Enterprising Knowledge

The Trouble With Intranets

2014-10-07T15:45:00.000+01:00

Reading back over this blog I see that I was at one time a big fan of the concept of a social intranet. I am less so now. The main reason is that I've come to the conclusion that intranets carry too much baggage to be able to help facilitate enterprise social networking (ESN). Even the term " intranet", dating back as it does about 17 years, is problematic. It means so many different things to different people, with the default probably being what that 1997 intranet could do, but with a few more bells and whistles. Actually, I've discovered that intranet platforms not unusually were conceived back in that era and have been updated piecemeal over the years, but that's a bit of an aside.

Most people, when they hear the word intranet, probably think of one or more of these things:
- a library of dull but necessary stuff such as policies and forms
- a mouthpiece for management, probably edited by Internal Comms
- a handful of quite useful applications such as an IT helpdesk or a place to order supplies or claim expenses
- some attempts to pep the site up with branding and/or widgets from the web such as the weather or how well the tube lines are running
- a staff directory.

This is all quite good stuff and I don't deny that it has value. It seems always to take more time and effort to create than something based on a 17 year old concept should, but then it does have to be tailored to the needs of the organisation concerned and so, broadly, I'm fine with that. However, its value is way off what's possible and what modern organisations need to be aiming at if they are to achieve the agility and responsiveness that current-day market conditions dictate. The main reason is that the content of the traditional intranet is almost entirely supplied by the centre or the top of the organisation. HR, Internal Comms or the CEO's PA probably contribute 90% of it.

But modern intranets include " social", do they not? This, is it not, is where the important interactions and discussions all across the organisation, top-down, bottom up, across silos, happen, surely?

They could, but by and large they do not. This is because " social" cannot just be tacked on to an intranet, or anything else for that matter. But if you buy a social intranet that is what will probably be attempted. Because the ESN angle will be perceived as just one, relatively small part of your intranet implementation.

Perhaps this looks like blaming the software, which is putting the cart before the horse? It isn't really. As I said at the beginning, it's the perception of what an intranet is that's the problem. That goes equally for the average user's perception, senior management's perception and the intranet team's perception. Each helps the other down a road to an intranet that maybe does quite a lot of things but definitely isn't an ESN.

Matters are made worse by the complexity of the typical intranet platform. I pride myself on being quick to learn the ins and outs of them. But there are often so many features, and then quirks or bugs, that it can take me weeks or more to become even a moderately competent administrator. Add to that the hidden time sink of permissions. The platform usually allows a great deal of flexibility and granularity of permissioning. This makes it both difficult to set up a permissions model and tempting to go for one that is far more complex than necessary. In turn this leads to a high maintenance overhead.

All in all then, I'd say by all means choose a social intranet if you're sure it meets your organisation's needs, provided you exercise due caution in relation to the pitfalls I've mentioned. But if what you primarily want to do is introduce enterprise social networking I'd be inclined to look at simpler, standalone solutions, and put the time into adoption rather than set-up and maintenance.

Do social intranets have a future?

2013-03-25T18:27:00.000+00:00

The last eight months or so have been interesting times, as the old Chinese curse has it. My experience consulting for Interact has taken me into about 20 companies and has given me a real insight into how each of them views the 'social' side of their (planned) social intranet. There is a wide range of intentions, from, at one extreme, 'Not for the forseeable future' through to 'Gimme gimme gimme'. Most are somewhere in between, perhaps best expressed by the phrase 'interested, but cautious'. There is also often a difference in attitude between the intranet team (keen to go for it) and the senior management (perceived as sceptical or anti).

I suspect enterprise social networking is being given the time of day by more executives than a couple of years ago mainly because of the mainstreaming of Facebook and Twitter. Even the most hardened laggard will have a close relative or friend who uses these. This fact has raised consciousness of the ubiquity of these tools, but is a double-edged sword for those like me who'd like to see more Web 2.0 in the workplace. On the one hand I can refer to activity streams, for example, as being 'like Twitter', thus short-cutting the explanation. On the other hand in doing so I'll conjure up whatever impressions, possibly negative, that person has of the content of Twitter, thus making it more difficult to get them to see that it could be different on the office social network.

Anyhow, this is a summary of sorts of where we seem to be, with some organisations swimmming but many still trying to put a toe in the water. What I want to do now is pull in other trends and factors and think about how things will go from here on.

At EurocloudUK the other week (thank goodness the speakers and topics were more up-to-date than the website! - sorry, Phil, David!) it was suggested by David Terrar (@dt) that the three big trends in technology at the moment are:

Social
Mobile
Cloud,

and that together these form a tidal wave for change. I think I agree with this. These forces are strong enough to sweep away the resistance and objections of the more traditional sort of IT manager, although in more heavily-regulated environments that resistance might take longer to founder. I can see that in maybe a couple of years time - yes, that soon - there will be little if any need to use a PC to do work. At ISKO UK last week Steve Dale (@stephendale) showed a photo of his two year old grandson ably using an iPad. I agree that his generation will not be pushing mice around. Combine these truly user-friendly devices, tablet and smartphone, with Cloud (SaaS) providers of not only 'social' but all the applications that we now traditionally think of as being inherently about client/firewall etc - but much more user-friendly - and you can see where enterprise IT is headed.

Yes, but: what's the relevance to social-in-the-enterprise? I think the social-cloud-mobile triumvirate mentioned above is going to - eventually - result on the virtual disappearance of the membrane that separates people within organisations from those outside it. I'm not sure though. And there's a huge amount to be said about that, touching on issues such as trust, confidentiality, transparency.

That's probably for a later post.

Joining Interact

2012-07-17T18:59:00.000+01:00

I've just started a new role with a company called Interact. They develop and market intranet software. They were hiring and I got into discussions with their CEO, Nigel Danson, and things developed from there. Having been pretty impressed with their competitor Igloo's product, I considered the bar to be high for Interact to impress me, but impress me they did. I also like the 'roving consultant' nature of the role, and gelled very quickly with Rachel and Steve who also interviewed me.

Have I gone over to the 'dark side', throwing my independence to the wind and from now on becoming nothing but a walking, talking, tweeting plugger of one firm's products? I don't believe so. I'll do my best to 'tell it as I see it'. Interact are clearly strong on running intranet seminars and their annual conference is a major event. They like to emphasis the benefits of intranets rather than merely pitching their own product.

I'm looking forward to joining them.

No-one ever got fired for....

2012-07-10T16:49:00.000+01:00

It used to be 'for choosing IBM'. Over time, that became 'Microsoft'. Arguably, now it's 'Sharepoint'. It certainly seems that way to me. A huge percentage of large corporations have chosen it for the portals / intranets, yet I don't hear much enthusiasm for the product. The best that commentators seem to be able to come up with is things like, "It's very flexible - if you've got the development staff to tailor it", or "We know the supplier's going to be there in five years". In other words, weak praise, mainly driven by safety concerns. Maybe the recent purchase of Yammer will change things, but it's too early to say.

In the meantime, there are some excellent out-of-the-box and/or SaaS social intranets that are virtually unknown by comparison: Interact, Igloosoftware, Thoughtfarmer, MangoApps, to name but a few that I've looked into or used recently.

Maybe it's time people did start getting fired for choosing Sharepoint instead of properly investigating alternatives such as these?

A rose by any other name

2012-06-15T15:46:00.000+01:00

How important are the terms we use in world of, er, oh dear, I've got to pick one: Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, social networking, social media, social business, social intranets, social computing? I've had a couple of interesting conversations this week with some folks from an Intranet company, and in their experience the word 'social' doesn't always go down well with customers. The connotation is often of "not businesslike", "time-wasting". But of the seven terms I've quoted, five use the word 'social'. Of the other two, Enterprise 2.0 is obscure in lay circles, and Web 2.0 is both too broad and too techie-sounding. And in any case all these terms have subtly different meanings.

Can anyone help with a way of dealing with this?

I like LIKE

2012-06-01T17:07:00.000+01:00

It's the perfect acronym: LIKE is London Information and Knowledge Exchange. It's also a very likeable little set-up. Started 3 years ago by Jennifer Smith, Virginia Henry and Marja Kingman , this for me has become about the only professional discussion and networking group that I go to with any regularity. Maybe that just proves how unsociable I am, but I think there's more to it than that. Somehow or other, the founders have developed a format that works really well. There's a speaker, questions, food, and mingling. Doesn't sound particularly revolutionary, and it doesn't have to be. The balance between professional and social, seriousness and fun, is somehow just right.

Last night the speaker was Martin de Saulles of the University of Brighton, who gave us some interesting perspectives on what the future might hold for information production, distribution and consumption. Some of his predictions (after saying that only a fool would write down predictions, he made some, perhaps forgetting temporarily that 50% of his audience would tweet or blog them later) related to fairly old themes, such as the replacement of all things paper with a digital alternative. However, Martin made a compelling case for believing that change is now taking place faster than many realise. I, for one, would not bet against his prediction that in five years time his university library will no longer be buying printed books.

Martin is a very fluent and engaging speaker. I can imagine his students would stay awake during his lectures, even after a not-atypical student lunch of a couple of pints of Sussex bitter. My only slight disappointment - and this is no criticism of Martin but more a reflection of my own interests - was that he didn't spend much time addressing the Web 2.0 communication / social networking revolution more generally, and where that might lead us in 5 years time.

If you're into KM, information management or librarianship, and can get to Clerkenwell (which is a nice spot), I recommend giving LIKE a go.

Pen pals as the killer argument

2012-05-27T21:18:00.000+01:00

I was helping one of my sons today with a piece of homework, which involved writing an essay addressing the statement "social networking websites have reduced possibilities to form real relationships", or words to that effect. Thinking about it together, one of us came up with the point that in the days of pen pals - arguably a precursor to social networking - people got to 'know' each other remotely, and if/when they met, felt they had a relationship already. This insight seemed, at a stroke, to debunk two points often claimed about social networking sites: that they are somehow uniquely about computers and the internet, and that they are the first instance of attempting to substitute the 'real' for the virtual, as far as relationships are concerned.

My son went on to mention other benefits such as one-to-many conversations and near instant responses, but we both felt the 'pen pal insight' was something of a killer argument against those claiming that real relationships are being killed off. I suspect I might be using it in a professional context before too long.

Clear purpose, or see where it leads?

2012-05-26T18:32:00.000+01:00

At the Social Workplace Conference the other day a number of presenters emphasised the importance of having a clearly defined purpose for your social business initiative. I found myself nodding in agreement. Today I started reading Euan Semple's book "Organisations Don't Tweet, People Do", and found this recommendation:

"Don't have a clear idea where you are headed. The more fixed you are in your aspirations for your ecology the less likely you are to achieve them. Be prepared to go where people's use of the tools takes you and enjoy the ride."

On the face of it these two views are contradictory. They might not be - and I can guess ways in which it could be argued that they aren't - but as I proceed with Euan's (very readable) book I'm going to be looking for answers to that point.

Senior managers who don't 'get it'

2012-05-26T18:19:00.000+01:00

I had the experience not so long ago of discovering that a senior manager not only didn't 'get' the point of a social intranet, he was positively hostile to it. He valued face to face communication very heavily and saw workplace tweeting and blogging as the pied piper that would lead people away from it. I did my best to bring him round, with arguments such as it's not a replacement, it's a supplement; that it enables people in remote offices and who work from home to feel involved, and so on. I succeeded to the point where he dropped his opposition and allowed his team to work with me to implement it.

The social intranet took off, or seemed to. But this person never contributed anything. I also noticed that nor did the majority of his colleagues on the senior team. My fear is that by working round him (and them) rather than truly getting them on board, I introduced a social intranet that will forever be stunted in its growth. It will remain OK to talk about social and/or non-controversial business topics, but serious business-related discussions - particularly where controversy is involved - won't happen.

I'm still not sure what the right course of action is when top level support isn't really there - work round, or make getting that support the first and paramount goal?

Blog re-boot time

2012-05-26T16:36:00.001+01:00

I've been neglecting this blog for sometime now. I've use the excuse to myself that Twitter is my new preferred place for self expression and networking with others, and that blogs are maybe a bit passé. I knew it wasn't really true, but couldn't really face getting started again on the blog. It felt a bit daunting to try and think of the appropriate words of wisdom.

Well, that changed today, and the trigger was a tweet from @themaria , who talked about the same issue, and how a different perspective changed that for her. Incidentally, I don't know her and had never heard of her until today, but her tweet had been retweeted by someone I follow. Serendipity Twitter-style.

So that's the kick-off! There will be more to come.

The push-pull conundrum

2012-01-29T18:43:00.003+00:00

We've launched our social intranet at the charity I'm working for. It's been going for about three weeks now. Needless to say there have been a few technical issues, some of which are minor bugs of the sort that you get with any software and one or two of which have been more problematic. On the whole, though, the platform (Igloosoftware's SaaS offering) is working pretty well already, and adoption is coming on apace.

Aside from bugs, one of the key concerns that keeps cropping up relates to the intended demise of 'All Staff' emails. Reducing or eliminating these is supposed to be one of the benefits of the new set-up - a reduction in spam and an increase in choice as to information consumed. I've explained during my training sessions how this can work: scan the activity streams, subscribe to content you're interested in and/or visit the site often.

But it's not quite that simple in practice. In fact, All Staff emails, with all their faults, are a lot simpler. It takes a little while to figure out exactly how to optimise your alerts, and how they are working. Even if you've got them set up just how you want them, and even if there are some that have been set up by an administrator for all staff, there is still uncertainty. The user remains uncertain that he'll see that crucial message (especially about cakes in the kitchen - we like our cakes at the charity) and the poster isn't sure who's seen it.

Of course, there's never certainty that everyone has read an email, unless you specify a read receipt and go through all of them to check - not too likely for over 100 staff. But at least people have only one place to look for that critical message.

Our solution? Really key messages from 'the centre' go out as specially formatted emails, everything else goes (or will go) onto the intranet somewhere, and it's down to you to make sure you see it. Emails can still be used for sub-groups of staff, but people are being encouraged to link to content on the intranet rather than to put it in the email itself.

Whether this will work well or not depends on how quickly people take to the new platform-centric, 'pull' concept. That might in turn be a function of people's experience to date with Web 2.0 on the Internet, which will vary from person to person.

If you have any other suggestions for tackling this one, please post a comment.

2011-04-02T20:57:00.001+01:00

I made this announcement to all staff yesterday:

"As many of you will know, the team that has been evaluating intranet software for the past few weeks has been having difficulty determining the best choice for the charity. It has therefore been decided to ‘skip a generation’ of technology and adopt emerging best practice. This new technology not only enables more effective communication and knowledge-sharing but has very low TCO (total cost of ownership). It is also easy to maintain without technical skill. The new intra-net will consist of a large net made of fine plastic cabling, formed into a geodesic-dome style receptacle. Those wishing to participate simply climb into it and begin to associate with each other. In accordance with the well-understood net-work effect, the more who participate the more intense and productive communication becomes.

If we can get all 100 of us into the net at the same time we might learn a lot."

Getting cynical - or real? - about E2.0

2010-11-05T15:35:00.004+00:00

Is the Enterprise 2.0 concept going anywhere? Ever since Andrew McAfee coined the phrase there have been various evangelists beating the drum for it. I suppose I could count myself as one of them, at least to a degree. There are various definitions, but I want to stick with what seems to me to be the most radical version, which is the concept of making organisations less hierarchical, less command-and-control, more 'human' and maybe a little anarchic, as a result of introducing Web 2.0 style technologies into the enterprise and getting the workforce to use them.

It's a lovely idea, it really is. But, you, know, it has me thinking back to past 'enthusiasms' relating to the re-invention of corporate life. One of these was TQM (now pretty-much morphed into Six Sigma). TQM was more than just techniques for using statistics and measurement to identify the root cause of defects and so enable process improvement. It was that, but it included - read your Deming - calls to "drive out fear", and "Remove barriers that rob the hourly paid worker of his right to pride in workmanship". Many managers viewed this sort of talk as subversive, and internal consultant types who promoted it, like me, as dangerous anarchists. Ditto 'change programmes': very cathartic for junior workers who at last had a voice with which to grass up the more egregious managers, and fun if you were a facilitator, but, not surprisingly, anathema to middle management. Yet the objections often remained unspoken, because it would be like objecting to motherhood and apple pie.

What these managers (some poor, but some actually rather good) really wanted to say was, "I hear what you say, and it's good in theory, but let me tell you two things: 1. It's not how real work gets done, and 2. I have a team to run, and I'm damned if I'll let your initiative or any other get in the way of that."

So what has this got to do with Enterprise 2.0? A great deal, I suggest. Many managers will see wholesale public transparency of thought on the part of the workforce, even behind the firewall, as dangerously subversive. They will pay lip service to it, because it's hard to voice objections without seeming to be a fascist. But they won't encourage it, and may well put roadblocks - disguised, perhaps, as security concerns - in the way.

How about just getting rid of all middle managers? After all, with the improvement in communication and collaboration that Enterprise 2.0 offers, who needs them? Strange how that question seems to have been posed repeatedly for several decades, even before the advent of E2.0, but it never seems to happen. Maybe they're needed after all?

Linked Data: the future of the Web?

2010-09-24T14:35:00.004+01:00

I attended a one day conference, organised by the UK arm of the International Society for Knowledge Organization, earlier this month. The subject was Linked Data. This being a subject I knew very little about, but which I suspected might be important, not least because it's related to Sir Tim Berners-Lee's Semantic Web concept, I decided to pay the fee and see what I could find out.

There was a very international group of speakers, including two from France, one from the Netherlands, one from Germany and one from Austria. The degree to which they engaged me varied, but most had something interesting to say. Presentations that I particularly liked were Nigel Shadbolt on what the government is up to with its data, and John Goodwin on Ordnance Survey.

The basic idea behind linked data is to extend the hyperlink concept of the Web from the current norm of linking web pages and other (largely) unstructured media like documents and video clips, to the linking of datasets. Provided this is marked up in a standard way, using RDF (resource description framework) it can be made sense of by machines and re-used in, for example, mashups.

There's a lot of quite complex stuff related to ontologies, with a nice new collection of acronyms to learn, such as OWL and SPARQL. There was also a fair bit of quasi-philosophical talk about the difference between the name of a thing and the thing itself. One of the problems with this conference was that it was billed as being for beginners (albeit KM-savvy beginners), yet it assumed an understanding of some of these concepts. I don't think anyone explained what a 'triple' was, for example.

The process of putting linked data out there on the Web, and using other people's linked data, is not one I can see non-technical people getting to grips with, at least in the short term. Maybe the process will become easier just as putting up a web page has. Remember when that required knowledge of HTML? Now it's all wysiwyg. I can, however, see how linked data could work nicely where a data provider (such as government - www.data.gov.uk) wants to see its data used and presented, but doesn't want to build the UI for that. Given that there are loads of developers out there willing to do it for them, why should they? Equally, if you build aps you'd be grateful for lots of free linked data to power them.

There are of course risks. I do wonder whether the government has really thought through the implications of licensing its data for any purpose, allowing even that it be modified. When this thought was put to Professor Shadbolt, he rightly pointed out that the media routinely (mis?)present data the way they need to for the 'angle' they are taking, so this is no worse. Good point, but I think the jury's out. It feels like a welcome move towards transparency, though, and could save the taxpayer money.

Where's this all going? I have two opposing thoughts on this, both related to the structured v unstructured information debate. The first is that one of the primary reasons for the success of Tim Berners-Lee's brilliant invention, the World-wide Web, was its focus on unstructured information (web pages with text and some images, mainly), because that's what non-technical people relate to most naturally. A move away from this would therefore be retrograde, it could be argued. The counter argument is that the Web only really got going properly when databases started being used behind the scenes to drive websites. Search engines and ecommerce sites both depend on them, and there are countless other examples. So linking datasets across the web is just an extension of this and could bring even greater benefits, perhaps.

I think the second argument's possibly true, but only if the structure of the data is kept well hidden from the layman, and he doesn't have to learn a second meaning for that nocturnal bird of prey with the round face.

What do you think?

Facebook and ZDNet

2010-09-11T20:38:00.004+01:00

Here's what I was going to reply to Phil Wainewright's post about Facebook on ZDNet, until I realised I had to register to comment...

"You read it here first? ;-)
http://enterknowl.blogspot.com/2007/07/mixed-feelings-about-social-networking.html
Actually, a lot more has happened since then. It's not all negative, but there is clearly a move to lock-in / walled gardens, of which some of us are very suspicious. But then again, the 'small pieces, loosely joined' idea is a bit arcane for some people, who probably prefer a structured package. And, to be honest, Facebook does clever (and, to many, attractive) things within that structure. "

I know a site that requires registration to post comments isn't a monopoly, but.... ;-)

How not to make cost savings, and how it could be done well

2010-08-26T17:38:00.004+01:00

I had to have a scan recently (all clear, thankfully) and decided to order a copy of it. I'd been told by the specialist I'd have to pay, so was rather surprised to be told by the receptionist in radiology that it was free for me, because I was ordering it within 40 days of the scan taking place. I commented that this seemed a bit eccentric, and she readily agreed. There had been a change to the rules recently, and she thought the change (making it free) didn't sit well with the cost-saving initiatives currently going on in the NHS. At the same time as making the copy of the scan results free, for example, the person who used to do the scans had been laid off, so they now take at least a couple of weeks to produce, by whomever has a spare moment. I agreed this seemed odd. 'They obviously haven't asked the staff', said I. 'But what else would you expect from NHS managers?', she said.

Assuming she wasn't embittered from, say, being on the at-risk-of-redundancy list - and she didn't appear disgruntled - I thought:

- consulting staff to get cost-saving ideas (as distinct from radical downsizing) is basic managerial good practice and has been for several decades;
- I got this from a 5 minute conversation - what more could be obtained from, say, an hour's workshop?
- I actually wouldn't mind a crack at this, but every role I've seen advertised relating to the NHS has required deep and extensive, specific, prior NHS experience.

Something's not quite right...

How regulated organisations can deal with social networking issues

2010-08-03T16:19:00.004+01:00

In my last post I raised the point that in amongst the excuses applied in some organisations, particularly regulated ones, to avoid letting employees use social media, there are some real issues. This post looks at some of them, and proposes solutions.

I can think of four main types of issue, which I'll call, respectively, Conduct Unbecoming, Company Secrets, Off-the-Record Contracting and Chinese Walls. Let's look at each in turn.

Conduct Unbecoming

This rather old-fashioned expression I take to mean anything that an employee might say that the firm would not wish to be associated with its name. This could be inside or outside the firewall. The fears are more reputational than regulatory, although for internal-only material they may well be more about power and the prevention of the usurping thereof.

It should be possible to deal with both instances (inside and outside the firewall) by means of a policy. I'm tempted to say this could be as short as "Don't give away company secrets and don't diss the firm", but it will probably be a little longer and more formal than that. Nevertheless, that's basically the message. Whistleblowing rights would of course remain, but those aside a company can reasonably expect some measure of loyalty and good behaviour from its people.

Company Secrets

This covers commercially confidential material, client confidential material and so on. There's an art to saying something interesting online that doesn't breach confidences. Ever since the invention of email people have been learning the hard way that people react differently to opinions expressed in writing as opposed to face-to-face or on the phone, especially when the opinions are negative. It's not a simple matter to craft work-related posts that are interesting to you and your readers, and at the same time won't upset your boss. But this art must be learnt, because short of never mentioning work online - which probably means not being online at all - everyone will have to face up to the consequences of getting it wrong. As far as the company's concerned, again policies have a role, but they might amount to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Someone who doesn't understand 'netiquette' might blunder even though s/he's read the policy, and once that tweet or Facebook post's in the public domain it's too late. So there's a role for training here: in how to use social media effectively and safely in a work-related context.

Off-the-Record Contracting

This is the issue of people using unofficial channels to record or make agreements which could bind the firm legally. The issue isn't so much about secret or under-the-counter deals - intentional concealment - as people wanting to do them will always find a way, and there are legal sanctions available to deal with transgressions. It's more about the fact that there's a grey area between the conversations that lead up to a deal, and the formal contract documents. A firm can't afford to lose track of even the 'grey' bits. That is very tricky even if email were to be the only channel used, both in relation to finding stuff later and to dealing with multiple email accounts and platforms. Banks that I have worked for tend to block webmail at work to try to deal with the second point. (As for finding stuff for, for example, disclosure purposes, social media platforms can score over email there, but that's a bit off topic). The problem with blocking email, as opposed to making it a policy not to use non-firm email for business purposes, is it's a slippery slope towards banning all non-firm communication platforms. This can mean no access to (public) blogs, wikis, social networking sites and so on. in fact, no Web 2.0 at all. For me, that's throwing the baby out with the bath water. A better approach would be to state in a policy that such channels shouldn't be used for anything that could have contractual implications. But, of course, the regulators, and not just the firms, need to be convinced that this is satisfactory before it has a chance of flying.

Chinese Walls

A well-known concept in banking circles, the Chinese Wall is a necessary separation of communication between certain departments, usually to prevent conflicts of interest. Any 'social' platforms must take them into account. Broadly, there are two possible approaches. the first is to make all social platforms inside the firewall accessible to everyone in the firm, and make it clear that no discussion that should be bounded by a Chinese Wall should appear on them. This has the virtues of simplicity, clarity and ease of maintenance. Its downside is that it precludes the use of social tools within a Chinese Wall, which can seriously limit useful knowledge-sharing and collaboration. If a firm does decide to allow confidential social platforms it needs to be aware that it could let itself in for a big maintenance overhead - as I know from experience! The chances are that your Active Directory (or equivalent) does not flag people with the characteristics that your Chinese-wall-related privacy settings require on your social platform. Therefore, you'll need to have someone constantly adding leavers and joiners of the department or project in question, possibly by hand. It's wise to think hard at the outset how you can best set things up to minimise this manual effort. If you use Sharepoint, make sure you fully understand how security-enabled groups work.

Policing

Whether you adopt the approach that, broadly, I'm recommending, namely to allow quite liberal access to Web 2.0 sites outside the firewall and encourage their equivalent inside it, and deal with potential 'issues' by means of policies and training, or you decide to 'batten down the hatches' and block or ban most things Web 2.0, you'll probably wonder how you can police what's actually going on. In an ideal world you'll have trusted and trustworthy employees who are netiquette-savvy and won't put a foot wrong. If they do, however, you will probably want to know about it. But how to do this?

You might run searches for the company name on, say, Google. This should pick up most stuff on public platforms. It won't pick up 'walled' material like email, of course, or Facebook posts behind privacy settings. Then, of course, as there's no search that I know of that will pick up only 'inappropriate' comments about the firm, there will be a lot of link-clicking and reading for somebody to do. Auto-moderation software exists, and I'm guessing this could pick up combinations of swear words plus company name, for example, thus narrowing things down. But there might still be a lot to read, and as I said earlier, it will be after the fact. So you might decide not to monitor at all, and just deal with incidents as they arise and are made known.

A bit scary? Welcome to the new world! Now's maybe the time to reflect on the way your employees might feel about the firm, and, if that feeling's more negative, overall, than positive, whether it's actually realistic to try to keep the lid on that.

Social Media in Corporate Environments: Realism Needed

2010-07-13T08:37:00.004+01:00

Prompted by a tweet by Phil Bradley, linking to his blog, it occurred to me finally to get round to posting something on the subject of control, trust and social media in large (especially regulated) organisations.

Many of my social media / Enterprise 2.0 evangelist friends seem to be pretty laissez-faire when it comes to the subject of the amount of freedom employees ought to have in relation to the use of social media tools. I have a lot of sympathy for that viewpoint. Widespread adoption of blogging, tweeting/yammering and the use of collaborative spaces within and even outside the firewall has the capacity, at least in theory, to open up an organisation and make it both more effective and more congenial a place to work. Or, to turn that around, the open culture required to enable widespread use of these tools is a prerequisite to an effective and congenial organisation in the modern era.

I also think, though, that the extreme libertarians, if I can call them that, are either unaware of, or are ignoring, some important legal and regulatory matters that apply to many large firms. If these are ignored, a firm can easily find itself exposed to reputational damage, loss of confidential information and/or perhaps regulatory sanctions.

The problem is that in some, probably many, firms these issues are cited as the reason for not letting employees use social media. They may have genuine fears about the legal or commercial risks, or they may simply not want to do it for other reasons, and use these risks as an excuse. The ones with genuine fears and concerns can be helped, and my next post will provide some ideas for tackling the issues. Those firms that are making excuses will need to get through their state of denial before anything can be done. As a starting point they need to realise that the genie is out of the bottle; that social media/networking is here to stay, and that if they don't get involved their competitors will start to leave them behind.

Facebook: too public or too private?

2010-05-16T20:47:00.004+01:00

There has been a lot of condemnatory talk recently on Twitter and elsewhere about Facebook's allegedly cavalier attitude to privacy. The argument is that there have been creeping, and concealed (or at least, not transparent) changes to the privacy policy since Facebook's inception, that have steadily eroded the ability of users to keep their information out of the public domain. There's also the fact that setting privacy controls on Facebook accurately to reflect one's intentions is not a trivial matter.

An interesting counter argument has been put forward by Robert Scoble, who basically says that he does (and, he implies, everyone else ought to) act as if everything he writes on the Web is available to be read by the whole world, and that, if anything, Facebook's problem is not that it's too public, but that it isn't public enough.

Personally, I think both arguments have merits, but the key point for me revolves around expectation and trust. Facebook's Mr Zuckerburg created a site which started out as one thing (a private place) and gradually converted it into something else. The way he did it has all the appearance of subterfuge. Some argue that most users don't care - either know and don't care, or don't know and wouldn't care if they did. That might be true, but it's not the point. The point is that it's been done in a rather sneaky way.

I've not closed my own Facebook account, nor have I (tried to) ban my children from using it - in fact, I've just helped one sign up today. But I have made sure all the settings are for 'friends only' where possible. This of course won't stop some information leaking out, which is the cue for the next lesson, regarding which I agree with Robert Scoble: assume everything you post could be read by anyone, someday.

Social Computing, new government, smoke-filled rooms

2010-05-12T12:37:00.005+01:00

As I write, after several exciting days of speculation and intrigue concerning the composition of the next government, David Cameron is putting the finishing touches to his cabinet. There was, of course, a massive amount of Twittering going on during that period, and I for one had one eye permanently on Tweetdeck. The other was on the BBC website's live updates page, and it was interesting to note that some of the breaking news came from tweets written by politicians or aides.

In contrast to the openness and transparency of the activity on the social networks, the actual negotiations were taking place in great secrecy, with ne'er a leak. The only exception I know of is the mini-scoop by a Guardian photographer who got a shot of Nick Clegg's list of negotiating points. Some commentators objected to this 'horse-trading', saying that it was undemocratic to have a small coterie of individuals determining the next government. Personally I found that view strange and rather naive. I would argue that the country gave the three main parties the right to negotiate a government by not granting an overall majority to any of them, and that such negotiations would be much slower and might not work at all if they weren't confidential.

But this isn't supposed to be a political blog. Since my interest is the use of social computing within organisations I'm now thinking what the implications for it might be of the formation of this new government. Clearly the biggest issue is going to be the impact of the tax rises and public spending cuts that will be necessary to tackle the deficit. These will put great pressure on companies - and public sector bodies - to get more from less. And I stand by my previous post on that subject. I also feel optimistic - at the moment - that we might be entering a new era in which politicians co-operate more in the national interest, instead of trying to score points all the time, and that this chimes well with the sort of altruistic behaviour that is often seen on the Web. Perhaps this will help lead more companies along the road to Enterprise 2.0 - whilst not changing the fact that some decisions need to be taken confidentially in a (probably smoke-free) boardroom.

Wiki Wednesdays are back!

2010-02-18T11:10:00.003+00:00

I was pleased to discover, via Facebook, that Wiki Wednesdays are kicking off again in London. I used to enjoy these. The format was informal, the people attending had varied interests, and there was (at the best ones) an atmosphere of enthusiasm for the world of Web 2.0 and all its possibilities. I suppose it did go into a bit of a dip after a while, and perhaps that was why it was temporarily 'retired'. David Terrar has worked hard in the past to organise these sessions, which date back several years, so it's good to see he's still involved.

If you're interested in the 3rd March event, sign up on the wiki. (You might need to register with Socialtext first.)

What is the role of KM?

2010-01-20T15:39:00.006+00:00

Now that I'm a regular Twit(terer), I find it quite hard to blog. This is largely because, in comparison to Twitter, the bar to hitting the keyboard seems much higher. I feel I need to have something deep to say before I blog. And, er, OK, let's leave it there.

Paradoxically it's a link from Twitter to a blog post on a very deep subject that has prompted this post. John Tropea tweeted about a blog post by Mark Gould which discussed a blog post and paper by Patrick Lambe . In essence the argument put forward is that knowledge sharing is about a lot more than just getting thoughts onto (virtual) paper in public places and spreading them around using technology. The author went on to argue that knowledge managers ought to be taking account of the psychological processes that are involved in knowledge transfer. Indeed, the author seemed altogether impatient with a technology-based approach to knowledge sharing.

This prompted me to reassess my own position. Being a short attention-span Twit these days, I'll be brief. I agree that knowledge-sharing is a rich and complex subject. But I don't think it's the job of knowledge managers to be concerned with all aspects of the process. This is for two reasons. The first is that most of us don't have time to complete the in-depth academic study needed to become the true KM all-rounder implied by Lambe. The second is that many aspects of knowledge-sharing are better left to the individuals who have the knowledge and who are doing (or attempting to do, or would do if they had the facilities) the knowledge sharing.

I've never really liked the phrase 'knowledge manager'. It's too overblown, pretentious. We are concerned with facilitating the sharing of certain types of information, that's all. If we get a bit dry and technical about it at times, it's because that's a big part of the job.

Do you agree?

Social Computing in Business

2009-11-14T13:22:00.008+00:00

The talk seemed to go down well. It turned into more of a workshop, really, which is what I really wanted. I tried to cover a very broad field in one hour, which was a challenge. I began by checking knowledge levels, and by asking who was more interested in the tools and who in the business-related issues. I got a strong vote for the latter. Nevertheless I did a run-through of the tools, and dwelt a bit on the concept of 'small pieces loosely joined', and the 'glue' of tagging, folksonomy, RSS and so on. There were some ah-ha moments with Delicious, when I explained how the social tags provided an alternative way into the web to Googling.

I covered adoption barriers such as security, 'fear of The Cloud', Chinese Walls and corporate politics, and emphasised that these were important issues but that they aren't insuperable. Towards the end we looked at the idea of companies becoming perhaps more human places as a result of the adoption of social computing / Enterpise 2.0'. That struck a chord with quite a few people. Given that many of them were in jobseeking mode, this did not surprise me. We also talked about the potential value of loose ties when it come to networking in general.

One of the most interesting things for me was to be reminded how broad this topic is, and how it touches on some quite deep issues such as personal identity, organisational behaviour, the role of management and the nature of work.

Here's a link to my talk outline on Mind42.

Social Computing in Business

2009-11-12T14:44:00.004+00:00

I'm giving a talk this evening at TfpL on the subject of Social Computing in Business. This is, of course, a very broad field, and it will be a challenge to cover even parts of it in the hour available. But I'm sure it will be interesting. I'm looking forward at least as much to hearing what the audience has to say on the subject as I am to saying my piece.

Corporate Knowledge-sharing: a glimmer of hope

2009-06-20T17:12:00.002+01:00

Recent experience in a large professional services firm has confirmed a number of my expectations about difficulties in facilitating knowledge-sharing in such an environment. In no particular order:
- Dear old Sharepoint both enables and inhibits, in roughly equal measure. Yes it's got lots of features, but many of them are mediocre and it's a clunky, unintuitive piece of kit to build anything with.
- Security concerns, standardisation of builds, etc inevitably mean what's available to the staff behind the firewall is disappointing compared with the burgeoning Web 2.0 world at large on the Web.
- The email habit runs very deep, and won't be shifted easily.

I'm still optimistic that we can make a go of this KM initiative, though. Why? Because there is strong business need and because senior people are behind it. Essential, though often lacking in KM-related work. What's more, there's an understanding that there needs to be a move from email silos to open, web-based discussion and document sharing. It's 'just' a question of changing habits. And on that note I've discovered than those of us who've been using the web for years need to remember that not everyone understands how to copy a URL and paste it into an email. In fact, 'basic training' might be one of the key requirements for success.