But, looking at the following diagram, we can also wonder if it’s possible to go further in this reflection.

According to me it’s obvious, mostly on the following issues :

• Customer management processes (most precisely “acquisition” and “retention”)

As a matter of fact, and marketing professional are welcome to comment on this point, it’s prooved that the community dimension widely impacts the relationship between a brand and its environment. Ideagoras, innovagoras have both the function of gathering customers around a brand and making distributed innovation possible. The Southwest case is also exemplary and many other examples can be found

• Innovation processes

I’ve wrote a lot about this issue. Tools that have to be set up to make participative and distributed innovation possible on a large scale as well as the needed state of mind are totally aligned with the “2.0 attitude”. I mainly think about identifying opportunities, design/develop (which reminds of P&G’s connect and develop

• Regulatory and social processes (aspect “community”)

What to say other than that a better use of internal communities for business purposes the heart of enterprise 2.0. Morevover 2.0 has a community nature by definition.

As a conclusion, we can say that  the “learning and growth perspective” can be widely impacted by 2.0 philosophy and tools. By the way it has a real impact on the “operation management processes”, a lighter impact on the “customer management processes” and a big impact on “innovation processes” and “regulatory and social processes”. Enterprise 2.0 is at the center of value creating processes.

But, but climbing back up the diagram, we can also prove the impact on the “customer value proposition” and, saying that, on the long-term shareholder value.

QED

My initial proposition seems to be valid.

• Enterprise 2.0 is not a self sufficient model, it lacks to many things.

• On the other han it impacts directly all that is at the beginning of business processes performanc, which part in value creation we know how to measure.

• One thing leading to another, we can prove the impact on the final financial result.

To make it short, Enterprise 2.0’s principle applied to the right issues for the right purposes are essential to create value.

actifs immatériels, balanced-scorecard, bsc, Communautés, e-marketing, Entreprise 2.0, Innovation, marketing, marketing 2.0, process, Stratégie, valeur

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Thanks to Oscar Berg.

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By being next to developers all day long, I looked at the way they were working and it seems to me these guys discovered a kind of Holy Graal called agile method.

Of course I immediately tried to find if it could be use for other kind of projects than software development.

If I refer to the french version of wikipédia, these methods rely on four core values

• Team (people and interactions rather than processes and tools)

• Application (something that works rather than comprehensive documentation)

• Collaboration (collaboration with the client rather than negociating a contract)

• Change acceptance (react to change rather than following a plan)

Some points behind the agile manifesto may also help :

Customer satisfaction by rapid, continuous delivery of useful software

Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)

Working software is the principal measure of progress

Even late changes in requirements are welcomed

Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers

Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (Co-location)

Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design

Simplicity

Self-organizing teams

Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

It seems to me that very little work has to be done to rewrite this in order it could apply to a wider range of project. Most of all I believe that multplying iterations, permanent discussions, permanent client’s involvement (whether the client is internal or external), implementing things one by one and looking at what’s happening are very important in project management.

I recently tried to manage a small project like that because all the elements where gathered for that : a very scattered team with people who didn’t knew each other, overbooked people, hard to gather all of them for weekly reviews (even by phone). Although these people were used to “classical project management” and, at the beginning, they were not very comfortable with the fact the method was not as interventionist as what they used to do, the results were very interesting. A total success. It was easier to change things when it was obvious that what was initially planed didn’t fulfill perfectly the original need, when new ideas came to them, when one needed help. No week long tunnel between two reviews but a permanent conversation (using social media of course).

I think it’s worth digging deeper into this.

Frédéric de Villamil [fr] wrote an interesting note about knowing how a team is not ready for agile methods. It’s quite interesting because it strangely looks like the symptoms of companies that fail in succeeding in a context of uncertainty, discontinuity, disruption (what a pity…it’s the world we’re living in).

Your are inflexible : Apostle of the “we’ve always done like this” way of doing things, you can’t imagine to change anything in the way you work, whatever happens.

You hate uncertainty : better planning something impossible to do than let any margin, better deliver something that don’t fulfill the need than changing anything one the project has started. You don’t care if experience tells you it won’t work, the only fact you decided it will work makes you feel well. Even if you don’t master things you like to have the illusion you can.

You treat your people as ressources and you forget they are human ressources. Talent is a word that don’t mean anything to you, you only want people to be as exchangeable as machines, just like clones.

You consider projects as a linear process : imponderable don’t exist in you world. And things can’t be improved. Things happen the way you ant them to and if not it’s the other’s fault. You don’t learn from failures and will always operate the same way.

Do you know examples of agile methods applied to other things than software development ? I’ve made some researches, found things about project management 2.0 (of cours ! ) but no case study.

Does this inspire you any thought ?

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Via Oscar Berg.

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It’s made of four elements :

- culture : appropriation of the vision and key values needed to support strategy

- leadershp : presence of skilled leaders at every level of the organization

- alignment : link between objective and individual and collective reawards to reach strategic goals

- teamwork : shared knowledge across the organization;

In concrete terms those components are about behavioral change. Some are dedicated to value creation (focus on client, be reative and innovant, deliver results), some to strategy execution (undertanding the mission, the rules, link the financial aspects to strategy, communicate with transparency, team work).

Do we really need to add anything since the link with E2.0 seems obvious ?

I’ll consider enterprise 2.0 as being both about practices and tools.

For what’s about transparency, we’re obviously right into the target. Because 2.0 culture is made of transparency, because enteprise 2.0 tools have to be used with transparency to deliver their full power and also because communicating through web 2.0 tools help people being more comfortable with transparency in their every day life.

Let me also add that the best way for companies to deliver their message, their vision, is not to make it the usual top-down way but through conversations, discussion, explainations, which help people understand the message.

It’ the same for innoation. Web 2.0 tools are perfect for that but they also help an innovation culture to spread through the organization by virality.

In fact I’m only repeating here what I wrote in many occasions, and I mainly want to point out what seems essential to me : the financial aspect.

It’s very important that remuneration, rewards etc… are aligned on strategic goals. Once again “tell we how you’re assessed, I ‘ll tell you how you are working”. If, for example, collaboration is key to support your strategy, it has to be rewarded. I’m no talking about collaboration in a small perimeter but abou what makes people work as a company and not as many small groups.It’s impossible to assess what are informtion sharing benefits regarding to what it costs in terms of time in a business unit since the whole organization take benefits from it and thousand of people can use and reuse it. One hour spent by an employee to share informations, to storytell what how he did such or such thing, may make thousand people save many hours. To make it short : stop assessing locally behaviors that create value globally. This will also help middle managers to be facilitators instead because they won’t have to assess their teams on productivity only.

Whatever, we have one more proof that enterprise 2.0 isn’t disconnected from traditionnal companies but, on the contrary, that it really impacts the way companies make business…and money.

actifs immatériels , évaluation , balanced-scorecard , bsc , capital organisationnel , collaboration , culture , Entreprise 2.0 , leadership , organisation , Stratégie

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What’s the truth, if there’s any ?

According to me there are two kinds of use : those who want to amuse themselves and those who have business networking purposes.

In the first case it’s obvious companies will get nothing out of it. But it doesn’t mean they have anything to loose. Everybody knows employees aren’t efficient 8 hours a day. They have breaks, the have a coffee, and everybody understands it because it’s physiological : people can’t work efficiently, concentrate 8 or 10 hours in a row. And I can’t see the difference between surfing on the web, having a coffee break or talking with one’s colleagues.

In the second case, it’s about developping one’s network and, according to me it’s a kind of investment. Every employee’s contact can, one day, become a client, a prescriber, a recruit. So both the employer and the emplyee take benefits from the time spent to formalize and maintaining one’s network. I often quote as an example the french blogger Hervé Bloch who carried on the reflexion farther and once, at a debate on this issue, was able to provide the audience with an analysis of the benefits he took from his network backed up by figures : turnover due to his network, impacts on his salary. You can find more about the way he uses networks here [[fr]. I’m also convinced that his efficiency on neworking and the way it impacted his business played a big role in his recent promotion…

There are also hybrid situations. Maintaining relationship with friends on facebook (which I don’t consider being a professional tool you can use for business purposes) may make those friends, one day, help you with their own professional network for business purposes. For the only reason Facebook helped you keeping in touch with them. It’s also possible to hit it off with someone on a social network or a facebook group dedicated to golf, painting, wine or I don’t know what and, one thing leading to another, end by a business relationship.

According to be me the question is elsewhere : companies know how to calculate costs but don’t know how to calculate benefits. When an employee spends time on linkedin or discussing on forums, specialized blogs, it’s wasted time. But when these activities helps him to sign a client, make a recruitment easier, even increases its employer’s visibility, the company only book the order as if it felt from the sky ! As Steve Dale says, measuring 21st century things whith XIXth criterias is a nonsense. I fully agree when Jay Deragon writes that financial aspect highly relies on relathionship’s quality, what implies the time spent to maintain them is obviously an investment.

But things are not as negative as some would like to say. This survey from 01 informatique [fr] show most companies don’t panic and misuse of internet at the office is very  marginal. In the other hand this survey show young people would consider leaving their job if access to facebook was denied. Obvioulsy it’s such a part of their lifes that they can’t  envisage working without.

One more thing. It’s about people who use general public platforms like facebook in order to create groups and exchange information within them. There is a real potential danger there for companies who can’t control anything. But the response in not in prohibiting access, on the contrary it’s to provide people with the appropriate tools within the firewall in order they don’t have to look outside to find appropriate tools to do what they need. A few months ago I mentioned a Sofres survey which was saying employees wanted their companies to go on facebook. This is not the way I understood things. As facebook is becoming a sort of common name to describe some kinds of tools, I think they were especially asking their companies to provide them with the tools that makes possible for them to do the same things as in Facebook.

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To learn more about this subject I often discuss here, it’s at McKinsey’s.

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According to me the way things are asked introduces a bias in the answer, most of because they took the issue wrong side up. What are the benefits of social networks, blogs, wikis, in a top-down organization, where whitholding information means power, and where a taylorian work model applied to activities that are not made for it make people not waste time to help others ? A first sight : None !

In the other hand, if we think about working differently in order to maximize the use of knowledge, expertise, if we don’t want to spend thousands hours to reinvent the weel, then tools make sense.

In short, if people are asked what they think of new tools since they are formated to work and see things through an old paradigm, the answer is obvious. If they were asked “wouldn’t it be more efficient to work this way ?….and in this case are those tools relevant ?”, perhaps the answer wouldn’t have been the same.

12 000 people surveyed. I would have liked a distribution by function. Daily, we can see the difference between top management which identifies new organizational issues et find web 2.0 tools make sense and the average employee who is swamped by his day to day constraints (the top down flow I wrote about here) and who have many others things to do than wondering if doing things differently would be better and which tools may help. Anyway they are not those who decide the way they work, neither the tools to use, which shows one more time that enterprise 2.0 isn’t web 2.0

This conclusion is confirment by another point of the survey : the existence of a continuum between personal and professional life. People see the benefits of the tools in their private life but can’t retranscribe them in their professional live because they are not able to reproduce the same kind of interactions in the way theyr’e presently asked to work.

In short, the point is not companies can’t identify tools but employees who can’t position them in their present paradigm. Furthermore, tools have always been considered as processing machines and it’s still hard to realize they can be the extension of people, support the way they behave, they can serve human capital and not only processes.

It’s only a matter of paradigim and the proof that tools’ issue have to be taken from the above, wondering :

1°) What are my issues

2°) How must people work to meet them

3°) Which is the appropriate organization to make it possible

4°) Which tools can support this kind of organization.

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Enteprises are not living independantly from the rest of the world and understanding the changes that happen outside their walls may help them to have better interactions with their ecosystem, build their future, and wonder what it will mean for them in terms of culture, of organization.

In short, enteprises have a lot to learn from this video.

What do you think ? How could an enterprise version look like ? What will be the impacts of social design on corporate world ? On the relations between enterprises and society ? On what companies will be tomorrow ?

In a former Harvard Business Review post, John Baldoni asked CEO to ask themselves “what’s happening ? Why is it happening ? What do we do ?”. Perharps it would be useful for them to ask the sames questions after viewing this.

I take benefit of the occasion to also add this one. Already seen but meaningful.

So, what does all these things mean to you ? And to your company ?

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