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blueKiwi : the good use of conversations

February 19, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

The last “Virtual Enterpise 2.0 conference” was a good opportunity to visit some vendor’s booth to know what to expect from them in 2010. I finally had a look at blueKiwi to see what was new at our European leader.

[Disclaimer..: I joined blueKiwi at the versy beginning of the company and left in last décember. I don't have any kind of stake in the company anymore]

Since of my most important rules is “never trust a sales guy” I quickly left the tchat to start a skype conversation with CEO Carlos Diaz (sometimes being an alumni helps…). A good way to know more about the news, share some thoughts and try to guess what was not offically announced.

• New positionning

You may rember my last post about conversations, their potential and their limits in a business context. Carlos intuitively got the distinction and aligned his strategy with the product’s DNA : conversations and communities.

If I had to define the “new blueKiwi” I’d say it’s a “space for engagement and sourcing”. It addresses the need to get the most of what employees can give beyond their assignments and, most of all, the need to gather an ecosystem that includes clients either in B2B or B2C. A space that’s not dedicated to execution activities but to conversations that makes tomorrow’s proudcts and business models emerge while strengthening the relationship between the enterprise and the ecosystem for a long term value creation.

This distinction is more than words. In my opinion there’s no “one and only enterprise 2.0″, each need, each business line may need a specific approach in terms of tools, methodology in order to harness the full potential of the ecosystem. And a clear positionning is needed to achieve that.

So let’s check how the discourse impacts the facts.

Stop saying nonsenses about Facebook and productivity

September 3, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

One day we can read that using Facebook at work increases productivity by 9%. The day after we ear that it decreases by 1,5%. Depending on people’s interest, sometimes a liberal attitude is promoted, sometimes a total ban, sometimes an internal placebo made of home-mades facebook-likes intranet. This is only my own opinion but I’d like to share it : the best way to use such surveys is to…throw them into the trask and never listen to any (disinterested) conclusion that can be drawn from them.

First I’d like to know how Facebokk’s users productivity is measured against those who don’t use it in the workplace. This means two things : those who use it at home can get benefits they’ll use once in the workplace. And vice-versa. And conversely. The second is how we know some use it and when ? Of course the IT dept can track such things, but what about mobile use on iPhone or BlackBerry ? Last, I’d like to understand what “productivity” exactly means. It’s easy to undersand what it mean on an assembly line, less in office work. Ok, the final result may be measured, but what about intermediate indicators ? Admitting that productivity is the right word, it does not take into account something that is key in the modern economy : the accumulation of knowledge at a M moment that makes someone more productive at a M’ moment. Unlike M. Taylor’s time, productivity is not an instant measurement and being less productive at a given moment helps being more productive later. For some people, Facebook may contribute to the accumulation of knwoledge.

I’d also like to point at another issue : numbers only say what you want them to say. If any service or department is underutilized, employees are obviously unproductive. Maybe that’s the reason way they use facebook in the workplace. There are many things to see about how to deal with such causality chains.

To end, we have to consider two situations : when Facebook is a work tool and when it’s not.

No enterprise 2.0 without professionalizing web 2.0

March 3, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

One of the most common barriers to enterprise 2.0 is web 2.0 itself. Many decision makers, when they start their benchmark, logically look at what happens on the web. Some rely on their own experience, some discover a world that’s really new to them, sometimes without understanding it.

This causes issues on two points of the transformation process :

• decision making : when they have to decide whether to launch a social media project and even if they caught the organizational issues that comes before tools, decision makers think of people telling their lives on facebook, “poke” their friends, play vampires against zombies. They think about the links to funny videos his friends send to him and the conversations on his son’s blog’s comment. They think about those who are looking for someone to lunch with is such district, complain about noisy neighbours or the mediocrity of the TV show they’re watching and share their thoughts in real time on twitter.

If they don’t take any distance, this is what they will have in their mind when they will make their decision.

• deployment : deploying a tool is one thing, but the purpose is to improve performance so to make it used for the right reasons. “Share, collaborate and connect” makes no sense for users. Behaviors that can be seen on the web need to be translated in concrete words in their day to day work context. Beforehand it helps the leaders to vizualive what they are heading to (it’s neither obvious nor unnecessery), down the line it helps users to understand clearly what they are expected to do.

Whatever, a translation of general public usages into business behaviors is needed.

Examples :

• Find one’s college classmates on facebook : search the intranet to find people one doesn’t know yet but that can solve one’s problems. (Need to turn declarative networks in analytic ones).

• Twit one missed the train this morning : mobilize available resources for a true urgency.

• Become “fan of” on Facebook : mobilize people who have a shared interest on a given topic and help them sharing their work, their thoughts in order to achieve their goals faster.

• fill in your facebook profile with your interests and hobbies : make it possible for anybody to know what are your competences, experiences, expertises. Possibly let people to “back” what you say by confirming it.

• Tell your life on your blog : debrief your last mission, your last “win”, in order to share your best practices…or call for help.

• Update your status : say what you’re working on, what you need.

• Vote for a content : help what makes sense for staff at a given moment emerge.

• Comment to say “I agree”, “Cool” : do your management job, teach by the example, encourage / congratulate people.

Other ideas ?

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: Enterprise 2.0, facebook, management, professionalization, social media, usages, web-2.0

What kind of social networks do companies need ?

February 4, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Need for synergies, for connections, to do more with less ? Whatever the official reason is (and sometimes the unofficial one), companies are now turning back to the gool old network, renamed “social network” to stick to the the current climate, to find new pools of performance.

Because companies focus on efficiency, people’s network is not a collection a business cards lying about in a drawer. More, it’s more usual to collect external’s business cards than colleagues’s. The network got “webized” and companies are wondering of to professionalize a Facebook, internalize a LinkedIn. So social networks becomes entreprise-class applications, specialists quickly took a stand, traditionnal vendors tryid to add a “network” thing here and there. The fact remains that, behind an unique word and a sotfware feature hide many realities which embody the many visions company may have of social network. To make it short the question is : what is the useful kind of networks for a bsiness. According to PWC the future is “business networks”. But what are they ?

My point here is not to discuss what a network is. I’m convinced there is no generic and ideal form of network and that we need to adapt the one that matches our needs to our purposes.

Seen, read, heard this week #1

November 30, 2008 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

A new column that will be weekly…or not. Will last..or not. Sometimes I read, hear, see things that are not worth a post but that I feel like sharing like I would do at the cofee machine, around a drink or a lunch…

Heard during a conversation

• “Since they are not provided with the tools they need, some of our employees use Facebook groups to share informations and documents. And when it’s about docs whose addressee is the CEO…”. Anonymous.

• “We dematerialized a 25 steps process. After eliminating from it people whose job was to pick up information and transmit it For Information only 2 steps remained.”. Anonymous.

• “Share value droped…but there are more terrible things in the world”. Franck Riboud (Danone’s CEO) at Danone Explorers. Was he thinking about other companies that are in a more dangerous situation, or perhaps his thought were still in Bengladesh for this project he just talked about and enlighten Danone’s people face every time they mention it. Perhaps it’s the “dual project” effect that, when times are bad, makes people proud of the way they do business ?

• “managers don’t have time to make their team progress nor to network. Worse, as time passes by, they forget it’s a part of their job and they don’t bring the added value they were hired for”. A consultant / professor.

• “None of our High PotentiaIs want to work for our IT dept”. Anonymous. At first glance it may sound funny, but with a little distance it’s scaring.

• “Most of time, true entrepreneurs are very bad managers and good managers are very bad entrepreneurs. But it’s logical”. A friend.

Seen

• Wikinomics will become a film. It’s called Us Now.

Read

• I’m reading Goldratt’s “The Goal” for the umpteenth time and I still find many precious things in. It also gave me an idea…something I want to explore under the form of a conversation in this blog. Wait and see..

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: danone, dematerialization, facebook, franck riboud, goldratt, management, process, wikinomics

Everything and its opposite about using social networks at the office

June 24, 2008 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

This week again the squabble about “pro or against using social networks at work” delivered some new arguments. While CNN was telling us using social networks at work could bring some benefits, the Confederation of British Industry ways saying exactly the opposite, stating it makes companies loose billions.

What’s the truth, if there’s any ?

Social networks ban hyprocrisis while email costs $650 billion per year

March 22, 2008 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

There’s not a month without the publication of new statistics about losses due the use of social networks by employees. We have to b e very cautions with such datas.

First because the only thing we can calculate is the ration between the connection lenght and the hourly cost of the employee, that’s nothing tangible. That’s assuming people who connect to social networks don’t work just when they’re real business tools for most of us. Business opportunities don’t happen, people can’t learn, people can’t benchmark if walls are built around them.

Second because we only know the connection time. I open facebook at 9.00 AM, I stop using it at 9.05 and I turn my computer off at 8.00 PM. This means I spent 11 hours connected for only 5 minutes of effective use.

Third, because we can wonder if the need for going out of the organization’s perimeter to have certain interactions is not due to the fact the kind of tools that support those interactions aren’t available inside the organization.

While focusing on social networks, companies don’t pay any attention to the losses generated by business tools that are not relevant to some kind of activities or are not wisely used. Luckily, some do. In San Francisco, the Churchill Club named email “2008 problem of the year”. Let’s add that, as a “corporate provided business tool” email seems to be more “respectable” for those who fight against social networks even if its impact on productivity is more dramatic that all the facebooks of the world ! Perhaps because employees really suffer from spam campaigns within the organization, whose responsible are precisely those who “care” about their productivity !

Filed Under: Management & HR, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: churchill club, email, facebook, productivity, Social Networking, social-software, spam

Web 2.0 is knocking on French companies’ doors

February 20, 2008 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 2 Comments

A few words about a recentTNS Sofres survey about the use of web 2.0 in France and user’s expectations.

Just one thing to take into consideration : the following numbers are about web 2.0 users in France that’s to say, according to the survey, 58% of the population. I think it’s even more : people who are “in” can tell they use web 2.0 tools but I think many people use them without knowing whether they use web 2.0 or not.

To make it short, 76 % (out of the 58%) want their companies to create blogs in order they may express themselves. I’d like to know what they mean : do they mean blogging on the internet or on the intranet ?

I also wonder about their purpose. Express themselves…but about what ? I’d like the question to be asked : just to communicate or to work more efficiently ? Perhaps it’s not the question, employees will surely take the most of better information fluidity and transversality and develop suitable practices if it makes things easier for them, thats to say, in a politically correct way, improve their productivity (doing the same amount of work with less efforts).

Also interesting, 74% think their company should join the discussions on the internet where people talk about it. It suggests me two things : first they like their company more than usually thought since they want it to defend itself, second that in people’s minds the frontier between inside and outside the enterprise is clearly disappearing. One more thing : french companies are more and more comfortable with using blogs to sell products but very few use this mean to sell themselves, but the best way to join a discussion is to have also its own voice. Perhaps this trend that’s seems much more developed in the US will soon become more common in France .

Last point, 41% would like their company to create employee’s communities on facebook. I’m very cautious about that. I’m not sure facebook is the perfect tool for working (sorry to spoil the fun but the purpose is to make work more efficient…even if we also try to make it more pleasant). Sure it’s an efficient tool to discover what social networks are and how to behave on it, but there are many tools that seem more relevant when considering business communities. Anyway, perhaps if they ask for facebook communities it’s because they don’t know about enterprise social software which may be more acceptable for their IT department. One more thing : using blogs to promote a product on the web and using blog within the company are not the same things, they use different levers and you don’t need the same competences for each of them. Choose wisely the people you’ll ask to help you… Remember the enterprise is not the web and your people are employees before being bloggers !

Whatever, it’s more than an emerging trend. It’s not a challenge for tomorrow but a present issue.

Surprised ? What say you ?