Employee Performance and Learning in the E2.0 Context

February 4, 2010 at 4:37 pm · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Collaboration, Connected Enterprise, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Interaction, Organizational Design, SharePoint, Social Computing

As FASTForward readers may know, colleague Rob Patterson and I have decided to put forth a series of opinions about the HR issues that may become prominent as the implementation of purposeful social computing proceeds in the enterprise arena.

I believe it’s fair to say that Rob and I come by our interest in this area honestly, as we both have had significant chunks of our past careers tangled up in the world of human resources management.  Rob was Senior Vice-president, Human Resources for one of Canada’s major banks, and I spent a number of years in a relatively senior role with Hay Management Consultants, one of the well-known global HR / organizational effectiveness consultancies.

Today we are both dropouts from that career path. We both encountered the Web in its early days and decided that it would have a major impact on work, organizations and human activities, and asked ourselves the question “Do I want to belong to the past, or to the future ?” We came to the same answer, it seems.  We’ve both been blogging etc., and proselytizing its usefulness, for what seems now like forever.  I started blogging (arguably) in 2001, and if I remember correctly Rob started around about then, maybe in 2002 ?  We’ve both been intimately involved in what’s now called social media ever since.

In my opinion, nowhere is the impact of hyperlinks, HTMLx, well-designed platforms, easier-and-easier-to-use tools, etc. more apparent than in the lively and far-reaching conversations all over the Web about the tug-of-war between structured formal learning and semi-structured informal learning as bedrock for equipping employees to deliver effective performance in their work.  As my ITA colleague Harold Jarche often says,”work is learning, learning is work”.

Generally, the Learning & Development area of organizations tends to fall under the HR function, though in some instances teh Marketing department is getting involved.  And, from what I can tell, the Learning (Training) & Development industry is in an uproar these days.  More and more of the pros in that area are beginning to understand that fundamental workplace dynamics are probably forever changing in massive ways, as organizations and employees everywhere are exploring the benefits, the tools and the necessary organizational adaptations.  The implications for stimulating, supporting, managing and measuring employee performance are important, and massive.

The L&D pros are wrestling with the fact that most often one of or the core accountability of their role is for choosing, implementing and supporting an LMS whilst the utility and effectiveness of said LMS is increasingly in question.  The question of LMS effectiveness is feeling the impact of ‘work-arounds’, as of course employees everywhere are learning socially, in interaction with others on-and off-line.  And (I think) there is pressure on mainstream LMS platforms also coming from the spread of collaborative social computing platforms like the most recent version of Sharepoint (2010) and its competitors.

How and why employees learn is directly linked to setting and managing performance objectives, which in turn is related to the design of (knowledge) work and individuals’ learning contracts and the acquisition and evolution of job competencies.  Today, performance objectives tend to be developed top-down (which is necessary, as performance derives directly from an organization’s strategy and overall objectives).  But that genesis does not take into account the whole picture of an organization’s or individual employees’ information-and-knowledge ecosystem.

As both horizontal and vertical networks inside organizations (or inclusive of connections external to the organization) become increasingly interconnected and intertwined, the impact on which objectives most clearly define effective and high levels of performance needs to be explored more deeply.  This is  also, I think, connected to the ongoing debate about the ROI of social computing, the value of intangibles like relationship capital and intellectual capital, and metrics about effectiveness in a networked environment

That exploration will be the subject of my next post in this series on HR in the Enterprise 2.0 context.  If you’re interested, please stay tuned.

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SharePoint 2010 SocialFest – and the winner is Huddle

February 2, 2010 at 7:49 am · Filed under SharePoint, Sponsored Post

Last week seven startups spent the week developing applications on the SharePoint 2010 platform at the first ever SharePoint 2010 SocialFest hosted by the Emerging Business Team at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus. While most of the developers had little to no SharePoint programming experience, they were selected based on their potential to extend the SharePoint platform with their unique and innovative applications in the emerging social business space.

During the week, they heard from developer experts, SharePoint engineering, SharePoint product management and a panel of tier one venture investors. On Friday, they presented in front of a panel of judges including Charles Schwab & Co. and McKesson where Huddle took first prize.

Here’s a look at what the contestants built on the SharePoint 2010 platform:

Calinda Software – Creating conversations in SharePoint

Calinda MindUP automatically captures, organizes and structures email interactions. It creates visual maps of all messages and attachments sent and received in an email conversation. At SharePoint 2010 SocialFest, Calinda developed a SharePoint 2010 “mail space” which parses and groups related conversations, helping teams get a view of their projects, enhancing collaboration.

Confer – Bringing ‘twitter-like’ conversations to SharePoint

Confer for SharePoint 2010 integration extends the simplicity of Confer’s microblogging web application into an organization’s SharePoint installation. Confer bridges the gap between internal and external employees, and simplifies the communication process.

Cortex Intelligence – Social media analysis for SharePoint

Cortex Intelligence brings external qualified social media, quantitative market data, text mining-enriched news articles and data from external sources into SharePoint 2010 using SharePoint web parts. Cortex also integrates with SharePoint enabling users to share, discuss and act on the insights triggered by the market intelligence.

Huddle – Synching SharePoint team sites externally

With Huddle for Microsoft SharePoint 2010, enterprise teams can invite external users into their daily workflow and synchronize their SharePoint document libraries with content stored on the Huddle network, or even on other SharePoint sites. SharePoint users can also gain access to their files through Huddle’s online, mobile and desktop applications.

Leverage Software – Social sharing for SharePoint

Leverage Software DesignSpace transforms a set of email threads into an on-demand social workspace – automatically, with no data entry or administration required – and then lets you share that information with others in your company through Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

Liaise – Keeps SharePoint as up to date as your last email

Liaise for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 turns text in email messages into structured KeyPoints (actions/issues, due dates, people and priorities) and ensures SharePoint is always up-to-date by automatically feeding messages, KeyPoints and attachments into SharePoint, providing real-time updates to: Task/Issue Lists, Discussion Boards, Site Calendars and Documents.

Loqu8 – Creating immersive experiences in SharePoint

Loqu8 Prelude integrates SharePoint 2010 lists and search results into a pop-up window that is contextual to the work they are doing. From applications, such as Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc., users can instantly access their SharePoint data by hovering their mouse over a word in their document. The Loqu8 Prelude pop-up window will display contextually relevant information from SharePoint.

Interested in seeing a little more on each solution? Check out this slideshow on Network World.

Lynda Ting is a Director for Emerging Business at Microsoft.

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Microsoft

There’s Only Now

February 1, 2010 at 2:56 pm · Filed under 2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking, Change, Emergence

As I began writing this, I started to wonder if an alternate title for this should be, “Stop Looking for ‘Done’”.

These reflections are a direct result of a challenge from renowned-for-his-email-shunning-antics, Luis Suarez (@elsua). But oddly, there was already a lot of reflecting and projecting of this topic. There are fundamental computing principles and possibilities introduced to the industry over 40 years ago that are currently being revisited for relevance (thx @roundtrip and others), and have been the inspiration for some of the best E2.0 solutions. All of which caused me to recently reflect (apologies to Doug for misspelling Engelbart):

We’ve been at this stuff for a long time, and yet while lots of ‘new’ stuff has come and gone, those of us who’ve been around the block for most of this, wonder if we’ve really accomplished all that much as we continue to circle the block over and over again. At least a group of students from BYU have found ways to make going in circles productive, a byproduct of having fun.

Trying to honor Luis’ specific challenge to me “I sense designing a new Web will have direct implications for every business and for every society we are part of”. Adding to that challenge a 20-year horizon, I have to consider the evidence that it’s taken us 40 years to achieve much of what Engelbart described and the 2.0 realm is just beginning to address some of the subtle intentions.

I’m taking a step up on my soap box to insist that we need more designing and less decorating. I am so sick of ‘innovation’ being used as the false god of the deathmarch to profits: increasing sales by creating yet another ‘new’ product that everyone “just has to buy’, even though they already have one.

I’ve been using a particular word processing program for 25 years and was recounting last night that I can hardly use the latest version — key familiar functions are lost-in-action among the unfamiliar. Something as fundamental as word processing has the potential for what sort of negative impact on our overall productivity?

Look, if we were talking about soap (consumables) that would be one thing — I finish a bar of soap, it’s gone, I have to buy a new one to replace it. Software is NOT a consumable (well, unless you consider the flip of the equation — how much it consumes in its path with each new version,  taking up more and more memory and raw storage in its aftermath — but that’s a soap box of another color).

We’re really bad at design because we don’t architect well. If we did, we could leave the infrastructure alone (except as needed), and keep updating the fixtures and decor — but not for purposes of ‘fashion’ (although occasionally relevant), but for ‘function’.

We’re really bad at leveraging existing resources and seem to want to design for 5 years out, when it’s been proven over and over again, that when the 5 years come, what we thought was relevant isn’t any more. We need to design for NOW, and just do that really, really well, as simply as possible.

The problem is that there seems to be some confusion over “as simply as possible”. While insisting that it’s an architectural challenge, I’m beginning to think it’s due to a different set of P’s: power, pride and pomposity. I’ve experienced/witnessed countless situations where a design was going down a meaningful path, it has  been derailed by someone wielding one of these to insert their own individual mark. It’s kinda like the annoying male cat who keeps insisting on marking his territory — only in places where it doesn’t make sense, like, inside your house.

The greatest reality that the 2.0 era has embraced is that there’s no such thing as ‘done’. The only ‘done’ in life is ‘dead’ (and that’s just a phase/state transition). We need to get little things done better and stop chasing more things.

We erroneously think we need to move faster or change tracks. In reality there are so many tracks crossing ours that we should be heeding the well-known adage, learned as a child: stop, look, listen. We think we can’t stop — and then a tsunami comes or a market collapses, and stops it all for us. We chase around ‘outside the box’ and get nowhere relevant or important in the grand scheme of things — we waste all sorts of real human lives and potential in the meantime when we could be using what’s already in the box (like a merry-go-round) to solve world hunger and make a real difference in people’s lives.

The connectedness of 2.0 tools that now allow for continuous ‘now’ conversations landed this relevant thought from Alan Watts (thx @rickladd):

If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

We need to add “no” to our vocabulary. You want a mind-bender for the day? Go consider why it is so significant that toddlers all seem to naturally have a ‘no’ phase that they go through. We’re there.

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Details on Enterprise 2.0 in Operation in Haiti Relief

February 1, 2010 at 3:25 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

I recently posted on Enterprise 2.0 and Web Social Media in Operation in Haiti Relief. The post mentioned that the US military is using an Enterprise 2.0 style collaborative network to help coordinate its relief efforts in Haiti. The TISC (Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation) is a new iteration of APAN (the All Partners Access Network) which was developed by the Defense Department a few years ago. I recently spoke with Walton Smith who was involved in the development of APAN to get the details. First, I will cover how it works and then cover how it came into being and then its use in Haiti. We have been reading about the logistics troubles in Haiti but they might be even worse without the TISC. Haiti is the first activity of scale to use the system.

When you are determining ROI based on number of hospital beds filled and people who receive much needed food, the benefits take on a different meaning. The TISC concept is to help the US military better coordinate with NGOs and other countries when disaster strikes. The objective is to a create system that not only helps with particular disasters but also builds an archive of best practices, key people/organizations and useful information to better handle future needs, as well as a platform for efficient cooperation.

There are main components of the system: forums, wikis, chat and blogs. In the forums, people are able to ask questions (how to find experts, etc.) and make requests (can you help with this issue, etc.), as well as offer help or point out resources that others can draw on (e.g., available hospital beds or safe landing areas). The forum tags content and sets up a treaded dialog on the specific issues.  The chat tool allows for real time secure communications.  Then the content is organized and placed in a wiki for ease of retrieval. Finally, the best practices are abstracted and put into blogs to attract comments and be available for use in future disaster relief efforts.  In the future, there will be expert locators and profiles.

This version of APAN began two years ago when the US Pacific Command (PACOM) wanted to develop an online community for the free flow of information between validated people from the US military, NGOs and other countries.  Ty Wooldrige and Jerry Giles led the effort for PACOM. Booz Allen was asked to create the system with PACOM, and James Kaina and Tim Gramp are the Booz Allen leads.

The system was first tested on some small efforts. The support for mobile devices was strengthened. The US Southern Command asked the PACOM to provide an operational demonstration of the system. The PACOM team was in Miami for this demo when the Haiti earthquake struck. The Southern Command said to forget simply doing a demo and decided to put the system into real use to help with Haiti. Now APAN is providing real-time help, validating the concept and vision, gathering useful content, and the Haiti effort is providing a significant test of the system to make further improvements.

The US military was one of the early leaders in knowledge management and the use of after action reviews and lessons learned. It is nice to see it acting as one of the leaders in the use of Enterprise 2.0 concepts that take the vision of knowledge management significantly forward with new tools, transparency, and capabilities.

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