds up a reaction without altering the finished products. So grab your burette and start measuring. Frédéric Charles is the Manager of the department for Strategy and Governance at the Information Systems Directorate of Lyonnais Des Eaux - Suez Environnement. He joined the subsidiary in 2007 during the creation of the department for strategy and governance and created a collaborative IS division that includes all the collaborative services offered to Lyonnaise des Eaux's 7000 users (messaging, intranet, document management, social network etc.). The division provides a comprehensive and social platform ("2.0") to manage collective knowledge. Frédéric is the creator of the blog Greensi.
  37. 37. Generation Y, Enterprise 2.0, online reputation and personal branding are all key words. But they are above all customs and practices which have started to impact the way that trade unions currently make demands. To understand the challenges that trade unions are facing we must take a quick look at the developments which have led to a situation in which fewer than 7% of French employees belong to a trade union. Labour relations have a long history in France, two centuries of trade unions and their relationships with employer organisations and the ruling political bodies. The trade unions were forged in struggle and during exchanges which had more in common with conflict than dialogue, with bosses ill-inclined to
  38. 38. share or have their decision-making powers questioned. Trade unions had their trente glorieuses before a worrying decline: a decline related to changes in business and the economy; to relationships that place the individual at the heart and weaken the collective; to globalisation, which has many effects, but the principal result of which is to distance the decisions applied on a local level from those really responsible for them. This decline, which has led to de-unionisation, goes hand in hand with low turnout—not only in elections for industrial tribunals, but also in the general and presidential elections. In this context, Enterprise 2.0 offers a new perspective on possible developments in labour relations in business because it links at once the notions of autonomy and collective, transparency and openness. There are a few questions that immediately spring to mind:  What is the role of the trade union between a connected employee and a collaborative business?  What will be the new forms of action, relationship and dialogue?  Likewise, what role will mediation, guaranteed by the trade unions, play during a conflict between the collective and management? As we know, Enterprise 2.0 has been the victim of a rather rose-tinted, touchy- feely vision of business, in which everyone collaborates, communicates, works and innovates for a better collective performance. Let’s forget role-playing
  39. 39. games, Iribarne’s logic of honour and Crozier’s actors theory1, and go back to the fantasy of business without paralysing hierarchy, that allows autonomous individuals to better fulfil their duties. So Enterprise 2.0 isn’t interested in labour relations: it assumes that the question has become useless, because transparency and openness allow us to resolve the slightest problem almost in real time. We reflect very little on the role of intermediaries, and therefore managers as staff representatives in this version of the concept, as well as the North American cultural assumptions introduced by the Enterprise 2.0 concept. A flat business wants to become more communicative and simple, but destroys mechanisms in place since the start of the capitalist business model in trying to do so, without gaining any clue as to how to achieve the transition. The actual representation of unions is already caught between the dissatisfaction of employees, dating back more than 15 years now, and the increasing power of the internet, which allows employees to side-step union spokespersons to make their voice heard. The hard truth is that this representation is only further weakened by the arrival of 2.0. Imagine that a trade union is telling you about employee dissatisfaction about a certain project, a reorganisation or another collective problem by telling you the views of the rank and file. You, as a good 2.0 HR manager, show them the results of your own internal social monitoring: a positive online survey; no negative comments after your last blog entry on the subject or in the blogs of other employees; and the topic didn’t come up during the last video chat that you organised... At the end of the day, who is more representative? In the eyes of the law, it will be the trade union, if it won more than 10% at the last professional election. But what authority will it have to make suggestions, to 1 http://qualiconsult.pagesperso-orange.fr/crozier.htm 2 Distinction proposed by Michael Idinopoulos between activities in the flow and above the flow.
  40. 40. represent employees during the negotiations? Rejoicing in this fact, as many journalists and some politicians are doing, would be a grave error. They explain at great length that trade unions are out of date, in the way of change, too expensive and harmful to the competitiveness of businesses. The most short- sighted among them are even demanding that the right to strike be removed… Let’s not forget that the reduction in trade union leadership in a dispute often leads to radicalisation and the emergence of ephemeral coalitions with key actors who have no training in negotiation, quickly becoming an obstacle to a managed resolution of the crisis. We can retain a positive view of labour relations in a 2.0 business when we realise that there is a certain balance between the different forces and that the unions are not (as they too often are) a hiding place for employees without skills, leadership qualities or drive, who want to protect themselves. As a result it is in the interests of management to develop methods for their employees to express themselves within the company, so that they are not driven to external sites when they cannot make their voices heard internally. It must then adapt its social monitoring of these new tools. This will allow it to understand areas of tension as well as satisfaction amongst employees and pick up on the subtle signals which make it possible to measure the quality of social dialogue. HR departments will have to define to rules of the game to encourage this dialogue within the company, training managers in close social dialogue and improving on the use of these new tools, amongst other things. They can also produce a users charter for social media and carry out community management of different spaces in cooperation with the communications department. For their part, unions should ensure a better mastery of the different communication spaces put at their disposal by the company, whilst not depending on them completely, continuing to develop quality external communication and web tools as part of their union marketing. It is essential that they manage to people in management positions and work on the online reputation of the new ones so as
  41. 41. to inspire the confidence of employees and encourage them to come and seek advice and support. It is vital that all these actors understand that a presence in the different spaces of the Web, 2.0 is at the same time a usage test and an avant-garde standing, giving them legitimacy in the eyes of new employees who work more and more online and are used to such practices. HR professionals, like union officials, need to use their professionalism and competence to position themselves as the first port of call for an employee faced with a problem or a question, and not let Google, Twitter or Facebook take their place. Enterprise 2.0 has to be the recognized social link, and should be constructed revitalise the work and to develop long-term performance, putting the individual at the heart of business, a focus on the person, and not only as a way of making money. HR and unions may find common ground on which to develop a calmer social climate within the company and greater consideration of the need to listen to employees, to allow them to express themselves and participate in the smooth running of the business whilst ensuring its economic development. Vincent Berthelot is a specialist in internal and external social web- use strategies, specifically in HR, skills, mobility, management and labour relations. Using his background in HR and Intercultural Communication, Vincent was the first to launch an HR intranet at a large French group. He shares his views via his personal blog, Conseilwebsocial, consults and advises in the business world and participates in various conferences.
  42. 42. Governance in enterprise 2.0 When meeting with business managers on a collaborative project, the notion that collaborative = anarchic or self-managed comes up often (even if this 'fear' subsides). The role of senior management in not disappearing; it will validate the operational collaborative processes and collaborative components: internal participants, clients, partners etc. Even if there is a larger element of autonomy: it also means freedom and means of 'doing', and senior management is always there to establish business strategy and objectives. To develop collaborative working practices in a business, senior management needs to be more than a sponsor—it has to set an example, in attitude and in the use of collaborative principles. This materializes in greater agility (reduced decision-making times in line with operations and/or related to feedback), decompartmentalization, and transparency in line with a freer flow of
  43. 43. information. We can speak of an integrative organisation. The main difference with a classic organization(al model) is therefore increased listening on the part of managers and the empowerment of their colleagues. Senior management therefore has to concentrate more on direction and results than on the micromanaging teams. The result is a reduction in the pyramid, to the benefit of a more horizontal organization (based on the identity of those involved and multi-communities). As John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco has pointed out, it is illusory to think that one can manage 66,000 employees; which is why the rigid, bureaucratic side of an organization that is tied to the pyramid structure of classic organizations (delegative according to Henry Mintzberg) needs to be reduced. So the 'transfer' of this plan and how it is received can be accomplished directly, via the blog of the CEO, or more broadly through a collaborative platform that provides the employees with the opportunity to react and engage in dialogue. If governance evolves when establishing an enterprise 2.0 or a collaborative organization, it stands that the management methods must also evolve. Management 2.0 in your company When speaking about collaborative work within a company, the term community manager quickly comes up. If the creation of communities is one of the main results of collaborative work, it doesn’t mean that traditional management ceases to exist: the "manager 2.0" model isn’t exclusively that of a community manager. For a long time (and still often the case), the manager was the one with the information and they transmitted it to their teams based on the model of information = power. So what can we expect from the "next generation" manager? First, they need to instil confidence in their teams. This means the freedom to express themselves and to share, which will lead to participatory management
  44. 44. and even collective decision-making by the groups, and therefore ultimately more engagement. But the role of manager can obviously not be conceived with only power and hierarchy in mind; so the role will therefore be more the one of a facilitator or a coordinator. In any group dynamic, there is the potential for tensions and issues to be resolved; the person who is able to stay above the fray can help move things forward. If management participates, we can also assume that the level of daily delegation is substantial. The manager is actually there to help their teams grow and achieve results, and therefore to lead employees in the direction that the business wants to go, giving them the autonomy they need to grow individually and collectively. This means giving support, advice or offering help when needed. The time and attention given to doing this enables the manager to improve their team and take time to think about the direction of activities and above all, prioritize them in order or importance (important, urgent etc.) But more than delegation, the manager develops the willingness of their teams to work collaboratively and provides them with the means to do so (knowledge and capability). They will be a promoter. The manager will be the one connecting with their n+1 or n+2 in order to promote the work of their colleagues and to emphasize the personal and collective achievements of their teams. Even within a network system, we are much closer to "internal personal branding" that will capitalize on employee reputation within the company. This brings us to some key ideas:  respect rather than dominance  confidence rather than discipline  transparency rather than secrecy  the collective rather than the individual
  45. 45.  to value rather than to appropriate All of this is nothing new, much like collaborative work practices or communities (web 2.0 didn’t invented that). But many mangers are worried about their status in a collaborative company. If their role evolves, their actions will also have to evolve; being a manager doesn't mean displaying leadership. Nevertheless, managers within the structure of a collaborative company will no doubt have to display leadership. This means changing perspectives from a managerial skills standpoint. Managers will need to respond to two specific challenges: coordinating without centralizing; and doing so outside of a hierarchy. Both of these challenges present problems for managing a project and having a project manage you. To tackle these, and to allow everyone to develop their potential, you need to inspire the following:  a sense of freedom, by accepting to let got of—and "lose"—control;  a sense of community, by reinforcing the sense of belonging;  a sense of direction, so colleagues can completely invest in their work. By assuming this leadership posture, the manager will become an enabler that inspires their colleagues; freeing their energy; knowing when to make a decision or to reach a consensus when needed. This might mean going along with their colleagues in order to demonstrate an open mind, and enabling them to grow by allowing them to make mistakes (meaning delegation), without which confidence and risk-taking isn't possible. A favourable environment for individual success is created. This often scares managers. They are worried about what their superiors and their colleagues might think. Delegation doesn't result in decreased authority, doesn't take away recognition from, or of, superiors and colleagues. On the contrary—recognition and support provides motivation. The goal of a manager is to organize a team and to help them develop. A manager is judged in the way
  46. 46. they manage a team, not on their ability to do so. In the words of Peter Drucker: "So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work. In the new world of management I see frontline employees being in control of their own workload and calling upon the coach for advice when they need it." As a conclusion Some managers won't know how—or want—to take on this dramatic change in "culture". The role isn't necessarily for them, because it is sometimes too far removed from their own history and culture. Management therefore needs to be involved and exposed to different points of view. The more managers are involved early on, the less they will feel like "the fifth wheel" and will be open to change. Managers need to play a role in this change in culture and be recognized for its contribution to the collaborative company. They will also be the main liaison in implementing communities or collaborative work processes within the company. As I said before, enterprise 2.0 is integrated and doesn't push managers aside. For those who aren't able to adapt, the company owes it to them to give them other roles; providing their expertise for example. Anthony Poncier has a PhD in Contemporary History and a Master's degree in Strategic Management and Competitive Intelligence. He has taught International Relations at Paris X Nanterre and NICT at IUFM Paris. Anthony is Director/Consultant of management and enterprise 2.0 (management 2.0, collaborative projects, SCRM, social media strategy, etc.) at LECKO. He regularly participates at conferences in France and abroad, delivers university seminars at HEC and SKEMA, is a business consultant, regularly publishes articles for online magazines and maintains a blog.
  47. 47. Monitoring for enterprise 2.0 Attempting to define enterprise 2.0 would be a useless effort to force it into a framework, effectively going against its intrinsic characteristics. It's more useful to speak about what makes an enterprise 2.0 what it is: agility, the function of and a reliance on a skill network, using so-called social software applications at their fair value. A 2.0 business is fertile ground for exchanging skills between peers and knowledge between employees and professionals. At this level, information becomes the keystone for individual and collective performance—it circulates, is enriched and transformed into knowledge.
  48. 48. As such, monitoring in the broad sense, research, oversight and studies, will be focused on adapting to the characteristics of an enterprise 2.0. Without necessarily speaking of monitoring 2.0, the activity should include three key parameters in order to be able to bring real added value to the company:  An approach for governance and management  Intelligent implementation of internal skills  Technological support focused on the company's professions First off, it's important to think about the activity of monitoring in its entirety, across all aspects and functions of the company. An efficient and effective monitoring mechanism requires an approach for governance and management of the resources used and the activities put into practice according to collaboratively created processes. This type of governance will enable the evaluation of monitoring actions on three levels: operational, tactical and strategic. Management via key quantitative indicators also allows for the application of corrective actions. Moreover, an approach to governance enables the coordination of all monitoring activities in a 2.0 business and ensures a certain interoperability of individual and collective monitoring systems. This interoperability is all the more necessary in a 2.0 business; it's impossible that monitoring be entrusted to a single central body, or delegated without a minimum of participation and coordination of all employees. As it happens, it is a second criterion for monitoring in enterprise 2.0. Given the agility and the flexibility of a 2.0 business, the most appropriate model for carrying out monitoring activities would be a deft, delicate mix of centralization and decentralization; intelligently implementing internal skills, professions and support in an overall monitoring dynamic. This means that information-documentarian professional profiles like archivists and monitors will be oriented towards specific aspects such as qualifying sources, methodological transfers, internal coaching, managing software tools etc.
  49. 49. As for the professionals—engineers, researchers, product heads, marketing staff etc.—and their growing demands for autonomy in regards to research and oversight, they will be appealed to on the grounds of professional, even strategic, analysis. Based on their positions and their activities, these knowledge workers often request specialized, tailor-made monitoring in addition to their desire for autonomy when using and working with collected information. It's essential to come up with suitable collaboration methods to satisfy this group while subscribing to performance logic and professional processes. This happens principally by establishing practical and knowledge-sharing communities that bring together specialists and experts that could, for example, be led by information professionals. Collaboration can also occur through the implementation of analysis committees, by organizing a variety of professionals to deliver communal value added production: outlook, activity reports etc. Now collaboration becomes indispensible, above all in a context where a single employee can't provide all the working methods and techniques, the analysis and the production. It's more reasonable then to trust in this collective intelligence to provide and create added value that is adapted to all of the professions involved. With the desire to optimize performance and efficiency, this collaboration is impossible without basic technological support, in line with the global Information System of the company. Technological support occurs through the implementation of collaborative applications for content production (like wikis) or collective publishing tools (like Google Docs), but also occurs via Business Social Networks (BSN). A BSN can bring real added value, especially if it is used within the framework of specific professional projects: launching a new product, designing a layout, defining a benchmark etc. Through content sharing, physical and digital, and via annotation and comments, a BSN allows employees to give direction to shared information, tackle the different visions of the marketer, the engineer, the communications specialist and the product head. With a single interface to access Internet and hardcopy information, traceability and an activity history in
  50. 50. addition to co-production of content and direction, a BSN contributes to the creation of economies of scale and is synonymous with gaining time and efficiency, improving margins of error and therefore performance. As a conclusion, monitoring for an enterprise 2.0 is in essence collaborative. It benefits from social software infrastructure and, in particular, does so while understanding governance and management so as to ensure consistency and a dynamic that directly ties into the company's business. Aref JDEY is a consultant-researcher specializing in oversight systems and information management. Aref has an authoritative blog, Demain la veille, on monitoring and issues that come up as it relates to Web 2.0, social networks and enterprise 2.0.
  51. 51. Knowledge management is not a new subject. About 15 years ago Nonaka and Takeuchi published an article explaining how tacit knowledge could be captured, shared and recorded, mainly through the use of nascent intranet technology. From then on, knowledge management projects continued to multiply until it became apparent they weren’t living up to expectations, leading ultimately to disappointment and wasted money. What happened? Under pressure from publishers to sell software, we had forgotten a fundamental truth, as stated by Peter Drucker: ―Knowledge is between two ears and only between two ears.‖ The apple of knowledge is just an ordinary apple until you eat it. It is necessary therefore to find it, pick it and eat it to get the energy needed for action. In other words, you need to actively look (monitoring, filtering useful information) and then learn (analysis/synthesis, learning, ―rehashing‖) before being able to benefit (implementation, know-how, integration into a new theory). By acting on what was information, that is to say, knowledge-in-waiting, it becomes working know- how, i.e. knowledge.
  52. 52. What’s up, doc? The arrival five years ago of a new generation of Internet-derived tools has completely transformed the landscape of knowledge management. The fact that they came from the web is not insignificant. It means that very often they were created by individual developers (to begin with, at least) in order to meet their own needs: improved information sharing in a group project (Ward Cunningham’s wikis) or managing favourites (Joshua Schacter’s Muxway/Delicious). These tools were designed to meet individual needs—a very different situation from the first generation of knowledge management tools, which were focused on the sacrosanct document and placed the group (project team, department) ahead of the individual. Enterprise social networks (ESN) and the tools associated with them (wikis, blogs, microblogging) are focused, once again, on the individual; every action they execute in the system is automatically associated with their profile either visibly (group notification that So-and-So has shared such-and-such document) or invisibly (recording and combining clicks in an Amazon- style collaborative filtering system). The primary aim of these tools is to meet both the personal needs of the individual—finding useful information or the right person in- house—and their collaborative needs: working in project mode, creating a practice community etc. We always forget that collaborating for the sake of collaborating is not the goal, at least not in the business world. Groups, networks, communities and teams are, initially, no more or less than the sum of their individual members. With time, if all goes well and the environment is favourable, this sum may become a multiplication of talents. However, this is rare, strongly linked to the chemistry of the individuals involved, and rather unpredictable. This is not to say that we should not try to create the conditions to encourage it. If the features of the tool used are designed to serve the needs of the group before those of the individual, the individual will not be inclined to use it (the ―that thing is useless‖ syndrome). With ESNs, the individual is central because they initiate the conversation. By sharing a link to an important article, the individual generates reactions, discussion, arguments and objections... added value in other words. In doing so, these systems that enable information to circulate hold potentially valuable elements. Snippets of information stored here and there have the potential, once grouped together by an internal search engine, for example, to provide useful decision- making tools. This is the reason why, in our opinion, the next elements to incorporate
  53. 53. into ESNs are natural language processing applications (text mining via graphical interfaces for example) which will allow the user to use this internal database quantitatively. Returning to the comparison with the first generation tools, we must note the emergence of simple but indispensable ergonomic developments. One of the major problems was the fact that an employee had to duplicate information: I send the file to my project group and then I file it in the company’s KM system. This ensured that the individual spent most of their time working via email and hardly any time sharing knowledge by making contributions to the organisation2. Simple features now allow them to carry out these two acts at the same time. Chronicle of a death foretold Let’s be clear about this, enterprise 2.0 and the ESN have signed the death warrant for KM as we know it. Soon no one will be ―doing‖ knowledge management. We will go about our business and let the system gather information, restructure it, classify it, index it and notify anyone who has set up an alert etc. But is this enough? Not all the information that an organisation needs can be turned into a conversation. Technical data, job descriptions, standards and other ―serious‖ documents are hard to accommodate within conversations. There is therefore a body of documents that a ESN isn't able to handle. But is this new? For a long time in fact this information has been managed by professional applications, according to records management and archiving procedures that are much better adapted. Moreover, it is not knowledge that is more active than it was before, simply potential knowledge. This leads us to the conclusion that our systems have never managed (and will never manage) knowledge, and the question of knowledge management breaks down here. Both types of document are needed by organisations, however. Technical and formal documents must be managed because they ensure the quality of the output of the ―production machine‖ that is the company. Conversations must also be managed 2 Distinction proposed by Michael Idinopoulos between activities in the flow and above the flow.
  54. 54. because they ensure the smooth running of another machine equally vital to the organisation’s survival, the ―innovation machine‖. This machine, because it is made up of people who think, look for and share information, doesn’t fit into a method of information management which is standardised, normalised and codified. Trying to apply methods that have emerged from production management to the sphere of innovation and ideas renders them sterile. This is where 2.0 technology plays its role; by making the hierarchy more flexible and more adaptable to the complexities of real life, thereby allowing the emergence of a 2.0 business, or more simply, of a business which has succeeded in adapting to its environment. Christophe Deschamps is an independent consultant and training expert in information management and strategic monitoring. He is a professor at ICOMTEC and has blogged about Competitive Intelligence at Outils Froids since 2003. In 2009 Christophe published Le nouveau management de l'information - La gestion des connaissances au coeur de l'entreprise 2.0 (The New Information Management - Knowledge management at the heart of enterprise 2.0) from FYP Editions.
  55. 55. Relating knowledge, the place of storytelling in Enterprise 2.0 The objective of a so-called enterprise 2.0 can be oversimplified to facilitating collaborative relations between various actors in the organization. This is done to enable discursive interactions (through "interactive applications") and tacit knowledge sharing, generally formalized as "experience feedback" (through "integrative applications3"; a DMS for instance). This is knowledge management. According to Wikipedia, knowledge management can be defined as "a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences." The goal of systems, managerial or technical, associated with enterprise 2.0 can be to facilitate the circulation of employee knowledge in a company. One question to ask is: how can this knowledge be formalized through a perspective of sharing that is accessible to as many people as possible rather than for the reuse of "documents" (organized by defined, universal rules)? 3 Charlot J-M., Lancini A., Faire de la recherche en système d'information, Vuibert, 2002, Paris
  56. 56. "Storytelling" (as we will define it) is an interesting way to formalize the circulation of knowledge within business networks (intranet, BSN etc.). What's more is that these networks make it easier for various employees to interact and communicate. Storytelling: a narrative approach to knowledge sharing Basically, storytelling is a narrative communication approach: present the message in the form of a story (tale, legend etc.) so the listeners can find reference points (analogies) that enable them to understand the meaning and especially adopt the intended message more easily. Speaking more "conceptually", storytelling can be seen as a "strong cognitive hypothesis for the way in which we organize our experiences and therefore bring out meaning in our interactions.4" In other words: a way of formalizing our experiences, not according to their potential use (or reuse), but through the lens of interactions and exchanges that enabled knowledge generation etc. More pragmatically, to paraphrase Edgard Morin, there is no given objective reality; all of the knowledge that we develop is tied to the various interactions that we've had with others. For example, the process of creating a certain product is not innate; it is a result of the exchanges that take place between various project contributors. The interest is therefore to find and identify the interactions (discussions within a BSN, exchanges on an internal blog, sharing information and points of view on a wiki) in order to then transmit them to other employees as a narrative. And therein lies the question of operating in an "enterprise 2.0": encourage and enable digital exchanges so they can be formalized, memorized and communicated to the people they affect the most (company newcomers for example). The goal of storytelling in enterprise 2.0 is to emphasize interactions and conversations as a way of supporting the transfer of knowledge and tacit knowledge. What are the tangible uses within an organisation? 4 Soulier. E (sous la dir), Le storytelling : concepts, outils et applications, Hermès Science, 2006, Paris
  57. 57. When talking about businesses operating on a collaborative 2.0 model, there isn't a lot of feedback for storytelling strategies that have been implemented (at the technical and managerial levels) for knowledge management purposes. Nevertheless, in a 2006 article from a French management review on the knowledge management system as a support for storytelling in business ("Le système de gestion des connaissances pour soutenir le storytelling dans l'entreprise.", Revue Française de Gestion), E. Soulier, a French researcher working on the problem proposes several paths to develop a knowledge management system based on storytelling. Here are some of those paths, together with some other thoughts and facts on the ground:  Encourage narration during feedback by using video (video conferences, podcasting etc.): have an employee transmit their knowledge on a given issue using a video interview. "Staging" the experience feedback by encouraging an employee to propose a logical implementation explained in a narrative form facilitates the use of the "storytelling approach" for the transmission of their experience and knowledge.  Propose, during individual feedback sessions or once a project has been completed, interviews (filmed or not) wherein each employee talks about their vision of the project. The goal is to bring out similar "stories", analogies that are used by everyone that can then be made available (using appropriate tools like a blog).  Get moving again on the interactions and exchanges generated using internal 2.0 tools to try and "capture" the knowledge that comes up throughout the conversations. The use of tags can be useful (and reemphasize their role with certain tools) when they are inserted into a predetermined narrative.  If the organisation has a BSN, allow employees to clearly define their own "digital identity". History is written by people, so every employee can be seen as having a fixed role in a project (for example). Their "personality"
  58. 58. characteristics—their skills, needs etc.—are promoted when they register on the network. Organising a project doesn't go through "who can do what?", but "which personality/digital identity will advance the story?"  Present a project as an event within internal 2.0 tools. To sum up, don't present a "catalogue" of information about a project, but a group of narratives that happen between the information. Right now, the use of storytelling within enterprise 2.0 is more of a theoretical vision than a practical one. In order to be applied effectively, storytelling needs strong conversation and digital exchanges between employees: an honest conversational approach when working on company projects. The main idea is to render an operational act subjective and to use the often informal conversations that take place using the organisation’s 2.0 tools to do so. Nevertheless, this approach (in a hypothesis wherein there is fertile terrain for it to grow) seems the best suited to the transmission of knowledge, to metaphorically reformulating the actions and knowledge of every person. After all, who hasn't listened to the head of a large company begin a "corporate" speech with an anecdote about the how and the why of their success? More than formalising practical knowledge, the narrative approach enables the transmission of values unique to each organisation, values that are necessary for good collaborative practices in the company. Camille Alloing is a R&D researcher and author of CaddE- Réputation, a blog dedicated to online reputation-management tools and methodologies.
  59. 59. Learning is social by nature Without going all the way back to the theories of Vygotsky or Albert Bandura, the simplest way to explain social learning is perhaps to look at the work of Richard J. Legers (Harvard Graduate School of Education), who has shown that one of the most important factors for success in higher education is a student’s ability to form and/or participate in small study groups. In comparison to those who had worked alone, those students who had studied in a group, even only once a week, were more involved and better prepared. The students from these groups were able to ask questions to resolve uncertainties and improve their own understanding of the subject by hearing the answers to other students’ questions. The most powerful element was the ability to play the role of teacher to other students, as it has been shown that the best way to learn is to teach.
  60. 60. The philosophy of social learning is in contrast to the traditional Cartesian view of education. In the Cartesian model, knowledge is a kind of substance and learning is a way for teachers to transfer this substance to their students. Instead of basing itself on the Cartesian principle "I think, therefore I am", the social conception of learning holds that "We participate, therefore we are". It is in society that we learn. Observation, discussion and collaboration are also opportunities to learn. The social aspect of learning is fundamental. Social learning is therefore not a novelty that has appeared alongside Web 2.0. Learning is not an event When we talk about learning, we immediately think about formal learning; in other words, about training and education. However, this kind of organized learning only represents about 20% of everything we learn in our lives (see the works of Cofer). Solving problems, design, creativity, research, experimentation and innovation are full-fledged learning experiences. Sharing experiences, observations, discussion, helping one another and cooperation are also kinds of learning. 80% of our learning is therefore unexpected, unplanned and informal. From this point of view, the emphasis is less on the content and more on the activities and the human interactions that take place around the content. Indeed, real learning can be found in all the nuances of our way of collaborating, sharing and working. Learning is not something that takes place outside of work. Learning and work are in fact part of a single stream; it’s a continuous process, a skill, an ability to act. Enterprise 2.0 = Learning 2.0 In our businesses, we know that informal learning takes place all the time, most of the time however, the answers and the experts most capable of solving a
  61. 61. problem are not connected with the person who is attempting to tackle it. Social learning networks can remedy this situation by giving everyone access to a much larger group of people who can help them. 2.0 technologies are enabling technologies that connect us with each other, facilitating communication and collaboration. But they are not only technologies; and social learning, by allowing us to capitalise on the ever-increasing streams of knowledge that have made the walls of our organisations porous, fills the empty barrels of 2.0. 4Cs for Enterprise 2.0 Because social learning necessitates design, training, support, leadership, oversight and highlighting successes both big and small, we have developed an innovative and pragmatic approach in order to support our clients throughout their projects, both internally (tools and collaborative learning) and externally (social media). This approach facilitates acquiring and diffusing knowledge within social networks via an iterative and fractal process that can be summarised in four steps: Comprehension, Conversation, Collaboration and Capitalization.
  62. 62. Our 4C method is based on two indirect consequences of 2.0, which are vital for the success of any Enterprise 2.0 project: visibility and transparency. Making work visible and transparent One unexpected and rarely-acknowledged consequence of the first generation of IT tools (email, word processing) which make up our day-to-day work environment is to render the work process less visible, precisely at the moment when we need it to be as visible as possible. The end products of our work are highly refined abstractions. For example, this article tells you nothing about the initial idea or its evolution. Likewise, it doesn’t give you any information about the exchanges I may have had with my peers (via social networks or face-to-face), or about my own experiences that have shaped my thinking. In business, the gains in personal productivity produced by these IT tools are often made at the detriment of organisational learning. In the 1.0 world, I worked in an events management company. I was in charge of organizing a professional trade show, and for a beginner like myself, the sales targets seemed unreachable. The only way to meet them was to bring together all the stakeholders of the project whilst meeting their needs (explicit or otherwise). I couldn’t rely on the planning boards from previous years’ shows, or on the sales databases, and even less on the dry minutes of old meetings to help me understand. I was lucky enough to have a managing director who gave me access to his office for several months. I was able to access all his notes, emails and his address book. I participated in all the formal and informal exchanges on the topic. Within a few months I was able to sketch a reasonably accurate map of
  63. 63. the world of Florence that I had to navigate and proposed a strategy to make this trade show an unmissable event. By allowing me to observe his work, the director gave me an invaluable learning opportunity. Transparency is the key to social learning and to Enterprise 2.0. This transparency encourages access to the people and information that we may need to make good decisions. It is the consequence of the open and multidirectional communication made possible by social tools. It can’t be imposed or forced. Transparency in Enterprise 2.0 involves making our actions and decisions visible to others. It’s about sharing information and knowing who has provided it. We’re talking about accountability and recognition. By bringing people and their experiences and ideas together, social learning allows us to increase our confidence in the shared information and in those who created it. Changing models: from "command & control" to "connect & animate" It is transparency that is proving the greatest challenge to the classic "command and control" management model. Managers have to accept that information is created and spread more quickly over networks. They must also accept that this movement will most often happen outside of their control. Lately, one of our clients told me that "the problem with your approach is that if you give everyone the right to speak, they might just take you up on it!" It’s precisely this commitment to openness and transparency, which goes hand in hand with Enterprise 2.0, which must pressure management to innovate and adopt a "connect and animate" model. Your IT department and in-house lawyers will tell you that it’s risky. But these risks can be managed. The value created by greater transparency in business is much greater than the potential cost. On the contrary, the real risks are attached to a lack of transparency, to bad decision-making, to making the same
  64. 64. mistakes again or redoing the same work, to an inability to innovate or to understand and satisfy client needs. Until now competitive advantages have been built on information asymmetry. In the future, we will be mistaken if we think that exclusive access to information is an advantage. In today's complex environment, real competitive advantages are created by people who can find relevant information, transform it into practical knowledge and use it to create value. The challenge is to find, attract and hold on to these people; the challenge is to create an environment in which their talent can be developed and used to its fullest; and transparency is essential in such an environment. Frédéric Domon is co-founder of Socialearning, a consulting agency for organization and collaborative strategies. Socialearning assists businesses to understand the issues surrounding new methods of value creation and helps them develop collaborative work and training practices (enterprise 2.0, social learning) for innovative partnerships with their clients (social media and social business). Frédéric is also the creator of Entreprise Collaborative, a think tank on social learning and businesses inside networks. Due to his background in communications and marketing, Frédéric still has a passion for graphic design, as you can tell from the layout of this collection.
  65. 65. By definition, participative innovation is a structured management approach to stimulate and facilitate the introduction, implementation and circulation of ideas to personnel. The notion of "participation" introduces a management axis, a mechanism for listening and for dialogue toward employees, kindness and a positive stance: each employee can have ideas. Voicing the idea needs to be promoted. The notion of "innovation" introduces boldness, curiosity and risk-taking, implying that one has the right to err.
  66. 66. With strong practical experience in business, the partner members of the association INNOV’ACTEURS constructed a reference system to successfully implement Participative Innovation, or PI. Visual representation of the reference system for Participative Innovation At first, businesses need to define their values, their mission and their ambition. Then they need to build the processes that will enable them to achieve their vision and to define the type of innovation to put in place, according to the situation. The business could have spontaneous innovation: every person can put forward an idea and the manager needs to know how to receive and deal with the idea; or encouraged innovation: using and leading methods for the resolution of problems or for creative purposes, or to have internal challenges on a given theme. Then the company figures out the synergy with institutional

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