Library clips

I mentioned on Twitter the other day that teams at my work don’t have web 2.0 type online team spaces, but Communities of Practice do. So what happens is that teams are using our CoP tools…and then of course these online team spaces are referred to as CoPs, which is a mistake, as the technology does not define the group dynamics (CoPs are usually naturally emerging groups about learning/sharing, whereas teams are managed groups that execute assigned outcomes).

Team working CoPs

Teams using CoPs to execute tasks, can carry on with their team dynamic of getting stuff done, manage and measure, produce outcomes/deliverables.

Team sharing/support CoPs

But more common are teams using CoPs for sharing/learning/communication/support (troubleshooting). And in this case it’s important that these team sharing type CoPs encourage facilitation rather than try run the community like a team.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the team lead and sub-team leads are too busy to run the CoP space, so a team member is given the task to run the CoP, which is sometimes like pushing up a hill, as they don’t have influence and feel they are bugging people who might not care about the CoP to start with, as they are automatically a member by default of being in the team, rather than accepting an invite. And if the lead and sub-leads are not role-model contributors then this makes it a real hard chore.

Regular sharing and learning cross-functional CoPs

For more on this point about group dynamics see my post, Team-based CoPs compared to cross-functional CoPs.

Ad-hoc groups

Then we have people coming together from different parts of the organisation who request to use a CoP space for their ad-hoc group, to work on a task like fixing a process, etc… These spaces are often more short-lived. Again this really isn’t a traditional CoP…again the technology (CoP tools) do no define the group dynamic.

Anyway, these ad-hoc groups should really be self-serve, I really feel like a bottleneck, and most of the time people don’t bother and use email because their synchronous to asynchronous flow ain’t smooth and effortless.

Sponsor vs Self-serve

Betrand Dupperin picked up on this notion of self-serve creation online group spaces, and from reading his post it seems he was more clear in his explanation.

For traditional CoPs we ask that the requestor has a community sponsor…this is important as online CoPs take time to run, and that is time the manager is allowing for, that could be spent on execution.
If there was a notice from the very top that people can spend time away from or related to tasks (like Google’s 20% time), then self-serve would be OK, but at the moment we need the requestor to note that her immediate boss is ok with this.
NOTE: we have a side issue that the CoP tools we are using are complicated to set up for a regular user, so self-serve might still be an issue from a design perspective.

Now, for ad-hoc group work, this really doesn’t require a sponsor, as the time you spend in the ad-hoc group space is time doing the task itself anyway.
So what we have to do, is work with the vendor to make simple versions of our CoP tools, where there is just one stream, and simple permissions…as stripped down as possible so it’s close to the ease of using email. This way these ad-hoc groups can be self-serve.

I see Jive SBS takes this approach where they have community spaces and group spaces, where the group spaces are self-serve and more basic.

Would people use these ad-hoc groups as traditional CoPs, probably, but they wouldn’t look like flashy websites like our regular CoPs.

I guess that’s where we are, the solution might actually create an issue…personally I would not see it as an issue but see it as emergence, and perhaps this momentum as a catalyst for the allowance of work time spent sharing and learning…not explicitly like 20% of your time, but just embedded into your day.

So what do you think?

1. Teams or departments manage their own communities
   - we refuse CoPs that tread on the turf of an existing team or department
2. CoPs require a sponsor
   - Bottom-up request, Top down creation
3. Ad-hoc groups self-serve

And what do you do if ad-hoc group spaces are used as CoPs?

Would it matter, as the ad-hoc group spaces would be so simple that the facilitator does not need to spend time managing permissions, and up keeping the space. But people may still be spending a portion of their time contributing.

A while ago I wrote a post called Enabling communities, and today I had exactly the same experience that inspired me to write that post.

Here are some points from our discussion.

• I am trying to set up a CoP for people with experience in 3D animation and visualisation.
• This is a specialist area with only a few of us officially doing this role.
• But recently I have noticed a lot of people with experience coming out of the woodwork ie. engineers and the like who have experience with some of the software…I know that around the globe there are several people with this expertise.
• I would like to set up a CoP for a couple of us, and then attract some of these people
  - the CoP as a way to amplify what’s already happening
• We have a lot of work, and it would be good if anyone could help us out, rather than sourcing outside help
  - why spend money externally, when we have the talent internally
  - this ties in with my post, We are more than our job title describes
• We also want to use the CoP to gather what our company needs are for 3D animation.
• Besides conversations, the CoP will also be a great “place” to showcase our gallery.
• We are inhouse specialists, and we want the word to get out that we exist

I really like this last point
- email is not a place
- the Intranet is not going to promote these guys (it’s not interactive anyway)

The online CoP is going to harness their talent, and offer a space where they can be known…then only after this grassroots effort, where they may one day prove themselves as a viable component of our workplace, will they get an official spot on the Intranet.

I mentioned similar CoPs eg. Software Development, Learning and Development…and that some people here in Perth are flash gurus.
He said, ohhh…we just required a flash guru for a job here in the Canada office, we couldn’t find one and had to source externally.

Need I say more, if we are visible and participate, we can then connect and converse, and ultimately collaborate…and generate work (connect the human resources so they are optimising the collective talent).

The theme of this post is do it yourself enabling tools, that allow grass roots efforts to emerge and be seen.

These new bottom-up social tools are surfacing opportunities that the top-end of the business are not thinking of, but are getting traction as knowledge workers now have a way to engage and propel.

KM or Enterprise 2.0 is not only about aligning to business strategy, but instead allowing workers to actively participate, creating their own value, where ultimately what they are doing can be noticed and officially be added as a strategy.

Top-down crowdsourcing is one thing, but bottom-up emergence of invention is another thing…we are not here to just give input to top-down ideas, but the top can notice what we are doing at the street level, and say “I like that, I’m glad we give you tools to demonstrate your talent.”

This is not a post about social computing deploying/piloting/adoption in general. All these are applicable on many levels eg. a person implementing across the whole organisation, within a department, across a couple of departments, within a group, etc…

Of late we have seen posts by folks at ThoughtFarmer and Socialtext on pilot/implementation methods. These are great posts and show the difference between focused phased piloting and no pilot at all. I may cover these posts at a later date, as my post today is more on adoption or participation at the group level.

My focus is not on the social computing practitioner, but rather on a regular person wanting to run an online Community of Practice (CoP). It’s more about the social computing practitioner helping a CoP Facilitator help themselves.

ie what are the conditions that a facilitator can create to get their CoP off the ground.

I can’t help myself, just quickly…the Socialtext post above refers to the interactive nature of social software (compared to transactional) where scale and network effects are essential to actually see the potential and emergence. And this is so true for enterprise wide tools such as social networks, microblogging, blogosphere, etc..

But this is not always the case with social computing islands such as CoPs. You don’t need network effects for a group space to work, you just need willing and interested members…and in regards to a team, you need a task or issue to tackle where social tools will replace current tools. I went in depth into this in my post, Do group tools get more traction due to not requiring network effects.

Just to mix it up, group spaces aren’t just about the talent of the group, the task/agenda, and how they work with social tools, which a pilot helps with…they are also about others roaming from CoP to CoP, and as a visitor being able to ask a CoP a question or perhaps answer something…this is serendipity and emergence that will only present itself with scale (it is less likely to happen in a pilot).

The two takeaways here are

1. social tools to help you do what you already do better

2. connecting the enterprise to increase cross-team awareness, cooperation, collaboration, ideas, sourcing information (who knows what), serendipity, opportunities, diversity of emergence…

Basically the more connected an organisation is, the more productive and effective they are. As I alluded to in my social PKM post, that a whole bunch of personally productive people does not make the organisation necessarily productive.

Oops, I wasn’t meant to get into this in this post!

What are the reasons for a pilot again?

• Helps to discover and squash tech issues before release

• Helps to discover and assist in user issues

- that’s why a cross-section of people is important in the pilot

• Deployment team can get an idea of early good practices, codes of conduct, showcase examples

- and will be prepared with the knowledge to help a greater number of people and issues when comes release time

- the more tech and usability issues found and documented in pilot stage the more room this makes to devote time to championing and facilitating

• Stewart Mader has similar thoughts…a good one is use cases in how you can use wikis, he says:

“The teams involved in the pilot would help define and model wiki uses that can then be shown as examples during the wiki rollout to the rest of the organization. This embeds the right kind of uses throughout the organization, and ensures sustained use of the tool.”

Many points in this post have been enrichened by a podcast with Stewart Mader, here’s some notes.

WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS THAT A FACILITATOR CAN CREATE TO GET THEIR COP OFF THE GROUND?

Following on from my post on workshopping and piloting a new community are the adoption factors a facilitator can massage to get participation off the ground.

After creating a community that everyone wants (or if it’s a task space; finding an issue to solve/fix a process), and piloting it to test it’s use, you will have done all the right things to get started on the right foot, you will have hopefully circumvented any fundamental obstacles.

Next is to create conditions for people to use the community; you need interactions and conversation to grow the community. This requires facilitation, guidance and some tactics or notions to be aware of when dealing with getting a group of people to channel their time into a certain direction.

We all agree the community was a great idea, and here it is, but some people have cold feet, or find it’s unfamiliar. There is an unintentional resistance, and this can be facilitated or nurtured with some points about adoption.

“…people don’t resist change, they resist being changed”
- Peter Bregman

“…resistance is not so much about the change; it’s all about being changed”
- Peter Vajda

“Resistance to change is situation specific, not an attribute of an individual or group”
- Nancy Dixon

We have already asked the questions (needs analysis), workshopped and piloted, so what do we need to know for it to grow or start breathing, and sustain a heartbeat.

Design and Structure

• People need to be a click or two away from what they need to do

• If it’s too complex people won’t have the time to learn, they need to orient themselves with ease

• Create a guide on how, and when to use each tool (better still incorporate it into the design)

• Blank slates don’t help (people are used to structured tools that are designed for a specific purpose, and are not used to the idea of flexing unstructured tools to fit their needs)

- I like ThoughtFarmers idea of usage scenarios

• Create a stickiness factor so people return (frequent blog posts, a communal wikipedia)

- are you appealing to all members

Frequency

• Core group of bloggers to do weekly columns

• Whenever something happens, blog about it
eg. I uploaded a presentation into our library, go check it out…

Email Interaction

• If it’s not in your inbox it doesn’t exist

- people are more likely to react if it comes to them

• Also being able to publish via email is handy

Peer to Peer influence

• Sometimes people will only adopt if their close colleagues are participating

• Prior to this they have not dedicated the time to investigate, but if a close colleague finds it of value, then this will influence them to give it a try

• Again, we are influenced by people we trust, more than a training programme or by others we don’t know well. We take recommendations from people we value.

Eg. If someone recommends a movie I may not go, but if a friend does there is more chance I will go.
The same applies to participating in CoPs (if my trusted colleague or someone I respect is doing it, I may give it a go).

EXAMPLE

Peter and Joe are both Project Managers who attended a training session on communities. The online tool offers all the solutions to their needs about communication, awareness, sharing and learning.

When they got back to their desks Joe had a look at the communities and just didn’t have time to learn them…if the design was more appealing and intuitive, perhaps Joe would have delved further. A couple of months later Joe and Peter are chatting and Peter tells Joe of the brilliant transition his team has made to using online communities over emails and attachments. Peter told Joe it took a lot of getting used to, discipline and facilitating, but eventually it became part of their routines (it’s the way stuff is done around here now).

Joe really values Peter’s work ethic and they are mates and trust each other, help each other out…they have a history together. Due to this close relationship Joe has decided that if Peter thinks it’s good, then it must be, as past history shows that Joe trusts, respects and admires Peter and his endeavors. Indirectly Peter has influenced Joe to give it a try.

This example shows us that a training session is just one aspect to gaining adoption. We are more prone to take the time to try things out, based on recommendations by someone you trust over someone else that does not have as much influence on your decision-making.

What does this say…if you want to influence someone, influence their peers or people they respect and admire, and this will in turn make it more attractive or motivated for them to take up your offer.

I guess case studies are also influential as they can make known (to some degree) the worthiness, risk and return on trying something out…time or attention is also a factor.

People are like that; take up tends to increase when people can see others didn’t get hurt or they had a success, so it’s now safe to join…let others do the work first. I guess those who test the waters first, get to learn from their mistakes first hand (which is the best type of learning), and they are also perhaps the innovators or cutting edge people who reap the benefits or become known for their endeavors as the pioneers.

At my wife’s work there is a campaign to build a unique service centre for children who have been taken away from their families. A lot of high level people have been approached and have shown interest, but have not committed. But they noticed that when one person chose to commit, then this had a chain effect where those previous people that were approached also decided to commit.

This has an amazing snowball effect when people are visibly connected in online networks. Since we have more ambient awareness of each others actions, it doesn’t take long for people to see what their peers are doing and choose to follow…visibility and participation is the fundamental key.

There is more chance for peer to peer adoption for any old thing when people are connected in online networks; the irony of this post is we are trying to get them to be participants of online networks in the first place (actually this post is about communities, but you know what I mean).

Peter Bregman points to a study which illustrates our nature of peer influence:

“You could tell the children you expect them to eat their vegetables. And reward them with ice cream if they did. You could explain all the reasons why eating their vegetables is good for them. And you could eat your own vegetables as a good role model. Those things might help.

But Birch found one thing that worked predictably. She put a child who didn’t like peas at a table with several other children who did. Within a meal or two, the pea-hater was eating peas like the pea-lovers.

Peer pressure.

We tend to conform to the behavior of the people around us. Which is what makes culture change particularly challenging because everyone is conforming to the current culture. Sometimes though, the problem contains the solution.”

Champions and role-models

• In team-based communities especially (as opposed to shared interest groups), if the leads are not role-models in active participation, then this sends a signal that the community is not important

• Facilitators must lead by example, and encourage senior/respected people to be role-models

- People will follow or respond to their lead and encouragement

Viral Approach

• Concentrate on training a core group

- they will set the good examples and be an influence on others

Push sharing in a pull system

• I had a scenario of a CoP facilitator emailing a link to a few people

- I suggested using the blog otherwise it sends the wrong signal (kind of like a parent telling their kids off for something they do themselves)

- if their intended audience aren’t subscribers of the blog, they can create the blog post, then send them the link

It’s about conversation

• It’s not all about the blog post itself

- it’s about the the conversations that the blog post triggers (this will build community spirit…like a thriving dinner party…you will go to the next one as you enjoyed the company and stimulation of the previous one)

- people are more prone to comment, rather than blog or write a forum topic

- don’t have to be provocative, but even when posting about a journal article, rather than just share the link, write an opinion based review…this will get people to react

Raids/Barnraising

• Similar to handholding and more popular with wikis is spending a session on using a wiki for a specific and real purpose

- this gives people real experience at using them, and using new tools for current needs

- the idea is that they will go back to their seats and continue using it, as they have overcome the technology barrier and the “what can I use this tool for” barrier

- it also builds working collaboratively

- as the ThoughFarmer post points out, it also gives people examples to learn from

- I have a Wiki CoP at work where we blog about wikis and ask questions in forums, it’s also where I list examples of wikis that people are creating (it gives others ideas of how they can use wikis)

- here are some links to barnraising wikis

Re-purposing email (It’s more about new behaviours)

• CoP tools replace the email distribution list

• If people continue using email out of habit, the facilitator must thank them for participating. And then mention that if you are going to email an announcement, news or sharing information, please use a blog. And if you are going to email a question or topic for discussion use a forum.

- then demonstrate by re-posting their email into the forum with your reply, then send them the link

- ask them to subscribe in case the conversation keeps going

• Answer questions promptly so people feel heard and benefit from participating

- this will influence return visits

Hand-holding

• This is about breaking old habits with new technologies, plus people are expected to publish in an open place, rather than the more confident private email channels

- plus they won’t spare the time for themselves to learn a new tool, but they perhaps will if you instigate it

• This may involve sitting down with a member once a week for a couple of months and guide them along in publishing a blog post, until they get used to it and build the confidence.

• Once people get comments and ratings on their blog posts, it gives them confidence and encouragement to continue posting.

- 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

- being appreciated and feeling you have made a difference are good conditions for further participation

• After a while this system becomes self-rewarding as people may draw a reputation

For more on this, read the next section on “Feedback”

Feedback (Reputation/Recognition)

NOTE: I will state here that I lean more on the natural and sustainable method of the conversational element in self generating peer reputation to propel the community, rather than incentives.

• I’m finding that when people use CoPs well I am impressed and give them feedback

- this encourages more participation (see the end of the previous section on “Hand-holding”)
eg. good use of blogging

- one facilitator blogged to her members that she has email subscribed all members to the main blog, and took the courtesy to explain how to unsubscribe.

- Just today I emailed a picture of a gold star to a CoP facilitator for really using their blogs and forums well, they have a really active community…and he emailed me back saying “ha ha - I would rather have had a picture of a beer”

- and of course we hope a comments discussion self generates the motivation for more blog posts (HP’s study hold this as one of two highest factors to participation)

Nancy Dixon relates this to recognition:

“Recognition means the most to us when it comes from those who really know the subject – who know what they’re talking about. It’s great to have your boss think you’re a top performer, but chances are your boss doesn’t know enough about the technical part of your work to know how good you really are – but your peers do. For a peer to say, “The person that really understands that problem is Pete,” that comment Pete would regard as a sign of respect and one he would highly value.”

Group building

• Face-to-face interaction and connection, or online ways for members to connect in real-time

• These can be social gatherings, meetings, or workshops

The next section on “Confidence” extends on the impact that building rapport has for knowledge sharing/participation

Trust (Confidence/Comfort)

• Are people confident and comfortable enough to participate? ie. do they have a relationship with other members
eg. at a house party we are always more comfortable in sharing our lives after a lot of small talk where we build a rapport (a certain level of trust)…or after a few drinks

- Karen Stephenson’s article for more.

Relationships (Give and Take)

• Is there an equilibrium of give and take (both with members and non-members)

- do some members just ask questions and never help out with answers

- are members willing to research answers for questions from non-members
(this is an important point, and the reason why most CoPs are membership based, you are willing to take the time to help out others within the membership circle, as they will in turn help you out next time (like the reciprocal altruism of vampire bats)

- People you trust will give you confidence they will not misuse your knowledge sharing

- Are some members being burdened
(again membership is important, as you take the time to help out a handful of people)

Gia Lyons has a great post on this

“Because you are the one individual who knows this stuff, you are reluctant to advertise that fact, for fear of the avalanche of requests to collaborate. You need more emails, IMs, and phone calls like you need another orifice in your cranium. Plus, these people who would swarm you like flies on poo will not perhaps care too much if you are over-extended. But, you are more than happy to share what you know with one or two others, after you’ve discerned that they won’t abuse you, won’t stab you in the back, won’t take credit for your intellectual capital, and will perhaps return the favor. The people who invest in creating a relationship with you are rewarded with your experienced point of view.”

More from Nancy Dixon:

“We do not give that knowledge away lightly. Before we take the time and trouble to share that knowledge, we need some assurance that our knowledge will be treated with the respect it deserves, given thoughtful consideration, and that the recipient actually knows enough to make use of it.”

In order to share knowledge, we need to build relationships, and we do this by informal conversations on sites such as online communities:

“The way a professional can know how someone will treat the precious commodity of her knowledge is to know that person well enough to make that judgment call.”

“…sharing knowledge is risky, the other person may make a cutting remark about it or indicate that it’s not worth listening to. And sharing knowledge is time consuming, because to really respond to another’s question or problem takes the time to understand the issue and to explain in sufficient depth. So we rightly place conditions around sharing our in-depth knowledge. The relationships we build with others provide a needed level of confidence that our knowledge will be treated with respect. Knowledge sharing and relationship are coupled.”

Personal relevancy

• Is the community personally relevant, or fulfilling needs at an individual level?

Dawn Foster lists some motivation factors

Portal

• In addition to being a conversational place, dress the homepage with common links so it becomes a pivot point for peripheral needs

In-the-flow

• Choose an activity or type of communication that is conducted in an email list and now do it in the CoP

eg. broadcast announcements are now done in the CoP blog, people have no choice but it visit the CoP
- while they are there they may look around and participate elsewhere

For more see the Transparent Office blog

Activities

• Offline

- choose something you do offline eg. a question time pre or post a conference/meeting…and complement this with using a forum for pre and post questions

• Member intros

- one of our CoPs makes it mandatory that new members fill in a forum topic where they can tell the group a little about themselves, experience, why they joined, aspirations

• Lounge forum

- some of our younger generation (graduate) CoPs have non-work forums as a way to build commonality, fun and relationships

- the more rapport we build the more we build opportunities to collaborate and help each other out

- Dawn Foster has more on the lounge concept

• Blog carnivals (thematic topic weeks)

• Polls

• Coffee corner/Fill in the gap

- fun quiz, riddle, story…

• Member of the month

- this showcases a member

- one of our graduate CoPs also asks questions to the community about a member
(this gets people talking to each other, and finding things out about each other)

• Showcase hot discussions (weekly roundup posts)

• Share personal stories

• Keep track of people traveling

• Guest posts from other CoPs

• Use engaging media (videos)

• Link to your CoP in your email signature

• Create your own newsletter to reach others

• Promote the CoP in other newsletters

• Write about stuff happening in other communities

• Build a relationship with sister CoPs (drive traffic to each other)

• Guest bloggers from other CoPs

• Rehash old content in other ways

• Events / guest speakers

• Blog columns (frequent posts)

General facilitator duties

The focus of this blog kind of bleeds into some of the duties of a Facilitator, so I’ve included a few below

• Gardening/Weeding (move topics, distill great posts on wikipages)

• Design

• Help and welcome new members

• Assist people in using CoP

• Answer questions promptly

• Make sure content is correct (re-edit old posts, leave a comment to correct/update)

• Help guides

• Remind people which tools to use

• Re-purpose email

• Off topic reminders

• Welcome suggestions and Feedback (via a forum)

• Barnraising

• Monitor/Listen in and always offer pointers or feedback or congratulate

• Understand member motivation

• Encourage members to specialise

• Promotion

Related

Preparing for community release
Self-serve create groups is essential to harness emergence and adapt
I don’t create communities, I create online spaces!
Enterprise social networks and ad-hoc groups

Getting an internal Facebook (social network and group feature) is a standalone tool, it has nothing to do with the Intranet, does it?

Unless you can structure it yourself like Nathan Wallace did with a Confluence wiki…not sure if SocialText can achieve a similar thing, but I believe OpenText Social Media, Lotus Connections, Jive, Awareness, Traction, Telligent, Connectbeam, and more suites made of components rather than designed as an Intranet.

Getting an internal Facebook that is designed as an Intranet replacement is more like Intranet 2.0, and seems to be what ThoughtFarmer are doing.

I suppose the third category would be to alter your existing Intranet by mashing in these types of features.

The latest Neilsen report on the social intranet says a few interesting things on this point:

“It’s important to integrate social features with the main intranet to avoid burdening users with double work.”

“That said, several of our case studies successfully implemented a staged approach, initially separating social features from the main intranet because of their different design and feel. Eventually, these features should be integrated, ideally as part of a bigger project to redesign the entire portal.”

I guess the difference I’m making here is that these new social network/group tools are mainly about connecting and collaborating, whereas Intranets are usually about profile information on each unit, heavily used tools and links, and news from teams to the rest of the organisation.

In this sense it seems designed tools like Thoughfarmer are combing the best of both worlds:

Doing work/finding stuff

• individual connecting with the organisation
• individual sensemaking
• collaborate in groups

Company information, tools and news

• make a profile page for your team with links to lots of info and what you are about…and also news your team wants to share with the organisation
• find common tools and links (timesheets, repositories, etc…)
• a company homepage as the pivot point

This is taking us back to the true meaning of Intranet (via Matthew Hodgson), rather then the hijacked, vetted, static, one-to-many tool it became.

“Essentially, he observed that people were creating small websites inside their organisations to share knowledge and communicate information”

Matthew then explains it’s relationship with early KM efforts:

“…the idea that, much like print publishing, documents are worked on by individuals and then released to others once it is finished and officially approved. KM guru David Gurteen suggests that this “create and publish” behaviour is also likely to be the result of early knowledge management efforts to bring structure to information in the organisation and make it searchable and easily accessible to employees. Unfortunately, as Gurteen highlights, too often employees didn’t see any value in this for themselves and, as a result, such systems failed”

“The essence of this failure of early intranets to bring true communication value into an organisation and to its employees is perhaps bound with the lack of recognition and understanding of how knowledge is created and information is shared by people. It’s also the factor that underpins Web 2.0’s success where traditional intranets have tended to fail. That is, that information is shared through social networks, from person to person, and that there are a number of roles in that social exchange.”

Related

KM: Round 2.0
KM 2.0 is about “showing your workings out”
Is publish a dirty word in enterprise 2.0

The other day when I posted on social networks and ad-hoc groups, I mentioned these online tools need to mirror both our offline behaviour, and our online real-time behaviour.

I set the scenario that at work there may be a task or initiative which involves people from many departments.

What usually happens is everyone gets invited to a meeting: in a room, via a telecon, or something like webex (we now use MS Office Communicator).

After the meeting the coordinator will go back to their seat, document the minutes in MSword and send an email attachment.

Then various people use email to do their bit.

Then we reconvene in a new meeting to see where everyone is at.

This is hopeless; I say when we go back to our seats we can still assimilate the real-time room (meeting) environment in an asynchronous fashion.

This makes for better communication, coordination and awareness…and transparency by default.

After the meeting someone can create a group space and invite all members as quick as sending an email.

Here they will find the minutes in a wiki, each page has a comments stream.

Here they will find a question space (just like issues raised in the meeting)

Here they will find a blog to post updates about the part they are working on.

Well, look at that, we can do asynchronously, what we usually do when we are in the same room.

This online tool is a social network with ad-hoc groups, where you have your own “mypage” that lists all groups you are working in, even better if you can post to any of the groups from your page.

Integration

A good way for adopting new practices is in the design and integration with existing tools.

Just like Jon Mell describes less use of email by incorporating IM into email (placing it in the same spot where you create a new email)…what I would like to see at the end of an Office Communicator Live Meeting, is to be able to spin this real-time (synchronous) ad-hoc group into an asynchronous ad-hoc group using a social network and group tool. Somehow both tools would be integrated, making jumping from one to the other the obvious thing to do; rather than using email for asynchronous communication and coordination.

People often find email conversation frustrating so it’s decided we need another meeting…with the correct asynchronous tools you don’t need so many meetings as we can use blogs to communicate, forums to discuss and wikis to collaborate on a perpetual basis…I alluded to this use case for teams a while back.

BTW-Why is Outlook not an internal Facebook and MS Office Communicator an internal Twitter?

Like my last post, design is key to influencing new behaviours.

More from Jon Mell:

“…there is no reason why at the front end we cannot combine communication tools at the presentation layer so that people don’t have to think as much about how they are going to communicate and which tools they are going to use. There is a scale here in terms of how advanced people are in their adoption and usage of Enterprise 2.0. Once people are comfortable with the concept of Enterprise 2.0 then they will naturally and intuitively know which tools to use without thinking. At the initial adoption stage, however, putting guidance and pointers in the flow of existing tools can have a significant impact in terms of alleviating any fears of using a new system. Some users may always stay in this mode, where they need the system to do the thinking for them in terms of which tools to use, and others may move to a position where the thinking becomes more intuition.”