Intranets and digital workplace | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

Facebook is topping Google ? If I were an IT guy I would wonder why…

May 28, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 4 Comments

As you may have heard these last weeks, Facebook topped Google for the first time. Not in market value but in hits. Anecdote for some, beginning of a new era for others, many things have been said about that. On the other hand, it’s was a general public event and many may have thought that it had very few importance for the walled world of corporate IT and did not deserve more attention than a secondera phenomenon.

In this post I’ll try to measure the extent of the news and, then, wonder if it means anything special for corporate IT departments.

That’s “only” Google !

Let’s stick to the facts : Facebook got more connexions than Google and that’s all. It does not mean that “more than the half of all connections on the web took plage on Facebook”. Google is not the web and Facebook won’t become the web either even if that’s a goal that’s not hidden at all. This only fact is enough to dampen some kind of enthusiasm.

So let’s avoid conclusions such as “people don’t want to live outside of social networks anymore”, “Facebook is the web”, “Facebook will replace the web” etc.. It may become true one day but the existing numbers can’t make us draw such conclusions at this point.

Now imagine we’re at an IT department’s place.

My takes on the Enterprise 2.0 Forum : Enterprise 2.0 and the end of social washing

March 23, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 9 Comments

I’d like to take a few minutes to share with you my takes about the last Enterprise 2.0 Forum that took place in Paris on march 17th et 18 th. First, a few words about the context.

I was looking for a professional event about enterprise 2.0 in Paris. Why do I mean by “professional” ? I’m fed up with the usual 40 min “show flat” presentations which conclusion is “it’s really awesome but I can’t do this in my company” and where we have the vague impression that insteat of getting answers to our problems we’re being sold a little piece of dream that comes with a big piece of software. In brief, attendees leave with shining stars in they eyes but realize, when the time to wake up comes, that it does not help them to achieve anything. I don’t even mention the events where we gather among experts, gurus, convinced practictionners to share certainties and common places before we realize that those we’re supposed to help weren’t in the room.

I came to the last Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Frankfurt with this idea in mind and, there, two things surprised me in a positive way. First, the format, that favors exchanges instead of one way talks (exchanges with the speaker but also among attendees) and, second, the fact that sponsors, even present around the event and the conference room were not allowed on stage to turn case studies into disguised sales speeches. So I we had the idea to bring this format to Paris, with a modest ambition regarding to the time we had : demonstrate it was possible in a local an french context and provide attendees not with discourses but with a strong added value. I think we did it and can already promise you there will be a second edition next year and than having 12 months instead of 2 to organize it will allow us to make things even better ans maybe bigger.

Last thing before delivering my takes. We usually judge this kind of event regarding to the quality of speeches (and of the buffet if you’re french). That’s not enough in the format we chose because it relies on an active participation from attendees (what implies to keep an “human size” to favor discussions). If I got many positives feedbacks, it’s also mainly because of the audience that asked the right questions and started vibrant discussions. When a conference room is crowed with people that have to het things done in their company, the debate easily reaches a higher level.

After the form, the substance. Here are my conclusions in a few points

Social Networking for Business : a collaboration engineering guide in the 2.0 era

February 18, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 3 Comments

If you read this blog it may be because the new approaches to collaboration and among them social networks interest you. You surely get their potential. You surely understand that deploying a tool, put passion and energy in your projet and pray is not the best way to make things work and achieve tangible results too.

A first sight, social networks are very easy : people, interactions, relationships, a hudge potential of value and, at the end, incredible and unexpected results. Unfortunately, for many reasons I won’t list here, what happens on the web does not happen within organizations in the same way.

Experience teaches us that there are many kind of social networks depending on their goal and context. That means specificities in terms of leadership, policies, operation, leverage. Each of these elements is itself defined as being a function of many other factors. A successful social network is a complex alchemy of knowledge of the purpose, interaction models, culture, incentives, communication, tools… What seems simple at the beginning actually supposes to articulate a myriad of things that have to be adjusted with fineness.

Success is not a matter of luck : it’s the consequence of a sharp analysis and, as a good wine, of a subtle assembly that needs both a deep knowledge and some “how tos”. If you want to learn what makes a successful social networks without neglecting any parameter, Social Networking for Business has been writen especially for you.

The author, Rawn Shah, is one of the best experts at IBM and the book is the result of many years of practice in a very “socially” active company and a deep understanding of the whole social networking field.

Thinking that any book could provide us with a magic stick that would make us successful is illusory. On the other hand it can gives us the strings, the indicators to use to build our own logic that fits our own context. Knowing that, Rawn’s book is particularly precise and has a rare deepness of analyze. No part of the question that’s been overlooked and we get a wonderful breakdown and keys for understanding these logics. More, the book is easy to read, clear, understandable, and concise. Once you read it, if you miss any detail to elaborate your own project, arguing that you didn’t know won’t be possible anymore.

I already mentionned Andrew McAfee’s book a couple of weeks ago. To understand the difference between both, let’s say that if social networks were travels, McAfee tels us that traveling is enriching, beneficial, that many already did it in many fashions and that we have a lot to learn from their experience. Rawn, as for him, explains us how to pilot the plane and everything we have to master beforme taking the pilot’s seat.

Those who find McAfee’s too generalist may find their graal here. As for me, I had the conformation of many things I used to think and learned some other things that will add to my toolbox.

Social Networking for Business: Choosing the Right Tools and Resources to Fit Your Needs is a must read for anybody seriously thinking of implementing social networks for business purposes.

To end, I’d like to thank Rawn for having offered me one of the first copies of his book the last time we met as well as Luis Suarez who made the connection and without whom I would have missed the best book about business social networks I’ve read till then.

Feel free to come back, comment and share your feedback once you read the book I’m sure many interesting discussions may start from this book.

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: collaboration, Communities, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise social networks, enterprise-social-software, rawn shah, social networks

GE, enterprise 2.0 since….1989

October 13, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 2 Comments

One of the the most frequently mentioned enterprise 2.0 successful project is General Electric’s SupportCentral. It’s true that their numbers are really impressive even for those who usually criticize anything that’s about 2.0. So, inevitably, people wonder how they dit it.

The recipe is obviousl well known : a long term project, deeply anchored in employees’ day to day job, where conversations are led by operations. So we could content with this explaination and say that anyone who wants the same results just have to do the same things. But there’s certainly something else…

While investigating, I found the trace a project gradually implemented between (if my sources are rightà 1989 and 1992 at GE. That’s to say a long time before the conscience that the web, generation Y and all the usual arguments will revolutionize the way people work.

The idea behind “workout” (since it was its name) was, when facing a problem, to gather the more relevant people (regarldess to their functional or hierarchical position) and make them interact in what was nothing else than a flat problem solving process. For further details, everything is explained here.

Building groups according to people’s relevance and not to the organization chart, favor “flat” discussions, beeing problem solving oriented, relying on a strong executive sponsorship, making managers teach by the example, inviting a facilitator when needed…. all these things seem very close to what we say have to prevail in internal communities implementation ? It really looks similar. And embodies the diagram I suggested here.

Workout’s template looks very relevant to implement these famous communities that enterprises still don’t get what makes them fail too much often.

Source : Adapting General Electric’s Workout for Use in Other Organizations: A Template

If we extrapolate, we can say that workout is “small scope 2.0″ since the need for gathering people prevented large groups, systematization of bottom-up, and making it a background routine for everybody. The new tools are only removing the barriers that prevented from making “workout” a common and day to day behavior, they only powered actual practices that match actual needs. We could deduce that more than being something new people had to be convinced about, they were meeting an expectation.

I don’t know in which way SupportCentral and workout are linked (and even if they are) but it’s obvious that SupportCentral was more likely to succeed in a company that implemented something like workout years before, the one being the natural development of the other.

Enterprise 2.0 does not solve any really new problem but removes the barriers that used to limit the solutions implemented (successfully or not) to solve more traditional problems. Its implementation will be more or less easy depending on wheter enterprises accept to deal with the underlying problems or not.

Entreprise 2.0, GE, résolution de problèmes, workout,management,organisation

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR Tagged With: Communities, Enterprise 2.0, GE, General Electric, management, organization, problem solving, workout

How to build an intranet 2.0 ?

August 28, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Web 2.0 brought enterprise 2.0 which is powered by its own web, the intranet. So it’s logical that the intranet had to become 2.0 too. Problems come when someone curious or missioned by his hierachy comes and ask the fatal questions : ” How to make my intranet become 2.0″. Seing plenty of hope in his interlocutor’s eyes, the “specialist” puts on an embarassed attitude and mumbles something like “humm…that’s not that simple” which he knows being very deceptive. Or he starts a long monologue to show his expertise, forgetting to try to understand what’s the meaning of the question.

Let’s try to make things clearer.

What’s an intranet ?

Better start from the beginning. Notice : there is no right answer to this question. There will only be what your interlocutor will ask you (but you’ll have to digg beyond what is often an awkwardly expressed need). Depending on people, the intranet is the place where the company publishes information for its employees, for others, it’s the place where employees can access business applications, for others it’s a place for employees to organize themselves and get things done out of the traditional business applications. Whether your interlocutor comes from the Internal communication deparment, the HR dept, the IT dept, is a business manager, you can be sure you’ll have has many different visions of what the intranet is and should be. And all these vision are not often compatible the one with another.

Are you swine flu-ready ?

August 21, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

Swine flu, or more exactly Influenza A H1N1 (that has nothing porcine) is waiting close to our doors and is a real threat to businesses. Ok, we should stop spreading doom and gloom. I don’t want to try to stir up controversy, we’re not talking about plague and the risk of seing the population being decimated is very week. Seen from an enterprise point of view, it reminds me of the year 2K bug : widely oversold and all the more innofensive since businesses got prepared to it.

We have to admit that having many employees forced to stay in bed is not a good prospect for businesses who are already facing very hard times. And the more the ill people will be central in the organization and the internal networks, the worse the consequences will be. If a bottleneck gets sick, that’s a whole department that may be sneezing, not medically but operationally. That’s why saying that a low percentage of sick people is acceptable is absurd : if the virus hist the rong right people, it will sure bring panic onboard.

The moral is that everything has to de done to prevent contamination and spreading while securing business continuity. Of course, many people need to be in the workplace to get their job done, but for the others it may be the right time to admit that an employee under visual control is an employee at risk.

So I invite you to read this “check list” proposed by Jane McConnell. Who said your intranet was not mission critical ?

If you are interested in this kind of topic, you can learn more about business continuity from…Gartner.

By the way…what do you or your company plan ?

A H1N1, épidémie, collaboration, grippe, grippe porcine, intranet, pandémie,continuité

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR Tagged With: A H1N1, collaboration, continuity, epidemic, flu, intranet, pandemic, swine flu

The enterprise and the web

June 26, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Finally, many current debates are about the enterprises’ ability to understand, master and harness the web, internally. This may seem trivial because purely technological and being about competences that are much lighter that those IT depts have been using for decades. But, at the end, it’s more complicated that it seems.

As a matter of fact :

• It’s about making enterprises assimilate somethings external, which is not something culturally easy. More, it has an impact on the competences that have to be gathered.

• For the first time, it’s about assimilating something coming from the general public whereas enterprises used to be leaders in technological change, adopting things years before it becomes available and affordable for common people.

• The assimilation, that was technological at the beginning, became about new usages. But enterprises don’t know the word usages : they have methods, processes, norms. The only fact something can change, even a small detail, causes a self-defences reaction. Considering there is also a behavioral impact, it’s easy to understand how difficult things are even if many people are overestimating the upcoming changes. Even if it will help businesses to be aligned with their economic and competitive context, the shift is not easy.

So, here’s how, in less than a decade, things went from face-lifting interfaces to an human and organizational project.

Social Media needs a better signal to noise ratio : discovering Microplaza

March 6, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Information is key for efficient business operations. The way it circulates must be facilitated and fluidified? Everything may be very valuable at a given moment for a given person while being useless for anybody else. Identifying week signals is critical but it implies to increase the amount of information that circulates through the enterprise. People can’t manage more than a given quantity of information but we know that if we want everyone to find what’s needed, more and more information will have to circulate.

Companies are not comfortable with this paradox : the need for making more and more information coming from many people accessible while protecting people from information overload and delivering a clear signal about “what matters”. Knowing that “what matters” depends on the people. So it’s not a surprise that for many businesses, even if they understand there’s a real potential, social media is seen as a source of confusion and information overload.

I often say that, in order to improve things, two main lines have to be explored at the same time

• a human line : trust your environment to filter. Knowing that people you are professionally close to share your concerns, the information filtered by your network is often relevant.

• a software line : tools have to identify “strong weak signals” from the informational hubbub.

Of course, we’re only at the beginning but we can see emerging initiatives that prefigure what things may look like tomorrow. To illustrate my words, let’s have a look at Microplaza.

What perimeter for and enterprise social network

February 23, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Maybe you remember of my posts about external networks and the relevance of enterprise 2.0 logics for SMBs. In both case the underlying issue whas about the perimeter of those networks.

As a matter if fact, in small of medium businesses, assuming that contacts are more simple (or are supposed to be…), the benefits of interconnecting people in order to build stronger synergies seems to be less obvious than in large ones.

This takes us to the point I raised for all kind of businesses : why do tools that favor collaboration and synergies must share companies’ borders while value is created, specifically in B2B, not inside the company but on the contact zone where internal and client’s teams work together.

Experience taught me two things : the size of a company of team isn’t a relevant indicator to estimate how easy of difficult it is for its members to work efficiently togehter and the weak point of many processes is interconnection between businesses.

Facebook is topping Google ? If I were an IT guy I would wonder why…

That’s “only” Google !

GE, enterprise 2.0 since….1989

How to build an intranet 2.0 ?

Are you swine flu-ready ?

The enterprise and the web

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