Library clips :: communication

July 8, 2011

Google Plus : Closed group email collaboration done online

Filed under: blogs, conversation, email, collaboration, communication, tasks

I recently posted about the functional design aspects of Google Plus

A section I covered was wall-to-wall posting and private messaging. Google Plus has none of these; instead in Rawn Shah’s words it’s more "esoteric"…meaning that we have used the features a certain way to come up with what seems private conversations ie. there is no explicit feature called "wall posting" or "private messaging" as of yet. But perhaps a more fit word is online email-style collaboration; where the conversation is seen by a select few who get invited in as the conversation progresses…but only threaded and not messy like email.

First let’s visit Facebook…

Private messaging

When you private message in Facebook you use the designed private/direct message feature where it’s a conversation between you and a selected few.

@mention from your stream

When you @mention someone in Facebook from your own profile, that person will get a notification, and all your friends will see it.

Wall post

When you have a wall-to-wall conversation in Facebook you don’t initiate it from your profile, instead you visit that person’s profile to make your post.

Then the way it works is that only your mutual friends will be able to see your posts (but I think you can change this in the settings to make it more open).

NOTE: In IBM Connections your post on the person’s wall will be seen by their friends…this is perfect for the enterprise context where you can tap into someone else’s network…perhaps this is the idea behind G+ Extended Circles.

Now let’s look at G+

When you @mention someone in G+ and also select Public or a Circle, that person will get a notification, and your followers will see it.

When you use "@mention" without using any other selections like "Circles" or "Public", this is more similar to Facebook private messaging than wall posting; as only the two people in the conversation can see the post.

But then you’d want a G+ feature where you can collect these types of conversations eg. where’s that individual to individual conversation I had with Gerry last month

At any time the author or commenter can @mention people to join the private conversation.

So it’s not strict private messaging as the author cannot control a one-to-one conversation, and it’s not wall posting as other followers aren’t part of it by default….indeed esoteric.

But what it does remind me of is email collaboration, but only more neat.

We have always advocated for people to go online to a group space to start their conversation. But no-one is motivated to shift context. They already hang out where they do doing other types of communication, they don’t want to go elsewhere. And more importantly we cannot always clairvoyantly have a pre-defined group space for the type of thing someone wants to communicate. And no-one is about to create a forum and send invites and wait for people to subscribe so finally they can say something…that’s ludicrous.

Spontaneous and adhoc conversations is basically what we do in email most of the day ie. something happens or I have to do something, I kick off an email to someone. Soon enough that gets kicked around and some more people are in on the conversation (yes of course there are parallel conversations happening…this is indeed the weakness of email). As you can see the group of people evolve as the conversation grows, previously we simply didn’t know who’d be involved. And the email conversation itself ends up being the group space. This is very organic and intune with our we behave and action stuff.

This is why group spaces have been good for interest groups, or pre-defined tasks, but not those many informal tasks or things we do everyday at work…which later on can even become the precursor to more defined task.

Anyway nowadays we can use enterprise microblogging, which is an open version of this email type collaboration…only neater ie. threaded with a history of the conversation. Just like people can be forwarded or included as the email conversation progresses, the same can happen with @mentioning online. Using G+ as public posts and @mentions is a perfect example of this…using it this way is exactly like Twitter, only now you get threaded conversations and notifications if you have previously left a comment.

People may be happy to do this sort of thing online, but might not like the visibility of it. They may ask if we can do this online in a private way. In addition to being shy, they may also not want others to see this type of conversation online as it’s of very low use for anyone else…ambient awareness does have its limits in being noise.

So there you have it G+ can be used for neat and open multi-people conversations, both in a public way, and a private invite type way (that resembles email)

What I like about this is that people can still resume their private email type behaviours, but only online…and they will like the neatness of it and that it’s documented…that’s level 1. Once they get used to this, hopefully they may then open up the conversations in a "public" way…and all of a sudden you have Twitter-type ambient awareness in the enterprise…that’s level 2.

Here’s my findings…I did a little test in Google Plus with this result (this is a modified excerpt):

"There is no G+ private message feature. Instead just post as regular and @mention one person or even a few…make sure you don’t choose any circles or public.

Then go to your profile and type the name of the person you @mentioned in ""View profile as"…voila, you will see your post. Now do the same thing for a person that you follow but you did not @mention…voila you will not see your post

Therefore there is no explicit private message feature, instead you just post as usual, but @mention the person and don’t choose public or any circles.

Note how this is not a wall posting feature; it’s more leaning to a way to do private messaging.

From here both the author of the post and the commenter can @mention to invite people into the conversation.

Of course you only get notifications if you authored the post, or have already left a comment…or if someone @mentions you

NOTE: The weird thing is that when I view my profile as the person who was @mentioned by the person I initially @mentioned, then the post does not display…something is inconsistent here. But when speaking to this person they are indeed seeing the conversation and commenting.

Anyway, this functionality is just like email collaboration but only not as messy, and it’s documented…finally a way to do spontaneous private group collaboration (but the group is not defined up front, it instead evolves). This sort of thing happens in email, but it’s so clunky that we complain all the time

This functionality is not like private messaging, as PM is only one to one (not even the sender can invite others into the PM)

NOTE: The closest G+ has to a wall posting feature is if you @mention someone but also include Extended Circles (which means all people you follow and some people in the mentioned people’s circles will also see it)

Louis Richardson calls these types of email conversations "spools":

"I’ve seen email threads that should have been called spools. Someone asks you to do something. It’s going to involve a number of people. You add their names and respond. They individually respond and add others as they see necessary. If this goes like most, soon you have an email snowball that has engulfed anyone close enough to get pulled into it’s gravitation field. Stop the insanity…go social.

You get an email asking you to do something that will involve others or multiple steps, use Connections Activities. This can be as simple as dragging the email into your Notes sidebar onto the Activities widget. This will create a social activity. Once done, you can add tasks and items to the activity. You can assign people and add content. Your actions will generate short email alerts to those involved, linking them to the activity, where the conversation takes place. The emails are merely announcements with links. The real conversation is done outside the inbox. Now if anyone joins late, they aren’t relegated to pouring through an email thread to try to discern relevant information. Instead, they find themselves in a social activity that is structured such that the information is easily found and acted upon."

Enterprise microblogging : you no longer have to report back to base

Enterprise activity stream - email conversations with externals staying threaded in the stream

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October 4, 2010

Interview : My thoughts on enterprise 2.0

Filed under: km, conversation, network, community, emergence, collaboration, communication, complexity, decisionmaking, leadership

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

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
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
Transparency, two-way communication, and co-creation are key to engaged workers
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.
Different units compete for resources
Politics and power
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)
A culture that is OK with sharing and learning from failure
Psychological safety (it’s OK to be wrong or to speak up)
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

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September 16, 2010

Spontaneous conversations across levels of hierarchy and departments…email or microblogging

Filed under: blogs, conversation, network, email, communication

Recently I have been talking about how to have less messy, more transparent, open, diverse, and recorded (by default) conversations. In particular conversations that move across silos or involve multiple departments.

My first post was about bridging the enterprise gap, and my second post was about no longer having to report back to base (and some background).

I will quickly review those two posts and add a third scenario of the usual spontaneous email conversations that span many levels of hierarchy and departments.

Top down communication and conversation - cut through hierarchy and across groups

The former was about a communication made to leads in different units who were then responsible to pass the communication down the chain. And you know what happens, people react to the communications and the same conversation is had in multiple spots.

The commenters have to wait for leads (if the leads choose to do so) to get their message up the chain and then back down.

Middle managers as communication reps or agents can often be a blockage; wouldn’t it be good to communicate straight with the source (this is more timely, engaging, empowering…and less frustrating for workers). The other point is that rather than each group missing out on clone discussions happening elsewhere, the inter-departmental conversation can happen in one space…yeah for collaboration, cooperation, and awareness…and of course all of this being documented by default.

My suggestion was a blog post, which is like writing an email, only on an online page. If some intended recipients don’t subscribe to the blog, then the author can send them a link to the post.

The recipients (the leads) simply pass on the link to their people, and anyone can post in the central spot for a discussion that cuts through and involves many levels of the hierarchy…a flat discussion perhaps.
What enterprise tools could learn from Facebook Notes (which is like blogging) is to be able to tag people, which is basically like putting their name in the To: field of an email. Sure you have subscribers, but if you really want to alert them then tag them, and also tag others that may not subscribe (which is kind of a tweak to the Facebook Note functionality)

I guess this can also be done in a microblogging network. People who follow you will get your communication, but so they don’t miss it in their stream you may want to @mention them, and also @mention some others that may not follow you.

SUMMARY

Blogging

Shift Context - people like communicating by email as they simply visit their inbox and click new message. This is less convenient with blogging as you have to shift context ie. browse for the group space (CoP), then the blog…people are too busy and there is no time to do this (unless you can email a post…but most often people haven’t added a blog’s address in their email personal contacts)
Awareness opportunity - non-subscribers probably won’t come across this post unless in a search result or random browsing
Recipients - are email subscribers, and non-subscribers are sent a link (prone to inbox interruption and flooding, unless you can opt-out of the conversation thread)…don’t bring RSS into this as people just want one dashboard, and an RSS Reader is just not as productive as email (The plot thickens….microblogging is much more similar to both email and an RSS Reader)
Future use - good in hindsight as all info about this topic is in one spot

Microblogging

Shift Context - you don’t have to shift context at all (you don’t have to browse to the place where you want to post), instead like email it’s done from the one window
Awareness opportunity - anyone in the network might see it
Recipients - have been @mentioned or notified, but others can also be aware by following people (and choose to pay attention or ignore posts in their stream ie. no inbox interruption and flooding)
Future use - but in hindsight where does this communication live (you could use #hashtag I guess)…or like all good facilitators you take the best bits from raw conversations and list them in a wiki (linking back to those conversations)…this is related to the "Practice" part of a Community of Practice

Combination

Future use - blog about it so it lives in a solidified place
Awareness opportunity - from an easy click on the blog post footer you can post a link to your blog post in the microblogging network
Recipients - no inbox interruption and flooding (make sure commenting and subscribing is turned off on the blog, as these two things happen in the microblogging network. Microblogging posts about the blog post are displayed on the blog post via a plug-in. Perhaps you can comment via the blog post, but the box you are typing in is really a window into the microblogging platform).

An observation for this context could be…it’s like microblogging is the new blogging and blogging is the new document.

As it happens awareness rather than reporting progress back to base

The latter post was about using microblogging and #hashtags to do task work so that communications a task member has with a non-task member is visible to other task members as it happens…voiding the need for the task member to report progress back to base.

Spontaneous conversations across levels of hierarchy and departments

A similar communication, and all too familiar one is as follows:

WorkerA from UnitA emails LeadA about an issue with UnitB’s system.
LeadA emails LeadB from UnitB about the issue (whilst WorkerA is not in the loop.)
LeadA forgot to include LeadC in the email so one is sent (whilst WorkerA and LeadB aren’t in the loop that LeadC has been contacted)
LeadB then emails one of their workers, WorkerB (whilst WorkerA, LeadA and LeadC are not in the loop.)
WorkerB emails WorkerB2 about some troubleshooting and cc: LeadB (whilst WorkerA, LeadA, and LeadC are not in the loop.)
WorkerB2 then emails WorkerC in UnitC for some help but forgets to cc: LeadB and WorkerB (whilst WorkerA, LeadA and LeadC are not in the loop.)
Meanwhile WorkerA has also thought to email WorkerC2 (with no-one else in the to or cc field) in UnitC about the issue
[…at this stage all three people in UnitC know about the issue from different people in different email chains]
Then WorkerC2 emails LeadC to let them know (with no-one in the to or cc field), but LeadC already knows as Lead A emailed them earlier (but may not know the latest)
Meanwhile WorkerA2 has emailed WorkerA as they also ran into the same issue but found some more interesting detail (with no-one else in the to or cc field).
WorkerA replies to WorkerA2 with an attachment of the original email they sent to LeadA (and includes LeadA, and WorkerC2 in the cc field to mention some additional insight picked up by WorkerA2)
WorkerC2 emails WorkerC about the interesting detail found by WorkerA2 (and cc LeadC)
WorkerA2 emails WorkerC (with no-one else in the to or cc field)…but WorkerC already knows the new found detail
LeadA then emails LeadB and LeadC about this additional info (with no-one else in the to or cc field)…but LeadC already knows about the new found detail
LeadB then emails their people WorkerB and B2…it turns out UnitB have been out of the loop for a while

…and so on.

These fictional scenario’s are hard to contrive. It would be more interesting to do some ethnographic work!!

I have drawn a map, but am not sure if it’s helpful.

As you can see the conversations get’s messy, and each unit is having closed conversations amongst themselves, and then at particular points emails cross units. Most of the time the frontline people (UnitA) who need to find some workaround to this issue are waiting for their lead to get back to them. But because they are out of the loop they start emailing around to others to find a solution.

Wouldn’t this all be easier if the question was posted in a forum and all comments could be centralised so everyone is in the loop.

Perhaps, but that means everyone needs to be a member of the forum (in order to have "write" access)…do they know which group space it’s in, are they subscribed to it.

Further to this; are people from UnitA interested in the techie stuff that people from UnitB and UnitC are talking about. Yes it’s good they can be aware, but the n-extra emails they don’t understand is not fun.
eg.refer to point 4. - When LeadB emails WorkerB; WorkerA, LeadA and LeadC are not cc: as it may be of a technical nature.
Maybe it’s best to leave things how they currently are, and wait for a communication that makes sense to UnitA. Perhaps, but it’s frustrating waiting and being out of the loop…collaborating in one spot is more engaging and clean, and is recorded for future use.

If only we could be aware as it happens (rather than waiting to be updated or asking people) without being interrupted or piling up our inbox with emails we don’t understand.

Another option is microblogging!

Let’s try it…

WorkerA writes a status update and @mentions LeadA
(even though LeadA follows WorkerA a @mention is used in case the post was not noticed in the stream)
- WorkerA2 follows WorkerA so is in the loop
LeadA comments on this post and @mentions LeadB (WorkerA is kept in the loop as they are auto-notified about the comment)
- WorkerA2 follows LeadA so is in the loop, but decides to add this post to their Watchlist just incase they miss any new comments made by people they follow, and to also be in the loop of comments made by people they don’t follow…if WorkerA2 made a comment then they wouldn’t need to add the post to their Watchlist as they would then be auto-notified of new comments. But since they don’t plan to get involved at this point in time they find the Watchlist feature handy.

- LeadB decides to add this post to their Watchlist for the same reason
WorkerD (a new comer to our example) follows WorkerA and saw this post so decided to leave a comment @mentioning WorkerC2
(WorkerA, are LeadA are kept in the loop as they are auto-notified about the comment)
(WorkerA2 and LeadB are kept in the loop as they have added this post to their Watchlist)
WorkerA2 mentions some additional info about the issue
(WorkerC2, WorkerA, and LeadA are kept in the loop as they are auto-notified about the comment)
(LeadB is kept in the loop as they have added this post to their Watchlist)
WorkerC2 leaves a comment saying the issue is fixed
(WorkerA2, WorkerA, and LeadA are kept in the loop as they are auto-notified about the comment)
(LeadB is kept in the loop as they have added this post to their Watchlist)

In this example…

WorkerA2 was aware of what’s happening much earlier.

Workers A listened mostly and didn’t have to find out on their own what’s going on or wait for a communication

WorkerD defied what would happen in email as they were ambiently aware and knew WorkerC2 was the person to fix it (this circumvented the need for UnitB to get involved, yet they could be ambiently aware of what was happening).

LeadA had minimal involvement and LeadB didn’t see the need to get involved, and people who didn’t even need to get involved at all were WorkersB, B2,C and LeadC
(all these people were aware as they follow people involved, and may have added the post to a Watchlist)

The difference here is: flat transparent conversations, timely (quicker turnaround), adapt to changes, visibility, everyone can be in the loop, not frustrating, no need to channel the solutions through the hierarchy…

The point is that these are spontaneous conversations that span many units and pre-defined group spaces just don’t cut it. Group spaces can have a hard time in the context of ad-hoc task work as the space needs to be prescriptive (created upfront in anticipation), and people need to become members. Which means you have to join before content can be communicated to you…waiting, waiting for you to join as I need to tell you something…email doesn’t have this issue as you simply push it to people.

Network interactions are more transient, and only exist as long as they need to (just like email conversations).

Another obstacle is you have to shift context to use them depending on the topic of your conversation, whereas email is the same familiar window.

Microblogging has the visibility of group spaces, but the ease of use of email.

Signal and Noise

Microblogging works really well on the web for discovery, awareness, research, communication, coordination…how does this transpose into the enterprise.

Yes, it’s good to be ambiently aware so we can be in the loop. When you are aware, you are more mindful and can act more appropriately knowing the bigger picture.

But how do I decipher the ambient information (good to know) from the essential information (must know)?

This is a good point raised by Mary Abraham on her TMI post (which I also talked about in my facelift post)

Must know - typical emails you currently get from your lead, co-workers and people in other teams you are working with on tasks
Good to know - ambient awareness (which by serendipity you may discover stuff you "must know" but don’t, as you weren’t in the email chain…both within and outside of your team

In my example above I mentioned a few times that even though a person followed another, they still @mentioned them so you get that email-like push feeling that you know it has been brought to their attention.

When you are working on a task and have commented on a post, you don’t need to be @mentioned a second time as you automatically get notified

So with the help of @mentions and notifications we can still be alerted like email

In addition what we need to be able to do is add a post to a Watchlist so you can go back to it and have a look at the history to refresh yourself
(just like going to an email that’s a couple of weeks old in your inbox and reading the email chain)

Maybe we could even flag items in our Watchlist so they standout, and even group them into a manageable folder or tag page

And fourthly we need to be able to follow #hashtags so we can be in the loop of new posts about the same task

That covers the posting and receiving, and also covers organising access to posts you have been involved in.

To this we can also add other filtering aspects like group spaces, list aggregations, search streams…

I wonder if anyone has experienced being able to have a controlled email-like experience (making sure people get your message, and that you can find and read past messages) in a microblogging platform, but at the same time be immersed in the ambient awareness of microblogging that we all know so well. The point is; can we make sure the essential stuff (must know) doesn’t get mixed and lost in the stream (amongst the good to know)?

I think with good design this is achievable with features like @mention, auto-notifications, watchlists, flagging, tagging and #hashtags…and I haven’t mentioned private messages.

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July 19, 2010

Enterprise microblogging : you no longer have to report back to base

Filed under: blogs, conversation, network, presence, email, collaboration, communication, tasks, process, decisionmaking

This is a follow-up to my post Enterprise microblogging needs a facelift to rival email.

In that post I talked about adding an item in the stream to your Watchlist

This way you can keep in the loop about a conversation without you having to be a poster or a commenter

I also talked about communally grouping items via contributors tagging them with a hashtag

This way you can keep in the loop about the greater task that is generating all these items

Differences

You are not being cc:ed, rather you "pull" the content to you (filtering your own information)
- you can be @mentioned which is like the to: or cc: field
  - but this won’t happen in every post and comment, so it’s up to people to add it to their Watchlist
The sender has an understanding of who needs to be involved in a conversation, but this is not always apparent at the start of a task, and there are plenty of people on the edges who need to be consulted that emerge
- Now anyone can find a conversation, add it to their Watchlist, get involved

Deeper than In-the-flow and Above-the-flow

A while back a defining post was made on the difference between working Above-the-Flow (volunteering to share information and experiences based on engagement, trust, audience, reciprocity), and In-the-Flow (communicating and asking questions about tasks using social tools rather than email…doing what you are already doing in new tools).

Well what I want to describe here is going deeper than In-the-Flow…to the artifacts of the activity itself.

Example

We have a web conference about a task that involves people across teams.

We set up a group space.

We use this group space to ask the task team questions.

We use this group space to communicate our individual progress to the task members.

Why do I have to go to a blog to describe to other task members about my progress?

Let me explain…

An action item that came up in the initial meeting was for a member of the task to contact someone in IT to find out where we can host our database.

Once he found this out, he communicated back to the task members by fowarding his email conversation with the IT guy

By blogging about this email conversation he had.

But you kind of feel silly blogging about something when you can just easily fwd it…it’s just easier.

Yes blogging it stores it for all to see, and keeps the conversation centralised…but it needs to feel natural. One positive step is to forward your email to the blogs email address, this way further comments about this is centralised around the blog post.

Deep In-the-Flow (Embedded In-the-Activity)

There is a better way…

Why report your progress by updating task members about it (whether in email or a blog)…

when instead they can see your conversation as it happens.

MICROBLOGGING AND HASHTAGS

Watch what happens when all task members follow the hashtag for this task:

Task Member B’s filtered stream of #DMS_dev

Hi @ITguy we are looking for a place to host our new server…blah blah blah…#DMS_dev
Posted by TaskMemberA

Comments expanded

ITguy - No probs we have room in our data centre in Australia

TaskMemberC - When do you think this may happen

ITguy - We will have a meeting tomorrow so can give you a date

TaskMemberA - do you have a goto person that we can liase with

ITguy - just got out of a meeting and @ITguysfriend will do the hands on work, no date yet

ITguysfriend - I’m travelling soon, so it would be good to do this ASAP

Notice here how Task Member A does not have to write a blog post or forward an email to Task Member B or any of the other task members.

Why? Because all the task members are following the hashtag.

Task Member A is no longer the middleman to report the conversations he/she is having at the edges when doing their part of the task. They don’t have to forward an email or report progress as everyone can already know "as it happens."

ie. when on a task we don’t just converse with task members, we need to speak to random others in the organisation to get information from, authorise, or simply consult with as part of a task member doing their bit of the task

All task members (and anyone else) can now see the conversations each member is having with both task members and with indirect task members they need to consult with.

Indirect task members such as @ITguy can get involved at anytime without having to go through a task member; as long as they use the hashtag all task members will be in the loop.

What I’m getting to is you don’t need to report status or progress, as everyone can already see the conversations you are having.

Traditionally, if I were to report back to the group the progress of my task I would examine all my email conversations and write an email or a blog post on my progress…kind of like a real informal reporting. Or I would upload my emails which no-one will read.

But now people can have access to the artifacts without me having to forward them, or without me having to report about them.

This is a major difference between a closed system like email and an open microblogging system with the use of hashtags.

To reiterate the two main theme’s here:

1. People can now see the raw conversation as it happens, you no-longer have to report back to base…as people at base are privy to your conversation as it unfolds.

2. As a task member I am no longer a middleman in interpreting and communicating the progress of my part of the task, as you can see what I’m doing. Plus other task members can interact with the people on the edges (indirect task members) on the details of my part of the task.

Where it doesn’t apply

I’ve made clear that this works as a replacement to email, but when doing your part of a task you may have phone and face-to-face conversations with 3rd parties…in that case you do have to write a status update reporting your progress

Work products Deep In-the-Flow (Embedded In-the-Activity)

Aside from open conversations with both members of the task and people on the edges that are consulted about various parts of the task; we also have output documents eg. deliverables and supporting materials.

We no longer have to communicate (email or write a blog post) to people that we have just added a document related to our task. We simply do this at the time of adding the document.

The Activity stream of the microblogging app will suck in items added to the Document Management System (DMS) via an API

Task Member A is adding a document to the old DMS

Click here to browse and and Add the document.

Click here to add a description:

Here’s the information sheet about our server #DMS_dev I thought I’d better @mention you @ITguysfriend as pushing this to you may get to you quicker as I recall you are travelling soon
Posted by TaskMemberA

CLICK TO SUBMIT

If we take another look at the hashtag stream we will see that the act of adding this document and a description has resulted in posting a new item into the stream (see the 5th post down)

Task Member B’s filtered stream of #DMS_dev

Hi @ITguy we are looking for a place to host our new server…blah blah blah…#DMS_dev
Posted by TaskMemberA [Expand Comments]

Hey @Qualityguy I need you to sign off on this paper work…basically it says…blah blah blah…#DSM_dev
Posted by TaskMemberC [Expand Comments] [Link to Document]

Hey main members of this task, what do you think we can call the new DMS, any ideas #DSM_dev

Hey @Marketingguy are you able to come up with a brand logo for our new product, I gave you background to this task on your voicemail…also see linked document #DSM_dev
Posted by TaskMemberB [Expand Comments] [Link to Document]

Comments Expanded

ITguysfriend - just about to hop on a plane, sorry, will login when I land

ITguy - that’s OK I’m gonna get @ITguysotherfriend to do this if she has time

ITguysotherfriend - no probs, I’ve added this to my watchlist and read up on other related posts in this hashtag, so I’m all up to speed

TaskMemberC - is Thursday OK

ITguy - I’ll be in the office on Friday so we’ll do it then

ITguysotherfriend - OK with me

TaskMemberC - great

ITguysfriend - just landed, good to see it’s all sorted

Summary

This post focuses on a sweet spot in performing tasks.

Why?

It’s as easy as email.

You don’t have to set up a group space.

All you need to do is use microblogging (utlising Watchlists and Hashtags)

But the real focus of this post is about what happens on the edges.

All people on a task go off and do their bit and either report back on progress via email or a blog. They are the middleman between the task members and people on the edges who they are consulting with in doing the task.

Now we don’t have to report back, as task members (and anyone for that matter) can see the the raw conversations with people on the edges as it happens. Both other task members and people on the edges can interact without having to go through a particular task member.

Related

This is taking my ambient awareness post to proper task use, and brings back into fashion Jim McGee’s post on the loss of observable work.

Paula Thornton talks about artifacts of work, and this is exactly what I’m tackling:

"Conversations are artifacts of work. Do not confuse artifacts of work with work products. Work products often miss much of the “real work” that occurred. Any evidence of “real work” qualifies as an artifact.

KM tended to focus on “work products” (often most closely aligned with ‘the explicit’). But the goal was never to document the “implicit” (as was often postulated), but simply to make it observable by others."

This post is not so much the difference between conversations and the end product (deliverable), but more so how the conversations happen, and how we don’t have to report progress on our daily work on achieving our task.

Well let me clear that up, sure if I’m doing my own brainwork I will report my results, but if I’m having conversations with people that I need to consult with to achieve my task, well then I don’t have to report that this took place, as other task members already know, due to me using the task channel (defined by assigning a hashtag) to converse with people on the edges…all without them having to be part of an official group space.

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July 16, 2010

Enterprise microblogging needs a facelift to rival email

Filed under: blogs, conversation, network, presence, email, collaboration, communication, process

OK, here’s the solution upfront. You can read the rest of this post to know why this needs to happen.

SOLUTION

Requirements

More than 140 characters
(like Yammer and Socialtext Signals)

Inline comments; also posts in their own right
(like Yammer and Socialtext Signals)

Request

Add a post to your Watchlist
- like an RSS Reader but subscribing at the post level
- Imagine rather than "favouriting/liking" a post, you are actually subscribing to it
- This way you can be notified of any new comments about a post

Tag posts in your Watchlist
- a tagcloud/list would be accessible in the left hand pane of the microblogging app
- list preferred posts from your Watchlist in the left hand pane for one click access
  - see it turn bold-which signifies new content-and displays a number-which signifies the number of new comments in that post

Follow a Hashtag
- like saving Twitter search queries in your sidebar but more like an RSS Reader subscribing to a tag
- Click on it to view as a stream
- Reason for this feature is to catch new posts (and comments on those posts) on the same topic or task
  - accessible from the left hand pane of the client and turns bold-which signifies new content-and displays a number-which signifies the number of new posts and comments in existing posts

These requests are necessary to catch posts and comments that stream by that are important to you.

Microblogging in the enterprise is a different context from the consumer web; people are doing real work and need to be able to catch important posts in the stream. It’s not about just dipping into the stream and having a swim, it’s not just about following interests, it’s more about my boss, or people from a task I’m on, have posted a few things and I can’t afford to let them stream by unnoticed, I need the notification/subscription/follow mechanisms set up so I don’t miss anything essential.

This doesn’t happen in email, you don’t have difficulty sorting out the spam and the friendly email from the task type email…you don’t really miss seeing an email from your boss. This needs to be the same in enterprise microblogging; but it’s not as easy as email as the stream is much more a firehose than the email inbox.

Mary Abraham has talked about TMI (Too Much Information), and how do I differentiate the "good to know" stuff (it’s great to be aware of what’s happening in the organisation), from the "essential to know" (what’s the latest update I have to action today).

This brings up the need for enterprise microblogging to get a facelift by including a way to catch information that is essential to you…basically it needs a couple of simple features and functions.

READ ON

Not long ago I posted on how we do knowledge work via email because it’s easy, but we suffer later as it’s messy…and we miss out on these conversations living in a central place where others can be aware (and for possible diverse input), and later can be searched.

I explained the alternative in using a blog or forum. Which is OK, but it’s simply not in our flow to jump to a group space to communicate, especially when some of the people you want to communicate to are not subscribed to your blog.

At the moment if I need to have a conversation with a random group of people I use email (this is my ad-hoc tool)…I may even add an attachment if we need to do more than just converse. I’m not about to set up a group space for a conversation that may last a week or even a moment…it’s way too much effort.

Hence, no adoption of social computing tools for ad-hoc work. If we do get this design right, then not only will we get adoption for activity based work, but also for learning and sharing sites like online communities, online team spaces, etc..

It’s not just email; if I need to grab some relevant parties or have a discussion about a task we email or phone each other, and then get a room, or go to someone’s desk and have that chat. I want to be able to assemble this way using social tools, where there is not so much a group space, but a conversation space…kind of like a Twitter hashtag conversation, or a Yammer threaded post.

Group spaces (like CoPs) require facilitation to keep them active and you have to shift context to use them depending on the topic of your conversation, whereas network interactions are more transient, and only exist as long as they need to (just like email conversations).

Keith Swenson shares his pain:

"The solution is to make a shared “room” where all the toys can be shared equally within a group. That is the solution that many approaches have taken, and it is not difficult. But someone still has to set up the room in advance, in anticipation of the need to share, and most people will not take this step. It is just easier to send the documents as an attachment and force the work onto everyone else. In groups that I work with, even making the room available to people, they rarely get used."

What I’m alluding to here is the need not for a group space, but simply an ad-hoc conversation space…and networks, not groups is the answer.

In comes microblogging…

Here’s a fictional example…

@bob @sarah @jason @neil @brad @sally @jeff @denali @arielle @peter as you know the development of our new DMS has been on hold due to low resources. Well now there is an initiative happening that needs the use of a new DMS to store its documents, so they will sponsor it’s development…blah blah blah…please tell your people
Posted by John Tropea

Comments

Bob - do you have a new roadmap?

Sally - what’s the deadline?

John - the deadline is August 31st, and a roadmap will be shared soon

Neil - what is the initiative you are alluding to, and how far will they sponsor it’s development

Jim - hey guys just came across this conversation as I follow John. We are running a global Quality initiative and need somewhere to keep our output, so we are sponsoring the new DMS

John - apologies Jim, I forgot to @mention you in the original, come to think of it I forgot to add in our IT representative, hey @abby join in the conversation.

Jody - Neil told me about this resurrection, congrats guys

Abby - Hey guys, we ordered the new servers yesterday

John - Thx Jody, yes we are indeed very happy about this

Samantha - Hey guys, I’m from the DMS team, we are looking for some work for our intern, could they possibly get involved

So far so good, this is the type of thing you can do on Yammer as it has inline comments (and maybe Twitter soon via Twitoaster)

But the issue we have here is with notifications (which I will tackle further down in this post)

What new capabilities does microblogging bring to the table

Others can read this open conversation in the stream and be aware and get involved (diverse input…possible clashes with other tasks or what other teams are doing can be revealed as conversations are in the open to be found):

whereas in email it’s just the recipients and people who have been forwarded the email
microblogging makes for more chance of collaboration and awareness to better align and cooperate with other units

The recipients in the original post can re-post (retweet) the post including an @mention to other people so they are aware of it, or to get involved…or alternatively can leave a comment that includes @mention to others.

The recipients can re-post (retweet) the post to their group space (eg. as happens in Yammer group or Socialtext Signals) so their team can see the raw conversation, if they have not already seen it stream by anyway in the public stream

what I like about this is that people down the hierarchy can see the raw conversation, not some filtered re-interpreted conversation. And of course if the post has failed to reach them via their manager, there is a chance they will still see it as it’s online in the stream for anyone to see

The conversation is in one location and not messy like email, no-one is left out of the loop, new comers can join and see the past conversation…it’s searchable

And of course it’s essential that posts have a comments thread, and more than 140 characters to post content.

But what’s missing here…

NOTIFICATIONS

If we follow the Facebook model…

John is getting notifications that people are commenting on his post

Bob, Sally, Neil, Jim, Jody, Abby and Samantha are also getting notifications as they have left a comment…

BUT, they are only being notified of comments that have come after their comment. So they have to catch up reading on the earlier comments, unless they have already seen them stream by (remember comments are threaded, but are also a post in their own right)

Sarah, Jason, Brad, Denali, Arielle, and Peter ARE NOT being notified of any comments

Until microblogging can duplicate this uniqueness of email, it will not be as useful to do actual back and forth work

FILING/BOOKMARKING (FAVOURITE/LIKE)

When we have this typical conversation in email; people will individually file this conversation in a folder. This way they can find it later.

In microblogging we can favourite/like the post of this conversation so we can come back to it later, but we also need to be able to tag these favourites so there is more context to help us find them later.

And we need these tagged favourites browsable in a tagcloud/or a list on the left of our microblogging app, just like we have our email folders in the left-hand pane.

But we also need to be able to list some posts from within our favourites so we can see them right there in our left-hand pane.

Maybe they are not called favourite/like, perhaps Watchlist is better.

WATCHLIST

Ok, I think I just solved our notification issue…

What’s required is a Watchlist feature.

The recipients of the original post can click the Watchlist link on the footer of the post (it will also ask them to tag it ).

This will put the post in a tag in their tagcloud, and also list it under the tagcloud so at a glance they can see the current important conversations they are following.

When a new comment is added to a post that they have in their Watchlist it will become bold with the number of new comments.

See what’s happening here, a Watchlist is catching something for you that you may miss streaming by. Kind of like an RSS reader, but at the post level.

If the conversation becomes old, they can then remove it from their Watchlist and later find it in their tagcloud if they need it

MICROBLOGGING APP

An important aspect is that the microblogging app becomes the new email…so there is a battle here.

Similar to the screenshot I linked to in my previous post, perhaps microblogging can be integrated into the email client, and perhaps it’s no longer an email client, perhaps email is just a feature of Inbox 2.0.

The microblogging private message feature can perhaps replace email.

So why do we still need email?

We still need to email with people that don’t have access to the microblogging system. Our clients, vendors, friends, family, local shops, etc don’t have access. What I’m saying is different microblogging platforms don’t connect via a protocol like email does.

What about groups?

Earlier I mentioned microblogging groups, all this means is that you are not posting in the public stream, instead that post just appears in the group stream. And to catch these posts you just have a group tab to see them.

This is a great way to filter the firehose to see stuff that’s important to you…but often a task I’m in doesn’t really involve my whole team, instead it’s me and a handful of others from various teams, so the group stream doesn’t help here, instead we ad-hoc groups need a hashtag stream to filter the firehose (which I will tackle further down in this post)

Tag based forum

So what’s happening here? What is Twitter or Yammer? It’s conversations, but not confined to groups, instead it’s one massive group, but moreso a crowd as not everyone knows each other, just like you don’t know everyone in your workplace or suburb you live in.

So really it’s not a group, it’s a network.

Which kind of makes it like a giant forum, or a giant blog.

At work we have groups (CoPs) and each one has forums and blogs.

So to have conversations about a topic you need to visit the right forum/blog in the right group, and further to this you need to be a member, and you have to be a subscriber.

What if the appropriate topic doesn’t exist yet; I’m not about to create a forum and get people to subscribe…further to this they also have to become a member of the group space that they may not want to do.

For the sake of being open, this is way more difficult than email.

And if all we are having is one conversation I don’t want to subscribe to a forum and get further content that I don’t want to read.

And as mentioned earlier I want an ad-hoc conversation that doesn’t warrant the setting up of a space…you don’t have to do this in email.

Over 4 years ago I posted on Tag-based forum networks (I wonder if the idea for Twitter came from these sites)

It’s basically the idea of microblogging where a question about any topic can be asked, and the question is tagged, and further similar questions can be tagged the same so these questions can be collected into a browseable space.

Which brings us back to our fiactional example…

Collecting posts in the stream that are about the same task

The fictional example in this post is perfect for one off conversations, more appropriate than email and more designed to how we behave over having to go to a group space. This is not about groups, it’s about ad-hoc conversations.

Now what happens, is that the conversation stream on that post can get really long and cover lots of questions, which really should be their own posts.

What I mean is; what if this one-off ad-hoc conversation is part of a bigger task that requires many conversations on various items pertaining to the task. You’d hope that you could collect all these conversations into one browseable space.

To follow our example John needs to ask a question or give an update about the task. So again he has to @mention various people in a new post. This time he might @mention only a couple of people as the question or update is more contextual.

But what results is that unless all the recipients from the 1st question see this new post in the public stream they won’t be aware of progress…it’s not essential they see it otherwise John would have @mentioned them, but still the same they may want to be aware as they are part of the greater task. And for all John knows maybe it turns out it is essential for someone else to see it…that’s the beauty of these tools in that the it circumvents the sender having the power as they cannot always know who needs to know what.

Again people who see this post can tag it in their inbox and also add it to their watchlist so they can follow the conversation…keeping all the items about the task in a bucket.

The issue increases…

If people that are not @mentioned want to be in the loop about this task they have to catch these posts coming through the stream, there’s a good chance they are gonna miss them. What if you go on vacation for a few days. Are you gonna go through thousands of posts, add to your watchlist and tag them. How are you gonna differentiate the posts in the stream that are important to you.

So everyone will be doing the same thing, picking out these posts and personally tagging them to their collection.

See what’s happening here, we end up using microblogging just like email. Sure it’s open so you may catch these items race through the stream, but we need a way for the system to keep everyone in the loop on every conversation about the task, even if you it’s not your part of the task, it’s still good to be in the know of the greater picture.

And further to this, in the future we want to look back at all the conversations about that particular task.

In come hashtags…

In our example the 2nd post could have a hashtag #DMS_dev, and then perhaps the 1st post could be re-edited to add this tag as well.

Then anyone can follow this hashtag, which is listed in your microblogging app sidebar

When there is a new post within this hashtag, the hashtag in your left-hand pane would go bold and display the number of new posts. The same would happen if there was a comment on an existing post. Just click the hastag to access the new content.

In this scenario what you could do is remove the 1st question off your Watchlist and remove it from your personal tag cloud. As now you are following the hashtag stream which is accessible via your hashtag list or cloud.

A hashtag stream would actually be similar in a way to a group stream, but it’s post-created rather than pre-created.

NOTE: When you think of it following a hashtag would be similar to saving a Twitter search query in your sidebar, but more like an RSS Reader subscribing to a tag

So there you have it…

a way to follow ad-hoc conversations (using a Watchlist)
a way to follow many conversations about the same task (following a Hashtag)

This design has the uniqueness and ease of email in ad-hoc conversations, but the benefits of the awareness and emergence of microblogging

I haven’t played much with Google Wave or Socialwok (I guess 9cays can be included), but these may be the closest tools to my thinking…it’s not about groups, it’s about the conversation, and similar conversations can be channeled into a unique tag that becomes a type of group space (or channel) on-the-fly.

Perhaps ActionBase is worth a mention:

"A task oriented email client will behave like a wiki document in the sense that once you send it out, any response, question or comment made by recipients or yourself, will all happen on the same email entry… all the relevant information under a single line item - THIS IS COLLABORATIVE EMAIL. In ActionBase we call this email - ActionMail. ActionMail is the next generation of work email which is task oriented rather than message oriented."

Output

Oh yeah, where is all the output, where is the documentation for the task kept.

This could be kept anywhere it doesn’t matter. But somehow the Hashtag page needs to be able to store links to where stuff is kept.

Pull

But there still is one big difference to email, this is mostly still a "pull" system where you add posts to your Watchlist, or follow Hashtags in order to be updated about new content.

Sure it starts off as "push" for some by way of @mentions, but then it becomes "pull" if you need or want to be further updated of new content without having to constantly @mention.

For others unrelated to the conversation it’s all "pull" for them as they were not @mentioned in the original post.

In saying this:

…if you publish the post or have left a comment then you will be pushed notifications by the system, but if you haven’t done one of these things and it’s pertinent that you are aware, then you better add it to your Watchlist, or follow the Hashtag.

Yeah, but no…

In the first part of the fictional example I mentioned that the lack of notifications means some people that were @mentioned in the original post won’t receive further comments unless they make a comment…hence my idea to pull it to yourself via a Watchlist.

Facebook have a private message feature where you can have a group conversation and all involved received comments by default (you don’t have to leave a comment to be notified of new ones). This is less messy than email but is still closed like email

End thoughts

I can only imagine so much, but without using such a system I won’t know if it’s too complicated. At the moment there are all these possible streams/filters: