• Why IBM Could Be Bigger Than Facebook in Social Media <span class="“> – Annotated

  “Fathoming a new product from IBM via a launch event is like trying to understand the ocean by watching a wave. Nonetheless that was my task, swimming through the presentations and ultimately landing an interview with Jeffrey Schick, IBM’s VP of Social Software. Drenched in the vision Schick shared for the IBM Customer Experience Suite, it occurred to me that IBM could end up being more important to the business use and monetization of social media than Facebook.”

  tags: ibm customerexperience socialmedia facebook monetization organization competitiveadvantage

  • By taking the capabilities they’ve created for big
    companies and putting them on the cloud, smaller businesses may indeed
    be able to leverage these services and according to Schick, “easily
    create a community that would allow them to invite their clients and
    engage them.”
  • Schick expects that “people can get genuine business value [from it].”
    While dialog is important, all of this, according to Schick, “is done to
    drive revenue, to create better customer satisfaction and gain some
    competitive advantage.”
  • Businesses of all sizes need to think social across their intranets,
    extranets, the internet itself and the emerging mobile marketplace
  • Regardless of your business size, IBM’s big move into
    social software should be a clear indication that every business needs a
    broad-reaching social strategy not just a Facebook fan page!

• The Collaborative Organization: How to Make Employee Networks Really Work <span class="“> – Annotated

  “The traditional methods for driving operational excellence in global organizations are not enough. The most effective organizations make smart use of employee networks to reduce costs, improve efficiency and spur innovation. “

  tags: networks socialnetworks costs costreduction efficiency innovation operations collaboration connectivity performance engagement report stakeholders alignment networkanalysis socialnetworkanalysis

  • CIOs often try to address these challenges by relying on the same managerial tools they use to pursue operational excellence: establishing well-defined roles, best practice processes and formal accountability structures.
  • The key to delivering both operational excellence and innovation is having networks of informal collaboration. Within IT organizations in large global companies, we have seen that innovative solutions often emerge unexpectedly through informal and unplanned interactions between individuals who see problems from different perspectives.
  • • Executives should analyze employee collaboration networks to discover how high-performing individuals and teams connect.
    • Networks should be designed to optimize the flow of good ideas across function, distance and technical specialty.
    • Network analysis can show where too much connectivity slows decision making.

  • Attain benefits of scale through effective global collaboration: Organizations can construct teams to leverage diverse expertise and drive adoption of new ideas across geographies. By carefully studying collaboration challenges across functions and geographies, they can identify gaps and enhance connectivity and best practice transfer in targeted ways.

  • Drive work force engagement and performance: Uncovering the network characteristics of high performers can show employees who play similar roles how to improve their own performance. It can help leaders identify the individuals who energize the organization and how to leverage their contributions.

  • Align collaborative with business partners and external stakeholders: CIOs need to know how effectively their units serve the needs of business stakeholders. By creating a detailed map of the existing cross-departmental relationships, they can see where innovations are occurring, where sufficient support is being provided and where investments should be made.
  • Minimize network inefficiencies and costs: Although collaboration is often seen as a virtue, too much collaboration at too many organizational levels can be a negative. It is important to reduce network connectivity at points where collaboration fails to produce sufficient value.

• Middle Managers Spread Thin as Organizational Structure Flattens <span class="“> – Annotated

  “Finding structural efficiencies by expanding spans of control has become a necessity in the current economic climate. However, the i4cp study shows that flattening organizational structure doesn’t necessarily result in a competitive advantage. While there are advantages, organizational restructuring may lead to greater stress, disengagement and burnout among middle managers.”

  tags: management organization middlemanagement flatorganization control hierarchy reporting

  • Over 35% of managers in large companies already have 11 to 25 employees reporting to them, and 75% of companies expect those numbers to rise or remain the same in the future.
  • Middle managers are often the hardest hit since expanding spans of control at multiple levels of the organization exponentially enlarges the number of people they are both directly and indirectly accountable for managing. Middle managers, the key players for successful strategy execution, “report dramatically lower levels of contentment than their more senior colleagues do, as well as less of a desire to stay with their current employers,” according to a 2009 McKinsey report.

• Spigit Blog <span class="“> – Annotated

  “In Three Enterprise 2.0 Themes You Should Be Watching in 2010, I argued that the world of social software would bifurcate into:

  1. General collaboration suites that replace intranets and portals
  2. Specialized applications that deliver tangible value around a specific activity”

  tags: enterprise2.0 value innovation crowdsourcing collaboration emergence emergentcollaboration structuredcollaboration

  • In the second item, it’s a case of clear intent. Applying social principles to solve tangible issues for organizations. The applications are designed with deeper domain features to deliver results.

    But in some cases, you’re seeing vendors pursuing a “we-can-do-everything” approach, loading up their application with features addressing disparate business needs. A case of being betwixt and between.

  • Going back to the characteristic of “specific social intent”. The corollary to that is that if you’re a product firm delivering around a specific intent, it becomes quite clear:

    • What “job” organizations and people are hiring you for
    • What practical issues people are running into
    • What your company’s development path should be

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Il est impossible de rester concentré plus de 12mn sur son travail sans être interrompu <span class="“> – Annotated

  ”
  Concrètement, « le temps de travail des Français est de plus en plus morcelé. Dominés par l’informatique et les télécommunications, les salariés sont sollicités en permanence par la messagerie interne, les messages instantanés, les appels téléphoniques, les SMS et toutes sortes d’alertes. »
  “

  tags: interruption interruptivity email socialnetworks work interactions

  • • 93,3 % des Français passent plus de 4h par jour sur leur ordinateur (70 % + de 6h)
    • 70 % déclarent utiliser leur ordinateur pour gérer leurs affaires personnelles au bureau
    • Plus d’1 Français sur 2 se connecte à des réseaux sociaux durant ses heures de travail 
    • Près d’1 message sur 3 revêt un caractère non professionnel
    • 75 % avouent interrompre leur travail pour regarder le contenu d’un nouveau message qu’ils viennent de recevoir
    • Pour plus des deux tiers des Français, ce qui est urgent passe avant ce qui est important, et 25 % des sondés estiment ne travailler que dans l’urgence
  • Le travail devient une interaction

    Bien entendu, être interrompu à cause d’un contact (peu importe le moyen) n’a rien d’exceptionnel au travail, et est même recommandé. Cela fait partie du travail en somme. « La conclusion de notre étude est simple mais d’une portée étonnante : l’entreprise est de moins en moins un lieu de production au sens classique du terme. Le travail devient une interaction, un échange, un dialogue permanent. L’entreprise favorise et exige cette interactivité dont elle fournit les outils. Cette évolution est profonde et pourrait bien changer fondamentalement notre relation au travail, son organisation et ses valeurs » commente ainsi Jérôme Anrès, PDG de Sciforma.

• Command and control culture in IT must end <span class="“> – Annotated

  “A panel of CIOs, academics and industry experts has urged IT departments to adapt or risk falling foul of business. The panel, comprising speakers who will be presenting at the 360°IT event later this month have warned that IT departments could become extinct if they are unable to support technology-savvy users using their own IT rather than corporate-approved systems.”

  tags: CIO IT ITdepartment security consumerization risk riskmanagement

  • He says, “In the public sector, there is a belief that you can control information. In social media there is very little control. We need situation awareness.”
  • All technology needs to be secured, not locked down
  • In practical terms, Longbottom recommends that the business defines a risk profile then builds a taxonomy for the information it creates and uses.
  • The consumerisation of IT will mean these standards need to be granular, such as approving the iPhone or Android application programming interface, rather than stipulating a corporate IT-approved product like Internet Explorer.
  • For instance if it takes 15 minutes to log onto a virtual private network (VPN) and the VPN is used every day by 100,000 staff, the real cost to the business is 25,000 hours or 2.85 man years.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.