A while ago I posted on how organisations can become more agile. People can connect horizontally…the silos blinders can be removed. What this means is talent is revealed and self-organisation (which we already do regardless) can really shine. Work groups can form that attract the right people in a decentralised way, and then disbanden. My past post I’m refering to is called, We are more than our job title describes, so let’s get social!…get into it, as this is a big aspect of the state of enterprise 2.0 that we will eventually reach.

As I mentioned in a few previous posts, it’s fine that we can use bottom-up tools to connect the enterprise in a network fashion, but this has to be accepted from top-down.

Jack Vinson says it pithy in a response to my post:

“…business doesn’t reward collaboration. It rewards individual action.”

And then Bertrand Duperrin equally said it simply and effective in another way in a tweet to me:

“Tell me how you’re measured & I’ll tell you how you work”

My posts in question I’m talking about are:

I don’t want to share, that’s counter to meeting my objectives…and reward!!

Sensemaking KM and CoPs (Just-in-time vs Just-in-case), engaging and embedded KM, and a competitive vs collaborative culture

This seems to be the meme of late, as I just read Venessa Miemis say:

“It’s becoming more accepted that collaboration, not competition, is a more effective avenue towards producing emergent, innovative results. Now that millions of people participate in online social networks, it seems high time to develop a system of matching people’s skill sets with common values and goals in order to bring about positive change.

Social networks have the advantage of being able to connect globally distributed individuals, who can then operate with flexibility within a bottom-up, non-hierarchical framework. But, just having access to each other is not always enough to make things serendipitously happen.”

She echos this in another post (which I just couldn’t help putting in bold):

“It’s becoming clear that to constrict a person’s capabilities into rigid, set roles that limit creativity and innovation just doesn’t make sense. Diving talent into silos is an outdated paradigm. Rather, we should be encouraging the facilitation of diverse groups of people working together on common problems.”

Here’s a link to that quote if you want to point someone directly to it, as I think it encapsulates enterprise 2.0 without having to talk about social computing.

And to re-quote from an earlier post, Margaret Schweer says:

“Many of us are transitioning away from job to roles based on work for some portion of our organization. This is an important paradigm shift for leaders – ownership for talent is shared. Talent needs to be flexibly deployed against the areas of highest value for the organization.”

Venessa says above that access is not enough, and when I re-read Bertrand’s post he had something else to say which is an obstacle:

“Unlike the general public web, businesses don’t know how not to pass a local cost along to the the whole organization since everyone has to justify the way the allowed funds are used. In brief, businesses don’t understand free across its departments. Rather, their internal policies don’t make that possible.”

This got me to reflect on my own organisation

We do not yet have a social network, but we have CoPs as a start which is good, because already we see people discovering others, connecting and collaborating…this is a distributed way to optimise talent and work.

Even without CoPs of course people are networked, but it’s harder…usually management are good at this as they know more people than the regular worker.

Anyway my point is that I agree with the points Bertrand and Venessa allude to in that; access, networking and connecting is only the first step.

At my work, our culture is OK with workers being borrowed by others to work in tasks where their talent is needed.

But we reach two obstacles.

I can only stretch so much of my time

I have my regular job, but then I’m in a handful of extra activities like voluntary work groups. And most of these are from my own doing as I’ve shown an interest and want to have some input (I really like how our organisation is open to this).

But like I said I don’t have enough hours in the day, and in the end I’m measured on my main job by the manager I work for. I don’t get measured on these other activities that I work on…in school you would get extra points for participating in extra activities

…anyway

The other thing is that I can’t charge my time to these extra activities, my boss is paying for my time spent elsewhere…but since this is our cultural attitude, in that it’s for the greater good, my boss is OK with it.

OK, so I’m not getting kudo’s for extra work, or it’s not part of performance measurement, which doesn’t personally worry me too much because I have passion for these work groups…but it would be good if it was measured, as it is work tasks, in contrast to sharing and learning in CoPs.

NOTE: CoPs are about sense-making and being better at your tasks, but they are not the task itself, which is more an attribute of a team (but I do understand that the world is not so black and white).

And as I said, I don’t have enough time to devote to these work groups.

Even if I could charge my time to these work groups and had to contribute to deliverables I still wouldn’t have time…actually this would make me very stressed.

So the question is…

How can I roam around the enterprise as a free agent, like a freelancer, getting my own tasks?

NOTE: a by product is that I become multi-skilled, exposed to diverse sides of the business, work with different people and operations.

I compare this to a cinematographer who gets their own gigs, jumping from one film to the next.

Only thing is I would still want security from the organisation, in that they will slot me somewhere if I don’t network well enough…or when there are down times they will find me something to do.

The enterprise would still have managers setting tasks, but the workers would gravitate to these tasks, or be invited…basically you have to find your own projects to work on.

Would this be hard? In a networked enterprise jobs would come to you, via your interest feeds, and those who you are connected to…and people who know about you would give you leads and offers.

So even though managers are setting tasks, they are not so much managing you, but more responsible for the coordination of the project.

You manage yourself, it’s in your own interest to do a good job otherwise people won’t want you on other tasks. This point kind of reminds me of the self regulated nature of eBay. Since buyers rate sellers, it’s in the sellers interest to be honest, which keeps eBay from falling over in a distributed way.

But an enterprise would not only rely on workers managing themselves as operational reliability…coupled with this managers would be 50% managing and 50% leading. Managers need to spend more time on mentoring human performance, bringing out the best in people, so workers can better manage themselves.

This kind of means you don’t have a boss? You only work for the manager of the task you are on, and when you disbanden your on your own again, looking for another task which will be managed by someone else.

I said there were two obstacles, the other one is…

Backing money vs level of effort

As I mentioned earlier it’s great my work has an open culture where people’s time can be lent out by a manager to work on extra activities.

When I say extra activities, I mean cross-functional work groups, or even improvement tasks within the one team.

Some examples of these are:

- I’m not on the Intranet team, but there is an Intranet redesign project that I’m happy and glad to participate in
- Within my own team I’m part of a focus group on “internal communication”.
etc…

So what’s the problem?

Because these work groups don’t have deliverables or timelines, they wane.

But even if they did have deliverables, and I could charge my time, us borrowed participants would not be able to spread our time, as we have our main jobs.

Again the solution to this seems to be a freelanced networked type of organisation I was pondering earlier…but what is the seriousness or repercussions of this…come on organisational theorists, cultural critics, futurists…let me know what you think!!

I don’t think this aspect of enterprise 2.0 is talked about enough, where do we see a networked enterprise heading to…

From what I remember in complexity theory, what manifests from the interactions can change the system itself, the very system that has been the platform for these interactions to happen.

So when we talk about enterprise 2.0 it’s been about how we do work and sensemake, and also transparency, crowdsourcing before making a decision…and we have tools and an approach to do this. This is where we are at now, but what’s the inevitable transformative result of this?

Will it be a blended enterprise of hierarchy and networks where talent roams around slotting into tasks?

I digressed a little, back to it…

I said if we could charge our time to the work group, but this isn’t so at the moment…why?

Because most of these special work groups are nice to have ideas, actually they have gone beyond ideas, they actually get started, but fizzle.

At our work if you can get sponsorship, and a level of effort from borrowed resources, which I have explained is the culture at my work, then we see these work groups take off.

But they get to a stage where they manifest into something but then need proper backing to keep going…ie they need funds.

It’s good in a way as we don’t need to show ROI, as it’s based on level of effort, but we do reach a wall.

It’s a real good approach, that enables us to experiment and fill needs, allowing self organising groups to form to serve the greater effectiveness of the organisation. So the ability to allow for this emergence is great, it’s an aspect of an agile organisation, but…once we can prove this momentum is worthwhile, then we need the funding for these work groups…and that’s the wall that causes them to wane over the long term.

If these work groups, or as Dave Snowden calls the “crews” were offered funding for their work, where would you find the people who have time…do you hire more people, that you only need for a short time…or does the organisation fully transform into a new enterprise where we move from CoPs and matrix organisations to social network stimulation and crews.

For more information on crews check out these posts

The Empire’s shadow

Are you on the Bully watch?

Aggregative or emergent identity? Rethinking Communities

Please don’t get workgroups and communities of practice confused. Workgroups are more like teams where deliverables need to be achieved.

Bertrand has more:

“Communities are places where practices, knowledge, informaiton are exchanged and has not to be confused with workgroups which are operational entities…Groups know that they have to do, to deliver, and that’s why they exist. Groups exist because they have operational purposes. Communities exchange to learn, groups exchange to execute (even if there a learning dimension in the background routine). The group is a manager’s reponsability, the manager being responsible for objective’s achievement. Communties can be handled by external people who is an expert, a skilled communicator while groups only react to hierarchical hierarchy (even if expertise matters in the background).”

Why?

Sure you will get lots of success in sense-making and sharing by facilitating the use of grassroots tools that are bottom-up just like email (but better than email).

BUT, is the use of new tools enough to catapult into a new way of working…it will take a long time to hit that tipping point.

Even if we do all the right things like facilitate, understand human behaviour, create and nurture conditions for participation, have an enterprise-wide concept…I don’t think it’s enough.

We need a complementary top-down shift to a new culture of working, as I said in my last post, a move from a competitive to collaborative organisation.

NOTE: I’m referring to within the walls of an organisation. I’m yet to think about this concept industry-wide ie. companies collaborating, rather than competing…a new type of capitalism I guess…got many links on the natural enterprise, but no time to read them

What do I mean by top-down?

I mean how are we measured and rewarded for what we do…

If I’m rewarded just for my achieving my personal output, I don’t have an incentive to share as what I know gives me the edge, it’s not about the organisation, it’s all about me.

Workers are instilled to be efficient robots, which leads to…I don’t have time to help you out, or an interest, as that is less time that I spend on achieving my objectives, and helping you out doesn’t get me a reward anyway; my objectives are important as that’s what gets me a reward.

We are told to share, but how can we when the senior management strategy doesn’t walk the walk…yes they talk that it’s good to share, but then strategy goes against that ideal.

Can you believe a lot of organisations run this way…this is a strategy to amass an aggregate of personal efficiency ie an incentive to stack a pile of efficient people, at the expense of an effective organisation where the people share what they know with each other so the organisation can adapt, be resilient, innovate, etc…

Why would an organisation do this to itself?

ie. concentrate on cost reduction and efficiency alone by neglecting the big picture, and instead just focus on each worker by rewarding good outcomes. How are you gonna adapt to changes in the industry if you don’t have a connected organisation…sure, you can have lots of intelligent people, but if they are not connected, you will hear lots of “why didn’t we know about you, I didn’t know you were an expert in that, we could of used you to help with this issue”

Workers self organise their behaviour to sometimes ignore this strategy, as it’s being connected that helps you out. You don’t know everything, if you did, what’s the use of an organisation. We get by at work by give and take, you interrupt me today, I’ll interrupt you tomorrow…I’ll forgo some of my time to help you out, as I trust that this will be reciprocated. An organisation is a web of relationships, we all need contacts, to help us achieve our targets.

So yes it’s natural to share, as it’s a need, actually it’s survival…but this needs to be seriously recognised and harnessed as a strategy, and a smart strategy where it cooperates and is cohesive with other strategies. ie you can’t have a strategy about sharing is important, if you have another strategy that essentially says hoarding is important (this conflicting strategy I’m referring to is the essence of this post ie the strategy of what you know gets you ahead of others, it gives you the edge so sharing would be the wrong thing to do…and my objectives get me rewards, so why would I spend time with you).

Anyway, looking back at an old post of Rex Lee’s outstanding blog, I found something very relevant to this meme.

It’s on the negative impact that “well defined measurable objectives and tying them directly to compensation” has on knowledge sharing, and ultimately organisational effectiveness.

“It seems logical that if you do a good job, and it’s linked to your objectives then you should be compensated for this.

The difficulty lies in the individual nature. The first concern is around the competitive aspects of this kind of model. If your knowledge or expertise could really assist someone else but helping them had no relation to your objectives, would you help them? What if we took it one step further. What if your helping of someone else actually hurt your ability to meet your objectives? Perhaps it would take you away from completing your objectives or actually go counter to your objectives? What if the more important thing for the company was helping that other person?

Often a cascading objectives model (one in which, you get your objectives from your boss, and she gets them from her boss, etc..), leads to solio’d thinking. Opportunities that arise that cut across silo’s (and requiring collaboration) are simply never seen. It’s not that people want to be malicious, they simply don’t see the opportunity.

Is it possible to structure objectives, that allow for collaboration that still are well defined, measurable and linked to compensation? The answer depends in what “well defined” means. In theory, an objective about collaborating could resolve this. It’s worked for other organizations. If you go this route though, keep in mind the implications it has on organizational structure as well. Proceed with caution, you’re changing institutional models that may be as old as the organization itself.”

In the next post I want to look at the ROI of spending time helping others.

[ADDED 16/11/09 : Bertrand Duperrin]

“Unlike the general public web, businesses don’t know how not to pass a local cost along to the the whole organization since everyone has to justify the way the allowed funds are used. In brief, businesses don’t understand free across its departments. Rather, their internal policies don’t make that possible.”

[ADDED 16/11/09 : Jack Vinson]

“the business doesn’t reward collaboration. It rewards individual action.”

My aim was to contrast traditional KM of conscripting best practices, with a new approach based on sensemaking pkm and networks…more appropriate tools, design for emergence and ambient awareness, and amplifying how we get things done offline…basically a more cognitive science approach over management science.

A great deal of my visual concept is based on the work of Dave Snowden, who looks at KM from a more anthropological, human behaviour perspective…a lot of his work deals with the notion of “context”, and I guess this is coupled with “intrinsic” motivation or engagement.

I also borrowed from a model by Shell on the concept of a Global Network (CoP), shown to me by Mark Bennett from Learning Collaboration.

Basically, from another perspective, I’m trying to do in 2 slides what T Systems did in 26 out of the 51 slides of their brilliant slidedeck, The revolution of knowledge part1

KM as blood bank

I also really like Mark Bennett’s symbolic way of thinking about it like a blood bank (taking and giving blood)

• Sense-making and asking questions (taking blood)
• Blogging/Sharing/Peer Assist and reflective KM like AAR, Lessons (giving blood)

Sense-making KM and CoPs - Just-in-time vs Just-in-case

The following slides are a contrast to supply-side KM, or just-in-case KM.

Also note this is KM from a Community of Practice perspective, as that’s what’s relevant to my day job. I guess one day I can alter them to include other KM activities and a more network perspective.

Sensekmaking KM and CoPs - Just-in-time vs Just-in-case

Different ways of engaging knowledge

Related to this sense-making concept of people and context in the just-in-time KM model is Nancy Dixon’s model on the different types of knowledge needs or interactions, in relation to: the level of cognitive diversity required, the degree of relationship (tie/trust) with others to source that information, facilitation/support, and the social computing tools that can create conditions for sense-making.

Embedded KM

Another related post is on Embedded KM by Andrew Gent.

I think knowledge sharing can be done as it happens (blogs, wikis, etc..) but also as a reflection (anecdote circles, AAR, etc..), and it’s the latter that Andrew is thinking about…how best to share lessons and good practices from one project to the next. Since the project is over, people don’t put great emphasis or care on reviewing it, as they are busy moving on to the next project, so Andrew talks about embedding this so it doesn’t seem a chore.

But he also makes a very relevant point to the heart of KM and motivation. When capturing information it has to become usable, and this takes effort on the contributor to make it findable, otherwise it’s up to the user to find the content and make it relevant to them. To make it usable and relevant takes too much effort for return, it has low intrinsic motivation for the contributors.

The challenge is a sweetspot where it’s usable enough, and contributing is simple enough…and what do you know, this works best as conversation, as we get sharing and context. And Andrew has an embedded way to trigger this reflective conversation as a part of an organisational process.

Andrew says:

“Rather than trying to make all project knowledge available to anyone, what if we simply try to expand the current knowledge base incrementally over time? Rather than collecting the review documents, why not include at least one reviewer from an unrelated project to each review? This could be an architect, implementer, or project manager as long as that person can provide an objective, outside view of the project progress.”

“…the outside reviewer helps to keep the project team “honest”. It is easy for internal reviews to become formulaic rubber stamp events if those involved are all working on the project.They do not have enough distance to see hidden pitfalls and will resist calling foul on people they have to work with on a daily basis.”

“…including outsiders gives at least one person a much more indepth and personal knowledge than could ever be gained by reading a set of historical documents with no one to explain them. Another value from a KM perspective is the opportunity the reviewer and the project team have to exchange knowledge, hints, and tips on the fly and in context of the discussion.”

“…the program then becomes essentially self-managing from a KM perspective. The project management teams are responsible for ensuring outside reviewers are included and with each review, little by little, knowledge is shared across the organization.”

Competitive vs Collaborative culture

The micro intentions or local behaviour involved in the the Just-in-time vs Just-in-case concept actually emerge a macro picture…and that’s a change in the internal dynamics of an organisation from a competitive to collaborative organisation…perhaps from teams to crews.

Why?

We create the conditions for engagement, transparency, agility, trust and awareness…where knowledge sharing becomes a magical by-product….not creating a knowledge sharing culture, rather creating conditions for one to emerge.

I know it’s about the people, not the tools, but it’s important to understand the design thinking involved…these new tools are designed for the people, where we can now achieve the original aims of KM. The use of these tools can be a catalyst for change. For more on this see my posts, Has KM died, and resurrected as social computing?, Knowledge and its facilitators.

You could say social computing is a bottom-up strategy (and is has total effect when enterprise-wide), but I think we can also have a top-down strategy, because no matter how enabled workers can be to express and converse in the open, they will be hesitant, feel unsafe, uncomfortable and not confident if this new type of enterprise interaction is not promoted or pushed from the top.

NOTE: social computing is not just bottom-up, managers can seed crowdsourcing/opinion/reviews

A while back I posted, Is knowledge sharing all about your pay cheque? (which was amplified by Stewart Mader).

In this post I contrasted a picture where people are influenced to share or hoard depending on how their performance is viewed from senior management.
If you are appraised on your personal output, then you will hoard and not collaborate as much as you have an incentive to own all the output, forgoing a more quality or optimum deliverable, than if you were to leverage the talent of the organisation.
On the other hand if you are appraised on a group output (how much you collaborate, your effectiveness in networking with the optimum people for your tasks) then this will instill a less competitive culture due to more knowledge sharing and collaboration. This is a cleverly designed strategy as the the workers themselves will be pushing quality from others as they all hold each other accountable…a culture of interdependency.

I really like how Stewart put it:

“People are used to thinking of their workday activities as indirectly affecting the bottom-line because the competition model essentially keeps the average employee in the dark about how things really work, or how healthy the organization is. The sharing model makes it much clearer, so the average employee can see the impact of her or his work.”

Betrand Duperrin also parallels these thoughts:

“They would be more efficient if they helped each other? But in order to get a good evaluation and the related rewards and bonuses they have, in the best case, to ignore each other, in the worse case to play the one against another.”

Learned behaviour

Beyond performance appraisals, what about a top-down message about the importance of connection and collaboration, just like the way organisations drill the message of quality and safety.

When I attended Mark Bennett’s masterclass on CoPs, he mentioned that safety is a learned behaviour (people are irrational and do unsafe things like drink driving, etc), and quality is a learned behaviour (people take shortcuts and ignore procedures and processes like emailing a document to a client for review, rather than sending through a formal transmittal via document control), and so to, collaboration can be a learned behaviour.

But I don’t think the result of this would be as effective in a fundamental way.

• If you are unsafe, you risk getting sued, bad accidents cause a bad reputation with clients, contractors and workers.
• If you are of low quality, you cut corners for short term gain, long term loss, and perhaps risk litigation.
• If you have low collaboration, you risk a less optimum job, low awareness and transparency and communication leads to low cooperation and cohesiveness, and you are less agile to adapt to change.

All three have bad consequences if ignored

• The first two is a risk in reputation, but also a benchmark risk, and more importantly the consequences are very meaty-litigation, death.
• The last one also is a risk in reputation (losing or not winning deals because of bad information flow does effect reputation/attractiveness), the industry benchmark is still a young thing in relation to collaboration, BUT unlike the others the consequences are not as meaty, no-one dies, we don’t get sued.

So I think because the consequences of not being collaborative don’t show explicitly like someone being hurt, and losing face (as this is seen as a quality process issue rather than collaboration/information flow), then we tend to be more reactive, or it takes a back seat in our attention. You still get work done not being collaborative (you do suffer later in frustration as you can’t find stuff or you aren’t aware of something you should be aware of), it’s just all these micro interactions, lead to a big picture of not being agile, and attractive to a client…if they can’t get their s*!t together, how are they gonna service us.

Related
I don’t want to share, that’s counter to meeting my objectives…and reward!!

Great cross-functional CoPs are emerging like Bulk Materials Handling, Sustainable Development, Software Architecture and Approaches, 3D Visualisation and Animation, Bauxite and Alumina, etc..

But there is something else that’s emerging that we didn’t quite expect.

And we know why?

It’s because our CoPs are just online spaces with a bunch of tools (blogs, forums, wikis, docs, and a homepage).

This package doesn’t make them a CoP, it’s just what we called them, as that’s what the vendor calls them…nothing wrong with this…

Basically, these online tools don’t define the group or how it operates…their just tools. This also hooks into how the Socialtext staff differentiate them from past tools (transactional vs Interactive)

Anyway…

So the unexpected emergence is that CoPs are being used for lots of different things that are cutting into products we already use…why again…because people want to be empowered and engaged which distributed power (less control) enables.

What has emerged?

Let’s start with the answer and it’s effect: blogs, forums, wikis need to be features of existing products, and when they are how’s that gonna effect what has currently happened.

We don’t just have cross-functional CoPs ie. people distributed in the organisation in different teams, projects, business units, and levels of authority who come together in a space to support and learn about a common topic…which makes for a more agile organisation…it’s looking in your own backyard and connecting the talent dots.

Here are the main online groups that have surfaced.

Ad-hoc tasks

I’ve blogged about this before.

People want to do temporary tasks in an online space rather than hidden in email.

Our CoPs are more portal like with permissions and the rest, they are not one click set-up, they need a bit of upfront design.
- your CoP or mine for this task, but your not a member of my CoP…these task spaces end up buried in a CoP somewhere, they have no homepage of their own, the hosting CoP members may not like that their CoP has a unrelated parasite group

They are not the best spaces or timely and simple enough for an ad-hoc task.

For this we would need something like the new OpenText Social Media product, or Jive SBS (both of these also include a social network).

Or perhaps something more on-the-fly like Activities on Lotus Connections, or a future version of Google Wave…see more.

And Traction seems like the most flexible product around, I hear BlueKiwi is in this space as well…see more.

Initatives/Pilots/Crowdsourcing/Events

We are finding these a sweetspot, just like cross-functional CoPs.

We are starting a review of our project lifecycle process, which is to be coordinated in the CoP, basically where the organisation comes together in a communal space.

Support

I’ve blogged about this before.

It’s one thing to have a CoP to troubleshoot within a team, but it’s another thing when internal customers start asking questions for support through a CoP.

Personally I think it’s great, as people have an open place to search for past answers or even offer answers, and if you subscribe you can learn along the way.

BUT, this is cutting into the organisations official Support database. We still need this official and sophisticated tool for support management, but CoPs as a support tool are definitely cutting into their lunch.

Teams/Business Units/Office unit

These groups have a section in our corporate Document Management System (DMS)…it’s basically a set of folders.

Why are they using CoPs?

Because in the process of creating documents we have conversations about review.
Because we like to discuss issues.
Because we like to broadcast news.
Because we like to share experiences.
And email just doesn’t cut it.
And the DMS just doesn’t have these conversational tools, or a homepage that represents the group (well, they do, it’s the Intranet, but see the next point)

Intranet

I’ve blogged about this before.

Someone came up to me the other day and said, they love that CoPs are two-way, and that they can update their homepage (that acts like a portal) whenever they like.

As a result of this empowerment they mentioned that their intention is to no longer have any of their pages hosted on the Intranet, but instead, when people click on their business practice link on the Intranet, it will just take them straight to the CoP.

What’s the next natural step, that the global CoP hompage becomes the Intranet itself.

Client Projects

We have a DMS on another server with a different look and feel and processes that suit the context of projects.

But again, just like Teams/Business Units they lack a homepage and conversation tools.

Project teams want a homepage as a jump off point (a bunch of folders doesn’t cut it).

They also want this homepage to display conversations that are currently happening at the moment in email silos, this way the mechanical guys can eaves drop on piping conversations and vice versa, so we are more aware. A blog for project updates and broadcast news gets people on the same page.

Organisations are not (well maybe) Complex Adaptive Systems, so we need to make them open and transparent as much as we can, so people can be ambiently aware, and therefore better cooperate amongst the parts, and ultimately adapt to changes or even be preventative.

I have not created online CoP spaces for these projects as this is the turf of DMS, and having two spaces for the one thing seems odd, but people will self-organise their way around any design.

Let’s sum this up

CoPs are a sweetspot for great emerging unofficial groups, but they are also cutting into the following existing products:

• Email (this was the intention)
• Offical support database
• Corporate DMS
• Project DMS
• Intranet

And it seems we need a product to handle ad-hoc tasks.

Summary, future ponderings, and a suggestion

The original idea for CoPs was cross-functional practices eg Bulk Materials Handling

But as we can see because email, the DMS, and the Intranet are not as enabling, people are using CoPs as an alternative for everything.

In a way this CoP experiment has surfaced all sorts of needs, which is a good low cost experiment (naturally emerging needs analysis).

Who needs a survey, needs analysis, or just implement and hope it works as it was a good top-down idea…when the emergence that has surfaced from the existence from CoPs has given you the answer to all this pondering for free.

What it has surfaced is a need for our DMS and the Intranet to become socialised…and also a way to do ad-hoc tasks.

I’m seeing all this happening, and perhaps need to suggest a taskforce so us people running all these products can converge.

This convergence will be interesting. If these tools do get socialised, what will then happen?

Will teams decide to export their CoPs to their revamped DMS?

And if the Intranet offers the same tools as our CoPs, but with an Intranet backdrop, will some groups then export their CoPs to the revamped Intranet?

So maybe one day we will come full-circle, and CoPs will be just for cross-functional groups…as wiki, blogs, forums will be features of all products.

What’s the food for thought for people wanting to socialise their organisation online!

Perhaps firstly revamp your existing systems with social tools. ie. Work on your in-the-flow before, or perhaps in parallel with your above-the-flow.

• Intranet and business units/teams (Confluence or Thoughfarmer)
• Client Projects (Basecamp)
• Communities and Social network (Jive SBS)
• Ad-hoc tasks (OpenText Social Media)
• And what about micro-blogging (Socialtext signals)

See what’s happening here, a lot of the tools above do the same things eg. Socialtext has a social network and workspaces, OpenText has a social network, etc…

Also our projects need sophisticated document cycle functionality which Basecamp will not do, so in this case our existing DMS needs to be revamped.

I’m thinking perhaps an Intranet tool like Thoughtfarmer or Confluence could handle them all…except for client projects (requires document lifecycle processes)

Here’s a snapshot of different CoPs that are emerging:

More Than Cops

More than CoPs

By examining the CoPs, or better put, “online groups” at my work, they seem to be:

1. Teams/BU (execute work)
- which shouldn’t be called a CoP even though it is…who cares in the end, I’m happy people are using the tools

2. Teams/BU (learning/support spaces)
- this type of CoP is usually combined with the CoP above (point 1)

3. Cross-functional (traditional learning CoPs)
- a classic example is our Software Architecture and Approaches CoP where people from various units/teams come together to share, learn, help…and to bring that intelligence back to their tasks
- when we need help at work we often look to Google, Twitter, etc…why not create an environment where we can look to each other within the organisation

4. Internal user support spaces (customer service CoP)
- I run a Facilitators CoP where I communicate and troubleshoot with people that run their own CoPs
- These types of CoPs can be at the general user level, or for the support people themselves

5. Teams communicating to the business (customer CoP)
- using a CoP, rather/complementary to an email newsletter
- sometimes this type of CoP is combined with the CoP above (point 4)

6. Role-based
- people on different projects and teams, but share the same role…eg Project Managers, Project Systems Managers

7. We also have others like: interest groups, crowdsourcing, events, new initiatives, office happenings, specific tasks (although this last one suits a more simple application like ad-hoc groups…ie a bunch of people from different teams/units coming together temporarily to execute a task)

We don’t yet have any Client/Customer-based (support/crowdsource CoP, or a CoP with suppliers)

“…before you leap into reinventing your processes for transformative value, step back. You can’t collaborate with your customers before you learn to collaborate with your employees. In the spectrum of risk taking, its best to deploy from the inside-out.”

Just realised I posted something similar a while back, Internal community types that get you viral exposure.

Why do I say this?

At work we have many active online Communities of Practice (CoPs), some are learning and sharing, and others are customer based information and support CoPs, or even both.

In my post Online Communities of Practice are a sweet spot! I highlighted how CoPs cut into email conversations and Intranet information.

That is, rather than using email for questions, communications, support, we use CoP tools.

Some CoPs also like the fact that the CoP can be responsive and agile compared to the Intranet. Some of our CoPs are going beyond conversations and using the CoP as a portal to profile all the information about the group and services the group offers, as you would do on an Intranet.

What they like about the CoP is that you can update it yourself daily, and you can get feedback and questions from internal customers, as well as communicate to them.

What happened the other day is a CoP facilitator mentioned that the CoP was quickly replacing their need for an Intranet page. They said soon, they wish to not host information on the Intranet, but instead just have a hyperlink for their practice that launches to the CoP.

Whoa…CoPs are cutting into the Intranet…it’s not gonna be pretty if people start ditching the Intranet.

See what’s happening, social tools are becoming a catalyst for change, but it’s not explicit, it’s just a by-product…you are not having a revolution, it’s just you start using the new thing, and the old thing becomes ignored.

What will happen if the Intranet loses control to CoPs…their worst case scenario to authoritativeness and all things official and vetted.

As global CoP facilitator I’m not being a traffic stealer, rather a few of my customers are choosing to do this themselves, and when they ditch the Intranet, people interested in their information will also be visiting the CoP, not the Intranet.

So not only are CoPs enablers for emerging groups that are not official or even mature enough to be on the Intranet, but they are starting to attract existing groups that live on the Intranet as perhaps a new place of residence.

What does this tell us? People want to be agile, they want to be more transparent and connect, they want to be close to real-time, they want to be empowered to sense-make and do it themselves…a distributed organisation…worker engagement.

The Intranet better notice this and do something about it?

If they do, where does that leave CoPs?

If the Intranet becomes a social network with group pages, will our CoPs then be absorbed into the Intranet?

This was my whole point of my past post.

You can have a “social network with groups” standalone internal website (which is promoted on the Intranet), or you can have the same thing designed as the Intranet itself.

Here are some excerpts from an email exchange I had with our global librarian at work.

LIBRARIAN: I’m really having difficulties finding the time to set up the Library CoP. Can you set it up?

ME: If you like I’d rather assist you guys rather than do it for you.
Do you have someone you can delegate to?
Would you like to start off with a telecon, as I need to know the purpose for your CoP, who the audience/s are

LIBRARIAN: Currently, we have no manpower to even start teleconferencing. But if you don’t have the time either, I understand.
Based on our list of projects, CoP is currently a nice to have tool.

ME: Why don’t you send me a blueprint for what you want to achieve, and someone in your team (preferable someone passionate) and I will do our best to help you out.

Why do you want a CoP?

1. A space to learn and share with your team?

2. A place to coordinate tasks and assist/support each other?

3. A place where general people from our work can visit and ask a question, and also subscribe to blogs about current awareness eg. new journals

It can be for all of these, if so, let’s just try one thing first, but we will keep future needs in mind when we design

Who will be the main facilitator?

- this is a person who has time and passion to drive this
- this is not you as you are too busy, but it could be you once it’s up and running

As you know a community is all about conversations in the open (rather than private in email)
- but it can also have a portal element or website feel where you list all your stuff and information
- but you seem to already have an Intranet page for this

If we slowly chip away at it we will get there.

Perhaps I’ll ask this question:

What’s your most pressing issue or process that the community can make better?

Is it 1. learning/sharing, or 2. coordinating/assisting each other, or 3. dealing with your customers

ME: I suggest using the CoP just for your team, so you guys get used to using it, but if your most pressing issue is to get info out to your customers then we can start with that

eg. If you send Journal Table of Contents emails you can publish that in a blog instead and then email the customers the link to the blog.

Even better is if people subscribe, then you don’t have to email some of those people the link to the blog post.

This way the blog will act as an archive, and people can visit it…email is just a private letter box, whereas a blog is an open house

Think of the different email exchanges you have with customers, and the ways you inform customers, and we can re-purpose that using CoP tools

This is a broad statement, and there can be many reasons for this, but in this post I want to focus on one particular reason.

This has happened on several CoPs where the team leader has appointed their personal assistant or a nominated team member to set up a CoP…or the team leader has borrowed a person from another team leader as they like how they designed their CoP.
NOTE: Personally I would be inspired by CoPs with active and frequent conversation, over a well designed website.

The reason for their approach is that the community leader is technically proficient at designing and using the CoPs. The problem is that this person is not a Subject Matter Expert (SME), and does not have the interest, passion or time to facilitate the community in a non-technical way.

Facilitation is not just technical design/support, part of it is monitoring how people use the community and encouraging things, and re-purposing others…I briefly listed Facilitator’s duties at the end of my post, Community of Practice for Facilitators : pilot, adoption and participation.

My point here, is that CoPs need a breadth of facilitator’s, the head facilitator being the Community Leader.

It’s important to have the technical facilitator to cover the technical parts, but most important is the SME. Or rather whoever the community leader is must have a group of facilitators that handle different aspects of a CoP…technical, SME, etc…

Really, if it was an offline CoP then you would not need the technical facilitator at all.

Pause

I have realised for a while that this has been happening, and as the global facilitator I have picked up the pieces, but now that we have lots of CoPs, I’m finding I don’t have time, and I should be “training the trainer” anyway. That’s why I’m currently working on a facilitators workshop, which I’ve always intended to do, but never got the time. I communicate and support to facilitators in the Facilitators CoP, but I need a good real-time focused presentation and conversation to make this stick.

What tipped me over to blog these thoughts?

As a global facilitator I subscribe to all blogs and forums in all CoPs, and I stress that this is important for facilitators to do in their CoPs. This way you have total awareness of the activity, and you can encourage and re-purpose behaviours.

As global facilitator I eaves drop on the activity in all CoPs, but I never interfere, instead I congratulate/assist/recommend to the facilitator of that CoP with some action to take, as it’s not my place to talk to their members.

Anyway…

In one particular CoP we crowdsourced ideas into one forum, and from those 500 ideas we created 10 forums to house them all.

I don’t really agree with the next step, but it was decided that the heavy contributors on a topic were then nominated to be in charge of that forum.
- liase with the lead on bringing some of those ideas into fruition
- keep the forum going as general conversations about that topic

To my surprise they are doing OK, but could be going better if each forum had a person who volunteered themselves, something Samuel Driessen agreed with, but I can’t remember where he left that comment.

Anyway, I have noticed that in one of the forums called “Collaboration”, the person put in charge of that forum was also the project manager for our Office Communicator deployment (instant messaging/conferencing). He posted a new forum topic called “Office Communicator Tip of the week”…which yes, sounds like a blog post.
And in the last couple of months he has posted replies to that forum topic to publish new tips. In essence, he’s using one forum thread as a blog, where each new post is a reply to the forum topic.

I’m glad he’s participating, but his enthusiasm can be channeled to the right tool for the job. In the future that forum thread will be a needle in a haystack, it will be a thread with 50 replies. Instead he could have his own place using a blog, where the whole blog is about his topic, rather than be buried as one of many topics in a forum. The blog will have more presence, it can be furnished around his topic, and he will be more recognised…he and his know-how become a destination.

My point though is that there is no-one to notice and harness this, as that CoP only has a technical facilitator who is not looking out for this sort of thing. The CoP instead needs a SME or a leader who cares about the CoP and it’s members.

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.

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.”

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