Better productivity, lower travel and communication costs, higher customer satisfaction, more innovation, increases in revenue and profit, faster access to knowledge, improved connection to internal experts and more.

Why wouldn’t every organisation flock to this vision of an agile, connected, transparent, people-centred and more efficient business?

Some organisations have glimpsed the future and recognised that survival and growth in an increasingly competitive environment requires new attitudes, new thinking, new business models that can adapt and change to a volatile environment. In short, they are tapping into the phenomenal rise of “social interaction”, where knowledge and information is freely exchanged and where new paradigms for employee and customer relationships can provide opportunities for innovation and co-production.

But what of the rest? There is only so long that an organisation can wait before it becomes too late. Competitors and customers have moved on.  Attracting new talent becomes more difficult; employees become moribund.

Doing nothing is the new business risk.

But it’s not always easy to make the necessary changes, particularly in large and well-established organisations. Some of the typical barriers that challenge large organisations include:

1. Fear of change. People are generally risk-averse. Organisations more so, after all they are accountable to shareholders and other stakeholders. “Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken” is the usual mantra.
2. Command-and-control. Who says every organisation wants to be transparent and flexible and invite participation from every quarter? What if senior management do not want a pluralist organisation where democracy rules?
3. Profusion of tools. The explosion of social software tools is a source of great innovation, but also a lot of confusion. Organisations can easily end up with several enterprise social networks used by different teams or departments, or for different purposes, along with social applications for purposes such as project management or employee recognition, each coming with their own user profiles and activity steams and notions of how connections are formed.
4. Lack of integration. A legacy patchwork of IT solutions that have only ever been superficially integrated and where every application has a threshold of “good enough” integration to make the system usable but never quite perfect.
5. Competition from free public social networks. Staff will inevitably compare their experience on an enterprise social network with the one they enjoy on consumer sites such as Facebook. This can be a problem if the enterprise experience suffers by comparison by being awkward to navigate, frustrating to use, or missing important features.
6. Compliance requirements. Regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare must pay particular attention to whether an enterprise social network meets compliance requirements such as data archiving. Moreover, they might tend to see more risk than benefit in a technology that makes it easy to share information widely when they have a responsibility to keep some categories of information under tight control.
7. Fit with business processes and workflows. Enterprise social software should ultimately make business and work processes more efficient and adaptable to a fast-changing environment (internal or external).  How will improved knowledge flows and opportunities for collaboration and co-production be channelled into the existing business/work processes.

These are just some of the issues that will be covered at the forthcoming Social Workplace Conference on 24^th May. There’s a great line-up of speakers and sponsors who will be sharing their experiences of building enterprise collaborative solutions and how they’ve addressed the barriers to organisational change.

A great opportunity to tap into the post-industrial age of “fluid knowledge”.

A Story To Tell

There are many people out there with a story to tell and with the many and variegated formats of expression available on the web those stories have a far higher likelihood of being told today than ever before. Whether it is a daring account of a money transfer which makes a mockery of current interest rates, or a detailed account of events over a lifespan, stories are cropping up in threads, posts and blogs with an ever increasing frequency.

The Skill of Telling a Story

There are many who still bemoan the death of oral tradition. That say social media has performed a death knell on the art form of human expression which was routinely performed at the water cooler, locker room or barstool. This skill of relating a tale with a mixture of suspense and expression which leaves the listener with a general sense of fulfilment, through the general babble of social media has been slowly ebbing away incoherently. Storify is a website which clearly seeks to redress this balance and allow users to tell stories by drawing in information, images, videos, podcasts and references from across the web to create stories with depth, dynamism and relevance. It allows users to create a new kind of story.

In Time Top 50

Launched in April 2011, Storify combines features or elements from a range of social media websites from the likes of Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter to create a story telling medium which allows users to draw on a range of resources to create a tale which can then be easily hooked up to all of the above. Although it has yet to become the latest trend, it has a plethora of users from across the globe and Time has placed it in the top 50 websites of 2011.

Two Sided Interface

The website operates in a two sided interface which allows you to compose your tale on one side and draw on existing resources from the web on the other. As is the current standard you can login using your Facebook or twitters account. The design is neat and easy to use with drag and drop handling which works equally well on a tablet, smartphone or laptop. You can search for and find content in the right-hand panels of the page and drag them across into the left-hand panel where you can compose your story.

Layout is Simple and Easy to Use

As stated the layout is simplicity itself. The interface includes a generous portion of whitespace and clear, easy to use functionality. On the right hand is the media panel which allows you to search for content using popular sources like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Flickr. The search panel is also linked to Google to allow for full web search for content. The layout is in a tabbed format which allows content specific searches for information such as comments or images. When your search is successful you simply drag in the content that you want and add it to your story. A neat feature is the inclusion of bookmarking through the ‘Storify this’ function. This will add selected items to the storypad which will remain there until you select it to include in a story. Completed stories can be distributed directly to inboxes via email, uploaded onto Facebook or Twitter, or embedded onto a website or blog.

Copyright Issues

As with all stories through the history of time the issue of source, origin and ownership is one which is often questioned. As such the developers of Storify have addressed the issue slightly differently than some other similar curation services like Pinterest. The company does not hold any of the content that users curate on its servers. Instead the content that you access is uploaded from its original location. Through significantly intriguing algorithms the pages are uploaded expediently and the out sourcing of page content generally does not slow down the loading of stories. All posted content is also attributed to the source of origin.

Notification

In addition Storify does allow users the option to give the original creator notification when their content is being used. Currently this option is only enabled for content that has been curated from twitter. The creators have said that they wish to expand this feature to include a much wider range of content sources in the near future.

WordPress Plugin

WordPress users will be pleased to know that there is a Storify plugin that integrates all of Storify’s curation facilities within the WordPress dashboard.

Organisations rely on collaboration in order to be successful. Imagine your workplace without any knowledge-sharing or team working. What would happen? Probably very little, as most people rely on collaboration with others in order to be able to do their jobs. If every member of your team attempted to work without drawing on the knowledge of others, they would find themselves unable to do anything pretty quickly. Despite this heavy reliance on collaboration, many people find it difficult, and do it only reluctantly and sometimes ineffectively. How can workplace leaders help their teams to collaborate better?

Why People Don’t Collaborate

We live in a very individualist culture. Throughout our lives, we are encouraged to work towards personal goals, and to put our own needs before those of our community. It is therefore not surprising that many workplaces also encourage individualism. When we plan our careers, we do so as individuals. When we take a job, we are given a job description with a list of tasks that are assigned to us alone. Many job descriptions do include something on them about teamwork and collaboration, but it often usually couched in general terms and found towards the bottom of the list.

Individualism can be a very positive thing. It can help people achieve, particularly in jobs that are relatively solitary. For individualism to be positive, though, it needs to be supported by a culture of collaboration. This may seem more relevant in some businesses than others. Take a courier company like ParcelForce, for example. They rely heavily on collaborative working at each of the stages it takes to get a parcel from the Post Office, to depot, to delivery van, to the recipient. There is a long chain in which the success of each stage depends on the success of the previous stage. In another company, workers’ tasks might be much more discrete: take a proofreading business, for example: each worker has assigned tasks that they do alone, without the help of others.

Those who work in businesses that do not rely obviously on collaboration sometimes fail to recognise its value. Competitive workplace cultures can discourage collaboration, as team members are worried that it will mean their efforts are not recognised. Where team members lack trust in each other, collaboration suffers. People often feel they lack the time to collaborate, that it is just ‘one more thing’ on their to-do list. Workplace leaders sometimes fail to collaborate themselves, and so they fail to encourage a collaboration culture.

Encouraging Collaboration

Competition and lack of shared goals are barriers to collaboration. Mutual trust and shared goals help encourage it. Research shows that collaboration and co-operation in the workplace helps strengthen the business. It encourages innovation and helps the business meet its goals. Collaboration isn’t just a nice thing to do: it helps keep a business in profit. Sharing knowledge and ideas helps individuals to work better and more successfully. A collaborative workplace is greater than the sum of its parts.

Getting people to trust and believe in each other requires a change in culture. Easy to say, not so easy to do. Things like workplace social events and awaydays can help, but they need to be backed up by something more tangible. Use of social media in the workplace can be a great way to encourage collaboration. Because it works from the bottom up, rather than being imposed from the top down, social media helps create a shared body of knowledge that is open to all and that everyone can feel comfortable using. It helps encourage trust and understanding, as everyone can see the contributions made by everyone else. Rather than asking one individual to help with a question or task, a team member can log on to social media and get advice and help from various people, many of whom they might not have considered contacting. It can help encourage collaboration between seemingly unconnected areas of the business: improvements in the accounts system inspire project managers across the organisation, for example.

Leaders need to lead by example and work to encourage and reward collaboration across their organisations. Rather than only valuing individual achievement, team and organisational achievement should be valued. Some people will always feel more comfortable collaborating than others (either because of their personality or the nature of their job), but using social media or other media to demonstrate business benefits and show leadership can help encourage everyone to collaborate better.

BT’s move smells of both ambition and canniness; depending on one’s interpretation. The news should hardly come as a surprise however, given that they have already secured contractual rights for both Lancashire and Rutland, and look set to do so in Wales and the Highlands and Islands in Scotland.

Below is a list of the eight contracts available:

• Rutland
• Cumbria
• Hereford and Gloucester
• North Yorkshire
• Lancashire, Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwen
• Surrey
• Highlands and Islands
• Wales

The agreement of all eight contracts should be sorted by the end of the month. The question that then begs to be asked, is whether BT are efficient enough for them to take upon the responsibility of installing superfast broadband in any of these regions.

A recent broadband speed test has concluded that Virgin provide the fastest internet speeds in the UK. This is measured in download, upload and basic connectivity speeds. Virgin’s success is based upon the usage of coaxial cables linking to the crucial ‘last kilometre’. BT meanwhile still merely relies on the use of fibre optic cables throughout all points of their connection process, and it is this very reason that causes their service to lag behind Virgin’s.

However, BT remain intent on providing superfast broadband to their customers, and it is this drive and determination that raises confidence in the network being able to provide a speedy service to these regions. In fact, BT recently announced the doubling of the download and upload speeds in their Infinity Package Contracts; which though still fall short of Virgin Media’s main packages, definitely signal strong intent and a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile, the prohibition of a legal USO in Britain is probably a step in the right direction. This will ensure no single telecommunications network secures a monopoly in the UK, based on anything but superior quality service. It will also challenge network providers to keep trying to up their speeds and services in the broadband speed race.

Communities

One of the difficulties faced by remote workers is that the working world is still built around physical communities, rather than virtual ones. We expect that the norm is to work in an office for five days a week, and so working from home is an exception, not the rule. That means that remote workers are often overlooked when workplace communities are developed. Even basic things such as access to internal IT systems are not always extended to remote workers. Yet, to work effectively from home, workers need to be able to play a real and active part in their professional community or communities.

Knowledge

To progress in a career, we need to be involved in sharing knowledge, both giving and receiving it. Knowledge helps us develop as people and professionals, and helps us contribute to the professional development of others around us. Whether a social worker needing to find local rehab center listings for a client, or a stockbroker looking for inside investment information, we all rely on knowledge sharing to do our jobs. Working remotely does not need to mean lack of access to that knowledge, provided there is a community and culture that supports remote working in place.

There are two kinds of remote workers: those who work remotely for a company as an employee, and those who work as self-employed freelancers or consultants. The two groups can overlap, with some freelancers working wholly or mainly for one organisation. What all remote workers need to be effective is to be able to collaborate effectively with those they work with and for; to be able to contribute to and benefit from the communities in which they work; and to gain appropriate reward and recognition. Effective businesses are normally good at doing these things for their in-house staff, but do not always manage to extend the privilege to their remote workers.

Remote Communities

Remote workers need to be part of a day-to-day remote community. As they are working remotely, their primary community is a virtual. Basic things like access to intranet and inclusion on relevant email lists helps bring remote workers into the companies they work for. However, for remote workers to really be part of their professional communities, a more active approach to community building is needed. Internal social media can be a good way for remote workers to feel part of a workplace, as they can use it in just the same way as other workers can: they are not disadvantaged by not being physically present. Those who freelance for many different companies can often find online communities aimed at them. Social media is not just a ‘social’ community. When used in a professional context, it can be a great way to share opinions, reports and best practice. It can be more effective than personal interactions, which can tend to be more haphazard and have a smaller reach.

Physical Communities

While remote communities are essential, it is important for remote workers to have some face-to-face contact with others too. That might be with their direct colleagues and managers, and it might be with others in the same industry but working in different roles. Companies can help by including remote workers in conference and social events, and perhaps allow them use of hot desks. For those working freelance, joining networking groups and meeting other freelancers (even if in another industry) is important.

We all need to feel part of a community, at least some of the time. Simple steps to help remote workers make virtual and physical contact with colleagues and others can go a long way to helping them feel part of a profession and being able to contribute their knowledge to that profession.

The title of the event was “Getting maximum business value from your L&D activity”, which, for me, opened up an opportunity to discuss and describe what I see as the unprecedented opportunities and potential available through the Internet and the Social Web for learning and personal development (also referred to as “Personal Knowledge Management”).

The world of social interaction, fuelled by the plethora of social media tools, has opened up new opportunities to learn and share. Classroom training is no longer an essential part of learning and development. We can now tap into the collective wisdom of peers and experts as and when we need. Skilling ourselves for a challenging and volatile environment is a personal responsibility – we can’t rely on others, including the people and organisations we work for.

Sadly, for some, this is not as easy as it sounds. Workplace restrictions on what staff can see and do on the Internet are controlled and regulated by policies – and people – that have changed little since the 20^th Century. If you have a HR or L&D manager who has never blogged, does not use LinkedIn and refuses to engage with social media, it’s unlikely they will advocate the use of these facilities in the workplace, and consequently no business case will be made to provide access to social networks or social media tools. Consequently, more and more people find they need to use their smartphones in the workplace (unless these have also been banned) or revert to out-of-hours working to do the things they could and should have done at work.

This leads to some crazy anomalies, which really ought to be challenged more vigorously, such as the many public sector departments who use YouTube to promote their services but ban their own staff from accessing this medium. Or the NHS Trusts that prevent their staff from accessing networks such as Patient Opinion, and consequently don’t know what is being said about their hospital services and therefore unable to challenge or respond to complaints.

But this must surely change. Organisations (particularly public sector) can’t continue to trot out the same excuses as to why they restrict access to the social web. Yes, we know that anything “social” might mean time wasting, but that’s no different to misuse of the telephone, or attending one of those meaningless meetings that happen every Monday morning. Yes, there is a requirement for transparency and the need to comply with Freedom of Information, but these can’t be perennially used as obstacles to tools and networks that support collaboration and knowledge sharing. The day of the “lobotomised PC”, which limits access to company-approved applications and networks, must surely be coming to an end (as is the lobotomised staff who are not permitted to think and act for themselves!)

So, coming back to the main thrust of my presentation – that it is a personal responsibility to attain the necessary education and skills to survive and thrive in an increasingly unpredictable economy. Staff can’t (and shouldn’t) rely on the prescriptive nature of their company’s core training curriculum, which is more likely to be inward-focussed and heavily weighted toward policies, strategy and compliance rather than vocational training – unless of course you are fortunate enough to work for that rare breed of organisation that funds apprenticeship schemes. It is foolish to plan an entire career on the assumption that you’ll be working for the same organisation. Transferable skills should be the primary goal – which may not be the first priority for organisations that want to retain staff!  Specialism is all very well provided it’s not dependent on one specific industry or organisation. See wheeltappers for lessons learnt!

Perhaps the difference between ‘corporate’ learning and self-directed learning is best illustrated in this diagram:

In order to develop a true learning organisation, staff need to be given much more freedom to use the tools, facilities, applications and networks that they have chosen. After all they are far closer to the issues, problems and potential solutions associated with their work than a CIO, a CFO or head of L&D. It is my firm belief that social learning and personal development requires a shift from hierarchies to networks, and empowerment of the workforce to choose the tools they need to do the job. Organisation that can’t or won’t grasp this paradigm shift will struggle to attract and retain talent, and will struggle to survive against more agile and adaptable businesses that do.

What do you think?

• 43% of iPhone users would go without shoes for a week rather than temporarily be without the phone
• 73% of people sleep with the smarphone on their bed
• The average person checks their phone 150 times per day
• 53% feel anxiety if they run out of battery or credit or have no network coverage.

There’s also the problem of “nomophobia” (no mobile phone phobia) – fear of losing your phone. Not sure what treatment is available for this

I was also unaware that some companies (Microsoft and Apple are mentioned) that encourage tech-free getaways to resorts prohibiting technology. Wether or not the delegates benefit from the experience or return from their break as quivering heaps, with symptoms of nomophobia is anyone’s guess!

I think you can’t go too far wrong with the mantra “everything in moderation” – whether that’s food or mobile phones. But no doubt we’ll soon see the first clinics and treatments for mobile phone addiction springing up – or maybe they already have?

Created by: Online Masters Degree

It’s no secret that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have found tremendous enthusiasm among businesses and enterprises. With Facebook, a company can freely advertise and conduct focus group research. It can draw traffic to a website and effectively engage with a loyal consumer base. It can create communication opportunities between employees, partners, and affiliates.

Many businesses have, in fact, embraced social media to such a degree that they seek to implement a social networking platform of their own. These internal social networks are accessible only to employees and include message boards, profile pages, file sharing software, and private communication applications – not dissimilar from a public social media system.

Internal social networks offer numerous collaboration benefits for the average enterprise. They allow for quick, fluid, and constant communication, thereby making it easier for employees to coordinate at all times. They encourage feedback, proposals, and ideas from all workers, thus opening the door for innovation in any shape or form. They furthermore integrate well with cloud computing platforms and allow files to be shared and transmitted in a secure manner. And, finally, they can contribute to the culture and sense of community that a company seeks to foster. Instead of having to stand near the water cooler or sit around in conference chairs, employees can feel integrated even when removed from the office.

There are two main concerns that prevent many managers from implementing an internal network. First, implementation difficulties and security challenges stand to pose headaches even after adoption occurs. Second, it is often feared that employees, when given access to an internal social network, will only become less productive during the workday as a result. Both of these concerns ultimately boil down to money, as business decisions usually do. Are the costs of installing and maintaining the system worth those peripheral benefits – benefits that may only be offset by productivity losses in the first place?

While this question is a valid one, it is likely that these concerns will only continue to diminish in the future. When internal social networks integrate further with cloud computing software, businesses will increasingly view the joint security and implementation costs to be worthwhile ones. When social networking becomes an even more dominant business tool, companies will more and more often realise that collaboration between employees is just as important as communication between consumers. And in this manner, the challenges posed by internal networks will – slowly but surely – be surmounted and overcome.

I’ve recently re-vamped the social media/social networks training that I do on behalf of TFPL. The training has always been about using the social web for personal and professional development, (and anyone outside of marketing and comms may argue that this is what it’s really for!) but I wanted to re-emphasise the value for those interested in Personal Knowledge Management (PKM).

Details of the course are on the TFPL website (link above), but replicated here:

Introduction:

There is a desire to develop more effective knowledge sharing and a culture of collaboration in most organisations, but little recognition of what this means in terms of staff development and overcoming barriers to change. The enormous growth of social media tools and social/professional networks over the past few years has created new opportunities and new challenges for people and organisations that want to embrace this dynamic world of social interaction and fluid knowledge flows. However, It is not widely recognised that collaboration and knowledge sharing are skills and practices that rarely get taught. It’s something we may learn on the job in a hit or miss fashion. Some people are natural at it. Others struggle to understand it.

This one-day course provides a practical and detailed introduction to social media and social/professional networks that will enable delegates to have a greater understanding of their context for use and deployment within their organisation and for personal and professional development.

Outcomes:

• An understanding of social media tools and social networks, and their context for engagement and knowledge sharing
• An understanding of the three-step process to personal knowledge management: seeking; sense-making; sharing *
• Developing an approach to more effective management of information ? avoiding information overload.
• Using free web tools for discovery, research and engagement.
• Knowing how to overcome the barriers to knowledge sharing and build a trusted network.

Programme:

• Overview of the social web
• Creating and maintaining your personal profile
• Seeking, listening and observing: an introduction to social bookmarking, aggregators and tracking tools.
• Sense-making: an introduction to blogs & blogging, wikis, Twitter, Yammer, Facebook, Google+
• Social capital, trust and reputation.
• Sharing and participating: an introduction to social networks and Communities of Practice for personal and professional development.
• Creating and personalising your KM routines and digital environment for enhanced learning and professional development
• Practical exercises and examples of the Social Web in action

Teaching style:

Highly interactive workshop and lecture

Who should attend?

Those who wish to understand and engage with the Social Web as an environment for personal learning, professional development and effective collaboration.

I should add that apart from the scheduled events organised by TFPL (next training event is on 2nd October 2012), I can schedule and run the training to meet specific needs of people and organisations, using the organisation’s in-house facilities or an external training venue. Just let me know your requirements and I’ll provide a quote.

These training courses tend to fill up quite quickly, so get on your computer and book now if you’re interested!

* The “Seeking, Sense-making, Sharing model is based on the work of Harold Jarche.

To quote from the BBC article:

“It is hoped the service will allow organisations to purchase services on a “pay-as-you-go” basis, rather than be locked into lengthy contracts. They typically include services such as email, word processing, system hosting, enterprise resource planning and electronic records management.

The Cloudstore would help contribute to overall planned savings of £180m by 2015, the government said, although a spokesman admitted it was “difficult to anticipate total saving with the constant changes in technology”.

Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said: “Simply stated, purchasing services from Cloudstore will be quicker, easier, cheaper and more transparent for the public sector and suppliers alike.This bold move has potential to showcase the UK as a global leader in online service delivery, providing the procurement culture in government evolves to take advantage.”

And the following could almost have been lifted word for word from my original business case:

“Cloudstore (read Khub Appstore) represents a revolution in how the public sector buys (procures) software and services,” Chief executive Suraj Kika said.  My additions in brackets.

However, whilst feeling (perhaps understandably?) frustrated that the App Store never got implemented for KHub, I am encouraged that UK Gov have seen the benefits of using an app store as a cost-effective way of procuring and delivering business software, at a time when more and more users are getting familiar with this way of accessing and using new functionality. As I mentioned in my original article, the benefits of this distribution model are:

• Easy to use and trusted conduit of software.
• Download model is widely understood by both consumers and developers of software.
• ‘Mashup’ tools will make it easy for apps to be built and shared by anyone.
• Provides centralised control and value-add including commercial, security, access controls, digital rights.
• Stimulates ideas for compelling new business scenarios and service innovation.