Archive for 2.0 Design Thinking
by Joe McKendrick
March 11, 2010 at 10:16 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, Event Announcements, FASTforward'09, SOA, Social Computing, Social Media, User Revolution, Web 2.0
I just got back from the FASTforward event held in New York City, in which more than 400 attendees were treated to a range of applications and new thinking around the way organizations collaborate. Bjorn Olstad, distinguished engineer for Microsoft and CTO of FAST, kicked off the proceedings with an overview of the latest FAST search functionality, available as part of Microsoft SharePoint or as a standalone solution. He discussed the growing interconnectness between search — offered via internal networks as well as through customer-facing portals — and collaboration and real-time customer experiences.
Major organizations are leveraging collaborative tools to improve the experiences for customers and constituents, and this was explained by representatives of two major global organizations. G. “Gurvais” Clayton Grigg, chief knowledge officer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, explained how his agency is managing an enormous flow of data into an already massive amount of content and documents. He said it was estimated that the FBI maintains enough paper to create a tower 178 miles high.
The challenge is transfer the nuggets of important information on some of this paper to a digitized and accessible form, Grigg says. Paper artifacts will be around for a long time to come, he points out. “The bad guys aren’t going to be organizing their evidence as metadata,” he says. “They’re not going to hand you everything on a CD.”
He said the agency’s strategy is to better leverage three sources of information — data, paper, and people.
Questions that need to be asked about information include “What do we know?” “Who knows it?” “How is it being used?” and “How is it being shared?” Grigg says. The ability to connect people and help them collaborate is paramount, he adds. “While it’s really good to help people find data, it’s even better to help them find the people with the data,” he says.
Technology needs to take a back seat to people and business considerations, he adds. “When people come to me requesting a technology, I first ask them to describe the problem without technology. If they can do that, they understand the problem better.”
Michael Rossotti, application services sr. analyst at Merck, explained how the pharmaceutical giant was leveraging the FAST Enterprise Search Platform and complementary solutions to deliver the latest information to physicians and consumers around the world.
The company maintains two primary portals, Merck Medicus, for doctors, and MerckSource for consumers. Both now have search capabilities built in.
The goals of the implementation, begun in March 2007, were to “have the user experience be central,” Rossotti says. “We wanted to build trust with the customer. Sometimes our only interactions with customers is through our portals.” The company conducted a phased rollout of capabilities, starting with an advanced search feature for Medicus. The first phase was linking to 50 companies across the enterprise that were crawled on a daily basis. The portals were later enhanced with a federated search capability to other search results, but still contained within the portal page. In 2009, the company integrated its portal search capabilities with SharePoint, he says. Currently, the system sees about five queries a second, he says.
Rossotti says some of the lessons learned from the experience include the need to “be wary of feature creep,” as departments seek to activate more tools and enhancements at the sites. “If you start to do too much, the experience for the client can become too complex.” The priorities, Rossotti, are to “step forward on governance, and meet increased demand.”
by Rob Paterson
March 11, 2010 at 3:31 pm · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking, Adoption
We are all “selling”. At the heart of us all we would at least like others to see what we see. True power is being truly heard. This may be selling a product. Or it may be changing the world of food or school – whatever. True power is when you and your idea finds dominance.
Until recently, we had to use immense resources to pull this off. After all this was what marketing and politics was all about – getting hold of vast sums of money to push out our POV.
Only the big could play – until now.
Please excuse the diagram – but I know of no other way of showing this right now. This comes from some work I am doing with a client who has a service that is of interest to researchers. We built this model of the “Field” of a University as it pertains to how we might influence the Profs.
Simply put, if you want to have a lot of Profs use your service, you have to start not with the Formal University and least of all with the most tenacious gatekeeper IT. You are best to find the Big Man on Campus – the most influential Prof with the Lab that all look up to. If she likes what you have, she can find her own money to buy it. Being a “star” she does not need the university as lesser Profs might. If she buys and uses and likes it, then the lesser stars join. The laws of Adoption come into play.
Not only does the BMOC influence her colleagues in her university but because she is a true star, she carries weight in other universities. She may also have formal links in that she may be collaborating with another Lab or Labs. She is a vector for “infection”.
If you have a service that can also serve the small, then you can increase your power by finding the Rising Star. This junior prof has no money. He is new but brilliant. He too wishes to rise to be a dominant player in the field. If you can have a close to free version of your service, he can use this to rise. Then all the rest have to follow as well.
It is better if you then can find local allies. In every system you will have the cops and you will have the social workers. The cops are usually IT or HR in organizations. The nice people in Universities are the Libraries. They are usually genuinely interested in learning and in serving and tend not to be tied to any Right Way. My bet is that every field has these brakes or accelerators.
Finally, to get the big boost, it is likely that you will find regulators or agencies who may find that your service serves them too. With their support, you can tip the system.
I don’t think that this model is confined to Universities. I think that it is Fractal.
I think that all fields have the same deep structure and so are open to this type of approach. In every field there is a dominance hierarchy. There is an external boundary. The job in every field is to get to the centre and to hold the dominant role. This is true in music, in art, math, banking in everything.
There are Stars at the centre, there are gatekeepers, there are Rising Stars, there are infection vectors, there are sponsors, there are pitfalls. All fields have this kind of structure. If we said that the university model was classical piano – it would be the same. If we said it was war doctrine, it would be the same. Hey it is the same for Social Media.
So why is this helpful to you? Because this approach is a true game changer. You don’t have to have vast resources to capture the interest of a field. You do have to have something that is authentically good. But if you have this, then we can use this model to move up the adoption curve with few resources. In fact once you get momentum, the system will do nearly all the work for you.
If I am correct, then this model is a simple map of any field and so enables anyone who wishes to rise or influence any field, to plot a strategy.
This then brings us back to my first post. If this is the map, then we also know how best to harness our social power to have the best journey.
Do we know enough now for you to have the optimal team set up in the optimal way to have the power to get influence on the field that matters to you?
I think we do – but what about you?
by Rob Paterson
March 11, 2010 at 2:00 pm · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking, Chaord, Organizational Design, Robin Dunbar
Many of us are starting to see that there is math that underpins human community – The Dunbar Number and related math that defines the hierarchies of trust are gaining credence as being “real“.
I think that they should be: for surely all else in Nature that is about relationships has math? Light, Gravity, Water and Heat etc. So why would there not be Math that supports how Human Relationships work?
I was re-reading my favourite text the other day – Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language – and I was stunned, but not surprised, to learn that not only do we humans have a gradient of Trust governed by math but that there are limits in the physical space as well beyond which, we fall out of community. Naturally these limits are hardly known, least of all by architects and maybe hardly at all by any of us who wish to design a physical space that promotes a healthy human community.
Alexander brings up this topic in the section on Small Public Squares (Pattern 61). He asks why so many public squares are dead space?
Here is the Space Magic Number #1 – 70.
- We cannot make out another face much over 70 feet away
- We cannot hear another person properly over 70 feet away
Any space that exceeds this – Piazza San Marco and Trafalgar are exceptions because they are a nexus in a large city and get filled to the right density – feels un social.
So here is Space Magic Number #2 – 300
- Any space with more than 300 square feet per person will feel “deserted”
- So a space with a diameter of 100 feet needs 33 people in it to feel ok
- So a space with a diameter of 35 feet needs only 4
- A space with 60 feet needs only 12
- It’s hard to get 33 or more people into a public space at any one time – it is much easier to get 4
I wonder – do these numbers then tie into what we know about group satisfaction – (Chris Allen)
My bet is that there must be a link between these two sets of numbers.
Forming the best groups in the best spaces will surely have an impact on the power of these groups. This then raises another question. Might getting the group size and the group space optimized have an impact on group power?
Do these numbers have any connection with Adoption?
Might knowing more about ideal groups and ideal spaces address the question that we all have – How can I optimize my power in the world?
Our model until now has been to use money as a substitute for social power.
Are we close now to seeing the Social Power Model? I think so.
In my follow up post to this, I will share a Fractal Model of how we have found social adoption to work in a university setting. If this is Fractal, then the social design we see in a University should match all fields of social groupings.
We may be getting close.
by Joe McKendrick
March 4, 2010 at 9:19 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, FASTforward'09, Social Computing, Social Media, User Revolution, Web 2.0
Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, raised quite a ruckus across the blogopshere in recent days with his declaration that enterprise software should look like Facebook. What does this mean?
Benoiff wrote that he originally used to wonder “why isn’t all enterprise software like Amazon.com?” He pondered at the time that applications should be run from a simple Website, without software or hardware to install and pricey consultants to hire. That was the inspiration for Salesforce.com, he says. Now, he says, enterprise software needs to adopt the collaboration and social networking aspects of sites such as Facebook: “We need to take this idea to our businesses. We need to transform the business conversation the same way Facebook has changed the consumer conversation. Market shifts happen in real time, deals are won and lost in real time, and data changes in real time….”
While Benoiff used his declaration to make a blatant pitch for his latest “Chatter” feature, his point is worth some healthy debate. After all, when the Web and commercial Internet first emerged in the early 1990s, nobody immediately connected the dots between Websites and enterprise applications, which were largely accessed via industrial-strength green-screen terminals directly attached to back-end behemoths. Nevertheless, a decade later, every enterprise application was accessible through a front-end browser, which had become the new norm.
Critics, such as Charles Zedlewski in a follow-up post, argue that Facebook is more of a consumer entertainment venue than a serious, behind the firewall mission-critical application. And, it can be argued that Facebook is the flavor of the month, and two or three years from now, some other type of service will have captured the imagination of fickle consumers.
Actually, the evolution of enterprise software already began a number of years ago, even before Facebook began its existence as a college students’ online meet & greet. I mentioned the dramatic move to Web browser-style interfaces in the 1990s. Now, even without the influence of Facebook, enterprise software is feeling the powerful tug of social networking and Enterprise 2.0, and endpoints will continue to evolve to a collaborative look and feel that enables end-users to maintain their own virtual areas, sharing data and content for a multitude of purposes.
by Rob Paterson
February 8, 2010 at 3:53 pm · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking
Jon and I hope to reveal to you why it is so hard to get performance from a conventional organization today? Why do they find change so hard? Why is cooperation all but impossible? Why are people so unhappy?
Why is HR and all it stands for in the way?
The simple answer is that the simple idea of a “Job” – really a new idea since 1905 and the advent of the Ford Motor Company – no longer works but all the rules insist that it does. HR is all about the Job.
But the Job is going away – even without my polemic. It is dying quietly. Maybe we could hurry it along?
Organizations are being de-capitalized and networked.
After I left CIBC, most of the operational aspects of the bank’s HR department were outsourced. The same for IT. Much of the data processing had preceded that and now lives in a utility coop with some other banks and IBM I believe.
Today large chunks of any large organization that would have been inside are now supplied as services from the outside. The monolith is looking more like an eco system than a machine.
Back in the day, 1994, there were part time employees but they were somehow seen as an exception. Most were in junior roles. They were landless serfs. The lowest of the low and there are even more of these roles now.
But now at the high end and at the skill end this is changing. No longer landless serfs, the new contrator is the Knight for hire – The White Company of our time.
Today, especially in smaller firms, many key roles are played by long term outsiders. I am involved in such a start up today where all the key roles such as accounting, HR, legal etc will be rented from people that will be working under a retainer. These will not just be “consultants” but high level people who will have long term relationships. I play this role with several clients already. This enables, smaller firms to have national or global capability at a price that they can afford.
There are Men at Arms for hire as well. People with important skills that everyone needs
All over North America, networks of book keepers are emerging. The ones that I know of have a roster of about 6 -12 clients each and back each other up. Such an arrangement is ideal for both sides. The firm gets consistency and security while not paying for full time staff – the book keeper has the security of having say 10 clients and with that she can lose some or break up with those that she does not like,
If the Contractor CFO is the Knight for Hire, these are the “Men at Arms”. I use these terms because I think what we are seeing has happened before.
In the middle ages, the main occupation was war. But there was a revolution in the 15th century. Until then your birth determined your rank in the hierarchy. It mattered not much if you were any good, if you were born a noble or a knight (JOB) you were that. But after the Black Death, people were scarce. If you were a king, you wanted to have an army that was good. You paid for real skill and not for position. War became a profession where real accomplishment and the ability to attract good people to you became the new norm.
The centre of the problem is the whole idea of a job. I think it is a relic of the early industrial past ad has no place in the world we live in. It is bad for us as people and it is bad for organizations. It is all about the infantilism of the work place.
Strong words! OK lets look at the Job and what it means and then at the alternative.
- The Employee has a “Job”. This is an artifact that has skill boundaries and skill demands. Recruitment is an impersonal process based on the idea that the job has defined tick boxes and we are all ciphers. “Must have 4 years experience as a ********* Plus an education *******” Few interviews or jobs demand any behavioural attributes. It is seen as bad form to hire people you know. So you can be a psychopath and that is OK because the skills on the table are instrumental. Nor does a job imply what performance is. Somehow the work continues as defined for ever??? The employee is also assumed to be a child who needs to be supervised. The reason is that the outcome of what she does is never on the table. She is assumed to need training, for she could never get skills herself. Her #1 real job is pleasing her boss. The #1 career path is to get into management, for that is where the money is. The #1 aim is to have the largest budget for that drives the biggest pay check. None of any of this has much to do with the work at hand or the goals of the organization. The #1 process is the budget! This is why cooperation and collaboration are no no’s. The only route is up or out or burn out. It is every man for himself. There is no friendship in the executive ranks. The competition are people you understand and who know what you face. Your colleagues are the real foe. Sound familiar?
- So let’s look at the evolving alternative. The contractor has a “Gig” or a long term role to play. Central to the appointment is that there is an output, an impact and a result required. The real interview issue is, can you show that you can and have done this? Not only does the contractor have to prove that, but smart employers will find out what it is like to work with that person. Behavior is central. The hiring issue is reputation not resume. Not only should this person have skills but also a network. Much of what a contractor brings are others who can help in some way. If the contractor has a longer term connection it is because she can still add value to the ever changing work. The contractor gets more money by being more competent in fields that are of value. He stays as long as he is needed. He gets new work as a result of the good work he has done before. He looks after his own training. Most of his skill development comes from doing hard and new work not from taking courses.He needs next to no supervision, he is after all hired because he is competent. The focus is on the work. His security is his field and his good name. Having more than one employer is better than only having one. He tends to own his own tools that tend to be better than his employers! He is no threat to his employer and can often become close. His best allies are his colleagues in his field. As teams they do better. They help each other. They routinely collaborate.
In looking at these two views of how work is done we see the heart of the HR and OD issue today.
Let’s explore this dissonance over the next few weeks. For we have two systems that are in the same space.
The whole social software field is behind the latter. The adoption issues are all related to the OD metaphor.
If we can see the role that our conventional thinking plays in harming the real needs of the organization and of the people in it, we might make some progress.
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