Social Networks | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

Social networks and recruitment 2.0 : does it work well ?

September 1, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : Mixed results make people wonder on the relevance of social networks as recruitment tools. It all depends on what one mean by recruiment, because if it’s easy to measure the transactional side, recruitment processes are much broader and are made of diverse elements that can use social networks as catalysts. For reasons due to the job profile, the volume of people to hire or the scalability of the system, social networks won’t always be the right tool to recruit in the strict sense of the the word. But if we take all non-transactional activities into account (such as HR marketing), these tools can act like a process booster and also impact the quality of the final result. But businesses need to consider a broader range of activities and not focus on the number of people hired depending on the media.

A couple of weeks ago, french HR blogger Jean-Noël Chaintreuil wrote on the poorly kepts promise of social networks as a recruitment tool. Did we get it all wrong ? Not a all. First, we need to know what we’re talking about.

Recruitment. If, for many people that are not involved in HR activities, recruitment means placing an advertisement, having interviews and chosing the right person, it’s in fact, a much more complex process. It’s about defining the job, sourcing candidates, choosing the right ones. We can also all what has to do with employer branding that reinforce the attractiveness of the enterprise and the quality of applications (because people know more things about the enterprise, its culture and values..). And even if considered as another process, onboarding programs that will help new hires to be at their best and make their first steps easier are very close to recruitment. As a matter of fact, if we consider that the goal is not to recruit someone but someone who’ll stay and find his/her place in the organization, onboarding programs are an essential part of the recruitment process.

Recruitment 2.0. There’s nothing really new on the nature of recruitment but on execution. As usual, when something turns 2.0, it’s about a better (qualitative and quantitative) use of the knowledge and relational capital of all the stakeholders (including the candidate) to improve the bandwidth of the process and the quality of the result. It comes in many forms. First, finding the means to have a better knowledge of the other and let the other know who you are (employer and personal branding). It also implies a move from mass communication to conversation. Then, it’s about using networks to have “better” applications that fit both the need and the corporate culture as well as a better sourcing. Here, it’s about trust/reputation and the power of weak ties. At the selection level, there are also ways to make the person be chosen not only by his future manager but also the people he’ll work with. To end, new onboarding and immersion programs will complete the traditional mentoring by peers networks.

Obviously, lots of businesses did not wait for the 2.0 era to put some of these things at work. What has changed is that, to make things work on a wide scale, new tools were needed. As a matter of fact, talking about networks to use the available human capital and knowledge is nice but when one can access to few people and is limited to strong ties, the promise is hard to keep. What leads to the next point.

Social Networks. When talking about networks, knowledge and weak ties in 2011, things often come to social networks. But, if we look at the past, social networks are not the only tool that have been (and still are) used to meet recruitment and HR goals. When we started to work on recruitment 2.0 with a couple of french professionals in 2004/2005, the trending topic was blogging. At this moment, media paid a lot of attention to “these bloggers who foun a job because they were active on the web”. To be more precise, most of these people already had a job, bloggint only helped them to meet the people and networks that offered them more appealing jobs in enterprises that were really wanting them for what they were. Then came enterprise HR blogs and, only then, social networks like LinkedIn became mainstream. Today, people talk about Facebook or Twitter even if the latter is not even seen as a network by its founders and is rather about a branding and influence strategy as blogs were before. But, in the end, that’s the same because it all melts in a global strategy.

Now, what do we mean by “recruitment on social networks” ?

Enterprise social networks are not (only) corporate communication tools

July 19, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 5 Comments

Summary: social networks are great communication tools and that’s why many organization try to find them a place in their intranet landscape. This is sometimes confusing because they are not communication tools in the usual corporate meaning, do not support the same kinds of interactions and even not always the same people. In the end, communication teams feel uncomfortable, lost between the potential of the tool and their own stakes, a field where no compromise can be made. The solution is to be found in the articulation of the User Generated Content sphere and the corporate message one because, if mixing both can cause confusion and infefficacy, combining them allow interesting synergies within what is an intranet 2.0 that addresses without any compromises the needs of all stakeholders.

I’d like to say a few words about what seems to be one of the biggest misunderstandings about enterprise social networks : their part in the corporate communication field. Since social networks are communication tools and, as such, are often managed by the communication department, there are at least two reasons for organizations to try to use this pipe for their corporate communication. What is not always successful and causes headaches.

Let’s make some things clear before starting :

• Social networks are tool allowing communication, or rather exchanges, between employees. Ok, any CEO can have his blog on the network but it’s to have a more human voice and a less formal way of delivering his message and does not prevent the organization to keep a more formal way of doing things. The farer someone is from the top of the pyramid, the weaker the tie is between the media the person use and her position. Social networks are media for people and spread their voice regardless to their position. Proof : anyone can move to a new position and keep his media, even the CEO…

• Corporate communication is, by definition, a top-down activity that aims at evenly delivering the same message to a given population. What does not preclude to be able to start a discussion…or not.

In short, one is E2E (employee to employee) while the other is B2E (Business to employee). In the first case, people are speaking for themselves, in the other the enterprise is speaking, sometimes through someone’s voice. Even when someone speaks in the same of the enterprise because of his position, he gets the right to speak not from who he his but from the position he his while, on enterprise social networks people have the right to speak because they are employees.

Of course, corporate communication needs to become more human and conversational to improve engagement, to explain things, to get feedback… and so what ? The one does not preclude the other at all.

Enterprise social network : a famous stranger

May 17, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : enterprise social networks are the future of corporate IT, a tool overwhelmingly supported by employees because it will save them from email and favor the adoption of more efficient work practices. Sure ? Outside of a circle of initiated (that is growing everyday), except for people who are in charge of such programs in their organization, the words “social network” and “enterprise” seldom come together in many employees’ mind. And, when it happens, it’s more about Facebook and brand management than work efficiency. The reason ? Few people have tried to understand what it’s all about, personal usages are hard to transcribe in a work context to articulate a clear value proposition and the ubiquitous image of Facebook is a real burden.

I had recently the opportunity of talking with a small group of people who had one thing in common : their title started with either “chief” or “director”. Suddenly, one said the magic word : “social network”. All but one had an opinion, a question, something to share about this topic. Nothing surprising since social network has become a very trendy topics in organizations over the years.

And then…crash ! The star of the conversation quickly became facebook and the focus came on information leaks, lower productivity etc., to the surprise of the person who launched the conversation and thought it was obvious that everybody around the table knew this kind of thing. Obviously they didn’t. Surprisingly I was expecting this kind of reaction.

Enterprise social networks are a paradoxical topic. Of course, you, who read this blog, are well informed about that. Of course, you, who are in charge of deploying such a thing in your organization, know what an ESN is. Now, ask the question around you, to your friends, family etc.. I’m sure you’ll get lots of ideas, opinions or concerns about “enterprise and social networks”. But nothing “enterprise social networks”.

We have to admit that, outside of a circle of initiated people, social networks are seen as an entertaining tool, sometimes as a tool for marketing and communication. This article from French newspaper speaks for itself. It says that CHROs get social networks better and better. And what do they say to illustrate their thoughts ? Recruitment, employer brand, image and general public social networks. And yet HR should have many things to say on the potential (and risks) of internal social networks….

ESNs are far from having “killed their father” (Facebook…even if many ESN solutions were already existing when FB became mainstream and open to all).

Ok, anyone who talks with “real people” out of the echo chamber already knows that. But knowing the causes to deal with the issue more efficiently can be worth.

Is sanctuarizing social networks a palliative to lack of trust

April 26, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : one of the first concerns that come when deploying a social network is the fear that the freedom of speech and action allowed to employees will eventually backfire on them. Hence the idea of sancturarizing the social network in order to reassure employees who will know that things they could say or do won’t be used against them. At first sight it looks like a good ideas but it raises some questions tool. Does it mean they won’t be able to take advantage of their activity ? Making the network the only place where people won’t have to take responsibility of what they do, isn’t there a risk to dampen managers from using it as a work and productivity tool ? Should such a project take for granted the lack of trust between organizations and employees or, on the contrary, is it the right opportunity to work on restoring trust ?

When any organization thinks about deploying a social network, one the first questions tha comes when working on governance is about the use that could be made of what’s published in the network. At first sight that’ logical and even essential because of employees are not able to put at work what they learnt in the network, this last will have few value. But, in fact, this is not the matter. What matters is to know whether the organization will be able to use what employees did in the network to act toward them.

Toward ? I’d rather say against because the question behind is to protect employees from seeing their own words used against them. That’s a real stake. Knowing that participation relies only on people’s desire, having the feeling to be in the middle of a mine field don’t makes things easy and, consequently, clear statements that reassure them and commits the organization are more than welcome.

As a result, more and more charters include measures that state that “nothing that will be said on the network will be used by the enterprise against employees”. But is it a good thing ? Is it even relevant ? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: culture, Human resources, social networks, trust

Enterprise social networking : the difference between voluntary participation and optional membership

March 22, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : If participation in social networks can only be voluntary, only voluntary people should access the network. Is this assumption, on which many adoption programs are based on, relevant ? It’s the result of a mix-up between the network and its community part, between membership and participation. It creates a frontier between those who want to try and others, a frontier that limits the spreading of the “social phenomenon” and the related benefits. If, for most workers, the network is not something obvious, it may come to them instead of waiting for people to come to the network. Interest comes from passive exposure and not from concealing to non-members. A real enterprise 2.0 or social intranet implies that everybody is a member, can browse and read, that the network is a part of the IS, that profiles have a pivotal role. What does not prevent participation from relying on people’s goodwill.

Most of times, when an assessment is made on an internal social network project, we can hear “xxxx employees decided to join”. As a matter of fact, since participation can’t be mandatory, volunteers are asked to register. So it’s logical that only a part of them can be found on the network. So, for instance, we can have 80 000 employees who can access the intranet and 6,7,8 000 that decided to also access the social network. Is that an impressive victory ? If we consider that it’s only a first step on a global roll-out program it may be, but if we consider that’s the way things should work I don’t believe in such approaches (except for very specific cases.

Of course, participation in a social network can’t be made mandatory. But this assumption deserves further explanation. Social networks are often mixed-up with communities. Participation in communities can’t be mandatory and depend on people’s goodwill. But sometimes work groups are turned into communities and, in this case, the answer is different. But things are different for the network as such, what is nothing but having a profile (they can fill in or not) and be able to connect to others, follow them, get in touch with them, follow the activity of blogs, communities, wikis etc…

The truth is critical mass is key to a successful project.

The network will spontaneously attract those who are born networkers. Some bystanders will also follow them. At then end it’s about 10% of employees. Bystanders will slowly move away (except the few that will “get” the social thing). So the network will live on volunteers, some will give up because the system will bring them back to the party line but, at the end, this small group of people will be the center of gravity of the social platform. Provided they don’t get out of breath.

This way of doing things has nothing to do with transforming work or the organization. Those who want will do things differently…and that’s all. It will only happen among them because they won’t be numerous enough to make the whole organization move with them. That’s another example of the “social bubble” syndrome that can even be painful for participants that work in a way with some people and in another way with the rest of the organization.

We can bet that some will want to join them over time. But it won’t happen if they have to reason to try, to find a personal benefit and feel like keeping the “social way”. What can bring them there ? They may think they’ll be able to find, at a given moment, the answer to a problem or the person that will be able to help. If only 10% are on the network there are many chances the others will think that it’s not worth, that there are few chances what they need will be there.

Confusing mandatory participation with mandatory membership has obviously a negative impact. That’s not because no one can be forced to participate that not everybody could access the network. There are many reasons to that :

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 increased. 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

Two good enterprise 2.0 cases : 3M and BASF

February 8, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 2 Comments

Last week I had the chance to attend the presentation of two very valuable cases :3M and BASF. Maybe it may help some people to find answers to their questions and problematics that are close to theirs.

Proving Collaboration Works At 3M

View more presentations from John Woodworth.

Online business Network connect.basf

View more presentations from BASF.

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: 3M, BASF, case studies, collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise social networks, social business, social networks

Employees engagement through social media : is it an illusion ?

January 20, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 3 Comments

Summary : Employees engagement is a very trendy topic ans, as usual, social networking dynamics are seens as the miraculous solution to make it happen. The problem is, in fact, deeper : between in-trompe-l’oeil projects (implementing a social network to avoid looking into real issues), mistrust cultural reflexes towards organizations and people who can be more or less extrovert, tools are not a magic wand. Enterprises need to focus on employees’ expectations (most of all in terms of HR), find a way to address people who have a rational approach of their professional engagement and, most of all, should keep in mind that the activity of their social platform is not the only barometer of employees engagement.

The concept of engagement is central in lots of thoughts and arguments about enterprise 2.0 or enterprise social networks. The reason is easy to understand : engaged employees are more concerned, less willing to leave the job and are more likely to give their best to help their employer and colleagues to be successful. Of course, everything that can bring employees closer to their enterprise and build stronger ties among them is good…hence the irruption of social media and social networks in the debate.

Really ?

It sounds like one more magic wand trick. “Engage your employees by using social media”. Of course, they had no visibility on their future, are asked to accept lower salaries that what they could expect (yes sir…you know…that’s the crisis), are asked to do always more for less, not to expect any raise in reward because the reward is to keep their job, are prevented to use most of networking sites, were hired because of their ability to propos, innovate, lead and, on their first day at work, were told to shut up and follow the party line, are afraid that their employer does not care about their future employability in a fast changing world….and a Facebook-like will change everything. Being able to connect the one with another will make them forget everything, help them to sleep better at night and not fear the future. Being (potentially) connected will increase their motivation.

Seriously. Do you think that any social tool will change anything ? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR Tagged With: engagement, Human resources, involvement, private life, social netwoking, social networks

What’s new in the world of intranets ? The “Global Intranet Trends for 2011″ is out !

December 3, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

Like every year at the same period of the year, lots of practitioners are waiting for Jane McConnell’s “Global Intranet Trend” to be issued. The 2011 edition is out. Here’s what we can learn from it in a few lines :

• 5 main trends :

- the intranet is the front door of a “workplace web”. It’s not only a communication tool that serves the enterprise but a set of work tools for employees.

- It’s becoming more collaborative (even if the road is still long…)

- It’s becoming “real time” because of social networking or microblogging tools (used by more than 20% organizations either on a global scale on in pilot phase).

- It’s becoming mobile : more and more employees can access it from outside of the office and on mobile devices.

• Growing impact of social networks

Only 20% organizations that use social media try to measure the generated value and 50% plan to do so in the future. Those that measure see improvements in information sharing, faster decisions and problem solving, a decrease in the volume of emails, and the emergence of previously unrecognized experts.

But the road is long : 4 years are needed for a full adoption. Moreover (but is it surprising ?) senior managers are not setting an example.

• 2 challenges for 2011

- establish an appropriate governance that will deal with bot collaboration, the intranet and the “social” dimension while involving all stakeholders at the highest level since it’s a cross organization global project.

- facilitate the “social” dimension that raises new questions on communication and collaboration strategies and turn all the mobilized energies into a clear business value.

Reading the report suggest that we’ve reached a tipping point. But the gap between leaders and the others shows that there’s still a lot of work to be done.

It’s clear that the intranet is still (too much ?) seen as a communication tool and even if the vision of a workplace place is getting stronger, there’s too little maturity in value measurement. Because strategies and governance models are still unclear ?

Anyways, this survey says a lot about the state of the art and the main tends, relying on many focuses on tools, usages, change practices with a systematic comparison between leaders and followers. 90 very rich pages that sum up a research that’s been conducted with 440 organizations.

I’ll focus on some key learnings in future posts.

Meanwhile, you can download an “executive snapshot’ or buy it here.

Enjoy your reading !

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace Tagged With: adoption, Communication, global intranet trends, intranet, intranet 2.0, microbloggin, social networks

Rich profiles : an overlooked market ?

November 12, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 2 Comments

When we talk about social media in the workplace, it means, it’s about lots of tools. Blogs, wikis, social networks, social boomarking, microblogging etc… As years go all these tools are improving, each adding the core functionalities of the others to such an extent than more and more products are now looking alike.

One of these tools has not been packaged as a product by itslef : the rich profile, enriched by people activies, by more official datas, professional or personal information that makes it easier to identify, find and know each person.

Profile is key to many approaches because its usefulness is obvious to anyone : easily find people one’s now but also identifying relevant people one don’t know but are relevant to solve a given problem. For many organizations it’s, and for good reasons, the entry point to social media, because it’s seems to ensure a quick adoption of a first light social layer that meet an actual need.

On the other hand, rich profiles makes no sense if not fed by relevant information and aggregating people’s activities, what supposes it’s interfaced with as many other applications as possible, should they be social or more traditionnal. What implies the applications in question already exist and are used.

So the rich profile is the perfect entry point to discover tools and usages provided other tools and usages pre-exists. Sounds like chicken and egg. Vendors know that and all social tools include their own profile that makes the most of the use of the tool. Obvious solution. But is it the perfect one ? In fact it can be questioned.

The fact is for any enterprise, profiles share one characteristics with employee directories they are often the visible part of : they’re worth only if unique and used by all. Things are actually different : in most organizations many social platforms coexist, each having its own profile, relying on its own data, what makes people have as many profiles as applications they use, each of them being, of course uncomplete. Moreover, even when an organization has chosen an unique tools, it’s not always accessible to all empoyees.

So a situation where some employees have many profiles relying on different sources, some don’t have any, and not every employee can see all profiles is not uncommon at all. Not a comfortable situation.

Hence the questions : is there a room for a directory relying on rich profiles, distinct from any applications but able to rely on all the existing and future ones, avoiding data dispersion and multiple updates. Is something missing on the market ? Will organizations need to connect all these data by themselbes with lots of specific devs ? Will a vendor manage to make the profile of their solution a market standard because it will easily interface with any tools and even its competitors ?

D’où la question : n’y a-t-il pas une place pour un annuaire reposant sur des profils riches, distinct de toutes les applications mais pouvant tirer profit de toutes, existantes ou à venir, évitant la dispersion des données et les mises à jour redondantes ? Existe-t-il un trou dans l’offre du marché ? Les entreprises vont elles devoir assurer elles-mêmes la mise en cohérence de ce patchwork de données à grand renforts de développements spécifiques ? Ou alors un éditeur va-t-il réussil à faire du profil lié à son produit celui qui, en s’interfaçant avec mille et un autre outils deviendra le standard de facto

This is something I’ve been thiniking about for a long time and seems to make more and more sense.