Web 2.0 is not people-centric. It splits people up

July 24, 2009 By 6 Comments

A few words about a founding principle of web 2.0 that appears to be a big mistake. This won’t be without impacts on future usages, on the werb as inside companies because we are reaching the limits of the central component of any collective dynamic : the user.

Founding principle : contrary to the original web, web 2.0 is “people centric”. That means that internauts are not passive receivers anymore but stakeholders, active players, who can take the lead on existing medias and even build their own.

So people should structure the web and its flows, building a network which nodes would be the internauts. It seems logical : in a people-centric system, people are at the center and the rest is supposed to be turn around them.

We are forced to acknowledge that web users, and above all power users, feel more and more like not being at the center of anything but like being split up.

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Filed Under: Management & HR, 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

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The impossible modeling of the social enterprise as such

June 30, 2009 By 1 Comment

I really liked Jeremiah Owyang’s work on the future of the social web a lot, just as the discussion we had when he visited Paris. I wondered if such a model can apply to enterprises, the kind of thing that is intellectually challenging whitout being sure if would be of any use.

I quickly came to the conclusion that the model could not apply.

As a matter of fact, modeling the social web is modeling the web itself. In fact, the social web is the very nature of the web. At its very beginning, the web’s vocation was to become what’s becoming now. Anlyzing the social web is like making a two levels analysis : technology and behaviors. This reminds me of what Jeremiah told be : his report was about people’s behaviors. Busineses have to choice to jump on the wagon or to stay out of the way.

On the other hand, the social enterprise is not the very nature of the enterprise. No need for long explainations : what happened, is happening and will happen on the web is driven by the natural attirance internauts have for some behaviors. These behaviors, even if organizational performance makes them necessary, even when businesses want to promote them are not natural in the workplace.

In short, we can say that if nothing is done the web will become social. On the contrary, if we want businesses to become social, many efforts are needed. If we consider that employees and internauts are the same people, the difference comes once again from external variable which are neither technology nor people but what drives them.

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The enterprise and the web

June 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Finally, many current debates are about the enterprises’ ability to understand, master and harness the web, internally. This may seem trivial because purely technological and being about competences that are much lighter that those IT depts have been using for decades. But, at the end, it’s more complicated that it seems.

As a matter of fact :

• It’s about making enterprises assimilate  somethings external, which is not something culturally easy. More, it has an impact on the competences that have to be gathered.

• For the first time, it’s about assimilating something coming from the general public whereas enterprises used to be leaders in technological change, adopting things years before it becomes available and affordable for common people.

• The assimilation, that was technological at the beginning, became  about new usages. But enterprises don’t know the word usages : they have methods, processes, norms. The only fact something can change, even a small detail, causes a self-defences reaction. Considering there is also a behavioral impact, it’s easy to understand how difficult things are even if many people are overestimating the upcoming changes. Even if it will help businesses to be aligned with their economic and competitive context, the shift is not easy.

So, here’s how, in less than a decade, things went from face-lifting interfaces to an human and organizational project.

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Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Web 2.0 turned the digital divide into a social divide

June 21, 2009 By 6 Comments

Digital divide used to be and still is a real concern in our industrialized countries. Maybe we should end talking about industrialized countries to say “computerized countries” what seems to be more relevant with today’s world. Maybe some would say that it’s because we neglected this shift that we were stuck with old industrial models applied to a “soft” economy and that what happened last fall happened. We could talk about the destiny of both Google and GM, what is the embodiment of the changes our word is experiencing but that’s not my point here.

At the beginning, digital divide was defined as inequality of access to digital tools. There were those who could access them and the others. It’s easy to understand the amount of opportunties for the early users who were able to gain abilities while the computer and, after, the web industry was growing up, while, on the other hand, the other had to catch up with these technologies years later. And some are still running to jump into the train.

Considering my generation for instance, I can see the difference bewteen those who had their first computer in 1985 when aged 10, discovered the web with a 56 ko modem in 1995 and followed this trend and those who had their first computer in 1997 and their first internet experience in 2000. The gap still remain today.

Anyway, at this time things were clear : there were those who could affort a computer (or those whom parents could) and the others. Among them, some see the interest, some didn’t. Then there were those who had cable or ADSL very early and those for whom this technology was not available in their city. Hence this divide.

Today, web 2.0 shows us the divide has a new nature. What means different means will be needed to fix it.

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The three dimensions of enterprise 2.0

June 16, 2009 By 7 Comments

There are many discussions on what enterprise 2.0 is, what it implies. There are many different visions, depending on each one’s interests. From one extreme to the other we start from an utilitarian vision (providing with new tools)  to end with a cultural big bang (new philosophy of organization and economics, new human-centric values). One reassures people even if it’s efficiency is still to be demonstrated and the other scares businesses. None of them is particularly relevant or irrelevant : there’s a piece of truth everywhere and each one builds his own vision finding the balance that meet his values.

This is not very helpful for businesses that are looking for guarantees and certainties. What about facts ? What should they believe in in order to figure things out ?

According to me there are three dimensions that structures the whole discourse on this topic. Everyone is free to mix them together…or not : they can apply either jointly or autonomously.

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From the 5 eras of social web to transforming organizations

May 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I had the chance to meet up with Jeremiah Owyang during his last coming in Paris. He presented us his report on the the future of social web. An interesting discussion followed, then we came to have a drink and carried on.

One thing I used to sense and which was confirmed is the specificity of european and especially french people according about privacy issues. Jeremiah launched the discussion on his blog, feel free to participate. Generally speaking, and I had the opportunity to discuss it many times whith German Friends, it’s obvious that social media adoption is a lot about cultural issues. Local culture on the web, both corporate and local culture within companies even if, considering enterprises, the fact people have to achieve things together, things they are assessed on, may help to unlock the cultural barrier. Language matters too. It’s an issue I’ll tackle in a later post, I just need to throw myself into Geert Hofstede‘s work again for what’s about internal issues. Common sense being enough to explain external ones.

During the presentation, Thierry De Baillon was quicker than me and asked : “the” question : how can these “5 eras” apply to organizations. Jeremiah answered that the model was only about the outside. We got deeper into this point later in the evening.

Jeremiah’s words makes a lot of sense : his work is about of internauts, consumers will behave and businesses have to understand that in order to adapt and not to lose their market. Let me add another point : in order to follow their customers and adopt appropriate strategies toward the outside, businesses will also have to change internally, for many reasons :

• efficiency : it’s impossible to have the needed culture, the vision and implement projects that will be successfull externally if they contradict what the company is, the way the work is done. There will be a moment when the elastic will break, when employees won’t be able to meet customers’ expectations anymore.

• credibility : it’s harder and harder to keep things secret, to make enterprises walled gardens. It’s impossible to be engaged in social dynamics with the market and, at the same time, to have internal practices that isolate people, refuse to accept everyone’s specificities. The only fact the market will learn, understand, how the company operates, to what extent organization and management are not aligned with the marketing promise, will ruin all the undertaken efforts. Would you hire a torturer as a babysitter ? QED. I’ll also add that the impact on employees would be very negative. They surely won’t accept to be less considered than clients, or to be accomplices of a masquerade. Bad for engagement and motivation.

• socilogy : future employees are also players of this under construction social web when the walk through the office’s door. No suprise that they will try to bring their usages inside the company.

In short, businesses will have to adapt to the reality of social web. Articulate with it. The challenge : avoiding to lose their clients and demotivate their employees. This makes me feeling like thinking more about this articulation, about what could be the “5 eras of the social enterprise”. What could they be, in your opinion ?

Thanks to Gil Yehuda for providing me with these few tips to help me getting started.

Typical 5 Era Strategy Phases

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My Webcom 2009 in a few words

May 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

You may have a few ideas of what I liked at webcom if you followed my twitts yesterday, but before going deeper into each topic into future posts, here’s what I found really interesting. Some thoughts, ideas, favorites in a jumble

• Don’t refuse abnormality because it’s tomorrow’s normality. Cycles from the one to the other are getting shorter and shorter. Companies have to understand what something that is abnormal today means. It’s, once again, a matter of culture and its impact on decision making and organizational performance.

• “Open is the future”. Open stack, open mesh, open social.. But there are cases when, according to me, it can be counter productive. Anyway it’s the best (and only ?) mean to fight against personal fragmentation on many social platforms, private or corporate, and to turn into a platform centric world into a people centric one. Everything can be portable, not everything must be. Toward an “open governance” ?

• Turning the pyramid model into a network. Nice, I wrote about that this morning. But this just don’t happen by luck and a preliminary analysis is desirable. I was really impressed by Jessica Lipnack (Netage) presentations and the use of the l’Orgscope. According to me it’s an essential approach to design an enterprise 2.0 project, knowing that it as to articulate with the actual corporate structure and its purpose which is to produce, deliver processes. But it implies a deep understanding of how things are actually getting done today.

• Then came the “usual suspect”. Companies are facing challenges that will force them to adopt new tools. Even if there’s nothing new for those who know him, Claude’s approach, relying on demographic, sociological elements and cross-generation dynamics is still relevant. More than the “2.0″ dream that relies on unexpected serendipity miracles. Another traditional issue is open innovation about which Innocentive is still relevant according to its deep experience and their record of achievements.

• And a little “family touch to end. The very refreshing presentation made by Cyrille de Lasteyrie (CEO  Hellotipi) had two interests. The first was to show how a strong message could be delivered through storytelling without mentionning a product or service. The second is that he made us think about the sociological dimension of social media, about people’s concerns about privacy an about cross-generations dynamics that are made possible by massive social media adoption within the society. I have no doubt that businesses will have a lot to learn  to what will happen in these family networks because the person that walks though his office’s door is the same than the one who shares pictures of his baby with his family. Beyond constrained behavioral changes, his expectations and fears remain the same in his mind.

A last word about the conference itself. Wifi worked perfectly well what does not happen so often in such events. But it was a pity for all those who couldn’t attend that the streaming didn’t work (but all the videos will be put online soon).

It was my second time at webcom (always in may…I’m affraid of the weather at the november session ;-) ). I attend very few conferences to protect myself from the “bowl” effect : always being with people who think like you often makes you forget the “real enterprise”. Here, a lot of “real” people, looking for answers to their concerns, I really had the impression that something is transmitted instead of self-contragulating among “experts”. Of course, there were the speeches (interesting, no bla-bla that only highlight the speaker without any value for the audience), the business contacts…but also a human contact with the people, the city, I hardly find elswhere. A business event that makes you feel well is so rare…

It’s really worth crossing the ocean. Anyway, we don’t have such a “web, business and enterprise” conference in France. A real pity.

Entreprise 2.0, hiérarchie, innovation participative, montreal, netAge, open innovation, organigrammes, organisation, orgscope, réseaux-sociaux, web-2.0, webcom, webcom2009,décision,performance organisationnelle,

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

Enterprise 2.0 (finally) moves toward Enterprise

April 14, 2009 By 5 Comments

An interesting and  salutary move is being iniated in the small world of both web and enterprise 2.0. It’s about what I would call a “de-technologization” of the concept and, according to me, will take back enterprise 2.0 to a ground it should not have left : the enterprise as a productive organization that must deal with internal rules and constraints.

It slightly appeared in my old definition of enterprise 2.0 in 2007 and, particularly in my predictions for 2009. Now it seems that the time is coming. It’s the beginning of a major turn from the vision that considered that making web 2.0 tools used within companies was a goal by itself to the vision according to which they are only parts of a system.

This is confirmed by two posts I read these last days.

In this post, eminent Robert Scobble is realizing that,  even if many brilliant people comment and analyze the tech side of web 2.0, they still miss the business side of things. According to me, the reality of business and its context are seldom taken into acocunt. If the goals and the needs are clear, a deep analysis of the context which is the only way to explain how to make things work for current businesses is still lacking. This was for the web 2.0 side.

On the enterprise 2.0 side, I noticed this post from Martin Koser about the the next Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Frankfurt, which brings many sensible things forward.

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Why communication managers don’t have to fear enterprise 2.0

March 31, 2009 By 1 Comment

Among the many misunderstandings that may slow adoption of new practices and tools, there is the fear communication managers may have of what is often presented as a new freedom of speech for employees.

Nothinb but logical : the role of a communication department is to spread the corporate message and avoid any kind of interference. The fact employees could speak spontaneously is something that is neither expected nor conceivable and that is the incarnation of the worse kind of interference.

Being interviewed about this issue a few weeks ago, I tried to dispel what is, according to me, a pure misunderstanding.

I think that a mistake is being made on both the notion of communication and the context of the so-called freedom of speech.

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