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Even if enterprise social networks projects are multiplying, if everybody talks about it, we can see that the road to an optimal use is not a nice journey neither that that results often meet expectations. Maybe it’s a matter of maturity. As we’re leaving the era of dreams we realize that we’re far from the self-fulling prophecy and most of all we admit – even with regret – that no tool is a magic wand that will spare from a deeper work.

But one of the bigger barriers to success is, as paradoxically as it may look, that businesses focus too much on social networks while being guilty of overlooking what’s happening around.

Enterprise social networks as often considered as  independent ones, businesses that implemented one are observed, and castles are built in the air are built to guess if and how they’ll replace the other elements of the work environment. By so doing we make mistakes on their true nature and stakes.

Enterprise Social Networks : IS’s isolated islands

Just a little history lesson to begin. When we started talking about enterprise social networks, 5 or 6 years ago, the first matter was to know what it was and how we’ll use it. The answer to the first question was “the opposite of everything you have right now”. Understand : a social network is about people and conversations, no documents, workflow, process etc… It was the incarnation of a new world, flat, unstructured, in which the remnant vestiges of the collapsing old world were not allowed.  The answer to the second was obvious since we had the answer to the first : by creating communities and stimulating conversations since it was the only things that could not be done elsewhere. So social networks started to begin community factories to such an extent we even saw vendors having community-based price lists (imaging the sales person being asked “how many communities did you sell this month ?”) and businesses deploying such solutions for the only purpose of building communities.

That’s how social networks ostracized themselves in an obscure zone of the information system because addressing activities at the periphery of work and grabbing the attention of the only people having enough energy and will to use them on top of their work.

Then some saw the limits of such dogmatic approaches. In fact the real need was to fluidify exchanges on some matters, “objects”, “events”, and not only communities. The need for networking and having conversations, finding information or a solution to a problem is triggered by a stimulus which can happen anywhere but in the social network (most of all when it’s disconnected from business tools and flows).

Enterprise social networks live on external stimuli

By definition an enterprise social network is a dead empty container. Life appears and grows depending on the stimuli in question. Then 3 options (co)exist.

- hope that users will leave their word processor / spreadsheet/ business tool / website every time a stimulus happen to come and report it in the social network, in the right space, with the right people and that these people will find time to come and answer.

- as the previous option is quite uneasy, make the social network generate its own activity. That’s the case when they go beyond what’s necessary in the community approach : they try to generate a critical mass of activity in the network but outside of the flow of work.

- take the social network for what it is : a confluence point. What implies to design it and its use regarding to people’s work and other tools, not like an isolated island. Think that 90% of use cases will have their origin outside of the social network.

One the biggest mistakes made these last years was to focus too much on the second option while hoping in secret that the first will happen but without doing what was necessary.

Focusing on social networks and overlooking their very nature often lead to failure. By devoting them a lot of time and energy and neglecting what was happening at their periphery, businesses turned social networks into tools that have to find their own purpose outside of any build approach of information flows and work.

A social network generating its own need goes round in circles

Enterprise social networks have very few to learn from Facebook and its fellow services but their’s something should have been quite obvious too them : these networks only live because they allow social activities (conversations, sharing, decision, action) on an external stimulus that has been imported in the network seamlessly. In this case it’s often articles, events, songs, videos etc imported from other platforms. In the workplace it will be most of time business content and event. Prevent Facebook from “sucking up” these external content to live on its own internal stimuli only and you’ll see how long it will take before it dies or at least, becomes useless for 90% of users.

Enterprise social networks are not a destination but a crossroads, a roundabout. Information come from somewhere else, is handled in a social way there and the goes back elsewhere. “Elsewhere” is all the peripheral tools and channels, from the intranet to instant messaging, including business applications, ECMs, email etc. Roundabouts has been built without paying any attention to the roads they were connected to. Sometimes without being connected to any road, what explains that the only possible behavior was to goes round in circles.

It also applies to use cases that are built to assess and pilot such tools. Most of times they are internal to the network, what is a biased view of reality. A real use case starts in a third part tool, allows social handling then, if needed, sends information back in the tool.

A central tool lives on its periphery only

Enterprise social networks have a calling to be at the center of the work environment, at the center of work. But there’s no center without periphery. Thinking a center without its periphery is locking users into fruitless logics, make them goes round in circles and, in the end, raise new problems without solving anything.

When rolling out an enterprise social network, please take one’s blinders off and instead of looking at nothing but it leave it in peace and look around it : that’s were its usefulness and value lies.

Rather than an isolated tool, social networks are the central and pivotal point of a digital workplace, a social intranet, an intranet 2.0. Separated from the other parts of the systems they will only be empty shells that will have to generate its own need, most of times artificially, at the opposite extreme of people and businesses’ actual needs.

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So the survey is titled “Evolution of the Networked Enterprise” and from the very first lines we can know it’s about social media adoption in the workplace. I can hear that from anyone, from a vendor, from a consultant considering that his practice of facebook is enough to make him the next Peter Drucker, from a project manager stuck in a project that’s been assigned to him during in a lottery game. But not from McKinsey. Why having invented the 7S if it’s to tie an organizational model to the use of a given technology ?

We already had something similar with a tacky title promising stratospheric productivity improvements with social technology…provided businesses change their culture, organization and processes – what tells a lot on the role of technology – so let’s see if this survey is in the same trend.

Adoption is stagnating

•Wer’re told that global adoption is progressing. Notwithstanding the fact that, once for all, I consider adoption as one of the more dangerous and stupid ideas since it make employees carry the weight and support the risks tof change alone in an organization that does not question itself (and can punish employees going aingainst a system that does not change), I can’t see here anything looking like a clear increase. I see light underlying progress, stagnation and even decline.

Moreover, anyone knowing the matter knows that there’s a huge difference between “businesses using a technology” what means having deployed and productive use by employees.

Besides that we’re told that the number of fully networked enterprises has increased by 11% in the two last years. But if it’s measured on the number of technology used and not on organizational and work models it does not mean that much.

Few benefits beyond quick wins

• Actual but stagnating benefits

We could discuss this matter and the effort needed for such projects to bear fruits for hours. As the report I mentioned above said, two things are needed to get all the possible benefits from such projects : a systemic change and/or a strong governance.

We’re still far from the first, what explains that businesses need to get their second wind after the first quick wins. As for the second we can see that some matters are easier to address than others and that’s changing travel policies is easier than dealing with some sacred cows.

Anyway, talking about benefits, even if I’m one of the strongest believer of their potential (even if I’m not always convinced by the way they’re showcased), I would like, in 2013, to stop reading “according to executives”, “businesses say that…” because it will make social business, enterprise 2.0 and social media die from lack of credibility by absence of measure and incapability of tracking value. As Deming used to say :

“In God we trust. All others must bring data” !

The purpose of such reports is not to convince me an my peers but give “average” and normal people tools to understand, assess and drive. Surprising ?

• Mobile and Big Data breaking through

Two interesting points  that can’t be discussed : mobile usages are increasing what is a good news because it reflects what work actually is. No we have to stay lucid : it’s more a gap being filled that a major move forward. Moreover mobile is often seen as making mobile versions of desktop applications while it’s actually a new paradigm to understand and a new value proposition to reinvent for new and contextualized use cases. We’ll discuss this point in a future post.

No surprise for Big Data : after having praising for content for the sake of content businesse are realizing that they can make sense of interactions and derive value from it. Anyway, the future of social surely lies in decision making.

• Nothing new on risks

Businesses still fear data leaks and threat to reputation. In both cases it’s more an awareness matter because those risks are more behavioral than technological.

Has technology become its own constraint ?

• Technology as a constraint

Businesses see that social technology could support new processes but they find limits caused by their own technology constraints. Sorry but I find it difficult to understand what they mean.

Is it about CIOs rejecting social technologies ? To the fact they’re trying to push to users technologies that have nothing social except the unscrupulous discourse of vendors ? To the fact they realize a long term urbanization program is needed ?

All these points are legitimate but more details would have been appreciated. On the other hand I really would love to meet the companies that say they have no technology constraint.

To end with this point, that’s the very first time I hear of technology constraints as barriers to a transformational project…except if they’re seen from the start as the perfect scapegoat of a change no one wants to drive. And if businesses consider it’s all about technology, seeing technology as a barrier to technology is quite ironic.

My conclusion ? As said in the title of this post there’s absolutely nothing new, nothing practitioners don’t know. That’s surely what explains the global stagnation of such project (what seems to be a taboo word…since 1% increases are often shown as awesome progresses), leaders being themselves trying to get their second wind. But what stuns me as that so serious companies can still see this matter as the use of social technologies while they have powerful matrix and methodologies to assess organizational transformation. Or maybe they’re still stuck in 2012 ?

In short you’ll learn nothing there except if you’re trying to reassure yourself and justify your own procrastination. Others will make a better use of their time finding the indicators they want to impact and align their management, decision making models, structure and tools with how people should work to improve things. But if it’s too difficult, this report will be a good way to tell your boss “don’t worry, all the others are stuck too !”.

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To explain and justify many new approaches to work and organization, many refer to the Cluetrain manifesto and the first of its these : “Markets are conversations”. Hence the need for new practices that are the cornerstones of many “social” and “2.0″ approaches.

Market are conversations. But enterprises are not markets.

Simple common sense ? I’m usually more that doubtful about this. I have no doubt the principle applies to relationships between businesses and their customers. Even if I’m unsure whether businesses are ready to draw all the possible consequences. But, after all, that’s the purpose of such manifestos : increase awareness. A first sight businesses and customers operate on a market but reality is different and the model businesses have always tried to enforce looks more like planned economy : programs and trends are created, pushed, customers agree, relay the message and buy. There are better examples of what markets are as places where offer and demand meet and are built. But it’s a priori a market by nature and businesses should draw all the necessary conclusions and act accordingly instead of keeping the illusion of the planned model they’ve managed to impose for decades.

But what’s about internal functioning ? The purpose of the above mentioned approaches is to make workplaces become markets. At least for knowledge :make owners meet seekers and, at best, keep improving it in the flow of work. But, on the other hand, enterprises are not markets and, contrary to what happens with customers, were never meant to be. Their model is made of strict planned resource allocation (time, people, budgets) what makes that the effort to make a conversational model emerge in the workplace is mostly doomed to fail. Corporate culture is often held responsible for all the blockings but, in fact, it’s an easy scapegoat.

Reality is much more simple. The resource allocation model often makes it difficult for conversations to happen and, most of times, prevents to make the most of it. Not only identifying the right resource and have a conversation with him is rather complicated but it’s nearly impossible to go further and mobilize the resource to go further, even for the smallest task.

While adoption and engagement programs do everything possible to favor conversations that fluidify markets, nothing is done do deal with the system that prevents businesses to function this way. The consequences of the problem are still handled through exhortation but nothing is done to fix the problem itself.

The “market enterprise” : an agility condition

That said the model of “enterprise market” is a something we should consider very seriously because it’s a key component of an agile organization. Not only for knowledge exchange but for a better allocation of any resource and cost control. As a matter of fact, if the conversational model helps to make supply meet needs in a flexible way without too much coordination, it can apply to many cases, some of them being well known, others less.

• Need for knowledge, return on practical experience

• Need for exceptional financial resources while there are allocated budgets that have not been fully used which owners are trying to find a way to use them “locally” while there are urgent needs elsewhere that can’t be funded.

• Need for a spare resource for a micro-task.

Crowdsouring, open innovation, crowdfunding. We know all these concepts but they work better outside of the organization than inside.

In the end, and despite of the crisis and the takeover it caused, there are lots of underutilized resources that can’t be identified and made available what causes additional costs (turn to external providers vs internal resources) or budgetary nonsense (a department needs a couple of thousands dollars for something very important while another is trying to find ways to spend spare budgets on non essential projects)

But don’t fool ourselves. What matters is not to build internal marketplace. They often already exist or don’t need much effort to emerge. The real stake is to reinvent resource allocation mechanisms, what will put CHROs and management control teams into cold sweats.

No flexible resource allocation in a planned model

Anyway, we’d better go beyond window dressing effects. The necessary evolution of organizations si not only a matter of collaboration, engagement and conversations. Before all it’s a very technical issue that related to resource allocation. But, obviously, incantation and adoption are still the prefered way to lead change even if leading to against nature behaviors.

A flexible allocation model of intangible assets based on exchanges and conversations will never work if organizations content themselves with transplanting it over a planned one. That’s as simple as that. Exhortation and gamification won’t fix it.

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However there are some “Social Product Managers”. Product managers who don’t use social media as “one more tool” to serve an old way of doing things but who have reinvented their job. Not to justify the existence of the tools but to do things the way they should have been done for ages if the technology had existed to get rid of some constraints

Social product management is product management the way it always should have been done

In fact they’re not a new kind of product managers but product managers in the way their role makes necessary. Among them Ed Brill have been doing product management for more than 15 years at IBM. In Opting Inhe tells us how he made social media a part of his day to day work. So that’s not – and that’s good – one more book on social media adoption or the art of  blowing hot air and occupying the field in 3 tweets but the experience feedback of a product managers in a company that’s, although technological, is not the kind of place where such matters are handled  frivolously.

Ed Brill does not theorize on the use of social media and social business strategies for a product managers. He tells what he dit, how, why and does not hide his mistakes, complicated situations he faced and matters of conscience.

My main takes from Opting In are summed up in a couple of points that are as many challenges product directors will face in the future.

• Understand one’s mission

That’s where things start. If you consider that the role of a product manager is to push a product on the market at any cost and that the more you’ll put the market under pression and make it suffocate with your presence the more you’ll be likely to succeed this book is not for you.

Product directors organize encounters

What Ed Brill understood is that his role was not to push products to the market but makes the market meet a product and that both learn and benefit from the other. That’s bringing the market into the organization to make the organization more likely to successfully address the market.

• Deduce use cases

A produt manager should understand well the nature of his mission to know why and how he should use these new tools. Anyway, tools makes no sense if not aligned with a given way of doing things. A backwards-looking vision of product management brings questionings regarding to these tools. On the contrary a modern approach makes social media the natural extension of the intention and raise one single question : how the make the most of the tools.

• Adopting good practices, behaviors, postures

It’s not  about occupying the field and make noise but bring added value. Ed Brill explains all the sides of his job that are impacted, that’s to say all the day to day activitie where mobilizing people to learn from them, explain things or enable them brings a tangible added value, how do does it, with whom. Both internally or externally.

Then it’s all about behaviors. Of course there’s still the company’s “marketing machine” but what he shares is the experience of a social product manager, in other words of someone who, from a personal standpoint, socialized his practices. What is not the same thing  : that’s not about a plan he establishes and is run by other but the way he himself acts in his own name, in a transparent fashion, in the context of his job. He makes it easy to understand the business value of an “etiquette”, of digital good manners learned on the field, mastered by the individual and backed by the company.

Digital good manners have business value

What is really interesting is how Ed Brill explains the reasons why he adopt such or such behaviors, backed with examples. When to answer or not answer. How to react to an attack. Pick a fight or not. Join a controversial discussion or not. What are the matters that are better tackled by an individual personifying his mission than by corporate communication ? Why and how building this legitimacy that makes him more credible regardless to the title written on hios business card ?

What matters here is to get the two dimensions of this matter : the added value of such an approach from the product director on the one dand and impact it should have in terms of leadership – both internal and external – on the on other hand.

I appreciated a lot the way he explained this successes, mistakes, provocation games businesses often play and how these situations were handled, why some decisions wer made etc. Thos who think that this matter is either too futile or risky will appreciate to see how things actually happened between IBM and competitors, demonstrating the product director can’t be outside of the system and that risk is easily manageable with common sense.

I know many of product directors and marketing managers who have such questions. Trained to rely on their organization marketing machine, aware of the benefits of a social business strategy they need points of reference to make the first step to themselves personify their job in public. They’ll find in Ed Brill’s experience the answer to many of their questions.

At the time when businesses are trying to find ambassadors there’s no doubt the product manager should be one of them and the way Ed Brill did things may inspire and reassure them.

Manage risks in a zone of comfort between the employee and the business

• Manage risks

Last point, but not the least, Ed Brill tells us how to find the right balance between the need for transparency and conversations in the one hand and risk management, need for confidentiality and all the things that worries both businesses and employees that carries their own message on the thin frontier between good practices and risky one.

Note, and I’ll elaborate more on this point in a future post, that the attitude of the company matters a lot. By justifying those practices, setting limits in a constructive way, businesses contribute to create a zone of comfort and trust that makes things possible.

What to say to conclude ? We read lots of thing what what should be done, approaches, pratices. What Ed Brill brings is the experience of a product manager that reinvented his job and transparently explains how he lives it as a person and an employee. That’s the story of a nicely narrated personal and professional progress.

A book any product director or marketer should have on his bedside table.

And if you’re still doubtful in face of such approaches, wonder what is a product director who does not talk with the market ? That is not able to personify the voice of the product. That is not able to carry, assume, explain, defend on the on the field the decision he made.

In great restaurants the chief often goes in the dining room, greeting customers, talking with tem, explaining things and sometimes comes back in his kitchen with a new idea in mind. A good product manager should behave the same.

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That’s one of the web’s favorite debate. Whatever you do it comes back again and again even if you think the matter is now clear for anyone. Of course I’m talking about using Facebook (and others) at work.

I won’t elaborate on the situation where, for legitimate technical reasons (bandwith…), access to such services is restricted. I won’t elaborate either on security matters (but I’d like to know when employees leave the office ? What if they were taught talk carefuly in public places instead of banning Facebook in the workplace ?). Today I’ll focus on productivity and wasted time.

What’s new with Faceboo ? Nothing. As long as I can remember, employees have always found means to spend their time during their professional time. With or without computers. The means have changed but the logic has been the same for decades or even centuries.

But why employees at work (or students in a classroom) do feel the need of doing another thing that the one they’re here for ? A first answer is obvious : after a certain time it’s hard to stay focused and brains need a break. The second is less pleasant to hear.

I remember of some courses where we all used to be yawning and where our PCs were used for any purpose but working. And, at very moment the professor in charge of the next course came in the room, computers were shut down. To some extent we were so focused on listening that we often forgot to tale notes. In the end, the same thing happens in the office. Tools do not distract people but the context makes them feel like being distracted.

As any employee caught spending to much time on Facebook the reason of such behaviors. You’ll always get the same answer.

Demandez à un salarié qui “exagère” quant au temps qu’il passe sur Facebook (ou autre) sur son poste de travail il vous répondra invariablement la même chose :

- I’m borde

- I’m not motivated

- I don’t understand the purpose of my mission

- I don’t feel involved, I’m not engaged

- during my breaks I want to talk with my real friends. And they’re not in the office…

So Facebook spreads boredom in the workplace, kills motivation and engagement and distends ties between employees. Surprising.

Or maybe…

A crazy thought came through my mind. What if Facebook was not the cause but the consequence. Or the indicator.

So employees would use Facebook because they are not motivated, engaged, can’t make sense of their work and are looking for ways out ? Is it Facebook’s fault ? Not sure. Does Facebook makes work worse ? Or is it the conséquence of a context that’s gone worse ?

Let’s imagine a new HR indicator. Let’s guess what a “normal” use of Facebook is in terms of tume and measure the gap with actual uses. A good way to know who works or not ? No. An indicator to identify pain zones, zones of “Atila” management (where the managers goes, motivation can’t grow up anymore), zone where something has to be done but not by banning Facebook but fixing HR and management.

Another solution would be to keep believing that fever is caused by thermometers. Let’s ban thermometers and less people will have flu. Or  not.

If the matter interests you, you should also read this  post by Dan Ponterfact.

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What’s a good content ?

Using the word “content” is often enough to bias the whole approach. Coming from the communication world it comes with lots of connotations that make project and community managers blind. When we say content we tend to think of and editorial approach, in the same way we would do for an intranet or a web site. If you’ve never thought of building an editorial plan for a community please raise your hand ! It may be relevant for a blog or a community with a communication purpose, but it’s not for experts communities and it’s totally off the mark if the purpose is teamwork.

Enterprise social networks are not about audience but effectiveness

But contrary to many received ideas that die hard, your enterprise social network is more a work tool than a communication one (even if communication is an important part of work) and in no way suitable for old-fashioned communication. As IBM’s CEO Ginni Rometti said :

The social network is not just the new water cooler; it’s the new production line

Once one get this new paradigm, there’s still to draw the consequences. So, what’s a good content, what’s a good social content ?

1°) Editorialized Storytelling

We won’t kill the editorial approach that, once again, is the right one for some needs (maybe 10 or 20% of them). As a matter of fact if it’s possible to make 90% of your social network live with editorial content you’d better have launched a CMS with commentable and likable posts. In this case, businesses should be aware of adopting the right style, format, and posture and using contents that tell stories and make people react. This reaction will lead to conversations and sharing. A good social content is also a socializable one.

2°) Information

That’s a frequent bias when businesses have and editorial approach and the “social machine” is in the hand of communication professionals that did not adopt a new posture when changing media and paradigm. They often tend to tell the story the company wants to tell, not the one users want to hear. Don’t forget that employees on a social network are not readers but “readers in the context of their work”. Contents should have a direct business value, match the requirements that would qualify them for a social learning or peer-to-peer program.

Talking contents rather than talking people

Moreover the business need comes first. Better a valuable information even if terse, than a nice story without interest.

This approach is the one that should prevail in communities of practices. And the best authors will never be communication professionals but the community members themselves or subject matter experts.

3°) Actionable data

This is the kind of content that’s been left behind too often : business data. Numbers, reports, tables. Oh, but it’s cold, sometimes generated by machines and does not lead to conversations. This is a big misunderstanding on social contents : their proper is not to be human-made and talk about people but to talk to people and trigger social behaviors.

But do people prefer to share nice stories than numbers ? I’m convinced that a sales manager who’s notified that he’s gonna miss his quota, the production manager notified of a gap between the plan and the actual production will have a very social reaction to this kind of content. They’ll share it with their team and/or a community peers to find solutions, fix the problem, set the situation back to normal. If people need to be at the foot of the wall to change their behaviors, there’s nothing more than pushing numbers to those who are accountable and responsible for them to make them try everything they can to find solutions, regardless to the means and the possible impact on their egos.

Last, if the difference between data and information is analysis and sense, that’s the conversational process that will turn cold data into an information people will act upon.

The social activity of understanding data and making decision is one of those with the biggest business value for nearly anyone.

Business data is content with business value

Actionable content because, ideally, if the decision, the solution, leads to updating data, assigning tasks etc… this will better be done from the activity stream, a social widget in the community or something similar.

This kind of content is perfect for what I call “false communities”, which are in fact project teams and groups that don’t gather on a discussion subject but on coordinating their day to day activities. I won’t tell once again how important it is to link social platforms and business tools…I think you’ll find the benefits by yourself.

The rights content for your enterprise social network can have many forms and, paradoxically, its business value can be inversely proportional to the creativity and effort that have been needed to generate it.

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