3 web 2.0 tools enterprises must consider

I often touch on the need for professionaling web 2.0′s tools and usages in order to make them consistent in a corporate context. But we also have to keep in mind that there are some tools and usages that exist on the general public web that businesses haven’t considered yet and that they should bring inside their firewall.

Why three tools ? Because I didn’t find more. Even if I more addicted to the Harvard Business Review than to Techcrunch, it seems to me that as regards tools the essentials are behind us. Some cobble things up, make improveent, build mashups but no new logic comes and bring something really new in the extensive catalog that already exists. I was really looking for some new logics and not for an nth copy of something that already exists.

If you look at web 2.0 tools, very few are those that businesses have not try to implement for internal purposes yet (which does not mean they successfully managed to do so). Blogs : done. Wikis : done too. Social Networs k : they are learning. FlickR and YouTube like ? Done. Google Docs : done. Bookmarking : done. Then come some new services that are nothing but mashups. Let’s end the list.

3°) Silentale

I’ve put silentale on the third step of the podium because it’s not available yet so I rely on the promise that was made at the last LeWeb08 conference when won a special award from the public. The ability to gather and funnel all your conversations, exchanges, wherever they take place is an interesting productivity booster. This is a part of the “personal information supply chain” I’ve already developed here. A part of the corporate plumbing.

2°) Dopplr

To be honnest, Iwould  never have thought of mentionning  Dopplr here if I hadn’t have a conversation with a friend weeks ago. He works for a company that has subsidiaries all over the world and which teams are send…all over the world too. Experts can be in a local headquarter or send to join temps in a place near you, in the jungle or in the middle of the ocean. “Sometimes we can be 10 at the same time in NYC, each one coming from a different country….plus our NYC team. But it can also happen in the middle of nowhere without any of us knowing others people from the company are there. So we’d like to use Dopplr but, considering our industry, we can’t rely on a public platform. A prive dopplr would do the job”. What may seem of a secondary importance for sedentary businesses may be essential for those where mobility is the norm. And not only for human reasons…

1°) Seesmic.

Here is the big winner, coming in an easy first. It take a long time for businesses to recognize the business value of asynchronous and public conversations between the members of their staff. Video seems to be gadget for many of them. But the video asynchronous public conversations, instead of cumulating all the barriers bring a sudden ray of light as its ROI is obvious. Perhaps it’s also because of the current context.

Imagine that you need your sales team to be more efficient (I know…nobody cares about that today ;-) ). They are asked to qualify their leads better, to react in an adapted way to each situation…. The solution has a name : training. But how can an expert trainer work with people all over the world knowing that it’s just not possible to put him on a plane every morning !

A case can be imaginated. Everyone is asked to register his sales speech when he can. The trainer can see them one by one, make corrections showing what to improve, the the sales person start again… It’s more efficient than a videoconference because it does not disturb people’s own agendas, it allow corrections, it allow to teach by the example and, most of all, conversations can made accessible for all so that a real expertise library is available on the intranet with cases, real examples, corrections etc…

Only a blind person would not see the ROI here. And it’s only a quick and dirty example.

Ok…maybe none of these players are interested in this kind of market.

And you ? Do you see others ?

Archivists : a new performance lever

Everything started with this note about Lille Business school and some talks with an archivist, a job I didn’t know at all, or, as a lot of people, a job I thought I knew things about. It gave me the idea to make a little poll around me about how this function was considered within their companies.

I think the result won’t be a surprise for anybody. I’ve been talked about “temple keepers”, the people who know “were information is”. With a strong “achive” connotation. It’s like people were talking about old relicts for those who want to learn about the past but without any use in the day to day job, noboday talking about topicality, intelligence, digital information (as if archivists only knew paper).

Nothing to do with the talks I had with the above mentioned person. Nothing to do with what is made in Lille. A the time when information is  becoming more and more strategic, when it’s the basis on collaboration between people, when 75% of the companies’ value is made of intangible assets, it’s somehow a worrying situation.

What do companies need ? Funneling and organizing information that’s pouring into an always increasing numbers of channels. Of course, there’s still “paper information” that’s about both topicality and content. But there are also feeds coming from business/competitive monitoring on the web, since more and more companies try to take the most of each employee as a point of contact with their ecosystem. Of course the number of sources can be reduced but it’s more about closing our eyes to reality than trying to face it. [Read more...]

Collective intelligence and mass collaboration have to be learned at school

I often say that our teatchers and parents didn’t help us to be fully efficient in our professionnal carreer.  Just have a look at all those principles we grew up with :

You musn’t copy : copying is not bad. it prevent you from reinventing the wheel everyday. It’s better to take a colleague’s idea and spend our time to improve it rather that spending the same amount of time just to get to same result. Cheating is bad, not copying.

You have to succeed alone : make you homework alone, don’t share your information…. we can see the result everyday in our companies.

You mustn’t help others : as work is individual, evaluation is individual too….if you help your friends they won’t have the marks the deserve but the marks you both deserve. Another collaboration killer

You musn’t talk to the unknown : not easy to build networks and stimulate tacit interaction this way…

You musn’t talk about you : and how do you want the others to help me, to collaborate with me if they don’t  know me, what I can do for them, and what they can do for me ?

You have to think twice before saying anything : (in fact in France we say seven times)…auto-sensorship is be best way to kill innovation and improvement.

I don’t know is the cultural context is the same overseas but that’s what we experience in France.

Sometimes you found things that make you believe in better tomorrows : this post[fr] about how “Lille Business School” is improving its library, following those goals :making it become 2.0 by improving conviviality, sharing, distant access and simplicity. They integrated the Aquabrowser engine, chats, forums, rss feeds…in order to provide a better access to information and to stimulate exchanges.

Moreover they reinvented the librarian’s job.

 “Another new “big” thing : communities. People from the Library are not librarian anymore, but “community leaders”. A natural evolution since they’ve been specialized on one or several topics for years. They will propose, on the library intranet site, to students and searchers to take part in thematic communities. The purpose is to favor exchanges between different kinds of audiences and favor “collective intelligence”. Of course, the communities will be leaded by the librarians who will propose, in each community, ressources, specific intelligence, methodologies, websites, maps etc. “

The good news is that, after I published this note on my french blog, they contacted me to visit them and see how things are going. Sure I will !

PS : In the orignal post I also mentionned that I’d be glad to explain to our education minister how such things are key for french enterprises’ competitiveness, and why the Lille Business School example has to be followed not only in grad schools but also in shools, colleges etc… Unfortunately it seems that I have more readers in business schools than in ministeries.

Why making people discuss about informal business issues is valuable

People have to exchange and discuss within the enterprise. Yes…but why? They just have to stick on basic relationships, they’re here for business and nothing more…

Yes but… as said in a Forrester report,  Informal learning connects with Corporate Training Programs, when, in 1986 75%  of the knowledge people needed to do their day-to-day job were in their head, this percentage dropped to 10% in 2006. People have not become stupid but the increasing need for specialization and granularity of expertises implies there’s too much to know for an individual. And if you consider the need for an ever improved reactivity???

What Forrester suggests :

THE DAYS OF FILLING EMPTY HEADS IS OVER!

The new critical skill is the ability to un-learn and rapidly learn new. Here’s a few suggestions I have for you to survive in this new world.

1. Enhance Your Network/Community
If only 10% of insight is useful, then the more connected you are the better the chances you will get the help you need with your network. Personally I prefer the concept of community over a network. Your network/community needs to have a trusting relationship to work. Notice I didn’t say build the network. The fact that you have 1000 contacts on LinkedIn is useless unless you are able to really tap into each of those 1000 contacts. Don’t just focus on quantity, focus on strength of your relationships.

2. Constantly Learn
Take advantage of RSS & Social Bookmarking! There is so much information out there, how do you find what is of value to you. RSS & Social Bookmarking holds part of the answer.

3. Collaborate
More and more we have opportunities to collaborate. Take advantage of them. If you want to be the lone hero all of the time… You will end up just being alone.

4. Develop Critical Thinking Skills
With the abundance of information, and no clear cut answer on anything. You’ll need to personally evaluate what is right and what is even more correct. Tap into the network, RSS, other sources but in the end make-up your own decision.

Hum… since I’m working onblog about productivity in the knowledge economy I think this may help…