This is a piece about manufacturing productive dissent online, a subject about which, I am beginning to think, I know something. My first piece on this site, which I posted on September 28 last year, received 46 comments. A clear watershed divide emerged between those who hated my stance on “social media vs. knowledge management,” and those who loved it. It also got an unexpectedly large number of blog reactions, considering that I am at best a D-list blogger. Though I was slightly taken aback by the intensity of the reaction, (enough that I toned it down a bit, since I have far less energy for online debate than I did 10 years ago) that first piece set the tone for my blogging here. In the six months and some weeks since, I wrote 14 original, long op-ed type pieces here, which averaged around 9 comments apiece. That’s thrice the average on my own blog, where I tend to use a completely non-provocative voice. So I thought I’d do a quick overview and share my initial conclusions about the art of manufacturing productive dissent. These thoughts were triggered by the most extreme reaction I’ve gotten so far: some guy disagreed so much with the views I expressed when Stowe Boyd recently interviewed me, that he somehow dug up my phone number and left a slightly alarming message on my voicemail. He then spewed some venom at me on Twitter. Certainly, a time-to-take-stock event.
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Several opinion-makers trying to influence President-Elect Obama’s technology policies thorough blogs. Part of the intent, no doubt, is to simply use a historic election and a public focal point to aid mass communication. But it does seem like these bloggers seem to be nurturing long-shot hopes that they’ll actually be heard. Here are three examples:
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As companies deploy (or simply allow) Web 2.0 tools in their organizations, they often forget the need for enterprise content management. But as employees use and contribute to wikis, blogs and social networking tools, they create a lot of content–and that content needs to be secured, compliant, and accessible to others within the organization. For more on this topic, check out this podcast, and post your comments below.
Steve’s comments below got me thinking about why we don’t just accept information overload, but actually ask for it.
There was plenty of chatter in the blogs this weekend over the decision by the Obama campaign to text its supporters news of the VP pick as soon as it happened (well, as soon as the campaign was ready to release it). Most of it seemed centered around (1) the timing of the text’s release (another 3am brouhaha), (2) the “next-gen Internet outreach” approach, and (3) the pick himself. Mainly lost in the discussion was whether anyone really needed to know the information in real time, on their cells and PDAs.
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The iPhone3G hit stores today, but of course you knew that already. iPhone3G is the device Apple touts as “The best phone for business. Ever” boasting a few new features that business users will need. The iPhone3G is, of course, a “3G” phone meaning it can access higher speed data networks from the wireless carriers. The new iPhone also supports Microsoft Exchange putting push email, calendar and contact information at your fingertips. The iPhone3G has a VPN client, WPA2 Enterprise and 802.1X authentication for business-grade security.
Of course the other big news from Apple is the opening of the App Store and the many 3rd-party apps being made available there. I did a scan of the applications surfacing for iPhone3G paying specific attention to apps that support the Enterprise 2.0 vision. Here’s what I found:
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As blogging moves into the enterprise, one of the biggest questions managers face is whether to monitor the sites, and if so, how much. They can look to the consumer world for cues. Personal blogs (one person sharing his thoughts on his life, or perhaps a more specific topic) are monitored by the blogger directly; since the blogger isnt representing anyone else, let alone an organization, he isnt answerable to anyone but himself and can choose to allow or disallow comments as he see fit. The issue gets more interesting when we look at media sitesnewspapers, magazines and the likethat allow readers to post comments to articles and posts. Continue Reading »
Irecently learned of an interesting tool for schools and their students, called Web Lockers. According to the vendor, students “can use the lockers to upload homework assignments and projects, send and receive assignments, view graded work, and communicate with teachers and classmates outside of the classroom. For added collaboration, School Web Lockers also provides teacher blogs and message boards (for school-wide or even district-wide online discussions.)”
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It’s Wednesday night, the big two days of the Enterprise 2.0 conference are coming to an end. I’ve blogged a ton and shot a lot of video at the conference. The overall sentiment I’m getting from all the attendees and from all the sessions I’ve attended is that enterprise 2.0 is not there yet, but it’s going to happen, it’s inevitable. Here’s a summary of the top learnings from the conference:
- Young people entering the workforce communicate with Web 2.0 tools. They want more than just email.
- Cloud computing is an easy way to launch a service and scale, but it’s far from being a true utility like electricity.
- To innovate, you need to harness the wisdom of your network. First start with your staff and then move to partners and your audience.
- When you create a collaborate Enterprise 2.0 space, TRUST your audience. Release the desire to control. Don’t control. Even the CIA recommends this.
- Change management. Adoption requires evangelism and constant reminders and associating Web 2.0 tools with everything you’re doing.
- Don’t just deploy social media for the sake of deploying social media. Develop a strategic business rationale.
- There are tons of companies that offer business social networking solutions. Some are trying to offer everything, and some are just trying to solve a single problem.
- Allow people to engage with your company outside of your .com business address. Let them engage with your brand where they already like to go, like Facebook, MySpace, etc.
And here’s a summary of all my coverage from the event. It’s a total of 23 posts of which seven include video. Enjoy. :)
Thanks to Alex Dunne for supplying all the photos for many of the posts. Make sure you check out his entire Flickr feed.
Yesterday, Don Burke and Sean Dennehy from the CIA told the story of implementing the Intellipedia, the intelligence industry’s social network (watch the video). Today, Simon Revell, Manager of Enterprise 2.0 Technology Development, Information and Knowledge Management at Pfizer told his tale of implementing Web 2.0 tools at his company.
Revell’s said Pfizer’s first attempt at enterprise 2.0 was to set up a blog called DIGWWW to do the following:
- Facilitate discussion about Web 2.0 tools
- See how it can be replicated in the enterprise environment
- Influence technology direction within the company
- Look to inspire new approaches to collaboration within the company
- Be completely open for anyone within the company
In order to maintain the blog, a handful of issues came out of this:
- There was a lot of nervousness. They feared dissent with the classic response of “Who gave you permission to do this?”
- But to prove success, they forced themselves to post and comment
- To create engagement, they needed to nudge their coworkers. They sent repeated reminders and urged others to post.
- Every chance they had, they’d to tie the blog into day-to-day operations. Constantly reminding their colleagues of the online community.
Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference 2008 in Boston.
What does it take to pull off a successful wiki? Jeffrey Walker of Atlassian and Linda Skrocki, Sr. Enginering Program Manager for Blogs, Wikis, and Forums at Sun Microsystems showed examples of successful enterprise-level wikis plus offered advice on how to pull off a successful wiki in your enterprise.
First, some examples of successful wikis:
- Vodafone: Combine blogs and wikis. CEO blogs on the wiki. 65,000 employees.
- Leapfrog: Their finance department has a wiki. It’s designed to give new users a tour, plus it acts as a practical home page with useful things.
- SAP - SAP’s wiki (sdn.sap.com) has 800,000+ registered users using the wiki. Could conceivably be the largest corporate wiki.
- Deutsche Bahn - With over 270,000 employees (only 80,000 are online) they have 15,000 using the wiki. They reward contributions to knowledge management with the 42nd Marvin Awards, referring to the paranoid android Marvin from Douglas Adams’ “HItchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Marvin’s answer to every question is 42.
Skrocki’s three tips for successful blogs and wikis:
- Relax and TRUST your contributors - Give up control. People will use their common sense.
- Seed the site for success - That means create content. Engage power users in pilot, you’ll need pre-launch evangelism, communication, and stakeholder buy-in. Set up training tools such as instructional videos, 101 sessions for & by users, getting started content, and FAQs.
- Guide and nurture a self-sufficient community - Enable users to self-train, -police, -support, -evangelize, -organize, and most importantly -grow.
How to get people up and running on the wiki:
- Induction - Encourage people to write a personal profile
- Useful content that they need every day - e.g. Staff contact list
- Project management - Incorporate that into a repeatable cycle in your business
- Useful widgets - Add a task list or other tools that make it easy to use.
- Charts - Create useful dashboards with real-time data
- Internal blog - Share news and internal discourse
- Social organization - Encourage non-work use. You want people to become comfortable with the tool so let them use it that way.
- Permissions - Be as open as you can possibly be.
Recommended site: wikipatterns.com for advice on setting up and designing a wiki.
Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference 2008 in Boston.
May 8th, 2009 |
