Library clips

At work our dormant 3D Animation CoP just got a comment on a past blog post by someone from the Machine Design CoP saying they have also done a bit of 3D work.

That’s great; our CoPs are a grounds for discovery, connection, diversity, re-use/remixing..but that’s not what this post is about…

On the same day the 3D Animation CoP posted 3 new blog posts…

Why is that so?

It’s like that commenter came to the table for a feed, and the blogger realised his CoP table was empty so he thought he better put more food on the table, as it’s the right thing a host should do…I mean the more people eat, the more the aim of the CoP becomes fulfilled ie. generates a community spirit.

It means so much when you have an audience…when you are being heard…I have impact (made a difference)…people like what I say…hey I know this…glad it helped you…connection is happiness…mutual fulfillment…building something together…personal and group progress. All this motivates you to share.

Sure a motivation to share can be "I know this…", but not everyone cares to think out loud and share what they know as it happens. I think a more common motivation can happen in a reactionary way…people like what I wrote, they have used what I said in a positive action, the realisation of wow I know stuff and people are listening to me…maybe I could indeed be DIY subject matter expert.

The more people comment on my stuff the more I feel compelled to share, it almost becomes an obligation, but I think it’s just the essence of what it is to be human…having purpose and social connection…engagement.

See Nancy Dixon’s post on a company commander who became an active participant after he found out that other people were getting valuable use from his AAR document

It got me thinking about why I share, which I guess is a re-visit to my post on what blogging does for me

NOTE: this is not a post on why people share in general, for that see some points here about participation

NOTE: there’s also a heap of research on the physiology and psychology of why people share, but maybe I’ll collect and post these links another time

Anyway, here’s my self-reflection…

Interest

- I read so many great blogs and wanted to be a part of that

Express my thinking and clarify my understanding

- The act of posting is "learning" as you are going one step further than thinking…you compare, associate, correlate, analyse, etc…

Feedback

- In my context, who needs to pay for university teachers when you get people adding to and refining your thoughts…the most simplest comment by an unknown, or even someone in another discipline are often the best

- This feedback helps me grow and understand

Memory management

- I don’t want to forget what I read, I like to clip things and then correlate (especially inter-discipline connections)

Research

- Not all people are researchers, but I am…I don’t formally study…I’m just personally motivated by being passionate about certain topics

Impact

- I want to know I make a difference in the world; I don’t want to be just a work slave/consumer

Belonging

- I want to be a part of something…social connection makes me feel good

Audience

- Knowing you have subscribers and commenters just makes you want to post more as it’s an indicator that your purpose is being fulfilled ie. many of the points described above

- I used to post according to what the audience like (via comments on particular topics), but now I just post on what I’m interested in right now

Help others

- This is unconditional for me…but it does depend on time availability

- I co-facilitate the vendor CoP we use at work…I spend some of my time helping others…I do this for free…I’ve experienced many things with the product so for me helping people on the forums is the right thing to do…the by-product of this behaviour is you become known as a subject matter expert whether you like it or not

Habit/addiction

- I’m prone to be a blogger…it makes me feel good…but it’s also addictive

Showing-off

- But not really…it’s more clearing up old modes of thinking…maybe this is related to "advocacy"’

- I am a naturally inclined to be currently aware off all the latest stuff for self-interest, but also like to tell people about it when the occassion arises (BTW - I used to be a current awareness librarian)

- I think stuff is so cool, I just want to share it especially when it comes to music….I guess this is a natural trait of being an enthusiast, early adopter, connoisseur…maybe I’m a cool hunter…hmmm, I’m not a mainstream person eg. I don’t just like what they feed me on the mainstream radio, I go and hunt for stuff…more underground

Messenger

- Noise comes across my radar…the glass half-full is that what was once noise is a new topic I now like to read… a little noise is good…but it also means that when I come across posts about iPad I send them to my friend Gerry…I unconditionally send people links cause I know it’s what they like…I guess this is gifting

Career development

- This realisation came later on

Let’s finish with a snippet from the insightful Andrew Gent:

"People share openly when they feel they are part of a community Not a member of the community, a part of the community. They share because they are assisting the community, even if the sharing is one-to-one with another member. …incentives cannot alter the psychological affinity an individual feels towards to community. At best, the incentive may spur an initial (and temporary) jump from lurker to participant, which the individual then finds satisfying. This success may spur them to try again, and over time start to develop a sense of ownership in the group. (In other words, become part of the community.) This, I believe, is what advocates of incentives are aiming for."

I’m not going to tag people to pass this on, but I recommend "reflection" as a good experience in self-development… or simply growing your grey matter

Hmm…maybe I’ll tag Harold Jarche, as he recently posted on reflection

…also see my post on meditation as reflection.

At work I’m the global lead for Communities of Practice (CoPs) and work solo…I report to a director and have a part time techie.

We are still in the GROWTH stage…I’ve still got a few wiki help guides to make, need to further develop my support CoPs, and work on reporting.

Along with this is the usual daily support and maintenance.

And side projects like developing external communities.

Anyway…

I consult with each new CoP, I inform them, I support them, then it’s up to the facilitator to host their CoP.

At any time they can phone, email, IM me, or use the support CoPs (to ask questions and where I share tips), and refer to help guides

The idea here is to train the trainer ie. each CoP facilitator

Issue

We have over 50 communities but only half are active, and I’d say about a quarter are really active.

I don’t want to deny new CoPs, but then I don’t want a ghost town.

NOTE: Our CoPs are not temporary group collaboration spaces, these are long term spaces for Business Units, Shared Services and Cross-functional groups. From this you can tell that CoPs is no longer an appropriate descriptor, but it’s something we are used to

, but it’s something we are used to, but it’s something we are used to, but it’s something we are used to, but it’s something we are used to, but it’s something we are used to, but it’s something we are used to, but it’s something we are used to

Since we are in the growth stage I don’t have time to consult with each CoP on an ongoing basis…and they need it as CoPs are about facilitating group dynamics, learning new tools, replacing habits…something not all people know about

If I could only train each facilitator each day to transfer these concepts and practice them, then I think their CoPs would have more capacity to improve.

I’m talking about an attention problem…I can’t spread it as far and as deep as I’d like to

I don’t have a team of global facilitators, it’s just me.

If I did I could assign a global facilitator to 10 CoPs each…this way we could do daily ground-zero facilitation with CoP facilitators

NOTE: We do not want to facilitate each CoP, we want to facilitate the facilitators

A team of global facilitators would only be short-term; it’s just to get our stagnant CoPs off the ground…to hold their hand for 6 months.

If all 50 CoPs were tuned, then only a couple of us would be needed to support/maintain, develop, and consult existing and new CoPs

My coping mechanism (currently in development)

• A volunteer facilitator network to help new CoPs…especially handy in a global company operating in various time zones
• A CoPs in Action wiki to highlight how groups are using CoPs in different ways, how they are using tools in various ways, interviews, case studies, recognition, curating content.
  This can help immensely as often new CoPs stare at a blank slate, they are not sure how or which way to flex these unstructured tools…they are used to tools designed for a specific purpose, and now suddenly they are the designers
• Monthly webinars on technical skills and participation practices

Where can I add value most? (currently in development)

What about this as an approach…

Simply focus my attention on those CoPs that "get it".

Keep allowing new CoPs to happen and support them, but only go that extra mile on enthusiastic upcoming facilitators and existing thriving CoPs

This way my time and expertise is being used to add value, rather than being spread thinly.

The idea is to create showcase CoPs.

Better to have 10 engaging CoPs, rather than 50 not so engaging.

The showcase CoPs can act as a magnet or attractor for other CoPs to want to be like them.

If this happens then I can eventually take my attention of the showcase CoPs, as they know what they are doing, and pay attention to existing CoPs that are insistently knocking on my door to resurrect participation.

At the moment I have demand for new CoPs, but I want demand for existing CoPs to want to be better

What I like about this approach is that I’m not denying the creation of new CoPs, that can continue as usual, but at the same time most of my time will be focused just on a handful of CoPs

One at a time…

I was interviewed by Cathrin Gill on the Enterprise 2.0 Open blog as part of their E2.0 Expert Profiles.

The Enterprise2Open blog was initiated for the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT.

It’s not easy summarizing over 5 years of my thought blogging and reading…this was something I needed to do. I have learnt about many things by reading bloggers, commenting and blogging myself…nothing better than DIY interactive education…I thank Cathrin for giving me motivation to do that…

Here’s the main bits below. I hope it’s OK that I’m re-posting…I don’t want to lose this summary

What is your understanding of the core concept of the Enterprise 2.0 idea?

• A new operating system based on different ideals, designs and structures
• For people to be engaged at work, rather than be seen as assets
• A focus on engagement rather than sharing…through design and facilitation you have better conditions to achieve your goal… sharing and heightened awareness will happen by default
• A somewhat role-based network organisational structure where people connect and are aware, have diverse input, acknowledge and action emergent outcomes, find suitable tasks and people…basically to exploit the collective knowledge to make better decisions and have an innovative edge
• A focus on complexity theory based on experimenting, manipulating for favourable conditions, monitoring and feeding back, rather than an addiction to plans and outcomes, targets and rewards. Being more transparent, adaptive, agile, and resilient

5.) What are the main potentials of the Enterprise 2.0 idea?

• As Euan Semple says these new social platforms can finally legitimise informal networks. Closing the gap between the c-level and the frontline (”we” rather than “us” and “them”), a more transparent, two-way communication, feedback and bypassing the levels of hierarchy. Preventing blockage of information and re-interpretations, welcoming and capitalising on feedback.
• This is a new approach and leveling, and can be amplified by the use of social tools. Two things come to my mind: Improve awareness and the seminal lack of communication syndrome, and co-create change so it’s relevant to the frontline.
• It also means working socially productive in silos and bridging silos using visible and open group tools, and connecting silos via enterprise-wide networks.
• E 2.0 provides workers with tools to communicate and share their exceptions to processes…let’s face it procedures are not clairvoyant, every context brings up unique aspects to current processes.
• E 2.0 leads to social productivity and activities like crowdsourcing are now achievable by connecting and conversing in public by default, rather than private by default (like the current email way). This is a move from PC (Personal computing) to SC (Social computing).
  But I’m not too sure how decision making being done in a social way will pan out; if we really want to talk about democracy that is…maybe a committee. It just depends on who owns the firm really.
• And since these interactions happen in the open, everyone learns for free on a daily basis, a pull system where workers pick up signals with their radar.
  Referencing Jim McGee: New social tools reprise the concept of observable work that we lost with the coming of the digital era. We now have the potential to tap into the “know-how” and “know-why”, rather than just the “know-what” we get in deliverables and documents. We are interested in the conversations and brainwork. When reading a deliverable we wonder why things are they way they are, what were the many micro-decisions and now we can go back to those fragments if we worked using social tools - this is the real corporate memory. The beauty of it is these fragments can be assembled together (re-mixed) for different contexts. Then the output of that work can be traced back to the artifacts (the workings out) and re-hashed, and so on. The whole idea is not re-use but re-mix…malleable objects that live in a flux…basically fragments as springboards to continuous knowledge creation.
  Ahhh, just read Oscar Berg’s post on social tools being our coping mechanism

6.) What are the main challenges, threats and issues of the Enterprise 2.0 idea?

Control…simple as that!
Bottom-up is not enough, we need a new organisational design, a top-down shift in ideals. At the moment we have worker 2.0 and group 2.0, but we need management 2.0 to make enterprise 2.0 happen.

My top 10

1. We share with people we trust, and share when we are engaged, rather than incentives and rewards, and now we have new social tools that appeal to intrinsic motivations
2. Some managers may feel dis-intermediated, especially those who rely on their status in controlling information flow, whereas managers who slant to the more leadership side of things welcome it. People worked a long time for their authority, and now comes along a way (eg blogs) to be influential by reputation
3. Transparency, two-way communication, and co-creation are key to engaged workers
4. We currently get rewarded for individual action, not collaboration or group output…or how much we help others on tasks we are not on…or how well we source the right people to help you on your task.
5. Different units compete for resources
6. Politics and power
7. This one can be slowly overcome, and that’s changing routines and habits from email to new tools (as long as the new tool is designed for ease of use)
8. A culture that is OK with sharing and learning from failure
9. Psychological safety (it’s OK to be wrong or to speak up)
10. In the past we only shared finished products in the open, and all the working out and know-why happens in closed email. There is now a change to “work-in-progress / status updates” happening in the open. With this we get more awareness, diverse feedback, reputation building, relationship building, learning… We can look back at a record of how things came to be…peripheral information, the conversations behind decisions. A report doesn’t compare as a raw record vs emails, phone, meetings…but all these things are behind closed doors.

Learnings since the interview

Here’s some snippets about the "real enterprise 2.0"…

Real enterprise 2.0 is about “service” "Because service is a person-to-person commitment rather than a goal-to-people one, it engages employees more, make the whole organization more responsive and make them less reluctant about caring about issues that are not directly theirs. Collaboration is something one do with someone else to achieve something. Service is quite different. Service is not something one do with another but something one do for another. The final purpose is, of course, to achieve something, but the immediate purpose is to help someone. And that changes everything. Fostering stronger relationships within the organization has few impact on collaboration because collaboration often commits people to a goal and not to other people. In a collaboration context, people don’t feel they help one another but rather that they’re on the same boat rowing to reach an island they don’t care about. In a service context, one is directly commited to help the other solve his problem and, then, relationships are more easily leveraged." - Bertrand Duperrin

Social Media goals are derived goals "I repeat. Your company does not need a social media strategy. What your company does need to do however, is to incorporate social media into almost every other strategy or plan that it has. This means that social media needs to be a part of your marketing strategy, public relations strategy, HR strategy, customer service strategy and maybe even your finance strategy. Maybe you do need someone to coordinate your company wide social media efforts, but that is not the same creating a social media strategy." - Asia Digital Map.com

Is this an aspect of capitalism 2.0? "Management in the 20th Century was about achieving a finite goal: delivering goods and services, to make money. Management in the 21st Century is about the infinite goal of delighting customers; the firm makes money, yes, but as a consequence of the delight that it creates for customers, not as the goal." - Steve Denning

Now this is the real enterprise 2.0 "The finite goal of delivering goods and services, in order to make money, was utterly boring and dispiriting…Because that goal dispirits those doing the work and often frustrates those for whom the work is done, it is inherently unsustainable. The infinite goal of delighting customers is inherently inspiring: helping other people is the essence of moral thinking. It is inherently uplifting for those doing the work, and invigorating to those for whom the work is done. Hence the goal is inherently sustainable. The new goal of delighting customers is a radical shift in the difficulty of what a firm is undertaking. The goal of a firm is no longer simple and linear and finite. Now the goal of the firm is difficult and complex and infinite. Now continuous innovation becomes a requirement, rather than a distraction and a de-stabilizer. Now we are in a world of continuous experimentation, to find out what works and what doesn’t, in terms of adding new value for clients. Now mistakes, instead of being elements that can be eliminated, are an essential element of the learning process. Now mistakes become crucial and welcome elements of the learning process. Instead of mistakes being punished, now mistakes are welcomed as essential opportunities for learning. Now everyone in the firm is focused on what can be done to add additional value to customers and clients. The firm is no longer an end in itself. The firm is now “other directed”: it is focused on meeting the needs of the clients and stakeholders whom it is purporting to serve." - Steve Denning

Real enterprise 2.0 is about letting go of “control” "Companies have to come to terms with the fact that the traditional model of managerial resource allocation and coordination (mainly coerced through extrinsic motivation in the form of rewards and punishments, such as payments, promotions, demotions, etc.) has become outdated and no longer reflects the social fabric of today’s workforce Commitment is fickle, reputation volatile, and loyalty scarce. In short: Companies have lost control – over their workforce, their customers, and as a result, their brands. Or, more precisely, as Charlene Li points out in her book Open Leadership, they have never really been in control – what they are actually forced to give up now is their need for control." - Tim Leberecht

Influence is replacing authority "If designers embrace the insight that influence is replacing authority as the new currency in the “pull economy” and that the best way to gain influence is to give up control…businesses can use “shaping strategies” to amplify and accelerate the inevitable loss of control in order to avoid employees and customers abandon them….levers of “access, attraction, and achievement” that provide the “creation spaces” and tools for employees and customers alike to design their own destiny, create their own meaning, and thus convert their very own skills and passions into productivity and loyalty" - Tim Leberecht

The need for both process and people-centric systems “A customer account manager receives a phone call from a client asking why an issue with their service has not been resolved and when it will be. The account manager can query a workflow-supported issue management system and learn that the issue has been assigned to a specific employee and that it has been assigned an “in-progress” status. However, that system does not tell the account manager what she really needs to know! She must turn to a communication system to ask the other employee what is the hold up and the current estimate of time to issue resolution. She emails, IM’s, phones, or maybe even tweets the employee to whom the issue has been assigned to get an answer she can give the customer. The employee to whom the issue was assigned most likely cannot use the issue management system to actually resolve the problem either. He uses a collaboration system to find documented information and individuals possessing knowledge that can help him deal with the issue. Once the problem is solved, the employee submits the solution to the issue management system, which feeds it to a someone who can make the necessary changes for the customer and inform the customer account manager that the issue is resolved. Case closed”. ad hoc communication and collaboration systems were the tools that drove actual results Without the cludgy, structured issue management system, the customer account manager would not have known to whom the issue had been assigned and, thus, been unable to contact a specific individual to get better information about its status - Larry Hawes

The mutation of capitalism "Every century or so, fundamental changes in the nature of consumption create new demand patterns that existing enterprises can’t meet. When a majority of people want things that remain priced at a premium under the old institutional regime—a condition I call the “premium puzzle”—the ground becomes extremely fertile for wholly new classes of competitors that can fulfill the new demands at an affordable price. A premium puzzle existed in the auto industry before Henry Ford and the Model T and in the music industry before Steve Jobs and the iPod. The consumption shift in Ford’s time was from the elite to the masses; today, we are moving from an era of mass consumption to one focused on the individual. The leading edge of consumption is now moving from products and services to tools and relationships enabled by interactive technologies. Innovations improve the framework in which enterprises produce and deliver goods and services. Mutations create new frameworks; they are not simply new technologies, though they do leverage technologies to do new things. Historically, mutations have superseded innovations when fundamental shifts in what people want require a new approach to enterprise: new purposes, new methods, new outcomes. The Model T embodied a mutation we now call mass production. It solved the premium puzzle of its time, reducing the price of an automobile by 60 percent or more, and thrived in the emerging environment of mass consumption. That potential for wealth creation remained invisible to those who clung to the 19th-century framework of small-factory, proprietary capitalism. In the same way that mass production moved the locus of industry from small shops to huge factories, today’s mutations have the potential to shift us away from business models based on economies of scale, asset intensification, concentration, and central control" - Shoshana Zuboff

The first wave of “distributed capitalism "The true source of value, which had been invisible to the music industry, resided in Apple’s ability to reinvent the consumption experience from the viewpoint of the individual, at a fraction of the old cost The iPod—and its successors, the iPhone and the iPad—are part of the first wave of what I call “distributed capitalism,” Winning mutations—those that create value by offering consumers individualized goods and services at a radically reduced cost—express a convergence of technological capabilities and the values associated with individual self-determination. Inversion The old logic of wealth creation worked from the perspective of the organization and its requirements—for efficiency, cost reductions, revenues, growth, earnings per share (EPS), and returns on investment (ROI)—and pointed inward. The new logic starts with the individual end user. Instead of “What do we have and how can we sell it to you?” good business practices start by asking “Who are you?” “What do you need?” and “How can we help?” This inverted thinking makes it possible to identify the assets that represent real value for each individual. Cash flow and profitability are derived from those assets. Reconfiguration Once individuals have the assets they want, they must be able to reconfigure those assets according to their own values, interests, convenience, and pleasure. A teenager, for instance, may use her iPod Touch and an application called Pandora to assemble an entire personalized “radio station” while at the same time learning Mandarin Chinese at the kitchen table on Sunday afternoon through an online classroom based thousands of miles from her home. Support The emerging logic of distributed capitalism rewards enterprises that realign their practices with the interests of the end consumer and punishes enterprises that try to impose their own internal requirements or, worse yet, maximize their own benefit at the expense of the individual end user" - Shoshana Zuboff

Next Generation Collaborative Enterprise (NGCE) "Collaboration encourages clusters of experts with diverse skills to make decisions quickly. The Next Generation Collaborative Enterprise allows experts at any level to propose, create and execute without hierarchical or geographical constraints. Priorities are set by clusters of experts that make decisions. Decisions are communicated real-time through social media applications…Individuals are able to apply themselves to the work based on their skills and availability, regardless of their geographic location…Funding is directed based on milestones. Direct accountability is embedded into the social network. Finally, organizational functions become less relevant and ‘Re-orgs’ become obsolete. Leadership is defined as the ability to influence, envision and execute ― rather than the authority to command and control." - Padmasree Warrior