Back from Barcamp @Lille

Yesterday I attented the first barcamp in Lille, which topic was enterprise 2.0. This event is important for many resaons :

– despite of french centralizing culture, it shows that interesting events don’t happen only in Paris. An when things are well done that such an event can have a nationwide audience.

– enteprise 2.0 now interest more and more people and not only specialists

– despite most French Business School refuse to jump in the E2.0 train, whether you consider the business or technical side, Lille Business School is really trying to embrace this challenge, notably with their library 2.0 project which is really impressive since it’s about social software but also about reinventing the information paradigm and teaching it to those who will be our future coworkers.

So, here are a few things I retain.

Do communities need professional organizers ?

Obviously the answer seems to be “yes”. But as someone mentioned, isn’t it worrying that they can’t live by themselves ? In my opinion since they are not natural within enterprises, they need skilled people to make thing happen, but it doesn’t mean some of them can’t live by their own. I think that the more global the purpose is the more they need someone to energize them, the more “local” the purpose is the more employees can make things by themselves. The closer people are close to a problem the less they need help to deal with it as a group.

Management matters

It was really a common denominator : even if enterprise 2.0 is about people, things are much more easy when managers take the lead. I think it’s due to two things : people want those who ask them to change the way they work to show them by the example (eat their own dog food ?), and, psychologically, because they want to be securised.

New metrics for a new enteprise ?

This is what I was asked during my keynote about “enterprise 2.0 and collective intelligence”. I don’t think enterprise 2.0 requires new metrics to be assessed. Organization and tools change but the goal remain the same : making money. As E2.0 is supporting the way enterprises work, an since the final goals remain the same, I can’t see why we sould find “new” indicators to measure what we’ve been measuring for years.

For example, if E2.0 is used to improve innovation : how many new ideas were identified, how many of them were turned into products, projects, what are the financial impact of them on the bottom line, did it take less time than before to go from the idea to the project ? These are quantifiable things and I think they are relevant to measure the impact of any new way of working.

Perharps, after having discover all they can do with a different organization and the tools which which make it possible, enterprises will go further, try new things, and measure new things, or mesure old things differently. But, at this time, it’s not that hard to show how E2.0 can improve what presently exists, assessing it in a way people are comfortable with so I don’t see why we should make the first steps, and even the decision of trying things, more difficult than they are.

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Bertrand DUPERRIN
Bertrand DUPERRINhttps://www.duperrin.com/english
Head of People and Business Delivery @Emakina / Former consulting director / Crossroads of people, business and technology / Speaker / Compulsive traveler
Head of People and Business Delivery @Emakina / Former consulting director / Crossroads of people, business and technology / Speaker / Compulsive traveler
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