Enterprise Social Collaboration: The Networked Organisation
McKinsey have recently release a study on the value of productivity through social technologies.
The research is robust and worth a quick flick through. Why? Because it highlights what many of us have been saying for the last three to four years.
What struck me most, however, was the statement that:
“By 2011, 72% of companies surveyed reported using social technologies in their business and 90% of those users reported that they are seeing benefits.”
If the curve is consistent, then with 72% adoption those companies not using social technologies should be striking ‘innovative’ from their company’s about us pages and slogans.
Indeed, I know this was a topic of discussion in a recent MeetTheBoss Roundtable on Social Relationship Management with the likes of United Golf Bank, ABB, and AMEX all discussing how to better integrate social into the enterprise.
This is truly a wakeup call for organisations yet to embark on the course of social collaboration and ‘pivot’ to an open knowledge-sharing model.
For some, this may be a pivot too far. Too entrenched are the knowledge silos; too focused on immediate top-down driven issues to rely on front line or consumer feedback.
Yet for many, the elation from posting a lazy status update on their internal platform and getting a rapid response is overwhelming. Even if it is just, “Hey, does anyone know an app developer for Android? #apps #developers.”
As they are, inundated with answers that are ranked and rated by a number colleagues. All without the nightmare of the ‘CC all’ email or finding who it was that knew someone, who was talking to someone, who might know an iOS developer, who knows a guy at Google… You get the picture.
This simple open query or a more complex search of content that has been tagged to ‘app’ ‘android’ or mobile can reveal the pockets of unknown empties in a large organisation. Simple folksonomies develop as the users coin tags and hash tags for their posts. Internal names and acronyms can creep in, but the ability for users to tag in their own way allows for groupings across silos or business focuses. It’s governance, no matter if you’re doing it in HR, PR or Facilities. Right?
One of my pet peeves of Twitter and Facebook is not being able to effectively cognitive slipstream – as my wise colleague Antony Mayfield coined recently. Upping my understanding of a topic and offering my take to others means we can specialise and yet remain T-shaped through social sharing. Organisations have a stronger interest in collectively raising the knowledge of their team as a whole.
Without cutting back those I follow to 150 or less (as Dunbar suggests) there’s no way to tell if sub groups are tweeting manically about the same topic, either in glowing harmony or stark conflict. This as many will agree rings true within companies as well.
From the many social collaboration platforms and solutions I have tested there’s a particularly juicy piece of functionality from Jive that I adored. It completely addresses this issue with a plugin for your browser (like a ‘share this’ button) that slides out when you want to share a like with the wider collaborative community.
The action triggers a search for all mentions of the link, surfacing rich snippets of posts that link to that URL, similar URLs, posts related to the copy and connected users. These come together with short summaries of the posts.
There’s real value in this and to spell it out here are some examples.
• Search for me on LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/in/nickwallen and the tool will surface my internal profile, related posts on social media, enterprise collaboration, social business and digital marketing.
• Search a CRM record, and the system surface all those that have worked with me in the past (preserving restrictions to ‘her eyes only’ information).
• Search a prospective supplier, and all the NO NOT USE flags appear first, they are also voted up, so if you search for their .com or co.uk URL the flags will still appear.
Oh, and because it is all recorded, you don’t have to search your inbox to forward that PDF to the 100th person asking the same thing. It’s all there online, even when employees move on.
This connected bookmarking and sharing, allows for discovery of historic knowledge. Taken the step further and combined with open creation and collaboration, colleagues can skim what others are doing or offer in depth support to initiatives that touch on their expertise.
This is key for organisations aiming to be more agile in our focused, demanding economic reality.
As a man receives a hand transplant on TV tonight (I had to pause and watch), I can’t help but think of the analogy of a hospital.
We’ve moved from priest calling everyone my child; to doctors remembering which patient has what; to updating their status on a chart; to recording their status over an iPad to the central system. Where within the system using analysis we can dissect the data to see who has what?
In the future, these systems will most likely analyse where an has come from and if it affects males in their 30s more.
They will call more doctors in as they predict increases in demand and share with other hospitals for the greater good.
Connectivity, it seems, is inevitable – and in the spirit of social business and greater good. Now to write that business case as you’ll need not just executive approval, but their wholehearted participation for the initiative to truly gain momentum.
Nick is currently seeking a permanent role in Auckland, New Zealand
http://nickwallen.co
@nickwallen
http://linkedin.com/in/nickwallen
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