Enterprise 2.0 Startups – Know Your Market

Nowadays, very few companies are worried about hosting mission critical applications outside of their own networks. Security is less of a concern, because companies are generally comfortable with Web security. And SLAs still exist, but they’re not the predominant issue. Most companies understand that web-based / hosted applications stay up fairly well, but nothing is perfect.

But even with many of the biggest issues resolved over the last 10 years, companies are still not adopting Enterprise 2.0 at the pace you would expect. And many Enterprise 2.0 startups can’t get the traction they need.

tags: enterprise2.0, business, market, sales, startup

• . Enterprise 2.0 startups have to be wary about overselling innovation and change, while at the same time not sacrificing the value they bring.

Marketing Software the Social Media Way

# Strategic Message Focus. Here conversation messages deal with strategic business issues. Examples of tactics include executive focused blogs, and establishment of networks or forums on topics such as succession planning, “baby boomer” brain drain, outsourcing, competition, innovation, and sustainability. If the software company’s own products are used in support of these efforts, so much the better
# Business Message Focus. Here the conversation message deals with functional or departmental problems that are internally or externally focused. When tied to specific business problems or processes, the focus of conversations will frequently be related to revenue enhancement, efficiency, speed, agility, and cost. Industry and process credibility will be necessary for the software company that takes this route; conversation participants need to know that you know what you’re talking about.
# I.T. Message Focus. This was discussed earlier in the context of media that allow conversations to take place between software developers and technical software users. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this particular use of social software to support software marketing is the democratizing impact that modern communications have on software development and support.

tags: marketing, socialsoftware

The Enterprise Content Management Blog: The Tactical Road To Enterprise 2.0

* Start with clear-cut business objectives

This is one you’ll hear us harp on. Too many times we see businesses rush towards technology and tool sets before ensuring there’s a comprehensive look at what the business really expects to gain from an enterprise 2.0 project. A lot of times it can be simple objectives like cutting down on the number of weekly meetings or reducing the amount of emails sent. For every departmental batch of emails you show me, I can give you plenty of ways to move that information into a more conversational and interactive channel with things like blogs, forums, or a wiki.

* Focus on the low-hanging fruit

This one’s about looking at your business processes and figuring out simple ways to incorporate some collaboration and conversation. Marketing, sales and corporate communications are good candidates to get on the enterprise 2.0 bandwagon because the flow of information tends to be fast and furious and collaboration is essential. As you begin socializing enterprise 2.0, make sure you quickly identify the pain points of each group. Try not focus on the technology too much until you have things teed up and can demonstrate how processes will be improved.

tags: enterprise2.0, communities, adoption, strategy, socialmedia, socialnetworks, socialnetworking

Architecture Organisationnelle: Petite Réflexion Prospective sur l’Entreprise de Demain

Le fait que le traitement et le transfert de l’information deviennent progressivement la majorité du travail de la majorité des entreprises moderne conduira nécessairement à s’affranchir du « chaos » actuel en termes d’utilisation des différents outils. Le chaos vient d’une part du fait que nous utilisons le même outil et le même canal pour gérer des flux très différents. Ceci nous conduit à des situations d’embouteillage, où des flux de basse priorité obstruent les canaux (un sujet déjà abordé). D’autre part, l’utilisation des différents outils est personnelle, et chacun utilise ses propres règles, ce qui conduit à des incompréhensions et de l’inefficacité. Ce sujet est d’autant plus important que les canaux électroniques se multiplient, et est donc aggravé par l’apparition des outils « Web 2.0 ». Mon intuition est que le volume et l’importance croissante des communications vont conduire à l’émergence d’un « ordre », au moins selon les 3 axes suivants :

* La séparation du signal et du contenu. Elle permet d’utiliser les canaux réactifs (faible latence) pour propager le contrôle, et utiliser les outils collaboratifs pour gérer le contenu (avec des gains évidents en termes de partage, de sécurité, de sauvegarde, …). Ce point est déjà compris et noté par les spécialistes de l’entreprise 2.0 (voir les articles de Fred Cavazza).
* Séparer les flux critiques des non-critiques, les flux liés aux processus métiers des flux informels. Il faut utiliser l’abondance des outils pour que chacun soit utilisé à bon escient, et de la même façon par tous (bien sûr). Cela passe par la rationalisation et l’édiction de règles collectives (cf. le chapitre 5).
* Une gestion plus rigoureuse du temps. Le temps est clairement devenu la ressource critique dans les entreprises. Il ne sert à rien d’avoir le téléphone ou l’email d’une personne si vous n’avez pas son attention. La multiplication des flux est illusoire, et les outils modernes offrent des « tuyaux bouchés ». Les outils de pilotages des flux critiques liés aux proce

tags: information, informationmanagement, informationflows, organization, communication, timemanagement, flows

Cartographie des flux d’information

tags: informationflows, cartography, activity

Mapping Information Flows: A Practical Guide | Information Management Journal | Find Articles at BNET

Information mapping based on an organization’s goals and objectives can help shift the information professional’s natural bottom-up point of view to a top-down, strategic perspective and increase his or her perceived value
[...]
3. It helps to focus information services on the highest potential opportunities. This last benefit can make the value of the information center even more obvious. Orna tells us that libraries or information centers are undergoing an unexpected development. They are changing from “… a store of information to a source of knowledge and innovation … a business intelligence service converting information to intelligence by means of expert filtering, editing, archiving, and researching.” In order to accomplish this transformation, the information professional uses skills and capabilities uniquely suited to the task. According to the Information Advisor, among these skills are the understanding of the organization as a whole and how the parts work together; the ability to comprehend and elaborate on information needs; the ability to identify inefficient or improper uses of information; and the ability to improve the value of the information by evaluating, filtering, abstracting, and providing a broader organizational and/or industry context.

tags: mapping, cartography, informationflows, flows, knowledge, knowledgemanagement

Enterprise 2.0 and stakeholder resistance

tags: enterprise2.0, organization, change, alignment, adoption

What Advantage Do You Have?

An older method of context analysis, called SWOT analysis, allows the business to gain an insight into their strengths and weaknesses and also the opportunities and threats posed by the market within which they operate.The older method of SWOT analysis does not apply to the context analysis of social networks because of the systemic dynamics of an ever-changing market brought on by the social networking medium.

tags: swot, factoranalysis, socialmedia, socialnetworks, interrelationship, socialnetworking

Cloud Computing in the Enterprise

tags: IT, cloudcomputing, hosting, scalabity

Assessing Organizational Readiness for Communities

We have a second model too – a WE Corporate Assessment framework that lays out six operational components that will determine where on organizational maturity scale a company is. the six components are:

* Strategy
* Corporate Structure & Operations
* Culture
* Community Membership
* Tools
* Content

tags: communities, adoption, organization, management, maturity, enterprise2.0, readiness

The Myth of Information Overload

I think some of the so-called “information overload” is actually a “channels” problem – we often use the wrong channels for a given purpose. Email, of course, is the most prone to abuse. Part of this is a lack of accepted, shared protocols that would bring some sense and order to the email chaos. Part of this is the old “hammer” problem – when all you have is a hammer, everything is treated as if it were a nail. Clearly, tools such as Instant Messaging, collaboration hubs, and a better balance between “push” and “pull” communication methods can take the sting out of email. At nGenera, my email traffic is down significantly since we began using a collaboration hub.

tags: informationoverload, infobesity, collaboration, web2.0, email

Management and Virtual Decentralised Networks: The Linux Project

This paper examines the latest of paradigms – the Virtual Network(ed) Organisation – and whether geographically dispersed knowledge workers can virtually collaborate for a project under no central planning. Co-ordination, management and the role of knowledge arise as the central areas of focus. The Linux Project and its development model are selected as a case of analysis and the critical success factors of this organisational design are identified. The study proceeds to the formulation of a framework that can be applied to all kinds of virtual decentralised work and concludes that value creation is maximized when there is intense interaction and uninhibited sharing of information between the organisation and the surrounding community. Therefore, the potential success or failure of this organisational paradigm depends on the degree of dedication and involvement by the surrounding community.

tags: management, networks, decentralization, decentralizednetworks, communities, collaboration, project, valuecreation, interactions, linux, coordination, knowledge

Ecrans – Le vendredi, les mails c’est interdit

mais il faut aussi stocker, archiver… De quoi faire exploser les serveurs. « Des filtres automatiques ont permis de réduire le nombre de spams, explique-t-on chez Deloitte, mais il reste beaucoup à faire sur les comportements compulsifs, qui, eux, sont du seul ressort de l’humain. » « Spamers internes », c’est ainsi qu’un fabricant de solutions pour les messageries électroniques, Mirapoint, qualifie ces salariés qui envoient des mails en rafale, mettent plus de monde qu’il n’en faut en copie et relancent dès qu’on ne leur répond pas dans le quart d’heure. Des pollueurs de messageries, en somme. Vont-ils faire des crises de manque les vendredis ?

tags: intel, deloitte, email, infobesity, informationmanagement, spam, humanressources

IT@Intel · “Quiet Time” and “No Email Day” pilot data is in!

In this experiment 300 engineers and managers, located in two US sites (Austin, TX and Chandler, AZ), agreed to minimize interruptions and distractions every Tuesday morning. During these periods they had all set their email and IM clients to “offline”, forwarded their phones to voice mail, avoided setting up meetings, and isolated themselves from “visitors” by putting up a “Do not disturb” sign at their doorway. The purpose was to see the effect of 4 hours of contiguous “thinking time”.

On the whole, the 7-month pilot returned markedly positive results. It has been successful in improving employee effectiveness, efficiency and quality of life for numerous employees in diverse job roles. 45% of post-pilot survey respondents had found it effective as is, and 71% recommended we consider extending it to other groups, possibly after applying some modifications

tags: email, informationoverload, infobesity, intel, productivity, interruption

Giving up on Work e-mail – Status Report on Week 25 (Educating Your Collaborators!)

I could share dozens and dozens of items on what it has meant for me to eventually move away from corporate e-mail and instead engage through social software to increase my collaborative and knowledge sharing efforts. However, going to try to keep it short. So I will mention that my main key benefits from making such jump have been to no longer feel stranded in the e-mail world, having tasks delegated on to you, just because you have the information / knowledge. I no longer have the pressure of having to constantly keep up with the incoming flow of e-mails of which a good chunk of them I wouldn’t even need to get them in the first place! I no longer sense I have lost control of my own productivity while helping others get their tasks done. I no longer feel it is me against them and the corporation. Them sending e-mails across more and more by the day, me, attempting to address them all and try to finish with a zero inbox, which almost never happened!

tags: email, infobesity, productivity, education, collaborators, tasks, socialsoftware, informationoverload