Hub Generation

Effective ways to collaborate

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 May 2011 12:20:00 +0000

(This is a summary of a conversation held in the Linkedin Hub Generation group)

In recent months, as a result of being away from the office visiting Kenya and the UK, I have come to understand even more the importance (and occasional draw backs) of social media-based collaboration tools.

At Zipipop we have been using social-media tools to communicate and collaborate for over four years. The main day-to-day tool we have been using is the internal micro-blogging service Yammer (see end note about Podio), which basically functions as a shared, continuous notification and discussion space – like a closed version of the Facebook News Feed. This is really a core part of our operations, since we are often out of the office running workshops or collaborating with remote workers. So my movements between different countries was fairly seamless – provided, that is, I had reliable access to 3G mobile internet.

When the connection is unreliable (as it was in the UK Lake District) email comes back to prominence as a more workable solution, but otherwise it was much more productive to work in one central micro-blogging space. In addition, Yammer shows who is online, which helps generate a sense of presence between you and the office. However, in the long run it is not a replacement of face-to-face time, since a regular physical presence is still necessary to remain fully in touch and influential.

I have noticed, however, that the sooner organizations adopt online spaces as their core means of communication the more effective they can operate when employees have to be geographically separated – since people get used to making decisions online rather than relying totally on physically meetings and "water cooler" discussions. There is a general trend towards fragmented working spaces, so organizations should consider the negative effect of people feeling "left out" if they don't have access to the ongoing organizational conversations. It all comes back to transparency. And the more we can adopt the best-practices of online culture, the more time and travel costs (financial & environmental) we can save, and the more opportunities there will be to balance the demands of work and private life. Here are some handy tips on keeping remote workers motivated and in the loop.

Antti Virolainen pointed out that with these new tools his company Avoin yritys can work effectively while being located in two different Finnish cities. And that sometimes the effort of writing can help people to focus on the essentials. They recommend IRC chat and the immediacy of instant (no accounts required) collaborative writing services; such as http://piratepad.net/ or https://hackpad.com/ .

They (and Zipipop) also make good use of collaborative Google Docs, but they require the participants to have Google Accounts. From a psychological aspect Antti thinks that the stimulation derived from a change of scenery while working abroad can help you work effectively. I would second that since being on a train or in hotel can sometimes have less intrusive distractions – providing more time to focus. Check out this provocative video from the Jason Fried on "Why work doesn't happen at work".

Antti Poikola is also a fan of Etherpad-dervied services and suggests mixing them with Skype for efficient simultaneous group collaboration; however, he also warns that you need team members who are proactive in taking responsibilities, since there is no natural daily incentives induced by physically present colleagues. Another downside is the "ever growing digital mess" being created by the plethora of tools available. I would suggest that over the coming years we will see a settling down of the most popular tools in the same way that all new industries goes through an explosion of competing options and standards in the early stages.

Juha Mattila, CEO of Reality Creating Media, brought up the importance of having a dedicated Community Manager to help make sure that people continue to use the tools and processes set up – since it is difficult to be both CEO and the Community Manager. To support the growing consultancy work Zipipop is doing related to the Community Manager role, I created this presentation.

Sometimes it is just simply takes time to get everyone on board with a new collaboration tool; for example, Google Calendars is a crucial part of Zipipop's operations and we now use it consistently; however, it took us about six months to get to this point. You need to be persistent and patient in getting everyone on board – and you need to set a realistic transition times, but at the same time sometimes you have to be quite firm and say this is where the project is being developed and you are either there or you are not – otherwise you can end up in an unhappy limbo of people mixing up spaces and creating more work.

The efforts required to adopt internal social media collaboration tools will be greatly rewarded in the long run, and companies that don't make the effort will start to be seen as out of touch (which in this case would be quite literally).

The ability to praise people in real-time (often by simply clicking a "like" button) can be hugely supportive – rather than leaving it for days or weeks when it becomes more awkward to do so. As Napolean said; "A soldier will fight long and hard for a piece of coloured ribbon." Although recognition is important, however, in the Harvard Business Review 10 Break through Ideas for 2010 they uncovered the surprising, but obvious when you think about it, result that "supporting of making progress" (above recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, and clear goals) was the most important thing managers could do to make their employee more motivated and happier. By adopting these new tools you should find it much easier for you and your organization to support and help staff be more efficient and satisfied – which can only be a good thing all round : )

However, if these new tools are not used judiciously, they have the potential to have negative effects: they can become disruptive and demotivating. To find out more read this Mckinsey Quarterly article: Recovering from information overload – Always-on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity, and making us unhappy. There are definitely some issues here we need to address if we wish to make the most of the potential, but a bit of guidance and some commonsense will allow you to unlock the benefits and avoid most of the downsides.

From experience I have noticed that collaboration efforts often fail if there is no genuine community being catered for. What constitutes a community and how they can be build up is a whole different kettle of fish we can explore later. But for now I will leave you with what I see are the 4Cs of collaboration: Community, Communication, Cooperation, Co-creation.

Happy collaborating!

*At Zipipop are currently testing out and enjoying a similar micro-blogging service called Podio. In some ways very different from Yammer. Full report on the pros and cons to come later.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Original author's Richard von Kaufmann and Hub Generation must be mentioned when the content is reused.

How transparent should organizations be?

noreply@blogger.com (Juho Makkonen) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:50:00 +0000

Openness and transparency are increasing trends in the business world. It's not just for small businesses like our Avoin yritys (Finnish for Open Company): the big ones are also adopting more transparent strategies, be it openness of leadership, innovation, or communication. This is not simply just because people have developed a sudden urge to change the world for the better: instead, with the rise of new communication methods and the social web, companies have realized that the open way is also often good for business.

When companies strive to be more open, a logical question arises: what is the correct amount of openness? Does openness have limits, and if so, where are they? Are there situations where being open causes more damage than good? We'll tackle these questions by comparing the benefits and possible problems related to openness.

Benefits of openness

A better relationship with employees. Leadership can be defined as trying to get the best performance out of people. Openness is a great way to promote that. People are smart. If you communicate with them openly about the company’s strategies, values, and just generally what is going on, they feel like they are being treated as equals, which often results in increased productivity. Furthermore, it's very common in companies that the left hand does not always know what the right is doing, which results in wasteful duplicate work that is avoided by transparency. Moreover, the organizational structure can be a lot lighter as layers of bureaucracy put in place to seal "classified" information can be removed. No more NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements), privacy policies, and stalking your employees. Netflix is a great example of a company that has achieved tremendous results with their open "freedom & responsibility" culture.

A better relationship with customers. Openness is good marketing. Transparency reduces the possibilities for corruption and tells the customers that you are one of the good guys. And being honest and open when a mistake has been made is often the best kind of customer service. Customers are built that way, and when a company has loyal customers, it has marketing value which money cannot buy.

A better relationship with competitors. Collaboration with other companies becomes a lot easier when all cards are laid on the table. It's easier to work together when you know that the competitor is not about to stab you in the back the moment you look away. Naturally there is the threat that the others will copy you, but being open can also sometimes be a more effective way to prevent copying than a copyright or a patent. By telling the whole world you did something first puts the potential copycats in a difficult position when they try to sell the copied product. The rise of the open source movement highlights this fact. And unlike patents, openness doesn't cost a dime.

A better relationship with the society. Nowadays it is more and more important for all companies to do their share for the common good. With the wide adoption of social media, companies are observed a lot more carefully than ever before. If they are doing bad things, the truth will eventually come out, which results in a PR crisis and a loss of customers. Openness helps prevent companies from shooting themselves in the foot by enabling them to avoid damaging violations; like ignoring the environment or abusing human rights in hope for short-term profit but resulting in damaged goodwill. That kind of actions simply will not do in today’s world. The world is already open, transparent and connected, whether the companies are or not. When a company is truly open, being beneficial to society becomes the natural way of operating.

Problems with openness

Losing the first-mover advantage. If a company in high tech business always releases its future plans and the technologies it is developing it might lose the decisive edge. Even if all the data is available only inside the company it is more likely to leak than if the knowledge is kept to the few who need to know. Apple is an example of a company that bases its popularity on being the first to introduce certain devices and services and for that reason it is able to charge premium prices. By being secretive it has built an audience that keeps gossiping franticly about every impending product launch and that generates very effective marketing. If Apple had no secrets it would lose all that.

Losing the control. Again Apple is a good example, since it seems to go in every way in the opposite direction to openness-embracing companies. Apple is a classic example of a "good dictatorship": the power is in few hands but the ones making decision have so far been capable of making the right ones. In democracies decision-making process can sometimes be overwhelming and focus can be lost: Google's open source Android platform has already become quite fragmented, which makes it more difficult for the developers to build applications that work in all phone models. However, Apple's model might not be sustainable in the long-term because it is so dependent on the few key players. For instance, there is a lot of speculation about whether Apple's ability to deliver will drop significantly after Steve Jobs steps down.

Losing the confidentiality. The case of Wikileaks has revealed both the pros and the cons of openness. While the released cables have brought numerous important aspects into the light of day, they have also caused damage by revealing insulting comments diplomats have made about one another behind their backs. This information carries no societal significance but has instead hurt many diplomatic relations that are vital for the ability of nations to make big decisions together. The eternal problem with full transparency is that people are not purely logical creatures but instead have strong feelings that from time to time trump reason. And it is difficult to screen for unintended consequences when the audience is unknown. Thus, in order to avoid insulting each other it is often wise to keep mum when having thoughts that somebody might misunderstand. What this means for companies is that it is vital to consult all the possibly affected stakeholders before opening up information related to them.

Losing time. Openness requires some time and effort, especially taking into account that due to previous reasons it has some limits, and these need to be clarified. What stuff should be opened up, and how should it be done? Where should the limits be set? At the same time the benefits might not be instantly visible so one might wonder whether doing all that work and preparation is actually worthwhile. However, minimizing communication is obviously not the most sustainable way to save in costs.

Conclusion

As you might have already guessed, there is no single solution that would fit all occasions. The degree of openness varies by the company size and industry. However, one thing probably holds true: instead of the traditional "let's only open the stuff when we have to", it would be better for all companies to start going by the rule of thumb of only concealing the information that needs to be concealed and keeping all the rest open.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Original author's Juho Makkonen and Hub Generation must be mentioned when the content is reused.

Note: Click here to get a PDF transcript of the Hub Generation Linkedin discussion behind this blog entry.

Welcome to the Hub Generation!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

We are launching this Hub Generation blog to explore the practical, philosophical and cultural impact that the rise of social media and cloud computing is having, and will have, on our lives.

It will reflect on issues such as: how social media is making the world more transparent; how rapid knowledge sharing continues to make commercial playing fields even flatter; how the opening up of discourse is changing the nature of influence and the balance of power between businesses and consumers; it will look into how crowdsourcing models can be used to improve decision making; the power of the web to enhance social entrepreneurship; and many other fascinating topics.

Being part of the Hub Generation is the willingness and commitment towards exploring ways to harness the power of social technologies and cloud computing to make the world a better place; while not shrinking from exposing the negative sides.  In this space we will mix down-to-earth practicality with a healthy mix of future thinking and philosophizing – so that we are free to boldly explore the outreaches of Hub Generation potential. And the blog posts will either be summaries of the discussions in the open Hub Generation Linkedin Group or written by invited guests.

We hope you find it enlightening, inspiring and entertaining.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Original author's Richard von Kaufmann and Hub Generation must be mentioned when the content is reused.