Library clips

I’ve posted before on how I think micro-blogging is a low threshold to participation as it merges the concept of reading, blogging, sharing links, chatting, connecting; into the same window…kind of like we do all sorts of communications through the email window. But more accurately the low threshold to participation refers to the level of effort it requires to contribute. Basically, my dad uses status updates in Facebook, but I ain’t gonna see him using a blog or wiki in a hurry.

In Michael Idinopulos’s post, Launch E2.0 broad, then go deep, he talks about how different tools require a different type of participation effort on the micro level. For example micro-blogging requires great participation (network effects) to take off at the macro level, but at the micro level it doesn’t ask much of the user.

Here’s how Michael says it:

This got me thinking about the recent use of Yammer by a few of us at work…I was thinking about Buy-in vs Just do it (Proof of Concept)

At work, like anything, to buy a new product and implement it requires you to get buy-in and all that goes with it…most often something like micro-blogging won’t be seen as important. It’s a hard sell…but once you use it you can’t do without it…people have to "feel" it to understand.

Here’s another approach.

Start using Yammer as a Proof of Concept. It’s free, they host a secure network for you based on your email domain. Then invite someone, and they will invite someone else, and it goes on.

If it takes off and people become hooked, it’s hard for management to point the finger as no one person is responsible for it’s use, and rather than taking it away, they will see that it must obviously have value, and they can offer an installed version.
NOTE: This assumption is based on people actually using it to sense-make at work, and not for personal chatting.

And get this, you can continue to use Yammer or another product like Socialcast, Socialtext Signals, etc. as micro-blogging is different than other content platforms in that there is no need for migration. As it’s more about the moment, once posts are a couple of weeks old they don’t really matter that much (I’m generalising here, but it’s more true than not). This means you can jump to another system without a worry.

When you use free tools as your Proof of Concept, and get people to "feel" a product, and hopefully hooked on it, there is more chance of fulfilling your vision, rather than the big and slow approach of getting hierarchy buy-in, strategy documents, charters, implementation and training requirements.

Grassroots DIY Proof of Concept is how you can creep something into the organisation without being faced by a wall.

Participants in such an informal program are called IT Rogues, but they are just trying to do their job better, and this should be noticed. Something like a rogue wiki is easier to be shut down and point the finger at as it will have an owner and a group using it…whereas if micro-blogging takes off, who do you point the finger at…and how can hundreds/thousands of people be wrong.

The only way I see my advice as a problem is if people use Yammer for non-business use…and if the business will have the problem of not trusting Yammer with their data being leaked.

But if they can see beyond this and want to penetrate the hierarchy, then this experimentation and failure approach is how to cleverly penetrate the hierarchy.

This approach doesn’t have to be done without consent, part of the strategy with the powers that be may be the use of Yammer as a Proof of Concept as a first step, and if this shows signs of success and value, then a second step will be taken

You don’t have to use a free hosted approach, there are many free download and open source micro-blogging products. This addresses the security issue, but then the finger can be pointed at the person who installed it. In this case hopefully instead of getting buy-in, mention that it’s free, and you will get an approval to test it out…little do they know this test may go viral, and become a tool people can’t do without. The power of hosted freemium.

But, what’s for sure is that the problem is not investment. Like Euan Semple says, "if you make the ‘i’ small enough, no-one will care about the R”…as long as the concept is understood.

Why spend time and money on the usual buy-in, strategy, implementation, etc…when you can just get a product download for free and experiment right now….cut to the chase.

The point of this post is that requests for a new product will be slow, may be disapproved, may be implemented the wrong way…instead now we are empowered to demonstrate proof that this is a really good idea buy using a free-hosted service…this wasn’t possible a few years ago

At a meeting 6 months later you may mention to your manager that micro-blogging is a good idea. They may agree or disagree, but either way not have any leadership or time in harnessing the value and passion of your suggestion. That’s when you can say, you want value in seeing how it supports knowledge workers to sense-make, check this out, we are already doing it

In a way, we now have the tools and type of service available that allows knowledge workers to disintermediate management as we have access to the resources we need and make the decision to use them…again this wasn’t possible a few years ago

The goal isn’t disintermediation…humans are self-organising, we do what it takes to create conditions for better sense-making, to be more productive, to be more aware

Yammer seems to have a great business model, as they allow people to get hooked for free, and then offer a premium version if organisations want their own secure version…it’s win win for both Yammer, and organisations.

List of "free enterprise" micro-blogging platforms (either secure hosted or install)

• Yammer
• present.ly
• status.net (formerly Laconica)
• Rev.Ou.com (install only…oops not free)
• co-op (hosted only)
• twingr (not sure if secure hosted)
• ESME
• Oratweet
• CubeTree (hosted only)
• ididwork (hosted only)
• communote (hosted only)
• OpenMicroBlogger (install only)
• Engage (free and hosted for 200 users)

Sources

• Open Source Microblogging
• Twitter on your intranet: 17 microblogging tools for business
• Enterprise Microsharing Tools Comparison
• List of Enterprise Microblogging Tools: Twitter for the Intranet

[ADDED 10/06/10 - Another idea is to join the vendor community. Our document management vendor has a new microblogging/activity feed module. They drink their own champagne by using this module on their customer community. If it’s a selling strategy, it’s only by accident, as we “the customers” find it very useful that we can connect with lots of the vendor staff and other customers like ourselves…good from an engagement, help, and co-creation point-of-view.

Now if I want my work to buy this module, “show and tell” is the most effective way…you have to “feel” micro-blogging. So I could simply show my boss how we work on the customer community using microblogging (getting things done, sense-making, engaging with people, building relationships, sharing)…my boss could even give it a go to get a real taste.

There’s nothing that says “Yes” to buy-in like “seeing and playing” what you want in action, it makes it less a prediction of success for your boss and more a certainty (given cultural constraints of your organisation)]

I just read over on mashable about the various ways to filter tweets; by keywords, by groups, by links, etc…

Under the keyword section they list filttr, but I got to tell you filttr does it all, not as sophisticated as peoplebrowsr, but it has the essential features. It’s oAuth enabled, post select updates to Facebook, Twitpic, file attachments, shortcuts, threaded replies, and has a mobile version. Below I have focused on the filtering features.

Features

• Filters tweets based on your past reading behaviour
• Manually black list and white list keywords
• Slider to curb noisy tweeps

eg. if a tweep is conference tweeting too much you can slide to receive less noise

• Link only tweets from your stream
• Create many keyword streams
• Create many group streams

But can’t share these as Sameer Patel would like, and which some others can do

• Create a combination of a keyword stream within a group, and also, that shows only tweets with links in them

eg. show me tweets with just links in them with the hashtag #e2conf within my group of people I follow called “enterprise”

• Automatically creates a group of tweeps that aren’t in a group

I’ve been using Filttr for most of this year, and I tell ya it helps me deal with my Twitter stream firehose, plus these guys are really responsive with implementing suggested features, either via Twitter, email or Uservoice.

If you have time you can read the regular stream, or perhaps just read link only tweets in the regular stream, but let’s face it I never, ever, ever have time to do this…

I don’t really create keyword search streams unless I’m researching or there is an event, and I haven’t used the sliders or black/white listing features yet.

But what I do use is the grouping feature (alias), and link-only tweets feature.

Just like an RSS Reader I have folder type streams.

These folders are groups that I organise my tweeps in…you can do a keyword search across a group if you like.

eg. I have a group called “enterprise2.0″
- this displays tweets from about 100 people I follow
- if I wanted I could overlay this with a keyword search eg “wiki”
- then later on I can take off the keyword search if I like

For every group, I have a link only group as well.

For example, if I don’t have time to read all tweets in my “enterprise2.0″ group, I’ll read the “enterprise2.0-linkonly” stream instead…this way I can just read tweets that have links in them.

The main groups I have are:

Regular stream-linkonly
Enterprise2.0
Enterprise2.0-linkonly
Enterprise2.0Essentials
Enterprise2.0Essentials-linkonly
Networks
Networks-linkonly
Communities
Communities-linkonly
Learning
Learning-linkonly
KM
KM-linkonly
Local
Local-linkonly
LocalEsssentials
LocalEssentials-linkonly
Vendor
Vendor-linkonly

Today I may only have 20 minutes to catch up on Twitter on my mobile on the train, so I may read:

Communities-linkonly
KM-linkonly
Networks-linkonly
Enterprise2.0Essentials-linkonly

I really like that I’m empowered to be able to do this. With the regular Twitter interface, my 20 minutes would not get me far, or satisfy me…

In a past post I elaborated on social networks like Twitter as being a Help engine; an alternative to a search engine in some cases in finding answers and making decisions.

I also paralleled this concept to the aims of KM, productivity, performance, sense-making, decision-making, etc:

“I think it’s getting us closer to the KM productivity (sense-making) aim that knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer has always aspired to, which is:

And one thing I missed out is “adapting”.

This is how it goes:

I’m after some information and people to help me out on an issue or some research

I perhaps search my network (strong and weak ties), or I may search the entire network (potential ties)

If no go, I then post a question to my network

A response may point me to someone or a piece of work, or the response may be from the person I need to talk to

If I have a strong tie, this is good, as we already know about each other and share some context

Through conversation in real-time or via the online network/blog we are able to probe, clarify, re-frame the information that is usable for my context. The conversation and perhaps related blog entries may reveal lots more peripheral information than what’s included in a report. The blog entries will have the work in progress, thinking out loud, workings out of the report, that may include, approaches, styles, and bits and pieces that trigger thoughts for my situation.

From this interaction we have information/knowledge transfer.

When I act upon this information we have knowledge creation.

The results of this interaction remains for the process to repeat itself.

In this way the same content is able to be mutated or re-contextualised, on a perpetual basis.

We are not precisely re-using a piece of information, instead we are re-blending existing knowledge by connecting and conversing. It’s not about re-inventing the wheel, it’s about making a new wheel using some of the concepts of the other wheel.

Rather than “best practices”:

• codifying
• storing solutions
• wiped of context in order to be applicable to many situations
• getting people motivated to do this after the fact
• hoping it’s worthwhile in people one day seeking this information
• hoping it doesn’t expire
• less adaptable and less chance of innovation as the best way is already prescribed
• not really a method to elicit and create new knowledge

We instead turn to our “network”:

• timely information
• probe/clarify
• re-contextualise
• trust the messenger as you have a history
• willingness to help as you have a reciprocated relationship
• peripheral information (not apparent or shared in a report)
• tapping into tacit knowledge to understand what’s behind the approach or how it comes together
• adapt to our situation
• creating new knowledge
• interactions that blend into new knowledge may lead to innovation
• build a relationship/contact for ambient awareness and future help
• each interaction makes your network richer and feeds the core network

What does all this mean?

It means I’m not lost, it means I have a framework in which to makes sense of my situation.

It means thoughts and concepts have a chance to emerge, it’s means being adaptable.

This type of knowledge flow and creation is more close to the aims of KM rather than a storage approach.

My approach to social productivity on the web needs to also happen in the same way in the workplace.

Enterprise federated search is a good step to search across silos, and personalised/customised pages is a good way to create your own dashboard, but it’s not enough…

When I research material for a blog post, most of the time I know where to look as I recall information passing my radar. I have ambient awareness of what’s happening…that piece of information when I saw it meant nothing, but now it has value as I have a need for it.

I can search my Google Reader, browse my delicious/slideshare bookmarks, check out my previous blog/tumblr posts and perhaps ask my Twitter network for help.

This is my personal information/knowledge management (PKM) environment and this personal and social productivity orientation helps me work more efficiently and effectively.

This online participation model is not enterprise 2.0, it’s social computing, but it may one day be the catalyst for enterprise 2.0.

We can never have complete KM, instead we have PKM nodes that are connected in a network.

I came across Nick Milton’s blog the other day, and one of his posts that speaks a lot of truth, says something I don’t agree with:

“So for me, PKM is a sign of failure of corporate KM. If you get corporate KM correct, you don’t need personal knowledge management, as all knowledge management will be collective, giving the individual access to far far more than their personal store.”

To say you no longer need PKM is to say you never need to create new knowledge or learn…it’s like saying you have traveled every path, and moved every move possible to encounter anything new.

The issue is that what’s happen in the network (PKM nodes) is not feeding back into the procedures. The PKM is the spring, KM the bottle…without spring you have nothing.

“It’s easier to reorganise your personal information habits, than it is to change the culture of a company. It’s easier to be personal, than it is to work in community. But for me, working KM as a personal issue just does not deliver the value. It may give the individual more efficient access to information and documents, but it does not give access to better knowledge.”

This above paragraph is true if you treat PKM as nodes on their own, but if you connect these nodes into an open network, then you don’t just have access to people and then knowledge, in your interactions you are creating new knowledge. This is doing KM bottom-up, empowering people to do KM without even realising it.

I’d also add that you don’t change the culture of the company, you create conditions to make a difference in an individuals experience. You give them an environment where they can more easily sensemake, and eventually this node connected environment will bring about a culture change without realising it…we hope…but it has to be a naturalistic approach.

“Now I know that many people develop PKM habits out of frustration. The information they need is not readily available through the company, or through the community, so they build their own stores. But as soon as the content of those personal knowledge stores starts to drift away from community knowledge, then all you are doing is introducing information and knowledge silos at the level of the individual.”

Again this is a true observation, but the problem is not PKM, the problem is not being connected.

At work we use a blog for our support team to post about tips, tricks, error solutions we encounter. I post in this blog for memory management (yes on many occasions, I have encountered the same problem 3 months later and forgot what to do, and consulted the blog…booyah.), and for others to also benefit. This is a reciprocated relationship, so we all gain from each other. If we don’t know answers we ask in the forums.
My next goal is to refine the process, by perhaps having a few people mine the blog and forum for a solutions wiki. The blog and forum are as it happens, and the wiki can contain the cream the floats to the top. The wiki will bring things together on topic pages.

Anyway, what we are doing here is leveraging on each others PKM, and we have created conditions for people to do some of the PKM in an open and shared place. Not only that but as a result we have interactions eg. comments, etc… that make it even more valuable.

We needn’t go on, but this ecoysystem has not only sensemaking benefits for the individual, but has self regulation and recognition (incentive) built in.

In all it’s not that I don’t agree with all of Nick Milton’s post, it’s more that the solution is a bottom-up connected network, rather than PKM not existing at all.

Nick adds a good comment:

“There’s a great methodology that Shell Drilling use, called Drilling the Limit, where Drilling teams seek out all existing knowledge of drilling a well in a particular basin, and challenge themselves to step out beyond the performance benchmark. This is a very powerful process, all the more powerful by being worked collectively as a team, and being based on a full knowledge of what’s been done in the past. That way the tensions are resolved.”

All that “existing knowledge” came from recognised PKM, ie. actioning PKM. This is why social computing is not just about bottom-up, there is also a facilitating factor of taking the good stuff and feeding it back into processes and procedures.

So yes, it’s essential to look at past methods, but it’s also essential to ask people for timely information, where you can re-frame the context.

And what if you are drilling a new basin, then a PKM network enables you to adapt to uncertainty and new situations. You ask people before taking on the exercise. You then use forums and blogs during the exercise to capture and mull over as it happens, and then perhaps if this will be a repeatable endeavor a good practice is drawn up.

Steve Barth also has his thoughts in his post, Does Corporate Failure = PKM?. I personally like one of his past posts on PKM.

“Personal KM explores how expertise and effectiveness scale up to organizational value with a focus on the capabilities and contributions of each and every knowledge worker. PKM starts with individual priorities and processes that lead to self-organization in the workplace with values, skills and tools to build stronger teams and networks from the ground up.”

“Successful companies know they have to evolve. Executives consider knowledge worker productivity to be a priority for bottom-line results. Knowledge workers need to make informed decisions, but then they need to translate decisions into successful actions.”

Here’s some Twitter conversation on PKM networks or click here:

johnt: disagree http://snipr.com/huqpe I think PKM in a socnet builds culture as it's networked + gains momentum, scales http://snipr.com/huqym

about 4 days ago

Tue May 12 07:05:00 +0000 2009

yurial: @johnt wrt PKM: agreed. PKM = what you know; networking = who you know. That's a winning combo.

about 4 days ago

Tue May 12 08:16:02 +0000 2009

johnt: @yurial @markgould13 PKM is greater than sum of it's parts b/c of network aspect-macro emergence of K-flow from micro PKM habits @stevebarth

about 4 days ago

Tue May 12 08:25:23 +0000 2009

stevebarth: @johnt @alevin, Personal #KM =Failure? Would you say that Citizenship means a failure of Government? http://bit.ly/4gKrW

about 3 days ago

Wed May 13 08:42:37 +0000 2009

johnt: @stevebarth workers do pkm using web2, if make avai enterprise wide we connect all workers in a network @alevin

about 2 days ago

Thu May 14 00:53:13 +0000 2009

stevebarth: @johnt Please define “do P#KM ” as u see it. (140ch or less!). For me much more than searching/saving, no? Your learning/collaborating style.

about 2 days ago

Thu May 14 01:16:28 +0000 2009

johnt: @stevebarth 4 me key is 2 create conditions 2 help PKM,+4 it 2 connect in2 KM big picture-like spirituality(bottom-up) vs religion(top-down)

about 2 days ago

Thu May 14 06:40:48 +0000 2009

stevebarth: @johnt excellent! sign me up

about 2 days ago

Thu May 14 14:29:45 +0000 2009

johnt: @stevebarth agree with u, most of km is macro result of pkm..always need pkm 2 adapt,a km is never complete

about a day ago

Fri May 15 00:35:45 +0000 2009

An example of a help network

I’m finishing off by coming back to the start of this post about a help network and making sense of things by accessing people in your network.

This simple Facebook status update is just a natural use of the system, the person asking the question (Chris Saad), does not consciously think he is doing KM, it’s just embedded into being a participant…something I pondered at the end of this post.

This example would be even more poignant if the Chris was clarifying and contextualising by having a comments conversation, and something else it doesn’t reveal is that personally this conversation is of interest to me as I will soon need to draw on this information (I’m getting the benefit for free).

Anyway, this simple open conversation with people you trust in your network is on par with the aims of KM suggested in the beginning of this post.

SOURCE - Click image for larger size

[ADDED 31/05/09: Sense-making with PKM, see my comment…

“Defintely agree. PKM is like sensemaking and everyone does it. But now we can do it in the open, and not only that but we can do it in a connected and networked way.

‘On a work basis, businesses today want it (or think they want it) both ways. They want their employees to be personally productive, making the classic logical error that if everyone is highly productive personally then the company will be. Nope’”]

This week Twitter decided to not allow you to see tweets people you are following are having with people you are not folllowing.

Previous to this it was an option in the settings, but it turns out this option slows down the servers, and since it is only known or used by 3% of users they decided to remove it. This horrified power Twitter users, see #fixreplies.

Why?

Because eaves dropping on conversations people you follow are having with people you don’t follow is a great way to discover new people. Actually this is the most common, if not only way, that I personally discover new people…it’s recommendations without trying to be recommendations…I trust who people I follow converse with, so there’s a good chance I will want to follow them. I’m not about to go through every person I follow’s contact list and look through these lists for new people…I don’t have the time…so I get more suitable value eavesdropping on conversations…I’ve only used Mr Tweet once, it was handy, but I’d rather find new people in my flow as part of using the system.

Anyway, now Twitter promise new things, so we will see, but at the moment they have kind of come half way.:

“…any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account.”

Meaning…if someone I follow replies to someone I don’t follow using a reply button (which threads the reply to the tweet ID), then I won’t see it. But I will see it if they type the word @user in the text box (rather than using the reply button).

What they are basically saying here, is that when you click the reply button, you are explicitly having a conversation, as the tweet you are replying to becomes a link at the end of your tweet. (You will see this at the end of some tweets, where it will say “inreply to johnt”). Whereas when you type in the reply in the text box this does not link the tweets so can be taken as a shoutout or a mention, which apparently is more appropriate for you to see, rather than a conversation from which you are not in the loop.

Personally I think the option in the settings was the way to go, but since this option could no longer scale, they had to take it away, I’m sure if it did scale there would be no problem with keeping it.

NOTE: what I’m not sure of is if I click the reply button using an alternate interface like peoplebrowsr, filttr, dabr, tweetdeck will the same function apply, or does it only apply when I use the reply button on Twitter itself. My hunch is it will make no difference, as it’s a linked reply and will be treated as such.

Facebook/Friendfeed comparison

It has taken a step backwards in regards to “serendipity”, but it’s no way going to be restricted like Facebook.

I like that Facebook is restricted and private as I use it as a more personal thing, I don’t want the world to know when I’m not home, or personal family happenings. I think this is Facebook’s strength, and they should see this unique feature as something that differentiates them from Twitter and Friendfeed, some don’t think so.

Let’s face it Facebook competes more with Twitter than Friendfeed.

NOTE: Of course they (Facebook and Twitter) are in competition to be the social network you most visit, but in regards to functionality they are different.

Friendfeed is a lifestream and a social network, just like Facebook, only Facebook has all features inhouse, whereas Friendfeed consolidates all your scattered profiles that you have at different services…basically Friendfeed mostly aggregates your stuff, where Facebook does it all. And of course you are free to browse profiles on Friendfeed, where this is restricted on Facebook as they allow people to set privacy settings.

But I will say that Twitter competes more with Friendfeed than Facebook. The reason is that a lot of people use Twitterfeed to auto-tweet their blog posts, bookmarks, photo’s videos, etc…Meaning not every tweet is manually typed, some of them are auto-posts from your happenings elsewhere, which kind of turns Twitter into a lifestream service, if you want to use it that way. It’s not designed for this, as is Friendfeed, but it is done.

As I mentioned before, they are all indirectly in competition because they run on the “social network” model. There is only so many places you can spend time, and you usually will hang out in the service where your buddies are hanging out…whether this service has crap features or not doesn’t matter in the end, what matters is that you can connect with them all in one place.

For me it’s Twitter, if all my Twitter buddies hung out at Friendfeed, then I may give it a try (NOTE: I do use Friendfeed for my lifestream, but I don’t network). And I do use Facebook for family and close friends, but this is more minimal use. I use LinkedIn as well, but it’s not really a place to hang out in. Basically, if juicy stuff happens in Friendfeed, Facebook or LinkedIn, it gets posted to Twitter, ie. Twitter has become the pulse.

Symmetric

Facebook is more about friendship. I can only follow you, if you follow me back (accept my request for friendship)…it’s more about strong tie relationships.

Asymmetric

Friendfeed and Twitter are less about friendship, as I can follow someone, who doesn’t follow me back…giving it a strength of weak ties scenario. This is great for serendipity, discovery, exploration, research…

As I said each service has it’s strength in the relationship dynamic it offers, at least for me anyway.

Status Updates comparison

To finish let’s compare the experience of Facebook status updates to Twitter. I thought I would cover this as lots of people say, “this feature is on Facebook, so I have no reason to use Twitter”, but they are mistaken…

The only thing Twitter and Facebook have in common is “status updates”, which is just one feature of Facebook, whereas this is the whole concept of Twitter. Due to the differing relationship dynamic they work quite different.

FB - I can only see status updates of people I follow (in order to follow them, they have to follow me back, which means we are friends)
TW - I can visit any profile and see their updates, I can also follow them and see their updates in my homepage (they don’t have to follow me back)

FB - I can see replies from people that are also my friends to status updates on my friends profile
TW - ditto

FB - I can see replies from strangers to status updates on my friends profile
TW - This is no longer a 100% truth, see start of this post for explanation

FB - I cannot see replies my friends make on a status update on a strangers profile
TW - This is no longer a 100% truth, see start of this post for explanation

FB - replies are threaded under an update
TW - replies are at the same level as an update (any update is considered an update regardless if it has the word “reply”)
If you click the reply icon it will publish a link to the tweet you are replying to under your reply. But the tweet you are replying to will not list the tweets that has replied to it

[ADDED 19/05/09 : see Twitoaster and Twonvo for all replies to a tweet]

FB - replies alert you via notifications
TW - replies don’t have notification, they are just another tweet in the stream
But replies to you, are accessed via your reply stream

As we can see here Facebook takes a more blog and comment approach, and Twitter has a full stream approach.

Eg. in Facebook a status update is like a micro-blog post, and comments are threaded (of which you are notified). Whereas in Twitter everything is a same level item in the stream…posts start at the top of the page, and roll off the bottom.

The other thing is that in Twitter you can discover more people through posts (eg. conversations your friends are having with strangers) and visiting profiles, whereas this is restricted in Facebook.

The advantage of Facebook is that after the fact conversations are more distilled, whereas in Twitter if you were not there while it was happening, you have to piece it together, although Twitter Search does have a nifty view called “Show Conversations“, and the use of hashtag channels for tweets on a topic.

A while back I posted about knowledge sharing in your flow of work, and in between your tasks, here are those posts: 7 seconds to knowledge share, 140 characters to knowledge share.

At work I’m finding our support team often don’t have time to blog about their experiences/solutions, and they don’t seem to be using the forums to ask questions that often. But what I do see is a lot of Instant Messaging (IM) going on.

Why IM is popular?

There is an immediacy, it’s a conversation, it’s real-time and responsive…these fragmented conversations mimic how we behave face to face (accept for the visual gestures).
You don’t bug a lot of people, ie. some people may feel uncomfortable that their forum question has popped a new email in 100 inboxes.

The only thing lacking with IM is that you are pushing a message, similar to email (point to point), and if the receiver can’t help then you have to IM someone else.

Why microblogging is unique?

That’s why I’m thinking that micro-sharing is the perfect tool for opening up the conversation. Why not have that conversation in the open, where there is a chance for more input, and others benefiting, and more awareness.

You may say that enterprise IM has more take up as you have more confidence speaking in private.
But what we can say about microblogging is that speaking in public opens up more answers to your query, more connections, more discovery…it becomes a perpetual path.

The other thing is that you don’t really have to bug people in microblogging, ie you don’t have to use the @reply feature. You can also just blog a micro-post, which will not end up in an inbox, or RSS reader. It will stream past; if your network don’t see it in the stream in time, and they don’t back read items, then that’s cool, but someone may see it.

So in this respect microblogging is like SMS/IM, but also like blogging, as your posts don’t have to be aimed at someone, and they reach a network of ears. And the fact that I can overhear conversations people in my network are having with others in my network or others not in my network makes for great awareness, serendipity, discovery…

IM may fulfil an immediate need; and micro blogging can also do this, but being part of a microblogging network offers lots more beyond this immediate need.
Both IM and microblogging have their unique purposes, but I must say microblogging is like walking in the world: serendipity, discovery, learning, connection, etc…

Example

Just like IM, you can aim a post at people, but it also appears in the regular stream eg. @jeff when are we updating our server?

Jeff, may answer me, but Brad saw it in the stream and gives a more clear answer…and a discussion ensues…and others benefit from listening (this may be people in different teams, infact case studies show that microblogging is effective in cross-functional effectiveness…all the benefits of quicker and richer answers, re-use, awareness, cooperation, and of course innovation)

This example is more beneficial than IM, as it gets sorted quicker in the open. With IM, Jeff would go and IM Brad, and then IM me back, and other listeners miss out. Whereas with microblogging it happened once, for all to see.

This type of transaction is not suited to blogs, and people may not ask in a forum as it will send people another email in their inbox, whereas with microblogging it streams past with less interruption. That is, a @reply post may deposit in one person’s profile, but it will also stream past other people with less interruption…it’s like having a private conversation out loud.
It’s like talking to someone on the train, and others can’t help but overhear and join in…online this goes a step further where someone in another carriage can also overhear and join in.

You can’t do this with IM, as when you send an IM you are not publishing, it’s more of a personal and private point to point communication, where you expect a response. With microblogging you can also simply share what you are doing without really requiring someone to answer, all you are doing is blogging.

So microblogging achieves a few things through the same channel, and the mobile factor makes it more pervasive, and an ingrained communication like SMS.

I’m thinking tools like Yammer and the like are going to be bigger than blogging, especially groups where you can limit the chatter to your team…but I will stress these are complementary mediums.

Microblogging is less about publishing

I see more people using enterprise microblogging than blogging? Because microblogging is not as committed, you don’t need a publishing bent, and you use it to converse and ask for help which people do using IM and email. Plus there is something fulfilling about being social connected, belonging, and noticed.

Microblogging wraps up many types of communications in the one network, and can be used as a pivot to point to other places.

Drawing on your team

John Bordeaux has an excellent post on the different team dynamics and value generation between IM and microblogging.

“When I had a question to pose, I selected from among my list and began chatting. As I did, I learned which people were available and responsive and began to - unconsciously and unfortunately - call upon them more often. The people who were perhaps not as attentive to my insistent IMs were not called on as much as others.”

“I fell back on the natural tendency towards hierarchy and power laws within social networks and unwittingly began to alienate the people I was treating as “lesser” members. In doing this, I missed out on business value and the opportunity to enable contributions from across my team on an equal basis.”

This next part is not really crowdsourcing, but a similar effect that is embedded as a by product of participating:

“Using micro-blogging, I am learning to appreciate fragments and ideas from across thousands of voices. If I had micro-blogging for my team back then, I may have posed questions and listened to the “small cloud” rather than calling on the “best and brightest.” In doing so, I may have led an even more successful team as we would have been able to make use of all the voices to address the team’s challenges and opportunities.”

And the juicy bonus part that has all the enterprise 2.0 goodness of more awareness and innovation:

“…I can hear people who are simply talking about things about which I care who are not remotely in my network/culture/continent.”

“…point-to-point communications, which…presupposes you know who has “the answer,” to discovery. In fact, presuming you know who has your answer can be very limiting. Likewise, presuming you know precisely the right question to ask in all circumstances helps you to thwart serendipity.”

NOTE: Hope John doesn’t mind me quoting so much from his post, too much good stuff.

Why microblogging will have quicker adoption?

The post, The psychology of Twitter, sums up from an adoption point of view:

“This is a key point, because humans are inherently social creatures who engage primarily in conversational talking. Most of us aren’t authors and don’t write books, articles, or even blogs. We simply know how to talk, and Twitter is the first text service to adequately mimic this behavior in an online medium.”

More

In the post, Social search, Help engines, and Sense-making, I explained how microblogging helps with findability and achieves many of the aims of KM.

In the post, Twitter 3 years on, and why it’s the killer app!, I elaborated how it’s different, unique and can combine the power of: IM, forums, RSS Readers, blogs, links blogs, etc…in one tool/network.

Added

johnt: @oamprimo imagine an email subject line public stream, hang on, try microblogging

about 14 hours ago

Sun Apr 19 09:21:04 +0000 2009

oamprimo: @johnt Enterprise Micro-Blogging already happens in emails. People just use email titles. Contextual Web Aggregation will favour blogging.

about 17 hours ago

Sun Apr 19 05:45:49 +0000 2009

johnt: I think enterprise microblogging will drive people 2 want 2 say more and perhaps start regular blogging

about 19 hours ago

Sun Apr 19 03:46:03 +0000 2009