by Jim McGee
February 19, 2008 at 11:31 pm
· Filed under Barriers, Enterprise 2.0, FASTForward '08
The theme at this year’s FASTForward conference is the “user revolution.” Don Tapscott gave a nod to Time Magazine’s selection of “You” as the person of the year in 2006 as part of his keynote Monday evening. References to Facebook, Flickr, and Wikipedia have been rampant throughout the general sessions and in hallway conversations. The question that remains unasked and, thus, unanswered is “how are things different inside the enterprise.”
One obvious difference is scale. Applications and services on the net have the entire population of net users to draw from. The 1/9/90 heuristic works nicely on the scale of the net as a whole. Inside the enterprise, the rule suggests that implementation efforts need to consciously manage participation and activity to compensate for the smaller population.
The second important difference arises from the need to manage participation within the enterprise rather than capitalize solely on “natural” participants. This collides with the aspects of the enterprise that substitute artificial order for natural order. Large-scale enterprises explicitly design roles and responsibilities to address task requirements in a controlled fashion.
While organizational researchers and designers have been pointing out the limitations of control thinking for much of the last 20-30 years (if not more), the reality in enterprises is that control remains central to enterprise DNA. While insightful folks like Andrew McAfee identify the importance of emergence in the successful uptake of Enterprise 2.0 technologies, I think they tend to downplay the barriers created by the reliance on control. When McAfee talks about the importance of culture in successful Enterprise 2.0 efforts, he is fundamentally talking about enterprises that have managed to move past classical models of control. What makes this such a challenge is the extent to which these models are unarticulated or regarded as axiomatic.
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Hi Jim,
From 2,5 years of experimenting I can indeed confirm that things are quit different “behind the firewall” and that some special things should happen for people to start participating, let’s say the 99,9% who need the stimulus.
I recently put out some thoughts on this:
http://www.shapingthoughts.com/2008/02/06/thoughts-on-the-lack-of-intranet-participation
cheers,
Marcel
Marcel,
A very useful set of observations and suggestions. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Jim
“The reality in enterprises is that control remains central to enterprise DNA” - I am glad to hear this being so clearly said. It is about time.
I see a parallel with what was happening two decades ago in manufacturing. Then it was the need for UK manufacturers (the parochial focus is because that is where I am from) to adopt process innovation, in response to, and in emulation of, efficient Japanese manufacturing. The transition from traditional manufacturing processes to lean manufacturing was slow and patchy, despite the urgency of competitive pressures.
Now businesses need to adapt and change in response to a raft of environmental factors, including hyper-competition from emerging economies. We are to believe that social networking and Enterprise 2.0 technologies will force adoption of new working practices, as hierarchical command and control is challenged by self-organised, peer-to-peer production. It is the newest generation coming into the workplace that is supposed to be leading the charge.
It is not unreasonable to speculate that young people might challenge existing working practices but early clues that the new generation’s communication and collaboration habits will not be seamlessly absorbed within organisations are available in the large numbers of UK businesses banning access to social networking sites behind company firewalls. Social networking or social not working? I think we know what many businesses leaders think.
As Don Tapscott implies in the video clip on this blog a few days ago, conflict between entrenched and slow-to-change working practices and attitudes seems inevitable. What is not clear is how long it will take for businesses to adapt their structures and working practices, and the extent to which these changes will take place. My sense is that organisational control systems, designed for a past industrial era (and even then inappropriate) will not change easily.
Regards
Anne Marie
What is not clear is how long it will take for businesses to adapt their structures and working practices, and the extent to which these changes will take place. My sense is that organisational control systems, designed for a past industrial era (and even then inappropriate) will not change easily.
Jim and I talked about this at length and in detail whilst in Orlando … when you look at work design, job evaluation schemes (not performance evaluation, job evaluation as in pay grades), and compensation practices (the dry stuff nobody ever want sto tackle or talk about), there’s a mine field full of trip wires waiting to be set off (in my opinion) if and when enterprise 2.0 practices and dynamics begin to spread throughout organizations to any really meaningful degree.
Peter Drucker once said “the knowledge workers now own the means of production” (he meant in a knowledge-based economy), and that as they grow to understand that better, they would want to share in power and status, etc. … which would mean significant change(s) to the Taylorism-derived schemes of job evaluation and most standard compensation practices.
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