Knowledge Management in Enterprise 2.0 - Part 4

Knowledge Management in Enterprise 2.0 Part 4

The Enterprise 2.0 Error

This was 5 years ago.

2009

How far have we come in company-internal use?

2014

half full

McKinsey 2012: The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies

70% of companies use social software.

see benefit in its use. 90%

Social business projects are often strategically planned and enjoy significant management attention.

http://www.realstorygroup.com/vendormap/

Technologies are becoming more mature and more specialised.

half empty

http://www.zdnet.com/salesforce-ceo-admits-social-enterprise-pitch-didnt-work-7000023336/

Hollow phrases like social enterprise or cultural change continue to confuse users and decision-makers.

Many projects in pilot phases fail to meet expectations due to limited participation.

Experton Group: The market for "Social Business for Collaboration & Communication" (SB4CC) in Germany

Middle managers and managers of SMEs are frequently unconvinced.

What's the problem?

Use Cases

A use case is the answer to the question:

In the beginning, use cases were barely of interest.

“…the technologists of Enterprise 2.0 are trying hard not to impose on users any preconceived notions about how work should proceed or how output should be categorized or structured.”

Andrew McAfee: “Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration” 2006

Originally, the idea was that applications would arise spontaneously during use.

Emergence (from the Latin emergere for "to surface", "to emerge" or "to arise") is the spontaneous formation of new properties or structures in a system resulting from the interaction of its elements.

www.wikipedia.de

But what do you tell your users?

We're using

Enterprise 2.0 Social media Facebook

Social networking

in the company now

What good is that to me?

A good use case gives answers.

What are the major internal use cases?

?

The 4 main higher-level use cases, to be precise.

? ? ? ?

Information & Official Communication or the use case Modern Intranet

1

Information & Official Communication

What is it used for? − Publishing official, but also

localised information for large target groups

− Enabling feedback (e.g. comments)

− Supporting local editors: relevance and topicality are more important than a perfect layout

Information & Official Communication

What's the benefit? Examples − More up-to-date and more

authentic information

− Accelerates onboarding of new staff

− Ability to address individual target groups (e.g. managers) more precisely

− Find official information more quickly across the company

Information & Official Communication

Combination of information and interaction on a modern intranet

Information & Official Communication

Particular strength: High potential benefit and the benefit is very well plannable

Information & Official Communication

Plannability How well can the benefit of

this use case be planned?

Benefit How great is the potential benefit contribution to the company?

Projects & Processes or the use case Collaboration

Projects & Processes

2

Information & Official Communication

What is it used for?

− Collaborating efficiently on projects

− Jointly creating and discussing content

− Handling unstructured processes in a lean and flexible way

Projects & Processes

What's the benefit? Examples

− Find relevant content more quickly

− Versioning: easier to find current documents

− Ability to comment and work on documents simultaneously

− Accelerates project onboarding

Projects & Processes

Wide range of required complexity of contents and structures.

Projects & Processes

Particular strength: Well plannable and a major lever for day-to-day efficiency of all knowledge workers

Projects & Processes

Plannability How well can the benefit of

this use case be planned?

Benefit How great is the potential benefit contribution to the company?

Use case Personal Information Management

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes

3

Information & Official Communication

What is it used for?

Personal Information Management

Many things that were already possible:

− Work organisation: tasks, appointments, "My Documents"

− Finding contacts and experts via contact data or organisational units

− Interacting with individuals or in small groups across various channels (e-mail, IM, telephone, ...)

New:

− Finding contacts and experts outside one's own network via skills and interesting content

− Easy mobile access

What's the benefit? Examples − Efficient organisation of own work

− Expands site- and organisation-centric employee networks

− Reduces search times and helps solve problems more quickly

− Allows employees to work at full capacity even when travelling

Personal Information Management

Finding contacts: from profiles to content-based expert searches

Personal Information Management

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2 3

Good and bad: Profiles are often badly maintained – making links to content all the more important

Personal Information Management

Plannability How well can the benefit of

this use case be planned?

Benefit How great is the potential benefit contribution to the company?

Use case Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes

4

Information & Official Communication

Internal Communities

What are they used for?

− Exchange groups – independent of

organisational structures

− Many possible uses such as ideas management, "ask the organisation" or expert communities

− Participation is based mainly on intrinsic motivation

− Engagement in communities is rarely included in job descriptions or target agreements

Internal Communities

What's the benefit? Examples − Find and foster good ideas more

quickly

− Involve and motivate staff

− Make knowledge visible and share it outside structures

Internal Communities

Example Ask the organisation

Internal Communities

Excessive expectations: Informality causes problems for communities, especially in the long term

Internal Communities

Plannability How well can the benefit of

this use case be planned?

Benefit How great is the potential benefit contribution to the company?

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Bene

fit

Plan

nabi

lity

Projects & Processes

Bene

fit

Plan

nabi

lity

Information & Official Communication

Bene

fit

Plan

nabi

lity

Plannability: How well can the benefit of this use case be planned?

Benefit: How great is the potential benefit contribution to the company?

Bene

fit

Plan

nabi

lity

So what exactly is the problem?

Not one, but 3 problems.

Excessive expectations regarding the benefit of informal community activities

1

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

Formal: part of organisation and target management

Informal: "emergent" structures

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

Staff turn the majority of their attention to formal structures.

The lever for noticeable benefit is therefore much bigger there!

What about business-critical communities?

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

There should be no such thing as a business-critical community because ...

... in that case it's not a community any more; it should be part of the structured area, e.g. as a project team.

Non-technical barriers to collaboration

2

Four barriers to collaboration

“Willingness”

Search barrier

− Company size

− Physical distance

− Information overload

− Closed networks

Transfer barrier

− Implicit knowledge

− Shared understanding and language

− Weak ties

“Ability”

Not-invented-here barriere

− Insular culture

− Status-oriented thinking

− Tunnel vision

− Fear

Hoarding barrier

− Competition

− Strong individual incentives

− Too busy

− Fear of losing power

Social business platforms can help overcome the search and the transfer barrier!

Search barrier

− Company size

− Physical distance

− Information overload

− Closed networks

Transfer barrier

− Implicit knowledge

− Shared understanding and language

− Weak ties

Ability

But technology isn't much help when it comes to the motivation-related aspects of collaboration.

Status-oriented thinking and bunker mentality can't be resolved with virtual communities.

Not-invented-here barriere

− Insular culture

− Status-oriented thinking

− Tunnel vision

− Fear

Hoarding barrier

− Competition

− Strong individual incentives

− Too busy

− Fear of losing power

Willingness

The informal use cases are barely viable on their own.

3

Users need good reasons to check in regularly.

The informal use cases can't provide those.

So what is the Enterprise 2.0 error?

With its tools and ideas, the Internet has given us a gift that…

Comments Multi- media

Profiles

Tasks

Wikis

Activity streams

Forums

Surveys

Ratings

Mobile apps

Blogs

Micro- blogs

Team documents

Search and filters Dashboards Virtual

areas

Videos

Virtual meetings

Networks

…opens up new possibilities for sharing information, knowledge and opinions…

…be it with 5…

…or with 50,000 colleagues.

The Enterprise 2.0 error is to channel the potential of this gift…

…mainly into the informal use cases.

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

"SOCIAL" may have practically created one new use case…

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

…but what's much more important is that it has significantly enhanced these three use cases!

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

The strong use cases draw users to a platform…

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

A

… if this platform then cleverly integrates informal use cases…

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

B

…communities also have a better chance of attracting participation in the long term.

Internal Communities

Personal Information Management

Projects & Processes Information & Official Communication

C

The informal use cases for social software are highly overrated and are not sustainable on their own.

Use cases with far greater potential, such as communication and collaboration, are still being neglected or taken out of scope.

Together they are stronger: Only in combination can informal use cases work in the long term.

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T-SySTemS mulTimedia SoluTionS http://www.t-systems-mms.com

Frank Wolf f.wolf@t-systems.com www.besser20.de www.xing.com/profile/Frank_Wolf3

Achim Brück, Ulrich Deiters, Claudia Eichler-Liebenow, Erik Frömder, Simone Happ, Ulf-Jost Kossol, Sven Lindenhahn, Kay-Uwe Michel, Ute Schäfer, Katharina Simon, Katrin Vagt, Denis Wagner

Design: Jana Frommhold