Dif-fer-en-ti-ate

Enterprise 2.0 and Cynefin

2010-11-14T12:37:00.001-08:00

In the previous post, Cynefin, Knowledge Spirals and Bonfires, I discussed the use of the Cynefin framework to describe how knowledge is built. At that stage we saw how knowledge building can be seen as a flow/spiral around the chaotic, complex and knowable domains with the ability at some point to transfer/publish learning's into the known domain. In this post I will consider the different requirements of each domain and show how different tools from the Enterprise 2.0 tools set align to the various domains.
For the purposes of this discussion will consider the properties and requirements of four domains:

Chaotic - In this domain the relationship between data/information/knowledge fragments is unknowable. When working in this domain the only response is to act and impose order.
Complex - In this domain the relationship between data/information/knowledge fragments is ambiguous. We believe a relationship exists but have yet to understand it. When working in this domain we are looking for insights/patterns and are exploring ways to combine these fragments. Out of this activity emerge new hypothesis which are bounced around an informal network of trusted collaborators.
Knowable - In this domain the relationship between data/information/knowledge fragments can be understood by experts. We have the "bones of an idea" and are working to flesh the idea out. When working in this domain we see formal collaborations between experts taking place.
Known - In this domain the relationship between data/information/knowledge fragments is fully comprehended and lack ambiguity. The idea is fully formed and tested and is presented in a formally structured fashion for consumption by non-experts.

Having described the attributes of the four domains we are now in a position to align these requirements against the different tools contained in the Enterprise 2.0 tool kit:

Chaotic

Requirement - Identify sets of data/information/knowledge fragments
Tool - Search

Complex

Requirement - Combine and explore data/information/knowledge fragments
Tools - Mash-up capabilities
Requirement - Informal collaboration
Tools - Personal Blog, Microblogging, Social Networking, Social Bookmarking, RSS reader

Knowable

Requirement - Aggregate and share data/information/knowledge fragments across a multidisciplinary team
Tools - Team Wiki, Team Blog, Social Bookmarking, RSS reader
Requirement - Coordinate team activities
Tools - GTDware

Known

Requirement -Publish formal structure content
Tools - Corporate Wiki, Podcast/Vodcast/Slidecast, Social Bookmarking, RSS reader

Having aligned the various Enterprise 2.0 tools with the four domains we now have a clear contextual appreciation of which aspect of knowledge building each tool support and how different combinations synergise. Essentially we now have a roadmap for implementation of Enterprise 2.0 tools in support of knowledge building and can use this to i) prioritise which tools we want to deploy and ii) provide clear context to users as to what processes these tools support and how we expect them to be used together.

Cynefin, Knowledge Spirals and Bonfires

2010-08-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

A recent post by Thomas Vander Wal reminded me I needed to share some of the thinking I've been doing over the last few months. In On Fire with Social Progressions Thomas describes the social flows of information from idea through to formal outcome. In this post he uses a neat analogy of a growing fire to describe this progression. It all starts with an individual creating a spark, an idea, that grows into a campfire as a group gather round and add their perspectives. This campfire builds into a bonfire as more and more contribute to the original idea and finally becomes a beacon (Thomas uses torch holder), a formal full rounded piece of information that people can navigate by. This is a great visual analogy and reminded me of an aspect of the Cynefin framework and the description of 'The natural flow of knowledge' in Complex acts of knowing: Paradox and descriptive self-awareness by Dave Snowden. The beauty of the Cynefin framework is the simple way it breaks down and describes knowledge space which can best be describe by Dave Snowden:

In "Complex acts of knowing" Dave illustrates how ideas start in the the complex domain and around these communities naturally form which through the process of formalisation grow into communities of practice within the knowable domain. Knowledge is aggregated and ideas built upon as members of the community ask new questions of the chaotic domain, gain new insights in the complicated domain and test and analyse them in the knowable domain. At some point a limited amount of codified knowledge can be separated out from the community and moved into the known domain.
I think you can easily see the similarities between Thomas's "fire" analogy and the knowledge spiral aspect of the Cynefin framework. Now while Thomas's "fire" analogy describes the social flows of information from idea through to formal outcome the Cynefin framework takes this idea much further and provides a way to explore the wider concept of knowledge space. Having introduced the idea of the knowledge spiral and how it applies to the Cynefin framework the next step will be to explore the requirements of the domains and how enterprise 2.0 tools align to them.

As Jessica says "Advertise yourself"

2010-08-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

The last quarter has been a very rewarding time for the team who developed OnePoint, the innovative combination of OneNote and SharePoint, as we picked up three awards for this work. These were the Royal Society of Chemistry Teamwork in Innovation Award 2010, Microsoft Life Sciences Innovation Award 2010 and KMUK 2010 Best KM initiative or implementation in a corporate enterprise. As a consequence of this external validation the internal interest in this solution has step up another notch. Further more we have just heard that the executive leadership team on the board are about to adopt OnePoint. Not bad, we have gone from the research bench in Sandwich to the boradroom in New York!

Our DNA

2010-03-10T11:49:00.000-08:00

Over the last 3 years I have been involved in numerous experiments with enterprise 2.0 tools, some have been successful and some not so. Out of these experiments has come a realisation that a prerequisite of success is to ensure you create the right environment for collaboration to flourish. I haven come to think of these as a set of principles that define the core architecture of collaboration. These principles apply equally to the technology and the culture. It is my experience that adoption of these principles is required if a culture of collaboration and openness is to develop. The four core principles are:

Freedom - The easiest way to prevent collaboration from occurring is to impose overly burdensome control around how colleagues work. If collaboration is to flourish we need to trust colleagues and not impose rigid workflows, inappropriate approval processes (moderation), restriction on who can collaborate with whom (association) and have an open attitude towards sharing information.
Emergence - No two collaborations are the same, each team/group will have different requirements and will develop different working practices. Given this then we need to allow patterns and structures to emerge as collaborations develop. This is not to say we should not stimulate behaviors we want or share experiences but rather we should accept this and recognise that we need to avoid a 'One size fits all' approach.
Clarity of Purpose - Contextualising tools for colleagues work processes is critical. Without a clear explination as to how and when to use new tools colleagues become confused and revert back to there default methods of working. The lack of consistent advice around how and when to use these tools inevitably leads to adoption of Outlook for information management, fragmented silos of project data and a lack of any real knowledge management processes.
Ease of Use - Collaboration is about enabling conversations between people. It is not about technology. Therefore, it is critical that technology does not get in the way of collaboration. If we are to enable a culture of collaboration we must ensure that colleagues find the tools are intuitive and require minimal training.

Over the next few post I will expand upon each of these principles.

Best use of 20 minutes

2010-03-09T21:43:00.000-08:00

Lawrence Lessig is a hero of mine. He is a libertarian and campaigns for reform of copyright, among many other things, which he argues is being used to stifle our cultural creativity. Watch the video below, probably the best use of 20 minutes of your time today, and think about this topic but in terms of attitude to information sharing within your company.

A couple of years ago I made a series of post to an internal blog on the need for a Freedom of Information policy within the company. Now this as you might expect was slightly controversial but it did get a conversation started. The kernel of the argument was that we should change our mindset from one where the default position was to lock down access to one where the default position was to leave access open. Note this was not forcing anyone to make things open but rather change the default settings on systems such that you had to actively make the choice to lock access down rather than being asked who should have access. This may seem like a minor change but it's impact has been huge and has contributed to the development of an open culture where sharing is the norm. Engendering this change has been central to the success of our effort to adopt enterprise 2.0 tools.

Cynefin - Sensemaking and Enterprise 2.0

2010-02-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday while nursing my daughter, bad cold/little sleep, I had the time to catch up on some reading I'd been putting off. One of the papers 'Complex acts of knowing: Paradox and descriptive self-awareness' by Dave Snowden of Cognative Edge was a really gem. I've been struggling for a while with contextualising how 'knowledge' is created along with the tools, process and people involved in it's creation. The paper draws on anthropology and complex adaptive systems theory to illustrate how our behaviours under different conditions affect how we make decisions. Essentially the model consists of a 4 box with unstructured vs structured on the x-axis and low vs high abstraction on the y-axis. This gives us four boxes, starting in the bottom left and moving clockwise we have:

Chaos - here we need to impose order
Complex - here we look for patterns
Knowable - here we refine and analysis
Known - here we learn/teach

Here is a simple video explanation of the Cynefin framework:

This framework has been predominately used in the arena of Sensemaking but Jim McGee has highlighted the close relationship between this discipline and enterprise 2.0 tools "... I would suggest .... those promoting Enterprise 2.0 technologies to investigate the sensemaking planning techniques and practices and map points where the technologies enable, simplify, or improve the techniques." Ok that is what I'm going to do, I'll share my findings here.

Is love too strong a word?

2009-08-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

Can you suggest a better tagline?

A couple of OnePoint case studies

2009-08-11T19:37:00.001-07:00

We have just got a couple of case studies published around our use of OnePoint, a combination of OneNote & SharePoint, and the value we are seeing from it.

The first will be published in Drug Discovery Today and you can read the pre-print here.

‘OnePoint’ – combining OneNote and SharePoint to facilitate knowledge transfer

The identification and development of novel drugs requires a multidisciplinary team of individuals whose membership changes during the lifecycle of a project. Incomplete knowledge transfer across this team can be a barrier to effective decision-making and efficient drug discovery. We have deployed a new infrastructure supporting information storage and distribution within small teams using Microsoft's SharePoint™ server technology in conjunction with the desktop application OneNote™. This delivers a user-friendly collaborative workspace that is fast, flexible and carries a low training burden. Demand from drug project teams for this ‘solution’ has now resulted in site-wide deployment to over 500 people across research.

The second case study, available here, was done in collaboration with Microsoft. In this case Microsoft also produced a video, see below, which really brings OnePoint to life (need Silverlight installed to view).

Pfizer Boosts Efficiency by 15 Percent with Easy to Use, Shared Note-Taking Program

For the past 150 years, Pfizer has pioneered the development of some of the industry’s most innovative pharmaceutical products. In 2007, Pfizer applied this “out of the box” thinking to a pilot program designed to enhance efficiency and knowledge management across project teams, and potentially speed time-to-market for new products. The pilot brought together the simple, intuitive user interface of the Microsoft® Office OneNote® 2007 note-taking program with the robust document management technology of Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. As a result, pilot participants reported a significant decrease in the number of e-mail messages they send each day, and one group reported a 15 percent increase in efficiency. Overall, the 600 participants reported a 2 percent time savings per week, which represents a cost savings of approximately U.S.$2.25 million.

It's all about UI

2009-05-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

Wiki is to Document Management Systems as Graphical User Interface is to Command Line

People create silo's not technology

2009-03-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

A couple of recent posts by Thomas Van Wal, SharePoint 2007: Gateway Drug to Enterprise Social Tools, and Dion Hinchcliffe, SharePoint andEnterprise 2.0: The good, the bad and the ugly seem to have re-started the SharePoint it's not really Enterprise 2.0 meme. These are both balanced articles and I agree with a lot of the points raised in them and certainly as with any application SharePoint has its strengths and weakness's. However one of the common criticisms of SharePoint is the rapid proliferation of sites upon deployment and I can confirm this from my own experiences, that in a large enterprise, within one year you can be looking at 1000's of SharePoint sites. But is this the fault of SharePoint? No this is a failure of deployment, it is a user failure.
SharePoint is no different to any other content management system and I've seen this same issue in every large content management I've worked with. There are two main reasons this occurs, firstly if someone does not manage the structure users will proliferate folders/sites in an uncontrolled fashion. In general people simply create what they need in that moment for their project. Secondly they restrict the access permissions, the assumption is that if they don't restrict access then someone will delete it/change it. Nothing creates silo's quicker than allowing users to control permission settings.
The implication in the 'proliferation of Sharepoint sites' comments is that if the companies had implemented a 'proper' Enterprise 2.0 tool set then this would not of happened. Sorry I don't buy this. It doesn't matter what the tool is if you don't invest resources in defining structure and allow users to manage permissions then you end up with a proliferation of silo's. I've heard of the same sort of proliferation of silo's occurring within wiki's based on Socailtext and Confluence, both of which allow user to create silo'ed wiki spaces. Even when the ability to set permission is inactivated or is not available, such as in MediaWiki, then you still need invest in wiki gardening to introduce and maintain structure as the wiki grows.
In the end it is not the tools but rather that those implementing social computing need to understand what they are trying to do. I'd guess that in many of the companies where silo's have proliferated it is more because the tools were introduced by people who understand technology not people/communities. In the end the whole social computing thing is not about the technology it is about the culture. If you don't understand the culture you are trying to create then don't be surprised if you end up with a mass of silo's.

Amplified08

2008-11-30T13:28:00.000-08:00

This week rather than attend a wiki Wednesday gathering I attended Amplified08. This was a gathering of various 'social media' networks from across the UK. Details of what happened can be read over on the Amplified08 wiki and blog. What did I think of it? I met some interesting people had some interesting conversation but left not really any the wiser as to the aim of the meeting beyond a desire to connect people. The interesting thing is that when I attend a wiki Wednesday meeting I go along with the expectation of meeting interesting people and having interesting conversations. Why did I expect something different? Maybe my issues is that I'm too preconditioned to expect meetings to be focused around producing a product. Maybe it's because I'm interested in wiki's and I share that in common with those who attend wiki Wednesday's, I'd describe this as a strong tie. However in the case of Amplified08 the thing we all had in common was an interest in social media and that we belonged to at least one networking group, for me this is a weak tie. If I had to choose between attending a wiki Wednesday or another Amplified session then wiki Wednesday wins. What would make me change my mind? A higher purpose. One reason community's band together is to speak with a unified voice. The old adage "we are stronger if we stand together than stand alone". So what could that higher purpose be? Net Neutrality, Defending the freedom of the network, Defining standards, Influencing government, Taking back ownership of our identity data. What would you choose?

Dear Gartner

2008-11-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

This week I had a fantastic small world encounter. Sitting in a meeting with colleagues from another large pharmaceutical company I was asked if I'd met Jessica? Admitting I was part of the team that produced it I enquired where they had 'encountered' her. The answer "in a Gartner report". At first I was flattered but once I saw the report I was less than amused. Why? Gartner had incorporated not one or two slides but the whole slide deck, except one - the acknowledgment slide. Further they identified the source as www.slideshare.net. This is equivalent to showing a video and identifying the source as YouTube. It is amusing that Gartner appear not to understand the basic difference between author and publisher. I'm not upset that Jessica is hanging out with consultants but I would like her to let me know who they are. So you should feel free to use the content but please provide acknowledgment to the author and maybe a comment against the content where it is published.

omCollab - Intergrated enterprise 2.0 toolset

2008-08-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

Stumbled across this one today while reviewing options for improving our Scuttle, social bookmarking, instance. I've been keeping a watching brief on the work that Andreas has been doing ever since I met him at a London Wiki Wednesday meeting about a year ago. I remember a conversation about how social bookmarking was undervalued and the great opportunity for integration between social bookmarking and the other web 2.0/enterprise 2.0 tools. Well Andreas has not only developed an updated and improved version of Scuttle, omBookmarks, but has actually released an integrated suite of open source web2.0/enterprise2.0 tools, omCollab. What is more this has all been nicely packaged and released as open source (installation and download instructions here).
omCollab combines MediaWiki, Wordpress and omBookmarks together, while judicious and intelligent use of mediawiki extensions provides light but significant integration between the tools. The user is presented with a consistent look and feel across the platform with integration of the user ID delivering a solid social networking experience.
Andreas has delivered a great product that is significantly ahead of the crowd. IMHO it has the potential to be an open source challenger to Microsfot's SharePoint, IBM's Connections and probable knocks Suite 2.0 into touch. Does it contain all the tools I've previously identified as constituting the enterprise2.0 tool set? No a GTDware component is missing and without RSS it may well prove difficult to deliver a rich social profile into the social networking experience however these thing can be added with time. For now just enjoy and be grateful someone has raised the bar on enterprise2.0.

When Jo meets Charlie

2008-07-21T01:56:00.001-07:00

'Why when I'm constantly interrupted by email alerts would I be interested in adding to my problem by installing an Instant Messenger?'

This question and other like it are answered in this new slide deck that has just been shared by John Castledine, a colleague of mine. He felt that the 'meet Charlie'/'meet Jessica' presentations had 'missed the opportunity to speak directly about WHY Enterprise 2.0 tools should be adopted widely in the workplace'. I'd agree with him and this addition to the 'meet Charlie' pantheon certainly delivers against that brief.

When Jo meets Charlie

view presentation (tags: enterprise 2.0 web km)

How valuable is tabbed browsing?

2008-07-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve recently been helping a group of colleagues improve the way they share literature, a combination of social bookmarking (capture and archive) and RSS reader (alerting to new items of interest). Pretty simple until you realise they are all stuck using IE6 and so no tabbed browsing. They all like the idea and the simplicity of the process/workflow but when they realised that the RSS reader was web based they were concerned that the process would not work. Why? Because it meant they had to open yet another instance of IE6, they already had 4 or 5 instance open to do their work, if this was the case then they probably wouldn’t bother. I look at my work desktop and I have IE7, it’s non-standard one of the perks of being in IT, and I realised just how enabling tabbed browsing is. Once you have tabbed browsing you can live within one instance of your browser but more importantly you can configure it with multiple home pages. Now when I open my browser at the start of the day I open all the tools in the enterprise tool set and I’m ready to go. I can sympathise with my colleagues who are already opening 4 or 5 web based applications in different browser instances and here I am suggesting they add a couple more. So I’m adding another tool to the enterprise tool set and that’s a browser that supports tabbed browsing.

Creating the integrated Enterprise2.0 environment

2008-06-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

Previously in the post Social Profile I discussed how the integration of information from Social Content Creation and Social Information Management tools would enable the capture of a transactional descriptor of the current interests and activities of a user. In this post and subsequent ones I will discuss how such a integrated enterprise2.0 environment could be created.

In considering integration we can see that in addition to hyperlinking there are three key components:

Single User ID - In order to allow any aggregation of information across systems it is essential that users have a single identity across all the tools. In this case enterprise2.0 has a big advantage over web2.0 as it can leverage this via LDAP or Active Directory.
RSS Enterprise Server - RSS enterprise server provides a tacit method of aggregating all content from the Social Content Creation layer plus which feeds a user is reading.
Tagging Service - this provides a way to aggregate all keywords/tagging and annotations a user assigns to the content they interact with along with their microblogging.

These three components make up the integration layer that resides below the social tools layer.

How achievable is this? Not as far away as you might think we are already seeing examples of companies moving in this direction. For example NewsGator are already showing how a RSS enterprise server can aggregate a users activity, i.e. social sites, while the logical evolution of a social bookmarking tool would be a tagging service, are Connectbeam hinting at a move in this direction? Finally to enable this the RSS enterprise server and tagging service need to be developed with this in mind so that the synergies between these tools can be realised.

OnePoint: Revolutionising team collaboration

2008-06-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

OneNote is widely recognised as a gold standard personal knowledge management tool. It is an application with an intuitive user-friendly interface that readily enables a user to aggregate information together from multiple sources and arrange it in a familiar notebook format. One of the less well known features of OneNote is the capacity to create shared notebooks. We have combined OneNote 2007 with SharePoint 2007 to create an excellent team knowledge management tool, which we refer to as 'OnePoint'. This implementation provides an intuitive user-friendly interface onto a SharePoint document library with automatically managed online/offline capability. In addition to this the ability to add hyperlinks, text and pictures alongside these document files adds significant value to a team - users doesn't always have to open a document to find information. OnePoint has enabled project teams to move seamlessly into working in a collaborative fashion resulting in increased engagement and cohesion. An added bonus, probably related to the facile fashion in which information can be collated, is that we are seeing teams aggregate not just the data/information they are using but also including the context, rational and decisions they are making on it. OnePoint is not only revolutionising team collaboration, but also reducing email traffic, eliminating information silos and being demanded by users of all technical ability!

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Update: I have been asked to take down the slide deck associated with this post. Hopefully I will be able to re-post it in the near future.

Update: After a bit of "anonymising" I'm free to re-post the slides to slideshare, enjoy.

Social Profile

2008-05-29T14:26:00.000-07:00

From the users perspective social networking tools provide a means of creating and maintaining a profile of themselves with the ability to managed relationships with other users. Simplistically it displays a description of who I am, what skills I have and who I know/work with. In general this is defined by a user entering and maintaining information about themselves, a static profile. In general the static profile is made up of what the user considers to be important facts about themselves, or the information they want to highlight. However in addition to the users static profile there is also the users tacit or social profile. Essentially this represents the sum of the content the user has created using Social Content Creation tools and the content they have read and stored using Social Information Management tools. These ideas are illustrated in the diagram below along with how these tools interrelate.

In this diagram we see that in the bottom layer I create content, in the middle layer I consume content and at the top is me, the user. What this diagram illustrates is that a user is describe by both their static profile and by the sum of all their activity in the two layers below. This summed activity can be considered a social profile. The social profile is a transactional descriptor of the current interests and activities of a user and provides a time bounded snapshot of the user. The challenge is how to aggregate this social profile.

Weapons of Choice – Choosing the Enterprise2.0 tool kit

2008-05-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

Having spent sometime exploring all things Web2.0 and ‘eating our own dog food’ a group of early adopter/enthusiast decided we needed to introduce Enterprise2.0 into our company. Scott had already produced the now infamous ‘meet Charlie’ presentation and we had put together ‘meet Jessica’ a version contextualised for research. With these communication tools in hand we sat down to plan our road map. The first decision was what tools should we focus on? If you look at the cloud of Web2.0 tools available it is clear you need to make some key choices. Invariably at this stage you are resource limited and you will need to show some immediate return in value if you are going at get funding support for the next step. So where to focus your time? Which tools are you going to put into your Enterprise2.0 tool kit?

At the start we chose five types of tools that would define the basic building blocks of our Enterprise2.0 tool kit. These were wiki’s, blog’s & GTDware (Social Content Creation tools) and RSS reader & social bookmarking (Social Information Management tools). Before discussing the tools we did choose it is worth explaining why we decided to not focus on social networking and mash-ups tools.

Mash-ups

We chose not to consider mash-ups for the simple reason enterprise is already well served by this type of tool. Tools like Pipeline Pilot and Business Objects are the enterprise equivalent of Yahoo pipes. They can take data from multiple sources and allow it to be transformed and manipulate and then served up in many different forms. If you look further we can consider that most of the Enterprise Information Integration (EII) tools set are in fact expert user mash-up tools. In reality this is the one area where traditional business is actually ahead of the web2.0 curve.

Social Networking

We decided not to pursue this because we did not understand what a enterprise2.0 social network was. We understood what we liked about the social sites we had joined, what value we were or were not getting from them, etc. We knew we would need a social networking solution but also could not decide if we needed a Facebook (social and fun) or a LinkedIn (professional and conservative) or something hybrid. We also had been playing with a early release of Microsoft’s Knowledge Network for SharePoint and just didn’t know how static profile information could/should integrate with tacit profile information and how best to capture it. Finally most of the tools we had chosen had a social networking component within them. We knew that if social networking turned out to be critical early on then we could always use one of these to provide a starting point. In the mean time we could continue to explore and understand what were the requirements for a Enterprise2.0 social networking tool.

Weapons of Choice

Wiki – Provides the space for collaboration and the sharing information in a structured fashion.
This was an easy one, Pfizerpedia, based on Mediawiki was already up and running. It is a great technology that just does structured wiki very well. The familiar look and feel from peoples exposure to Wikipedia certainly helps and there are a great number of useful extensions available from the open source community. Its biggest draw back is the lack of a WYSWYG editor but early adopters are happy to deal with this and will wear it as a badge of honour. Also lacking is LDAP integration. At some stage we knew we would have to resolve these limitation but at that stage our key drivers we just growing the wiki and learning how to manage it.

Blog – Provides core communications and discussion space and an obvious antidote to email.
This again was a simple choice, we had gone with Drupal early on and this had been very popular. We had this in place felt comfortable with it and had successfully got a number of group wiki’s off the ground based on it.

GTDware – Provides lightweight project management functionality to individuals and project teams.
We saw this filling a big gap currently for our colleagues. Our first thought was we wanted Basecamp or a clone. We had a look at activeCollab but it was not ready at that stage and also we had SharePoint looming into view. After much soul searching and experimentation with SharePoint we accepted that SharePoint could ideally fill this gap. Our main concern here was that SharePoint did not meet our key Web2.0 requirement i.e. it is intuitive, it takes less than 10 minutes to learn. However once you realise that it is a platform for developers and not an end user tool it makes more sense and is easier to swallow.

Social bookmarking – A simple and obvious tool that provides immediate user value solving the nightmare of browser based bookmark/favourite folder hell. It is also appeared to be simple on ramp into the world of social collaboration as you immediately can see how other people’s bookmarking can help you.
The choice here was pretty obvious. We had all been experimenting with del.icio.us and while other services offered more functions the simplicity of del.icio.us appealed, we had no hesitation in getting a clone of del.icio.us, Scuttle, up and running. This has all the core features of a social bookmarking service and does them very well. However it does not support communities and again no LDAP integration, something we would soon come to recognise as critical for wider adoption.

RSS reader – We saw RSS as the glue that holds all the tools together. This lets you bring all your activity/awareness monitoring to a single pace and eliminates the need for email distribution list though enabling the consumer to subscribe to what they need.
This proved to be a tricky area not because there was a lack of potential readers but because we realised that RSS is more than just a reader and that we would need a true enterprise solution. In the end this was where we had our first real funding provided and we went with NewsGator Enterprise Server which came with a RSS readers for the browser, desktop and the Outlook inbox.

Social Information Management tools

2008-05-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

From the users perspective tools such as RSS readers and social bookmarking are ideally used in tandem. These tools work best in partnership and the combination provides synergistic value to the user. They provide the means where by a user can monitor and store links to the content generated by Social Content Creation tools. The RSS reader provides the user with awareness, while the social bookmarking service plays the role of memory.

Social Content Creation tools

2008-05-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

From the user perspective tools such as wiki’s, blog’s and GTDware all provide means of content creation within a shared/social environment. The whole point of these tools is that they enable a user or group of users to generate content and make it available for consumption. Others are then able to edit, comment or act on this information.

meet Jessica

2008-05-19T12:22:00.000-07:00

Hopefully you have already met Charlie and his good friend Charlotte, now I'd like to introduce you to Jessica.

SlideShare src="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/logo_embd.png"> View Upload your own

This is something we put together for internal use at our company. The aim was to contextualise enterprise2.0 for the research community. Where as in meet Charlie Scott illustrated the use of web2.0 tools for small and medium business, here we see what enterprise2.0 looks like inside a large company where intellectual property has to remain inside the firewall. In this case you do not always have access to the tools of choice and have to get creative with those you have available. Further the challenge is how to blend these tools together to create an integrated environment. Over the last 12 months we have been consolidating and integrating our tools set. As we move forward I will be sharing our learning's and experiences, hopefully you will find these interesting.

A sneak peak at Google's Programmable Search Engine?

2007-10-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

Stephen Arnold just presented at the ICIC 2007 conference and discussed where he thinks Google are going based on an analysis of recent patent filings. One of the points he highlighted was the imminent implementation of the 'Programmable Search Engine' and where this might lead. You can read his analysis in this Bear Stern report. What is interesting is that currently if you go to the US Google server, this link will force you there, and search on 'back pain' or 'skin cancer' your search will return the option to further refine your search. I think what we are seeing is faceted search being implemented. Is this a glimpse of what is to come?

I suggest you check this out soon as Stephen indicated that Google tend to take these things down after he has highlighted them.

Can Enterprise2.0 beat the wiki 90:9:1 rule?

2007-10-22T03:18:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I gave a presentation, ‘What is Enterprise2.0?’ at our mother site in the US. At the start I wanted to get a feel for my audience, about 80 people, so I asked a few quick questions around who was using what Web2.0 tools. When I asked the room how many had used Wikipedia ~90% said yes. When asked how many had made an edit this dropped to ~10%. This fits with the usage stats from public wiki’s i.e. 90:9:1 rule (90% read, 9% make occasional edits, 1% make regular edits). When the same question was asked about our corporate wiki ~50% of those present had used it but about ~50% of those had edited it. Two key messages here:

We need to raise the profile of our corporate wiki but also what it is for and how to use it.
Wiki’s inside the firewall can significantly beat the 90:9:1 rule.

This second point is very interesting and illustrates that there are advantages to be had around adoption and usage of Web2.0 tools within the corporation. All too often we focus on the negatives i.e. meet Charlotte. We should recognise that within the corporation we have a natural community; we all have the same goal and a common purpose. This is a big advantage when implementing Web2.0 tools as one of the biggest challenges is creating the community.

PS A great use case example of wiki implementation can be seen here.

Information R/evelution - Pure Genius

2007-10-19T01:10:00.000-07:00

Micheal Wesch has done it again. If you only watch one thing today make it this.

OnePoint! - Combining OneNote and SharePoint

2007-09-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

OneNote - An electronic version of my paper notebook where I can drag and drop documents onto a page and annotate. A great user interface that seamlessly allows integration and management of your emails and MS Office files with free text annotations.

SharePoint - A good project level content management system (lets be honest the wiki and blog functions are not there yet) with a classically non-intuitive Microsoft user interface.

OneNote + SharePoint - An excellent collaborative electronic project notebook. All the power of SharePoints online content management system with fantastically user friendly electronic notebook interface.

There can only be one name for this combination - OnePoint

On a GTDware tip

2007-09-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm a bit of a latecomer to this particular party, and thanks to Scott for putting me onto it, but check out the 'skin job*' SMBlive have done on SharePoint '07. For BT they have created a great example of GTDware. I for one would like to have something like this. If I'm going to have to promote SharePoint in my organisation then this sort of skin job would be a god send. I realise that out of the box SharePoint can already do most of this but this re-skinning brings a intuitive UI to the SharePoint functionality. Lower training and customer delight. I see this, in co-junction with OneNote, being a killer combination.

* Thanks to Simon for the play on Blade Runner and referring to SharePoint re-skinning products as 'skin jobs'.

GTDware - Lightweight project management software

2007-09-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

What is the name for lightweight project management tools such as BaseCamp? How about GTDware? This seems to capture the essence of these tools everything from the sophistication of BaseCamp or GoPlan to the brilliant simplicity of Workhack. Afterall these tools all have one purpose and that is 'Getting Things Done'.

What information storage system should I use?

2007-09-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

This is a question I’ve been hearing more and more regularly. It is clear my colleagues are becoming confused as to which tools they should be using to store their information. This is not surprising considering the different tools that are available to them; Livelink, Documentum, SharePoint, corporate wiki, etc. All these tools can be used to support collaboration and sharing of information but which should be used? This is a question I have been contemplating for a little while now. The problem is that each of these systems have their own strengths and weaknesses, no one tool meets all the requirements. Recently I had an epiphany and the penny dropped. By thinking about collaboration from a communications perspective you are able to consider the different needs of a group broken down by the audiences they communicated with. There are essentially two types of communication:

Internal communication – the project is sharing transient information associated with the day to day running of the project i.e. meeting agenda, minutes, ideas, comments, etc. The key nature of much of this information is that at the time of generation it is often unclear it’s value. Only with time and additional information does the value of a piece of information become apparent. For example the value of a hypothesis cannot be judged at its conception only after testing and analysis.
External communication – the project is producing reports that are aimed at informing the rest of the organisation about its status/progress. This might include stage gate documentation for example.

In the first situation the project team needs to consolidate information from many different sources including PowerPoint, Word, Excel, email, PDF, images, etc. This information needs to be made available to the whole team in an environment where comments and thoughts can readily be captured, shared and updated. By its nature this information tends to be unstructured and represents a log of the evolving thinking and progress of the project team. To the team and those who are familiar with the teams working style this environment should be readily navigatable. The drawback of this environment is that many outside the project will find this environment to be non-intuitive and they will require an investment of both time and effort to allow them to navigate to the information they want. However it is worth remembering that this ‘Project eNotebook’ is a tool primarily to support internal project communication. OneNote in combination with a file-sharing environment offers a user-friendly tool that is easy to learn and meets these requirements. As described previously, in this model each team member has a copy of OneNote on their PC and utilise a common ‘notebook’ that is hosted within SharePoint.

In comparison in the second situation the team is essentially producing reports summarising the progress or status of the project. The target audience for these reports is the external environment. In many instances these reports will utilise pre-existing templates or a formal reporting style. The team are producing structured information for consumption by an audience distant to the day to day working of the project. In this case the corporate wiki and a project blog probably represent the appropriate environment for the sharing of this type of information. Hyper linking should be used to provide soft intergration between this environment and the ‘Project eNotebook’/SharePoint site. It is envisaged that only a single document is maintained in the corporate wiki and that this is a living document that evolves with the project. Hence it is likely that as a project pass significant milestones snapshots of the projects status are archived into the appropriate corporate content management system.
This is summarised in the diagram below.

The difference between Web2.0 & Enterprise2.0

2007-09-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

While both Web2.0 and Enterprise2.0 use the same tool sets the environments in which they are implemented are very different. As a consequence you need to recognise that Web2.0 and Enterprise2.0 are very different beasts. The main differences can be summarised as:

Web2.0 vs Enterprise2.0

User: Millions vs Hundreds - In Web2.0 you only need a small percentage of the total user population to adopt a tool to see the network effect. In Enterprise2.0 you may need the majority of users to become involved to see the network effect.
Mind set: Fun vs Work - In your home life you do things for fun but at work do things because we are paid.
Organisational structure: Flat vs Hierarchical - Flat organisational structures encourage collaboration while hierarchical ones hinder. See Rob Patterson's 'Social Media and the Organisation' post on the FASTForward Blog for a great discussion on this topic.
Attitude: Sharing vs Hoarding - In your home life you share information freely without expectation of recompense while at work all too often people ask 'what is in it for me?'.
Skill set: Digitally savvy vs Digitally averse - In Web2.0 the users are all those who are web savvy by their nature in Enterprise2.0 your user base covers the complete spectrum from web guru to technophobe.
Visibility: Anonymity vs Recognition - In Web2.0 you are one of the herd, the majority of users can assume that there is anonymity in a crowd. At work people seek recognition for their contribution as career progression can depend on it.
Society: Public vs Private - In Web2.0 you are able to control the information you share and are free to create alternative persona's, masks, behind which you can hide. In Enterprise2.0 there is no anonymity, everything you say and do online can be traced back to you.
Cultural: Innovative vs Mundane - At home we are free to experiment and try new things. At work we have to use the tools we are given and are often told what to do, both of which stifle innovation.

What does this mean? Well simple put the models that work to drive adoption of Web2.0 may not work for Enterprise2.0. I have seen this recently with our own projects. We have been pushing a bottom-up adoption/implementation model but are now looking to get senior sponsorship to drive adoption to the next level. Sid highlights this nicely in his recent post and Bill Ives reflects that the importance of sponsorship is a classic change management tool over on the FASTForward blog.

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

2007-09-22T12:43:00.001-07:00

I love this series of video by the Commoncraft team. Like all good things it's a simple idea but executed with really style. We were so inspired we've copied the style and adapted this video of theirs for out own social bookmarking project. It was really easy and Jason did a fantastic job putting it together in his office using a web cam and a couple of retort stands borrowed from a near by lab.

If you like this one then pop over to Commoncraft and check out their other videos in the 'Plain English' series including RSS & Wiki's.

Geting a Social Bookmarking Service Started

2007-09-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

This years side project has been getting a social bookmarking service going. I've really been pushing this as I see this type of service as an easy entry point to the world of web2.0. Why an entry point, apart from this was how I got started, well the user gets an immediate return on effort invested even before they start to see the 'network' effect i.e. mining other users bookmarks. Just escaping from the bookmark hell of IE or Firefox favourites and being able to find what your bookmarks via tags is so liberating. I know I had given up bookmarking site as my IE favourites folder had become unnavigable.
Our first step in this project was to see what open source options we had available, after all we had no budget so whatever we did had to be cheap plus as is the case for most Web2.0 tools there are great open source clones out there that you can use to experiment with. If it doesn't work throw it away, if it does we you either have a great code base to develop from or at least understand the requirements for a purchased option. Anyway we opted for a del.icio.us clone called Scuttle and got this up and running first on WOS, then on a spare desktop. Turns out that Scuttle has all the basic features you would want and is very stable.
Next step was to seek some funding from the IT innovation fund and this netted some money but more importantly gave us enough of an official status to allow us to get a domain name from the corporate stack. We wanted something that everyone would be able to remember and you don't get simpler than 'tags.xxxxxx.com'. Now in possession of a decent domain name and enough funding to get us server space we got the new instance up. In true web2.0 style we started a 'private beta/invite only' recruitment campaign. Amongst those targeted were people who had good social networks. We did this for two reasons one in the hope they would get the social side and two because when we moved to the next stage we could get them to recommend the service to there network. No amount of advertising can counts as highly as a recommendation from someone you trust.
The service has been up and running for 3 months now and has been spread via word of mouth so far. We have ~60 users and something like 800 bookmarks with an associated 2400 tags. Interestingly almost half, ~30, users have only bookmarked one item so that shows just how active the other 30 have been. We need to follow up with these single bookmarkers and learn why they only bookmarked once. In the mean time we are about to run an advertising campaign and open this service right up to ~1000 people. It will be interesting to see at what point people start to see the social benefit from other peoples tags. Though actually capturing this is somewhat of a challenge and something I'm going to have to work on over the next month.

iPhone - A truely beautiful thing

2007-09-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Just got my hands on an iPhone. It is fantastic, so simple to use. I'm posting this from it and...

Ok so I only managed to get the first line done via the iPhone. There are a few incompatibility issues with this text editor and the Safari browser it would appear. Still blogger did save the first line so i thought I would make the post anyway.
I know iPhones are not really a web2.0 technology but Apple do do user interfaces that personify everything that is great about web2.0. It just works the way you expect it should. No bloatware, not hidden menus, just simple user friendly loveliness.

Freedom of Information

2007-09-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

The need for cultural change in association with the successful introduction of enterprise2.0 tools cannot be underestimated. One of the biggest is the need to move the organisation to one which embraces freedom of information rather than the unfortunately more common 'knowledge is power' and the 'need to know' attitudes are prevalent. This is readily illustrated if we consider the difference between a wiki and a classic content management system. In the case of the content management sytem we all have had the following experience:

You received an email with a link to an folder inside the content management system. When you clicked on the link surprise, surprise you are told you don't have permission to access this area. Ok so we all have this issue, one quick email off to the sender and when they come into work you will have access. You moved onto your next email and there is a link to a SharePoint site, click through and again you are told no permission, right repeat above process. A third email and …….. Ok you get the picture.

Why does this situation occur? Because we assume that all information should be restricted to only those who need to have access. We have set the default permissions on our content management systems and SharePoint instances to closed, no public access. We create silos of information that you can’t access, you cannot search and so you don’t know what’s in them. They are lost and any knowledge held with in them is wasted.

Let’s consider a wiki, ignoring the differences in user interface, at its heart it is just another content management system. But our starting point is to set the system up as open, everyone has access to everything. What a difference this simple change makes. Nothing is hidden, nothing is lost. You can search everything. Knowledge is captured and available to be reused by whoever finds it useful.

So if an open system encourages sharing and a closed one promotes silos why not encourage an open culture? Why not set all permissions on all content management systems to open? Only where it is business critical should they be changed to closed. If we are to realise the vision of a enterprise2.0 enabled organisation then we need to make this cultural change.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

2007-09-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

I know this has been around for a while but it still impresses me.

Happily surprised by OneNote

2007-08-30T13:06:00.001-07:00

Now those who know me know I'm no fan of Microsoft and I certainly have not been convinced by SharePoint but today I saw OneNote being used by a team to capture the day to day project thoughts, decisions and activities. This was done by using OneNote in combination with SharePoint. I have to say for the day to day transient project information this was working really well. The analogy is that they used OneNote as a project notebook that everyone has access to. It was organised by work area and had sub sections, essential a hierarchal file structure. What the team loved was the ease with which they could 'drop' information into it and the ability to move away from email.
Interestingly the person showing me this admitted that this was just a glorified file share. They also thought that OneNote only really worked for the project team. For those on the outside this environment is just too unstructured, maybe a little better than looking through someone else's file share but still with a lot of the same problems.
Now I've been trying to get people to use our corporate wiki to capture their project information and my first thought was 'Wow maybe I've got this wrong and wiki's aren't what is required!'. Then I recognised that different tools are needed for the capture of different levels of information. In this example the OneNote/SharePoint combination was capturing transient day to day information very well. However to capture the more persistent decisions and to support collaborative authoring of project documents then a wiki makes more sense. Finally as the project pass significant stage gates then the wiki page or sections of it can be published into a document repository to give a permanent snapshot of the project status. This model is very attractive as it seems to offer a way to manage the different requirements associated with the capture and sharing of different levels of information. I need to remember that one size does not fit all.

A starting point

2007-08-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Web2.0 tools such as wiki's, blog's, social networking have changed the way we use the web. Previously to these tools content on the web was read only. You visited a site and read what was there. There was no capacity to comment on it, add content or interact in any persistent way. With the advent of Web2.0 tools we are now able to interact with the web. Blogs and wikis allow us all to contribute to the content on the web. Social networks allow us to meet each other and interact on the web. All these tools allow a two way conversation to take place and this is why we are now talking about Web2.0. All Web2.0 tools have one thing in common they are social, they enable people to collaborate and share content.
The question now being asked is can these tools that have developed on the web be used within the business environment? The inevitable answer is yes. However we are only just starting to explore how we can use these tools and how the culture that exists within our organizations affect their implementation and adoption. What works in your private life may not translate into the work place. As stated above all these tools are social, their success depends upon the adopting the right cultural attitudes. Choosing the technology and implementing it will be simple compared to the cultural changes that will be need in many organisations. For example how do you implement a wiki when a "need to know" cultures pervades? Or how do you get blogging up and running in an organisation where it is perceived, rightly or wrongly, that negative comments, even constructive ones, can be detrimental to your career? And finally how does a bottom up culture like web2.0 fit with the classical top down management culture of many work places? These question are the ones I am struggling with currently and I will be exploring through use case examples and my own experiences/thoughts on the subject. I hope you enjoy them and find somethings useful in amongst the rambling.

Remember technology is easy people are hard.