Email | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

From noise to situational intelligence

February 10, 2012 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

Sumary : many users say that the problem that enterprise social platforms is the risk of infobesity and informational noise. Reality is more complex. As for infobesity, these platformes only collect information and have few impact on the fact people and systems generate more. The problem is more about how to distribute this information. Then comes things like activity streams and micro-blogging tools that raise another question : what’s necessary and what’s superfluous. In fact there’s a new context organizations and people are not very comfortable with. In a complex business world, it’s essentiel to feel signals to act and adapt permanently to external events that impact one. Feeling does not mean deep reading and understanding. Employees will have to learn to optimize their situational intelligence by making the most of the surrounding noise without being submerged by it.

On the one hand we see enterprises thinking about a more efficient way than email to organize information flows, exchanges, collaboration and information sharing. On the other hand the alternate solution also bring their own questions and fears.

As I recently said, after a large french company decided to ban internal emails :” that won’t decrease the amount of information that will only move to other places”. As a matter of fact it’s more about changing how one manage and deal with information flows than changing tools.

As a matter of fact, social software platforms will be more and more like “catch all”. As they improve in terms of functionalities, they will soon be able to catch anything any information produced, whatever its form or the software that produced it. Some think it may lead to infobesity but that’s not my opinion. Any information that need to be generated will be generated, the social platform only being the receiver, the container. We can even think that such platforms will help to prevent content replication across different systems.

The problem is not about information catching but information redistribution. From the user side, it means wondering what needs to be pushed to him and what should only be made available for whom searches it (improved by suggestion mechanisms to address the grey zone between both. Something bizarre since we are all deeply influenced by current approaches that, despite of the fact we’re submerged by too much pushed information, we still fear to miss something so we do nothing to clean up our information flows.

Two components of these new platforms raise questions : activity streams and micro-blogging tools that generate information flows in which many fear to drown themselves. What lead us to wonder if we need so much information and if it’s really useful.

Google + : an enterprise tool ?

September 23, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

Summary : Can Google Plus become a major player in the enterprise software field ? It will depend on its positioning and the efforts Google will make to understand a field where things have always been difficult for them. Google Plus is not a social networking platform but brings relevant answers to exchange and communication issues that are more related to email than social networks. Anyway, Google Plus, will not only have to fill some gaps to become a credible enterprise tool but will also need to learn how to integrate in the complex ecosystem of existing enterprise applications, most of all for usages they’ve never been good at. Google has the means of his ambition provided he proves he has de right culture

After a first post on my first steps with Google +, it’s time to deal with the question that’s already in many people’s minds : can Google + become an enterprise tool. Let’s be clear : I’m not talking about using this tool for brands but as an internal work tool for employees. In other words : will Google Plus be a game changer the day it will be a part of Google’s enterprise apps pack ?

As a matter of fact, many see Google + as the missing link of Google’s enterprise off which still lacks a collaboration/social/conversation part. Until now, Google has always been very good at search, online office tools (which is a first level of collaboration but limited to documents) but has never been successful when trying to go further. Google sites despite being useful and powerful only meet a small part of people’s need and the “Wave” experiment…was only an experiment. Too early, too improvable, too powerful but too ununderstood…Wave was “too” too many things and Google decided to kill it instead of improving it. But it’s sure that they learnt a lot from Wave when they started working on Google +

Hence the reflex of positioning Google plus as Google’s Trojan on the enterprise social software market, on the enterprise social network part. But Google plus has nothing of an enterprise social network platform. It’s not a social network in the strict meaning of the word because it does not allow to validate the link between two people in an explicit way. You’re in my circle(s), I’m in yours but it doesn’t mean anything more. This is way even Twitter founder’s once said that Twitter was not a social network…even if it’s easier to consider it as such. It’s not either an enterprise social network because it’s functionalities are too light. Of course, integration with Google apps can solve a part of the problem but not the whole problem. Groups and communities also lack for an enterprise use.

Making the most of key resources in collaboration

September 22, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

Summary : tomorrow’s organization will be connected and communicative. This is the only way to success in the knowledge economy. But communication and exchange, which are essential foundations for collaboration, need a sender and a receiver who mobilize their attention. But attention, more than time, is the scarce productive ressource which use has to be optimized. In the end, if everyone makes the most of the system in one’s own interest, the whole organization may become paralyzed. Solutions exist and suppose more accessible business tools, information filtering based on context and better education and training.

Whatever the organizational structure is, top-down, networked, push, pull etc… there’s always a constant concern : optimizing the use of resources. Said in other words : “get the maximum by spending the minimum”, “prevent productive potential wasting”.

In this productivity driven view, people see time as being the limiting factor. That’s, right…at least in a system based on repetitive tasks and involving few knowledge if any. But this assumption becomes wrong in a knowledge economy where time is not a relevant productivity indicator at all because individual production is not linear or constant anymore. And not individual either by the way. In this context, the limiting factor is attention, which could be defined as qualified time, a subdivision of time. That’s the time dedicated to do/deal with/process something, being focused on it (by the way it would be interesting to start a discussion on what attention at work is….to find a less shoddy definition than this one).

So attention is the scarce resource which use has to be optimized.

But we know than nobody can be focused, attentive, 8 hours a day. A least not 8 hours in a row. That’s, in fact, a reason why the barrier between personal and professional time is blurring.

One of the best way to avoid productive time wasting is not to make sure everyone is checking in the office at the right time but to make work tools available when and where attention is maximal. Note that attention is not always the result of a voluntary action. Who did never have a brilliant idea about a business concerns at night, on vacation or during a week end…and lost it because he was not empowered to work or share it at the very moment when it came ? Moment when one’s mind shifted to a business focus unpurposely on a non dedicated time ?

Another way is to avoid disruptive elements that come and interrupt employees in an “attention phase”. These elements are well known : untimely email reception as well as any incoming signal that grab attention and force to refocus after : instant messaging, phone calls or social media. There’s an easy solution being used by many people : disconnecting from everything. But disconnection has risks : not being able to communicate with people who can help, not receiving the information that would help to solve a problem. The notion of context that helps filtering the available information and, most of all, the information being pushed at a given moment is essential and will play a key role in tomorrow’s business applications.

Then after, there’s the need to master the human factor. As a matter of fact, these signals don’t fall from the sky : they’re sent by people. That’s the paradox of the new coming forms of organizations. If each person makes the most of his ability to share, alert and mobilize others, the situation will look like a tragedy of the commons applied to attention. If each person makes the most of other’s attention in his own interest, the collective result will be horrendous because no one will have enough attention left to do his own work. This issue is fare from being the easier to solve.

Of course, specific education and training will be needed to make people aware of the attention paradigm and what a wise use of people’s attention means (using any communication channel is using others’ attention by the way). But is this a risk for weak signals and serendipity which are essential in agile, networked and “pull” organization ?

The result will surely be a mix of all these solutions…but is still unclear…and far.

Anyway, if organizations need to become (over ?) connected and communicative, they’ll need mechanisms that will prevent these skills from backfiring and avoid the paradoxical trap according to which when everyone makes the most of the system, the organization as a whole will suffer from it.

Filed Under: Economy & New Models, Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Knowledge & Information management, Management & HR, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: analytics, attention, collaboration, context, email, filter, filtering, information, instant messaging, knowledge, productivity, pull, search, search engines, sharing, time, tragedy of the commons

First steps with Google + : a not that social broadcasting tool

September 9, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : Google + burst into our lives with a lot of noise. This omnipotent killer application is supposed to revolutionize our tools and usage and, incidentally, give its competitors the kiss of death. But what’s really happening ? Behind a sober and exemplary user interface, a tool with an impressive interface even if it’s still in its early days. But there’s still a lot to be done before it becomes adult. The power of circles won’t be enough to hide the lack of a true community side, the absence of an API makes it hard to integrate in an already busy social context. As for guessing whether it can become an enterprise or not…the road is both long and unclear. In the end, Google + as it is today comes one year too late and it needs many lacks to be fixed before being seen as the tool of the future, despite an impressive potential. Google + may be a future rockstar…if its manager makes the right decision.

I’m very late at writing this post but it’s hard to judge a new tool in a couple a day, most of all when it’s a beta that may be quickly improved. Most of all, in the first days we all look to new applications either with lovers eyes or with rejection. So waiting a little to calm down is necessary.

I will start with a warning. Social as it is, any tool depends on each user’s context and needs. In other words, I’ll refer to my own experience and context and I’m not pretending that what is true for me will be true for anyone.

1°) Fluidity, soberness, efficiency

At first sight, Google + makes a very good first impression. We’ll discuss the possible future of the tool in the enterprise in another post but one things is sure : many major vendors should have a look at Google +’ interface. Sober design easy to access and understand functionalities, using Google + is a smoot and pleasant experience. Obviously, they have learnt a lot from Google Wave.

2°) The concept ? Nothing new !

To explain Google plus in a few words, I’d say that it’s halfway between a blog and a microblogging tool, that any entry is shared either publicly or with a group of people (gathered into “circles” or with only one person. Much more powerful that many tools Google plus competes with. But…

A couple of years ago, at the prehistoric age of social software, someone told me about a kind of personal notepad where each entry could be shared with on person, one or several communities. Unity for the author, granularity for the audience. It happened in the last days of 2005…was working well and is still working. It has a name : blueKiwi (many tools have adopted the same logic until then). Sincerely I could not refrain from laughing the first time I tried Google Plus, telling to myself : “Ah…with all their money and resources, 20% of employees’ time dedicated to innovation…it took them 6 years to reinvent blueKiwi and others…Congrats guys!”.

Ok. What makes the difference is circles.

3°) Circles are not communities and Google + is not social

Generally, social tools allow to address people or groups of people (often called communities). Groups or communities mean that any member is able to speak and start a discussion and not only answer to what someone else has said…which is the case for circles in Google Plus. For example, I can share something with a circle named “enterprise 2.0″ and the people in this circle will be able to answer and join the discussion. But if anyone wants to share something with the same circle, he should put it in the current thread of clone my circle…what is not possible as I write (except manually….good luck).

Considering the “people/user-centric” logic of the tool, that seems more the consequence of the logic than a lack or a mistake. But I’m not sure it will cover all the usages people are used to.

So, Google + looks more like tool designed for mass or targeted broadcasting than a social tool in the usual meaning of the word, with a community dimension. Receivers are quite passive and should stay in the place and role the senders decide.

A zero-email organization ? Please be serious…

February 18, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 6 Comments

There’s not a person who’s not aware of the current limits of email and the fact it has become a factor that limits employees performance. But very few really try deal with this issue once and for all. Among those who dare we can mention Atos Origin that want to become an emai free organization in three years and switch to social networking solutions. Visionaries ? Fools ? Either one or the other depending on how this revolution will be thought. Migrating flows from one environment to the other won’t solve all the problems that employees face and can even generate more complexity. Rethinking the nature of email and the needs in terms of actions and interactions to rationalize it all makes more sense but will need a deep and ambitious work on IT architecture. Social networks won’t replace email in the workplace but they are a first step towards an intelligent social messaging that takes into account all the things employees need and make, finally, tool serve people instead of people serve tools.

A few weeks ago Atos Origin hit the frontline of many sites and blogs, announcing their plan to become an email-free organization in three years and make activities move to social networks. Such a declaration had at least a first positive effect : lots of people talked about it. Either enterprise social software zealots or skeptics who find the idea ridiculous paid attention to it. Now, let’s try to understand what moving from email is about with a little hindsight.

First thing : is it possible to live without email ?

I think so. If I have a look at my mailbox, there are less than 10 valuable emails (worth being read or needing an action from me) every day. Some people, in fact, already managed to get rid of email. My good friend Luis Suarez has been working on what he calls “email starvation” for three years without any downside in his work. I even guess his productivity increaded. Since he’s a remote worker for a very large organization we may think that doing so may be have been something very difficult for him. But he did it.

But we should not forget what lies behind such an impressive achievement :

- a tough personal discipline and enough abnegation to spend energy to educate customers and co-workers every day.

- an employer that provides him with the right tools to avoid the email curse and manage his internal and external information flows efficiently.

In my point of view the concept of flow is essential here. Moving away from email is not enough to decrease the amount of information to be dealt with. In fact, it will move to another place and be even more broken up. So the result would even look like a regression. We should stop thinking about email as a tool that’s used to send electronic mails but think about its new nature.

There are two different things here. First the information, second the signal that tells us the information is available. The first can be hosted anywhere depending on its nature. A social media but also a traditional business application. It can be shared or not, it’s possible to react to it or interact around it in a structured, capitalizable and intelligible way, privately, publicly or for a selected audience.

Then there’s the signal. It allows us to read the information, access it, process it in one click.

In comparison with what we know today, we have to change our paradigm :

- stop considering information regarding to its nature, where it was generated or stocked (mail, excel sheet, word document, CRM report) what causes application silos that make no sense. What qualifies information is its relevance, not its source. Today, we switch from a tool to another depending on the source.

- make any application able to generate a signal, all the signals being gathered in a single recipient. That’s not email as we knowi it but the new nature of email. It receives all signals that are sent to us, and its name does not matter.

- then, in the recipient, prioritize and filter information regarding to our criteria. Ideally, depending on these criteria and, possibility, on an intelligent analysis based on our history, we get a relevant and expurgated view of information. That improves the noise/signal ration. It also helps to distinguish the information that should be pushed to us from what has only to be accessible in case of need without bothering our instant flow.

- last, we have to make this information actionable in the recipient. Answer if it’s an email, share the content of the message in another app (for instance a CRM chart in a workgroup or community), act (approve a request in a workflow), answer (to a comment, something posted in a community). Il should all be possible without leaving the tool, breaking people flow of work, without asking employees to act as middleware.

- of course, the social tools used in this context can be used in secured bubbles with people who don’t belong to the enterprise.

Let’s go back to our “move from email to social networks” problematic. Social networks are a part of a new architecture of the information system that won’t kill email but will make it ready for the XXIst century, turning it into a social messaging or social signal system. But thinking that a migration of flows from one to another without a more global vision is at least unrealistic and can, at worse, lead to a catastrophe.

As a matter of fact it would be like misjudging all the traditional enterprise applications. It would also create a social bubble with no connection with flows of work and documents. The future of email is in an abstraction layer that socializes and standardizes the whole IS, regardless to the nature and the origin of each component.

Google wave has this in its DNA. Maybe this ambition will become a reality with Novell Pulse that relies on its technology. There are lots of things at IBM too as I saw during last Lotusphere. The “Social Business Framework” topped with “Project Vulcain” as a standardization layer seems to be going in the right direction.

We also have to mention Tibbr that looks very promising but which success will depend on whether organization will really want to integrate flows or not. Other ideas ?

One thing is sure : in three years we’ll learn a lot from Atos Origine experience. In any sense.

PS : this is the “tool” part of the vision. It’s obvious that it makes no sense without a usage driven approach that will transform the way work is done.

Filed Under: Management & HR, Software & Tools Tagged With: activity stream, Atos Origin, collaboration, email, enterprise social networks, flows, google wave, intgration, middleware, novell pulse, project vulcan, social business framework, social messaging, social networks, stream, tibbr

Information security is too serious to be entrusted to IT people

September 24, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : I recently read a survey about the dangerosity of social networks regarding to information leak, relying on the observation of a representative group of people. That’s a hasity concusion : it only proves that information security is not only a matter of technology but of usages, behaviors, a dimension that IT departements still barely master because they consider the issue from a technological standpoint. As an evidence, it seems that IT people are those who are the most likely to have dangerous behaviors, maybe because they only consider the technological side of the problem and overlook the behavioral one.

Recently I found a study about the dangerosity of some tools considering information leak. It says that email is the first cause of leaks (but is it a surprise) and that social networks are becoming a growing cause of such issues, what is not surprising because as they’re becoming more and more popular the risk is growing proportionally.

When I’m asked my opinion, my answer is always the same : no tool is dangerous by itself. It’s usage can be. Said differently : an irresponsible person is dangerous with any communication tool, even a homing pigeon. And the best way to fight irresponsibily is education, not interdiction. As a matter of fact when people are prohibited doing something without being educated, they send their time cheating with the system what may cause even more problems.

This study won’t make me change my mind. The way it was conducted is quite interesting :

The study sample group included 2,000 users from all over the world registered on one of the most popular social networks. These users were randomly chosen in order to cover different aspects: sex (1,000 females, 1,000 males), age (the sample ranged from 17 to 65 years with a mean age of 27.3 years), professional affiliation, interests etc. In the first step, the users were only requested to add the unknown test profile as their friend, while in the second step several conversations with randomly selected users aimed to determine what kind of details they would disclose.

The study showed:

More than 86 percent of the users who accepted the test-profile’s friend request work in the IT industry, of which 31 percent work in IT Security
The most frequent reason for accepting the test profile’s friend request was her “lovely face” (53 percent)
After a half an hour conversation, 10 percent disclosed personal sensitive information, such as: address, phone number, mother’s and father’s name, etc – information usually requested as answers to password recovery questions
Two hours later, 73 percent siphoned what appears to be confidential information from their workplace, such as future strategies, plans, as well as unreleased technologies/software

Some points to notice.

- some people accept a friend reques from an unknown person. It confirms my assumption. The problem is about people and the way their awareness about this kind of issue has been raised. There are two options. Either they would do exactly the same if they bumped into this nice looking girl in a bar and a full education program has to be implemented across the orgation or the fact they are online makes them lose their common sense and they have to be taught than the web is like real life : don’t follow a stranger.

Let me add that we already have more dangerous tools than social networks : familiy lunches, parties with friends and colleagues have been perfect situations for information leak for ages. I don’t even mention discussions in trains, people you can read their laptop screen when seated next to them etc…

- IT people are even more dangerous than others. Of course because they only see things through a technological point of view and only consider technological responses. A secured tool can be real strainer if people don’t use it well. Non IT people perceive the risk through a behavioral point of view, they analyze the nature of the context and of the relationship and may be more mistrustful.

Conclusion : anything that has to do with information security is not only a matter of technology and IT people may not be the best to handle the whole problem. Security is about technology and behaviors, this second point needing a specific program to be approached.

A last example. What’s better ? An employee who’s aware of dangers and uses Facebook or a non aware employee that can’t use facebook at work but uses it on mobile and at home ? The second is made harmless while he’s in the office but will be dangerous when he’s outside unless he’s educated.

Of course, pushing the “off” buttion is easier than implementing an awareness program. But it doesn’t solve everything.

Filed Under: Management & HR, Software & Tools Tagged With: behaviors, email, information, security, social networks, Software & Tools, usages

Separation between personal and professional time dies hard

September 9, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

Summary : we’re being told that the frontier between personal and professional is bluring, that ubiquitous tools are going to make it deprecated. We’re also told that that it’s a very good thing because more and more employees are demanding it, not mentioning young generations for whom this separation seem to date from the last century. In fact the problem is deeper : albeit anyone want to be able to act anytime very few people want to be the subject or the receiver of any action on what they consider as private moments. And that changes everything…and can contribute to deterioriate human relationships in the workplace if no one takes care.

The fact that the frontier between the time dedicated to personal live and the time dedicated to personal live is slowly disappeating. I’m talling about time, not about the content of these two sides of one’s lifes, what is another kind of debate.

What is indisputable is that the nature of time has no link with places anymore : people can work from home, from any location in fact, as they can take benefit of their lunch break to deal with personnal issues while they’re at the office.

Another indisputable thing is that with the evolution of mobile devices, the work environment is becoming ubiquitous. In fact, saying it can becom would be closer to reality and, paradoxically, it seems that employee’s expectations in this field are far from being met by what enterprises deliver.

Then, it’s said that an unavoidable cultural evolution makes people, more precisely younger ones, feel that the separation between professional and personal times is artificial and want to be able to manage their time as they want. Who did never find reassuring to be able to say ”ok…enough for today, I’ll finish this emails this weekend” or “anyway, I’ll be able to react remotely if needed”.

But when we dig further, things are far from being that obvious. Albeit the frontier is not as tight as it was, it’s not being broken down either. If fact it’s a one-way change.

There’s a kind of schiziphrenia between what’s seen as an ease (being able to do something out of one’s worktime to be more flexible or responsibe) and what is seen as an intrusion in one’s life (receiving an email or any kind of request while not supposed to be working).

There are three situations :

- finishing one’s work or doing some in advance : one send an email, share something in a collaborative space. There’s not expectation to get any reaction before people are back to work.

- one faces an emergency situation : one send something and expects a reaction. Two means : email or instant messaging. At the other end, the recipient may be offline or do as if he did not noticed…

- the misunderstanding : someone does something on a saturday, thinking no one will react before monday but that, at least, that’s done. At the other end, someone feels he have to react and do something because the other has… What what not the purpose of the original sender.

The issue is not with mixing times but with intrusion and constraints. As long as it’s about asynchronous collaborative tools things can be managed, but when a message or an alert is sent that may cause many problems. And who says exchang means that there are at least two people involved.

Conclusion ?

- don’t take everything we’re told for holy truth.

- favor asynchronous collaborative spaces so the freedom of some won’t threaten other’s privacy.

- collectively bild a policy if not rules within teams because that’s not about a sum of individual preferences but a global mechanism. When one starts, another feels he has to do the same…and so on even if it’s not an obligation.

Anyway, things have to be clarified because misunderstandings may quicly make the atmosphere strained and negatively impact some employee’s self-balance.

Filed Under: Management & HR, Software & Tools Tagged With: collaboration, email, Human resources, management, privacy, private life, stress

Is workload measurement the problem of the century ?

January 14, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 10 Comments

Optimizing workload has always been a key concern for businesses and managers. A too heavy workload regarding to the capacity leads to explosion, a too low workload means resources are wasted. I don’t even mention last minute assignments to face imponderables. In brief, bad adjustments have an heavy price.

In a manufacturing economy things are more or less easy to manage. The capacity of a machine or the impact of bottlenecks on an assembly line are known facts. As for people accomplishing standardized tasks in such a context, the time needed to execute a precise task at a given level of quality is known too. When imponderables come, it’s easy to identify if an added production capacity is available since the maximal and actual workload are known facts too for machines. As for people, a glance at their work-in-progress is sometimes enough to evaluate the sitation. In short, in a tangible production system, it’s easy to know the sitation at a given moment and what’s the safety margin (if any). More, the situation can even sometimes be assessed by having a look around.

The move toward an intangible economy makes things more complicated. First because things are less and less linear and setting an optimized production planning that matches reality is a very difficult task, if not impossible. Tasks become problems to solve, solutions to find and if average durations can be calculated afterwards, making it a priori as a forecast looks like accomplishing a miracle. More, talking about knowledge work, notions like quantity and quality are closer than ever. That’s for what’s foreseeable (or looks like) and it’s even worse for unforseeable things.

This is a problem that’s both about production performance and management. In this problematic, our modern tools, even if they are a part of the solution are also the cause of new issues that are far from being trivial. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: email, enterprise social networks, human reources, indicators, information overload, management, marketplaces, productivity, quality, real time, social networks, workload

Email, hamsters and bottlenecks

August 14, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

A few weeks ago, I was a part of a panel intiatied by Yann Gourvennec, with Vincent Berthelot and Emilie Ogez. At the beginning there was a book , The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You that caught Yann’s attention. So he gathered a few “experts” in order to discuss some of the traditional email related issues. I’m not sure sharing the video is very useful since it’s all in French without subtitles, but I’ll take advantage of it to explain some of my thoughts, what we said and what we didn’t say..

So let’s start.

[Read more...]