Enterprise social network : a famous stranger

May 17, 2011 By 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.

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Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Information security is too serious to be entrusted to IT people

September 24, 2010 By 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: , , , , , ,

Social Medias : being there, doing as usual, doing new things

February 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

Everyday we receive new numbers that show that an always increasing number of  people are “on” an increasing number of social networks, that such percentage of an age class is there, that such country is more represented than another or is slowly bridging the gap with the others etc…

Hence the unavoidable conclusion : almost everybody is comfortable with the social logic and the tools that come with and, logically, everybody will be comfortable to use them in the workplace and even ask for them.

A first reflection about the number of users. If we differenciate the number of registered people from the number of active users, the numbers dramatically drop, as we recently sauw with twitter. If I had to sum the number of services where I have an account I oppened just to try or to be findable whenever someone looks for me, the number of services I actually use may be less than 10%. If I consider the average user who finally accepted an invitation because he was fed up with receiving tens or hundreds of invitations from his friends to join the last trendy platform…and who forgot both is password and the fact he had an account there…

What matters when it comes to assess the wealth of social medias is not the number of users but what they actually do (provided they do anything). So let’s focus on those who are really active.

Consider Facebook for instance. Look at the most common usage. Say what you’re doing, what you’re thinging. Share a joke. Share something you’ve seen elsewhere on the web. Does it remind you of something ? It’s exactly what we used to do with emails in the late 90s. Today, instead of sending a joke or a video to our whole address book by email why share it one Facebook. We also play on Facebook. In the 2000s, games were standalone services. We used to play and invite friends to the game… Now everything happens in the same environment. As for really new usages, some are very interesting but only concern a little minority of users.

Now, let’s consider more business oriented social networks, like linkedIn. Many are “on”, use them to push their applications when they are looking for a job (sometimes in a clumsy way without understanding that networks work differently than conventional ways), to push their product when they have something to sell. Some participate in groups, but not everybody. Some use the social filter to qualify their contacts…but a few people really do that.

There is a big difference between being on a social network and using it. Then, there is a difference that is at least as big between using them to make things “as usual” and using them to do new things or old things in a new way.

Now, let’s have a look at the workplace… [Read more...]

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

7 web 2.0 words to use cautiously with real managers

November 25, 2009 By 4 Comments

Even if enterprise 2.0 has its source in web 2.0, everybody now recognize that what we can see and use on the web needs to be tidied up to enter the workplace. One of the stumbling blocks can be found in language : sometimes even if two people agree on the content, the form can make them not understand each other. That’s why, sometimes, the enterprise 2.0 subject was not taken seriously by the (serious) people who needed to be convinced.

In fact it was one of the conclusions of the discussions that followed the last enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston : the enterprise 2.0 world had to learn the enterprise language and not the reverse. The confirmation was given in this post by someone from Booz Allen Hamilton (which internal 2.0 platform is a true success) : “In the end I’m not concerned with what we call it. I’ve got work to do.”

Anyway, here are some magic words our web experience makes us use (even unconsciously) too often in enterprise oriented discussions and that make our interlocutor look at us with doubtful and surprised eyes (really…you never had this feeling ?). Either because the words that are used are not relevant in a business context or because they make him uncomfortable.

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Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Recommended Bookmarks, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A 15 yo consultant wrote a white paper about teenagers. And so what ?

July 23, 2009 By 1 Comment
The case made much noise last week. A  15 years old consultant at Morgan Stanley produced a white paper on how young people of his generation uses medias. And all the world to swoon over the document, to such an extent it was propelled on the front page of the Financial Times website. I hastened to read this report that was supposed to change the face of the world.

I let you read them before we dig a little.

Media&Internet How Teenagers Consume Media

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Filed Under: Management & HR, Society, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Too much governance leads to ungovernance

July 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

IT governance is all the more strategic since it applies to the backbone of the business. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to be effective when the strategic line is unknown, when what’s allowed and what’s not is not well defined. Effective companies need well defined rules.

With the emergence of web 2.0, governance took a new dimension with tools that are more people and usages oriented, which needs even more concertation before implementation. That’s how IT departments become center of services instead of center of costs. Notice that it does not only apply to web 2.0 projects.

Anyway, such projects have to comply with the current governance. That’s why things often go wrong. Two situations can be faced :

• Ensure that new tools comply with the actual governance what is like trying to put squares into circles. Low customization by users, restricted rights depending on people, hierarchical validation needed etc… It can’t work.

• Improve the current governance according to these new tools. But if this governancre is built upon principles like “limit user’s autonomy”, “users are a threat to the system”, “autonomy depends on position” etc… which are those who led to the current governance, there are many chances the new one will look loke the the old one.

You can’t govern what you don’t understand. Lack of understanding causes fear which leads to strict rules. It’s interesting to see that the best “2.0 compliant” governances were edicted by people who immersed themselves into a new paradigm in order to understand it. On the contrary, those who try to regulate everything are often those who did not try to understand them. They mistake “regulation” and “protection against”.

At first sight this may not be harmful. Everyone is free to miss opportunities because of excessive certainties. This can even be better than letting things go, thinking some questions can wait. But the danger is more insidious : there are many examples of employees who opened workspaces or used general public services for business collaboration. Since everything is made under the radar, governance can’t be enforced. Now every employee, every team, can create and manage his own IT.

In short, an irrelevant governance often leads to ungovernance.

Governing is anticipating. But anticipating is understanding. So, in order to govern wisely, IT depts must take the time to understand.

A last point : exploring the general public web in order to understand can be a good start. But businesses have also to think that what they’ll see on the web is not what will happen inside the firewall, that usages have to be professionalized. Maybe, in the context of a well conceived governance, this call for professionnalization may be the job of an expert team which will be the garantee that the governance will be enforced, explained, and will be perceived as a strategic pattern, not as a coercitive one.

Those who want to read more about governance should read this post by Ross Dawson.

Entreprise 2.0, gouvernance, Social computing, social-software, usages, web-2.0

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

Why HR are really central to Enterprise 2.0

May 26, 2009 By 3 Comments

Relationships between human resources and enterprise 2.0, or rather the use of social software”, are very complicated. Whatever the way you consider the issue, you always have to deal with HR.

There are two reasons to that :

The first is that many people came to take an interest in enterprise 2.0 because their primary issue was an HR one. In this case, tools were seen as catalysts for new desirable practices that were hard to put to work because of barriers (time / space / tools) social software helped  to get rid of.

The second is that the others, those who were passionate about tools but didn’t care much about how large organizations internal concerns, finally realized that they could not avoid bumping into HR people, who, most of times, were not very social software savvy and had a suspicious attitude. I don’t even mention that, in many cases, HR are most often askek to keep things as the are instead of behing innovative. What shows its limits today as we have to admit how the human dimension matters in today’s crisis.

Experience teach us that when HR were deeply involved things were successful (for example Cisco did a great job on leadership and appraisal) and, when they were not, they were taken for troublemakers.

In fact that’s not that simple.

[Read more...]

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

No enterprise 2.0 without professionalizing web 2.0

March 3, 2009 By 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: , , , , , ,

Transforming usages in enterprise 2.0

November 1, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Last week I was a part of a panel about “enterprise 2.0 : usages transformation”. Here are, in a few lines, what I retain from this event. Of course these are my own impression since when you’re on stage you tend to focus on people’s concerns rather than what the panelist said.

• How do companies see enterprise 2.0 ? Must have or nice to have ?

The question was to know if there was an enterprise 2.0 issue for companes. It’s interesting to compare my experience as player of this industry with the feedebacks of people who are rather on the client side. Obviously both visions tend to align, and that’s quite a good thing.

I pointed out that the question is not to know if there’s an enterprise 2.0 concern but to know if businesses understand than adopting new practices (a word I find much more relevant than usages in a corporate context…) may help making business in a more efficient way. If yes, implementing these practices will imply joint HR/management/organization/tools initiatives that will lead to enterprise 2.0 even if this was not called this way.

I mentioned the latest McKinsey report.

In order to close the “nice to have vs must have” debate, I’d rather say there are two possible approaches : starting from defined business issues and treat all their aspects (organization, HR, business practices, tools…) or have a tool-driven approach which means saying “we have to try those new tools and see what we can do with them”. The first leads to a “must have” situation, the second is a “must try” that leads to a “nice to have” and “time consuming to use” situation due to a lack of alignment.

I’ll end with my favorite advice : “instead of wondering how to make people adopt tools you’d better wonder why”. By the way it would also close the ROI debate.

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