by Jevon MacDonald
April 19, 2009 at 11:29 am
· Filed under FASTforward'09
In the last few years the concept of social software in the enterprise has matured significantly, but we are still grasping for a real understanding of its role, and what to call it. I believe that understanding the separation of social software and social strategies can bring us closer to seeing the complete picture
Enterprise 2.0 takes the stage
Andrew McAfee burst on to the scene in April 2006 with “The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration”. This article did several things, the most significant of which was to coin the term “Enterprise 2.0″ at a time when “Web 2.0″ was at the height of its visibility, and it also served as a rallying point for social software enthusiasts.
Andrew also illustrated several important collaboration scenarios enabled by Web 2.0 type tools. These scenarios, while important, could be seen as incremental by executives and strategic thinkers within an organization. Andrew called it “Emergent Collaboration” for a reason however, and I suspect that reason is that there is an opportunity here which is not simply incremental, but is instead new and unpredictable. The problem here is that Enterprise 2.0 itself does not, and should not, offer a framework to deal with that emergence.
Enterprise 2.0 has given us the beginnings of a technical framework for a new type of organization, but it has not provided us with a conceptual model that is robust enough to create a more complete business design. Enterprise 2.0 was never meant to do this, and it probably never will.
The result of this so far has been an incredible amount of progress in the thought behind the technical underpinnings of collaboration, but little real progress in understanding the effects of these same concepts on the larger organization and marketplace.
Incremental effects
In late 2007 I wrote a post in which I stated that there is no Enterprise 2.0 Market. I believe that is still true today, but I think we have a better understanding of why.
As it stands, Enterprise 2.0 purchasing decisions are not at all differentiated from other IT purchasing decisions. This is the result of the incremental nature of collaboration in isolation from a more strategic framework. A document is a document whether it is created by one person or by 15. If the only purpose of that process is to create a document, then the job is done. This is not a result that is going to turn entire industries on their head. This does not affect the strategic decision making process of a business.
Almost every Enterprise 2.0 process is essentially incremental when viewed in isolation, and generally the purchasing decision for these tools are also made in isolation, making the purchase difficult to justify at times, and impossible at others. For example, Tagging content to make it more easily visible is also incremental on old methods of adding metadata to content. Knowing who an expert is on some topic is incremental because it simply saves time in finding that person the hard way. The list goes on.
These are all positive and improved processes and technologies, don’t get me wrong, but it is their simplistic (by which I mean isolated and not connected to a larger feedback/inform process) nature that continues to give me pause.
Thinking strategically about Social Business
We need to move past this isolated and highly technical thinking towards a larger conceptual model which can be referenced to make both technical purchasing decisions, but also strategic business decisions.
A few months ago I wrote that Social Media needs to “grow up”, but what I didn’t say is that the same problem holds true for the Enterprise 2.0 community. We have not made progress at any other level than the IT decision making realm we have settled in, and it is time to grow up.
Within an appropriate business framework Enterprise 2.0 will be able to mature and gain some comfort from a stronger definition of its role. Customers will be able to make more complete decisions about which tools and processes they need in order to transform their business to some new end.
So far the vast majority of our thinking has been focused on the IT element of a social business transformation. We are asking questions like “Which tools should I use to collaborate?”, “What are the case studies of social networking in a company?”, “What are the results of using twitter in the enterprise?”. I believe that these questions are all too shortsighted and narrow partly because they presuppose the necessity of collaboration, social networking and other Enterprise 2.0 tools, but those are not safe assumptions to make.
The Elements of Transformation
Until now we have defined the elements of change to be things such as SLATES and FLATNESS. In a macro view of the business however, these elements only address one component of the more significant need to change the organization.
How can we take these concepts of social leverage and apply them to Governance, Management, R&D, Measurement, Markets and also IT? What are these themes that run through each element of transformation and which are unique? Which elements are missing and which should be left out?
We also need to redefine the roles played by each major component of an organization:
- How do the roles of People in an organization change?
- What is the role of Technology in this new organization?
- How is the idea of Process affected?
It is this larger form of growth, an opportunity to become something completely new, that moves us beyond our current state. It is where we can see real transformation that can be translated in to real growth for an organization. It takes us from being something nice to being a strategic advantage.
Lets stop being satisfied with simply defining and re-defining one small piece of a much bigger opportunity. Lets grow up and start telling a story that is going to make people excited. Lets create something that people can really believe in, something we will all really want to be a part of.
Permalink
Good stuff Jevon
Enterprise 2.0 is really a state the *enterprise* achieves via social computing. The problem is that this rush to deploy organization-wide (which naturally makes IT a target customer) dilutes the effect that this new business paradigm can have on specific functions. Unfortunately as a result, the target estimated payback that you can achieve via this horizontal lens ends up being the lowest common denominator, across many individual business processes.
Instead of rallying around a better target process, its better to focus on say, recasting a less risky product development process, or a significantly accelerated sales cycle or tighter lead qualification. The social business inputs to achieve these gains can now be much more easily articulated and in a way that gets strategic and LOB muscle behind it.
Great post! IT is already seeing business users leveraging social and web-based tools to meet their business objectives without corporate approval. Tools like Google Docs, Yammer/Twitter, Meebo, Yahoo Pipes, etc.
This is a trend that I suspect we will see more often. IT needs to adopt these tools and support new business trends. We are moving into a new social economy. IT's role is to support the business in meeting its objectives.
Thanks Jevon. Considering that the entire reason an organization exists is to collaborate (the belief that more can be accomplished together than individually), would suggest social computing strategy needs to be seriously understood. Not only will it provide a bigger picture, but it will break down the current technologies back to their core concepts which can then be re-assembled into new processes, and applications not yet invented.
Jevon — that's a great call to action. Despite all the tech buzz, Enterprise 2.0 is first of all, a set of principles, not software bits. Unlike typical IT solutions it's s about business practices and human behaviors. When E2.0 tools are seen as means to an end, their impact remains marginal at best. To be really powerful they should be seen as enablers of new capabilities within a company that chooses to adopt them.
Great post. Far too often the assumption is made that enterprise 2.0 is some sort of platform decision – private or public. Yes it is a platform decision, but more importantly it is an enterprise decision. How are we going to engage internally and externally to understand the market. How will we innovate? Who are we as a company? What is our distinct competency? What information will we gather to enhance that competency? Where will we find it? What will we do with it? How will we respond? and other fundamental business questions. It goes deeper than a piece of software or hardware.
Could you envision saying that the telephone is a business model? The telephone enhanced communication, but was not a model in and of itself. When introduced, it allowed businesses to change their models to better serve people in new, more broad ways. It gave birth to new models of business that capitalized on the capabilities it offered. It enabled speed, scale, and scope. The telephone was a tool that inspired innovation, most of which came from the application of the tool, not the tool itself. Yes, companies in the telephone business made better phones over time, but more importantly companies not in the telephone business leveraged the tool to connect, create, and innovate. Think of the word of mouth implications the telephone presented when introduced. You could call your friends if something went wrong. The phone changed our ability to know that which was not previously known. When we stop talking about the "phone" or the tool side of the discussion and start talking about the capabilities, implications, and results, we will be closer to the realization of enterprise 2.0, but for now it seems most are still drinking it all in – trying to understand and justify why the phone would replace the telegraph.
Jevon – I agree that the big picture has to be beyond IT. The objectives of the business and the needs of their customers must be the beginning of the conversation. With those clearly defined, the work begins to find the best way to meet objectives/needs. That process makes use of many tools; financial analysis, market analysis, organizational development, strategic planning and (yes) IT. The IT component, in general, and the social media component, in particular, should only be considered a tool to achieve an end, given the larger picture.
We do need people and organization that understand, develop and utilize the Enterprise 2.0 tool set, but ultimately they will not be the ones leading the revolution. The revolution will be headed by the front line, those deep in the business of the Business. We, as Enterprise 2.0 practitioners, must take our own medicine, listen to the customer, stop trying to sell features and start solving front line business problems.
Thanks for the nice article Jevon. I really enjoyed reading it and thinking about what you said. Keep up the good work.
I have a few comments and a possible suggestion/question regarding the table in the article.
I do not agree with this statement “but it has not provided us with a conceptual model that is robust enough to create a more complete business design” . Think about the idea behind MS SharePoint – an operating system opened for loose integration and development of different, in some cases “interconnected” applications working under one OS and umbrella to present the ultimate collaborating and community engaging environment. Please let’s not discuss how this is implemented at the moment. I am only pointing out the idea and the business model behind it. I am not commenting what and how SharePoint can and is used with its current technical limitations and different applications availability ..
About the table:
Don’t you think that there should be another column or another part of this table listing all the changes which the Enterprise 2.0 tools and systems, including the Social media bits in them, added and implemented. How about these fundamental changes in the Customer relations and service, in the support systems and interactions caused by the E2.0 tools and the participating groups using those tools? Management, R@D, Measurement and Market are definitely affected and changing because of these new interaction together with both Partners and Customers too …
A great point which you should have put in bold “Enterprise 2.0 purchasing decisions are not at all differentiated from other IT purchasing decisions.” Spot on, Jevon, spot on! This is true and I would do anything for this practice to change but there are a lot of things to be comprehended and assimilated before this fact changes.
Thanks again for the great article!
I like it. I think the core of the reason why we haven't really seen Enterprise 2.0 uptake is listed in your second bullet point where you say "…this new organization". Organizational transformation, especially that at a level that Enterprise 2.0 wants, scares incumbents. Organizational hierarchies have with them an implied level of predictability and security. Transformation disrupts these, and a champion of transformation risks his reputation and/or his job. In my experience, most people within organizations do just enough not to get fired.
But a "greenfield" company; a startup, should bare the "social business" in mind when defining its organizational structure. If Enterprise 2.0 is thought of from the beginning it will be less disruptive, and potentially more successful.
Jevon – So many angles to touch on… rich food for discussion!
An attempt to summarize/expand, if I may.
Just as with many "enterprise" concerns, hardly any "enterprise' is entirely on-board the "Enterprise 2.0 train." Aside from phones, payroll, and e-mail, it's exceedingly rare for any enterprise to achieve 100% adoption of any business practice or technology offering. While we shouldn't (collectively) be happy with minimal adoption, we also shouldn't get terribly crazed that "most people don't get this yet" – adoption takes time, and isn't evenly distributed… or insert actual quote from William Gibson 
People who have an obsession of focusing on a single aspect of Enterprise 2.0 don't "sell" the larger/systemic benefits, as they're focused more on features/functions rather than benefits. Classic solution in search of a problem, and 90% of the pain whether you're buying or selling solutions. You don't buy a wiki to make wikis, you buy them to make meetings more efficient, to enable anyone with knowledge to improve the knowledgebase – not just the few licensed seats of a traditional ECM tool, etc.. The somewhat tired metaphor is that people don't want to buy a drill, then want the end result of a hole of the appropriate size, depth of their need.
From SLATES and FLATNESSES – what I hope people take away from those frameworks is exactly the nature of your closing remark and the paragraph prior to this. It's the combination of many aspects of technology, culture, process, people that actually sow the seeds of adoption and continuing use. Adding only tagging to every system individually in an organization is only going to add a certain amount of value. Layer the feature of tagging ACROSS (as a meta layer) those systems, and suddenly connections pop out that were hidden in the siloed views. It is certainly far more likely that a solution will "be Enterprise 2.0" if as it's own system it is "SLATES-compliant" – but it's only in the context of the larger picture you'll know if that puppy really does walk the walk.
Let's be honest – most of the systems that fall within the purview of Enterprise 2.0 haven't been mature enough to cut across and deliver larger value, as they've been too fragmented or limited to EASILY enable broad emergent capabilities. Now that we're seeing "Enterprise 2.0 suites" – or at least more thoroughly integrated/integrate-able offerings – it's becoming much more likely that the premise of Enterprise 2.0 can actually be delivered and used.
As I frequently have to remind the software companies selling solutions, and the IT shops buying/deploying – customers/business users don't want to use a wiki, and the business doesn't get paid by their customers for creating wikis – they get paid because they are delivering goods/products/services to their customers. The best possible "solution" is one that gets out of the way and lets people create value. Less features, more accomplishments.
3 years later, and I think I have given up on the tech. I almost only work in email and on the phone.
The problem is that communication is two way. When you are busy, you want to know that the person you are communicating with has received your communication.
I want a better email client. One that let's me add a couple of extra buttons to say things like
- Tell me if this has been opened
- Add this email to my CRM history with this client
- Put this in my calendar
- Copy these answers to a FAQ on the website
E2.0 often takes too much time in the face of this pace of work
Web or Enterprise 2.0 – doesn't matter – they all need a business case. Long term, qualitative strategic buseinss cases sound great until you ask for the money. I believe it is really a change management issue and since the decsion makers are not the users/evangelists of Emerging Technologies more questions get asked.
The good news is that these tools are not big ticket items like ERP. So what was the business case for instant messaging? What is the valiue of getting quick answers to short questions? Five years ago – it was about showing savings in telco and email cost – today it is ubiquitous. Soon it will be the same for Enterprise 2.0 But for now – the finance follks are going to ask for ROI, especially in these tough economic times
 |
RToddApril 21st, 2009 at 10:26 am |
Great Post and spot on, Jevon. I liken Enterprise 2.0 to a baseball game. We have built a team of talent (Tools) and perhaps we know which positions (features) they will best perform in during a game (implementation). We have even defined how to celebrate the success of winning but we have no idea how to play the game, what strategies to deploy, or how to build a long term winning program. Yes, it’s still early in the game but progress is too slow.
What a great article! I'll be sure to re-post in our blog http://www.sustainabilitythebook.com/a, where we're discussing ideas on sustainable practices and enterprise 2.0.
Thanks!
it is always a two way interaction with tools shaping how businesses work and business needs shaping tools. like it or not, 2.0 style tools have crept into companies. and with this fact upon as, as you said, we need to develop models and conceptual frameworks to best harness this reality.
Very strong post, Jevon. You have certainly laid down a gauntlet, and fostered a rich ensuing discussion.
I think you know that I agree with you re:
Enterprise 2.0 has given us the beginnings of a technical framework for a new type of organization, but it has not provided us with a conceptual model that is robust enough to create a more complete business design. Enterprise 2.0 was never meant to do this, and it probably never will.
AND …
We are asking questions like “Which tools should I use to collaborate?”, “What are the case studies of social networking in a company?”, “What are the results of using twitter in the enterprise?”. I believe that these questions are all too shortsighted and narrow partly because they presuppose the necessity of collaboration, social networking and other Enterprise 2.0 tools, but those are not safe assumptions to make.
I presume we'll all get there eventually. The foundation is busy being poured for the wholesale re-definition and re-design of the whys, whats and hows of knowledge work aimed at delivering results. There are many years of different fundamental assumptions about "how we work" to remake, revise or adapt, and IMO we're only somewhere in the first or second inning of a multi-inning game.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this insight. The issue is the structure of Enterprise 1.0. It is based on a control-oriented mindset. By contrast, Enterprise 2.0 is based on a trust-oriented mindset. The roots of Enterprise 1.0 run deep. Although its governance is founded on fiduciary (read trust based) law, all its business is conducted under contract (read distrust based) law. When, corporate directors believe their fiduciary duty is to shareholders (the way it is interpreted by Delaware courts) then all other stakeholders need to protect themselves with contracts and/or other control mechanisms.
We therefore need a conceptual model for Enterprise 2.0 that address stakeholder trust requirements. If the objective is collaboration in the absence of traditional organizational controls (read hierarchies) then the only alternative for building sufficient confidence in the process is "trust". Fortunately, trust is not as soft soft as some might think (witness eBay and PKI – public-key infrastructures). Enterprise 2.0 needs to be supported by trust enabling infrastructures. These infrastructures must reside under a robust conceptual model for Enterprise 2.0 that Jevon talks about. And I am not sure where it would fit in his Elements of Social Business Transformation, but it is required.
"Considering that the entire reason an organization exists is to collaborate (the belief that more can be accomplished together than individually), would suggest social computing strategy needs to be seriously understood."
That is a damn nice statement, indeed. I do not understand where all these orga-academics are. Where is there academic output about E20? Not the crappy ones. Where are the good ones? I am awaiting their work desperately.
ROI – yes, five years ago it was about 'savings in telco and email'. And 100 years ago it was showing savings about the costs of meeting-rooms, tables chairs, servants.
So, what is the ROI of a meeting? There is no good answer in terms of $ or €. But there is defenitely a ROI.
Jevon,
I have saved this to re-read and make a thoughtful comment. As Jon says, you have made the case for the inter-personal aspects of leveraging social technologies something we see lacking in most of the tool discussions. Answers to questions like "how will this make my work life easier," "how much and what do I need to know in order to embrace and gain from this solution," "how is this going to integrate with all the other technologies that I am using," "what kind of time investment will be required before this benefits me and my colleagues and the business unit as a whole?" More important, when will we know that we are gaining advantage, working more easily and effectively and willingly. Does anyone really care? Your reality check is fine and recommended.
I think that the problem we see in the Enterprise 2.0 space is systemic, because far too many of us come to this space from a technical background. Collaboration tools don't do any good in an organization that doesn't value collaboration (or, worse yet, gives lip service to valuing it, but inadvertently disincentivizes people from actually doing it). Transparency tools have no place in an organization that doesn't really want transparency.
In Ricardo Semler's book Maverick (and his subsequent writings), he talks about the transformation he helped lead his company through to create a highly communicative, highly transparent "new" kind of organization. But he did it in the mid-80's without the assistance of emergent technology. They attacked the structure of the company and the counter-productive attitudes a command-and-control environment fosters. They didn't get hung up on the technology part.
Of course it's easier for us to look at it in terms of technical implementations: compared to changing human behavior, changing a technology toolset is a walk in the park. The trouble is, without dealing with the human element, that walk in the park leaves you at a dead end.
» Subscribe to the RSS feed for these comments
HTML-Tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Additional comments powered by BackType
