The evolution of the World Wide Web over the last five years has been nothing short of astounding.
Intranets, on the other hand, haven’t progressed an inch since, oh, say 2001. While the web has witnessed the wide-scale adoption of social networking and the early stages of true web-based applications (like Writely and AjaxWrite), the intranet of 2006 looks pretty much the same as it did five years ago.
Here’s a terrific case study from Swedish/US communication consultants and training firm Gronstedt Group on the role social media plays in helping the sales team at US educational publisher Prentice-Hall improve their sales performance.
The case study describes how the firm applies a new approach to e-learning:
[... Sales training is no longer about watching, reading and listening, but about doing, simulating, socializing, sharing and collaborating. The maturation of a new wave of online applications and tools, such as blogs, podcasts, online gaming, and wireless and mobile technologies, is driving ever-greater levels of sales and service productivity.
The intelligence community can learn from the behavior of ant colonies to improve information sharing — and it can use wikis and blogs, a CIA official said yesterday.
The intelligence community must respond more quickly to maintain tactical and strategic advantage over adversaries, said Calvin Andrus, chief technology officer at the CIA’s Center for Mission Innovation.
“We’re not in an arms race with our adversaries — it’s a time race,” Andrus said at the E-Gov/FCW Events Knowledge Management 2006 conference in Washington, D.C.
Reorganizing is not the answer because that presumes the past can predict the future, Andrus said. The future is becoming increasingly unpredictable as decisions involve more complex interactions of information and as faster communications technology accelerates the decision-making cycle, he said. The intelligence community must change quickly in ways that it cannot predict, he added.
That’s where ant colonies can play a role. Complexity theory states that complex, adaptive group behavior can be built by having individuals follow simple behaviors, Andrus said.
In an ant colony, each ant knows a few rules — move dirt, carry a pupa, find food — and uses them to react in various situations, Andrus said. If too many ants are carrying pupae, others will go find food on their own without looking to the queen for direction or permission.
In a similar way, Andrus said, “we need intelligence officers who just go do.” They can’t do that if they have to ask for permission every time they want to share information, he said. “It’s about letting employees be free to share and act” and trusting them to follow simple rules of engagement.
Via For Your Approval:
“Very generally speaking, I see management as less interested in exchanging ideas with and broadcasting ideas to employees than it was 15 years ago; I see companies taking fewer chances and having less fruitful exchanges with employees; I see internal communicators less hopeful of making a difference with communication than they were 15 years ago; I see companies with less meaningful relationships with their workforces than they had 15 years ago.Yet, social media seems to be the subject area where all the passion lies.
And I wish, for all of our sakes, that this weren’t so.”
Sadly, I agree with David. The profession/corporate function of employee communications is in a sorry state these days. We’re living in a dark age, my friends. And I believe one of the main reasons is the rise of Intranets and e-mail. A decade ago these new online tools promised to reach employees in new ways and reduce costs. Instead, corporations spent millions more on bytes than they ever spent on ink to build a cold, fractured, multi-channel mess that overloads managers, disenfranchises front-line workers and creates a digital ghetto for employee communicators.
Enter social media, with their ability to empower and connect people. Some see these new online tools as a salvation that will help to build internal communities and empower employees.
I just found an interesting idea on the openBLOG: it is a simple secured feed that employees can subscribe to in order to be informed every time someone moves to another company or to a new position.
Simple but extremely helpful, especially in large organisations with complex organigrams and/or high turn over rates.
General Motors launched a new blog, the FYI Blog.
GM’s director of new media, Michael Wiley, outlined how GM intends this new blog to complement the current FastLane Blog (written by senior executives led by chief blogger, vice chairman Bob Lutz), and what the new blog will focus on.
Wiley said that the FYI Blog “provides an opportunity for all GM employees to contribute in one way or another.”
Via NevilleHobson.com.
A startup called Visible Path is hoping to harness the popularity of Web-networking to create a tool for businesses. The closely held company in Foster City, Calif., has just raised $17 million in a second round of venture-capital funding.
Visible Path isn’t the first social networking site to target Corporate America. LinkedIn also courts the business and professional market. The hope is that social networking will follow the trend of other communications, such as e-mail and instant messaging, which got a foothold among tech-savvy youngsters before gaining traction in business.
But Visible Path is taking a different approach. While LinkedIn is aimed mostly at individuals who pay fees depending on the level of service, Visible Path sees companies as its main market.
“Our business model is different because the enterprise pays, not the individual. The value in our case accrues to the enterprise, although it also accrues to individuals who comprise the enterprise.” Antony Brydon, CEO
Here’s an example of how the site works: Let’s say a salesperson at company A wants to contact the chief information officer at company B. The suitor could make a cold call, but that’s not a very good way to get through the front door. Visible Path would let the salesperson seek a colleague or business associate who has a connection to the CIO. He or she may find multiple “paths,” in fact. The site also will compile publicly available research on the CIO, tapping resources such as Google or Hoovers.
Watson Wyatt Worldwide Research Reports.
Firms that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to report high levels of employee engagement versus firms that communicate less effectively.
Hardly a surprising finding, but good to see confirmed when some people tend to look past communication when they are looking to find ways to get employees more engaged.
Via Corporate Engagement.
Blogging is good for your career. A well-executed blog sets you apart as an expert in your field.
”People who are more visible and have a reputation and stand for something do better than people who are invisible.”
IT departments and professionals are clearly the preferred target during this Easter weekend. It all started with Shel Holtz who suddently became furious about companies blocking employees from reading RSS feeds.
In case you hadn’t heard about it, some companies have begun blocking RSS feeds at the firewall. The rationale for this short-sighted, counterproductive bit of paranoid stupidity ranges from bandwidth worries to productivity concerns.
I guess we all more or less share Shel’s opinion, so do Steve Rubel: Corporate Firewalls Blocking Feeds…
How any corporation could be so bonehead to block RSS feeds at the firewall is beyond me. The reasons range from bandwidth worries to, get this, productivity concerns. Shel Holtz does a good job debunking this insanity.
… and Trevor Cook: is your IT department the real enemy?
I continue to be amazed by the absolute IT illiteracy of most people, even people who use computers all day seem completely incurious about how they operate.
Yesterday, at lunch with a group of friends, I was stopped midstream by the question ‘But what is Microsoft Vista?’, and when I explained, at least some at the table were pretty unclear about what an operating system is and does. Now, I’m not a technology expert myself, but…
Today, it continues with Euan Semple explaining (gently) that you, as an IT guy / manager, cannot really manage i.e. control knowledge in a company.
…KM people falling into the same trap of “building over designed systems based on ideal behaviour rather than allowing naturalistic evolution”.
IMHO applying normal management techniques to something as fragile and ephemeral as online forums is doomed from the start. I always remember, and quote, Dave’s phrase that “you can’t manage knowledge - all you can do is create a knowledge ecology.”
All of us who work with blogs, especially those of us who’ve done it for years, are excited about their potential. We can come up with lots of useful examples of how businesses can benefit from blogs, but sometimes our own enthusiasm gets the best of us.
To put it more succinctly: A lot of folks who are blogging “experts” talk about blogs in a way that scares the hell out of normal business people.
[...] Blogging is fast becoming an extremely important strategy for any online marketer. An effective blog can:
For the average business trying to protect and enhance its reputation, the prospect of having its actions scrutinised by an army of online commentators can feel like a threat.
However, the more enlightened companies are not trying to control this conversation, because they realise they can’t. The web is out there for anyone to see. But the best companies are seeing that as an opportunity, not a threat.
“… think about blog technology. That’s the focus for many leading companies around the world. From McDonald’s (MCD) to Cannondale Bicycle, corporations are using the software to revamp internal communications, reach out to suppliers, and remake corporate Intranets. Often the site doesn’t look much different from what it’s replacing. Sometimes there’s nothing particularly bloggy about the results.
But these corporate initiatives are interactive and cheap to deploy — making them an attractive form of communication. “Blogs are a way to bring our knowledge together,” says Dave Weick, chief information officer at McDonald’s.
In case you missed the March 20 edition of Time Magazine “What’s Next!” about the big trends of our future, there was an article inside called “The Next Big Thing Is Us” by Lev Grossman; here’s a .doc version. In brief, it is about the raising power of people, like you and me, who start to pop out of a simple consumer behavior imposed for many years by the elite (organisations, media, politicians, etc) to become real actors of today’s world. Of course, it has a lot to do with innovation and creativity via the Internet.
“Big, bold ideas used to come from small groups of experts. Now they come from you as well.”
Even though, organisations are still somewhat protected behind their firewalls, the revolution is going to happen there too.
Via e-Mergences.
Charlie Wood takes the example of Emerson Process Management who have enthusiatically adopted RSS. Unfortunately, their implementation serves best as an example of what not to do.
… instead of a page with links to the available feeds and an OPML file with all of them, you’ll find a form to fill out. Trouble ahead.
The form prompts you to customize your feed by specifying your job function, your department, your industry, business challenges, product interests, and service interests. This is a holdover from the bad old days of “personalization”. Once you submit the form, you’re given a URL to a unique feed…
The Coca-Cola Company is using a blog as a communication channel through which the 55′000 employees of the global company can provide their views on Coca-Cola’s vision, mission and values.
The employee blog will be open for a week with one principle for discussion on each day - seven principles, seven days - and enables each employee anywhere in the world to participate.
Via NevilleHobson.com.
Time Inc. is in the midst of another major effort to turn itself into a leading Web player. And this time, there is evidence that the publisher’s management is willing to fundamentally alter the way the magazines are run to make the Web push work.
In recent months, Time management has taken steps to dissolve the divisions between its Web and print operations. It has made selling ads online a priority and demanded that writers produce more copy for its Web sites. It is also expanding the sites to include more video, blogs and photographs. Former “Wonkette” blogger Ana Marie Cox has been hired to write for Time magazine and its revamped Web site, alongside Andrew Sullivan, another well-known blogger and columnist. Time Inc. has even launched an irreverent Web site aimed at young male workers called Office Pirates.
Via Blogspotting.
“So will blogs and wikis take off in the enterprise? Based on a reading of the history of technology adoption, of course they will. To suggest they are not is like putting your head in the sand. Frank Gilbane, who moderated the panel debate, pointed out that, based on his company’s research, the most popular use of blogs in enterprises is internal. “They are often replacing intranets,” he said. So maybe the adoption curve will be similar to corporate email that was first used in enterprises for internal communications. As the chewing gum gets into the corporate hair in internal applications, it will be impossible for it to not be deployed for external use as well.”
This was actually the last paragraph of Chewing Gum, Blogs, and Wikis by David Meerman Scott. Click here to read the complete post.
