Why prediction markets have no success in France (and maybe elsewhere…)

March 19, 2010 By 1 Comment

When I talk about enterprise 2.0 with people, they often say things about blogs, wikis, social networks etc… When I say “prediction markets” they look at we with flabbergasted eyes. I find very surprising that while it’s always mentioned as being a part of the enterprise 2.0 field on many other countries, it’s never mentioned in discussions here.

If you don’t know what it’s about, let’s start with a quick look at the definition.

That’s nothing more than giving virtual tokens to people and ask them to place bets on questions like “what product of ours will have the biggest success next year” or “what part of the IT budget will be allocated to social networks…” etc. It may involve employees or even customers. Obviously many businesses are convinced of the benefits of prediction market overseas.

Experience shows that the results are as least as reliable as those obtained with methods that need much more time and are more expensive.

So I started wondering why it’s unrecognized in France

The idea that spontaneously comes to my mind is that it’s not compliant with our culture.

First, the idea of betting, with its fun and money game connotation, may be not accepted in workplaces where pleasure, fun and work can’t go together and where a shared belief is that when something looks fun it can’t be professional or serious.

Imagine employees betting against the success of a product, the ability to deliver a project at the due date ? On the one hand these people are closer to the customer, to reality, and they are often the best to guess what will work or not. On the other hand it means they don’t believe in what very important people in the organization decided and that does not look “corporately serious”.

Some french companies pay attention to crowdsourcing, what may invalidate my point. But discussing is one thing, placing bets like in a casino is another.

More, discussions brings feelings, ideas. Prediction markets brings numbers, and numbers are serious things. So anybody should not be able to impact them.

Can you see other reasons ? Maybe you know french companies that use prediction markets and that went under my radar ? Or maybe you know other countries where it works / doesn’t work ?

Tell me…

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , ,

Networking and collaboration : is enterprise a land of trust or distrust ?

February 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I recently wrote that it what obvious to me that for many people some activities and behaviors had to remain in their private sphere and, that social networking and everything that comes with is not a part of what they naturally want to transpose in the workplace. I also temperated my words saying that, of course, generation and local culture factors had to be taken into account. But, according to the last discussions I had with people from all around the world, the gap between some european countries and the anglo-saxon world is more than a supposition.

Luck made me come across a Microsoft survey[fr] since then. What does it say ?

The survey shows that the French are attached to preserving a clear boundary between their personal and professionallives : with 86% respondants, French are,by far those who want to differenciate their online profile from their professional one. 61% do it systematically.

The whole survey is available  here en english.

The survey also tells us, what may seem paradoxical, that the French are those who think the less than their online activities will affect their professional lives. Why ?

France is the outlier. French respondents reported being less concerned than other groups, and study findings suggest two key reasons for this. First, the data suggests that the French do not rely as heavily on online information to make either social or professional judgments about others. Second, data shows that the French are considerably more proactive in monitoring and managing their reputations and have, therefore, less to be concerned about.

In short, we care so much about the informations that may exist about us that we are sure (and maybe we’re wrong) that nothing that is left online can be harmful to us.

Two obvious conclusions have to be made ad this point :

• Strict separation bewteen personal and professional lives. Question : does it only concern informations or the related behaviors too ?

• We do our possible that the informations that can be found online about us would not help anyone to judge us. Question : do we transpose this behavior in the workplace ?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Enterprise 2.0 : is there a French specificity ?

September 29, 2009 By 4 Comments

I will soon be a part of a chat within the context of the upcomming enterprise 2.0 summit.The focus will be on national specificities regarding to enterprise 2.0 adoption. Intuitively we know that things should be done differently whether you have to deal with, american, french, german, italian people.. But, concretely, what does it mean ? How does it impact the projects, their success, failure ? And does it have any impact at all ?

That’s what we’ll discuss in the chat. Since one is always limited by his own knowledge and experience, I’d like to have as many feedbacks and thoughts and that’s why I’d like you to share your opinion with me. It will be interesting to gather opinions from foreign people to have external point of views and benefit from their insights about what they experience in their own country.

Some takes in a jumbe (personal thoughts and things heard) :

- be careful about clichés : the same problems happen everywhere…it’s only a matter of intensituy

- french companies are very rigid and hierarchical. Is it that true ?

- there is less engagement and corporate culture is weaker here, what prevents us from succeeding in participative dynamics. A strong distrust culture toward employers ?

- since french people are less respectful toward rules, they are used to do their own informal cooking to counterbalance the hierarchical weight. They’re happy like that and don’t want the enterprise to join them in the kitchen.

- french businesses are very “politic”. Even is something has a good impact on business, their are lots of power games and personal (ego ?) issues at stake. (But isn’t it the same in all large businesses in the world ?)

- french companies are overcautious, always making small steps, what does not help to demonstrate the value of something that needs a critical mass of people (pilots’ size seems to be dramatically different here and in the US for instance).

- we are impervious to the “try and see” culture.

- the word “social” makes execs feel sick

- we have a social culture that makes people aware of anything employees driven mass phenomenon.

- we are very wise and let others experiment on our behalf.

What do you think ? Does it match your own experience ? And how are things doing in your own country ?

entreprise 2.0,france,culture,adoption,changement

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business Tagged With: , , , ,