Liens de la semaine (weekly)

  • « But what if I would focus on projects? What might a conceptual model of Social Project Management look like? I choose to focus on culture and identity and their role in interaction and collaboration as mechanism for resilience in temporary tribes (like projects). Hence the prefix “social” to PM. « 

    tags: projectmanagement socialprojectmanagement tribes context communication

    • People don’t know each other. There is a short period to create the desired outcome. Interaction is largely digital. Stress is put onto the tribe, so resilience is required.
    • We need a mix of cognitive diversity for problem solving and homogeneity for operating as one. The members need to be able to operate with multiple mental models without reducing their own convictions
    • For this to work I think we need communication platforms that support this shift in importance of social cues and context. And that we need practices that are tuned in using social cues and context effectively
    • Just like an individual, an organization, or the overarching social system, has a storyline made of reputation and ambition.
    • Storylines are essential in a my world view. They provide the social cues and context for interaction and collaboration.
  •  »
    The sales force automation (SFA) software market is growing rapidly, with companies such as Salesforce.com becoming dominant players in the enterprise software space. And yet, adoption of these systems is notoriously low. Recently, there has been research in the field of gamification for using game mechanics to solve business problems. So, what if you could apply gaming mechanics to SFA software to increase adoption by the sales force? »

    tags: gamification sales salesforce games motivation productivity automation

    • A report from the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science shows a staggeringly high failure rate for SFA tools: 75%. Why? Rejection of the new technology by the sales force.
    • To address the issue of motivation, I suggested creating a leader board with badges. Badges are used as signs of achievement. Whenever a staff member completes a certain level of training on the SFA software, they receive a badge that appears on their profile
    • When users have not adopted the system or have not been fully trained, incomplete or duplicate records are a common occurrence. To address this, I thought creating a visual representation of an individual’s data cleansing efforts might be particularly useful
    • Based on performance, users could be ranked, which taps into the reps’ competitive nature. This simple addition of gaming mechanics turns a repetitive, menial task into a challenge. And who doesn’t love a challenge?
    • Another menial task is making sales calls. No one likes to do it, but it’s absolutely necessary. In order to enhance performance on this daily task, the system would track users’ total calls and qualified leads for the month in a graph. This puts productivity in a visual form relative to their peers.
    • The reason why this will work is really quite simple. People love to play games, but their daily lives are filled with boring or taxing activities. Gamification is the process of incorporating game mechanics (points, awards, status, etc.) into these activities, making them more game-like, and thus more appealing. 
      • Points appeal to our need for rewarda
      • Levels appeal to our desire of status
      • Challenges appeal to our longing for achievement
      • Leadership Boards appeal to our sense of competition
    • The major challenge to address with this is the negative connotation of gaming in the corporate environment.
    • Another issue is the actual implementation of this idea. According to Dr. Michael Wu, a gamification guru over at Lithium, it is not enough to add a gaming layer on top of SFA software. In order to truly make the software more engaging, the gaming elements and mechanics must be built in from the bottom up.
  • « During our conversation, we discussed the game-like constructs built into the Rypple software, like the concept of rewarding people with “badges” for giving recognition and building reputation within a company. »

    tags: games gamification collaboration work badges rypple jobtitle reputation

    • Game design can be applied to much more than just games. “Gamification,” or the use of gaming mechanics in non-game applications, can be applied to business software, too. Any task based on a process could incorporate aspects of gaming to make it more engaging and better align it with the way most people are “hard-wired;” we respond well to games.
    • Gamification isn’t about making work fun. It’s more about understanding human nature and strategy, not frivolity.
    • Gaming already exists in work settings. The acts of competition and cooperation are inherent in most work environments. Harnessing those interactions strategically can be a part of “gamification.”
    • Gamification is not just about badges and points
    • Badges are not meant to replace titles but can be used as a supplement to one’s profile or reputation
  • tags: socialmedia engagement socialnetworks ibm customer employees participation guidelines Usergeneratedcontent

  • tags: middlemanagement management leadership bcg collaboration performancemanagement recognition engagement

  • « Il y a presque 40 ans, le télétravail semblait sur le point de devenir la norme. C’est toujours le cas aujourd’hui. Pourquoi cette révolution est-elle si lente €“ et à  quoi ressemblera le monde du travail de demain si elle finit effectivement par aboutir? »

    tags: remotework homeoffice management humanresources productivity

    • Même aujourd’hui, la plupart des sondages montrent qu’aux Etats-Unis et en Europe, le télétravail est relativement rare. Si le fait de travailler à  distance une partie du temps devient de plus en plus fréquent, moins de 2 % de la population télétravaille à  plein temps dans les deux régions.
    • « Les télétravailleurs sont plus satisfaits de leur travail et le fait d’être loin du bureau la majeure partie du temps est source de beaucoup d’avantages »
    • €¨D’après Nilles, qui est aujourd’hui consultant en télétravail pour JALA International, les entreprises ont aussi des raisons financières de préférer le télétravail. La plupart s’aperçoivent qu’elles peuvent économiser l’équivalent de 10 à  15 % du salaire d’un employé si celui-ci ne travaille pas dans leurs locaux.
    • Le problème de base est le même depuis le début€¦. Le télétravail engendre ou déclenche une révolution sociale dans l’organisation et c’est toujours effrayant pour les dirigeants, affirme-t-il. Le plus grand obstacle au développement du télétravail a toujours été au niveau de l’oreille du manager plutôt qu’une quelconque difficulté technologique
    • la décision d’autoriser ou non le télétravail dépend souvent en premier lieu de la manière dont l’entreprise définit ses priorités : productivité ou « politique » et temps de présence.
    • Des sondages ont suggéré que beaucoup d’employés craignent qu’en sortant du bureau, ils sortent aussi de l’esprit de leurs supérieurs, et restent ainsi à  l’écart d’une promotion éventuelle.
    • Mais l’arrivée, chaque année, sur le marché du travail de jeunes qui n’ont jamais eu à  associer travail et lieu de travail pourrait être un facteur plus déterminant.
    • Au sein des entreprises, explique Jack Nilles, disposer de meilleurs moyens de communication permet aux experts de former plus facilement des « organisations éphémères », des équipes éparpillées à  travers le monde qui se réunissent virtuellement pour résoudre un problème particulier.
    • Les outils de communication permettent aux cadres d’être en contact avec plusieurs sites à  la fois. Mais ils voyagent toujours beaucoup €“ ils n’abandonnent pas le bureau, ils en ont plusieurs.
    • Ironiquement, plutôt que de diminuer, comme on aurait pu s’y attendre dans un monde où tout le monde dispose gratuitement d’outils de vidéoconférence, les dépenses annuelles mondiales consacrées aux déplacements professionnels ont augmenté
    • « Les personnes qui télétravaillent tendent à  travailler longtemps après que leurs collègues du bureau sont rentrés à  la maison », écrivait-il dans un post de blog récent. Le problème est suffisamment sérieux pour que l’une des sessions de formation dispensée par son cabinet soit consacrée à  apprendre aux employés à  trouver un juste rythme de travail.
    • Le télétravail présente aussi de nouveaux défis aux managers. Le premier d’entre eux : l’effet sur la dynamique de groupe. « Même avec de nouvelles technologies, cela restera difficile »,
    • Mais, selon lui, « la plupart des lieux de travail sont dysfonctionnels. Ces conversations autour de la fontaine à  eau tendent à  concerner le sport ou comment un tel agit avec un tel plutôt que l’invention de nouveaux produits géniaux »
    • Les télétravailleurs peuvent éviter ou échapper à  la partie politique des relations de bureau, et c’était une chose dont ils étaient particulièrement satisfaits »,
    • Les employés en télétravail ont beaucoup de difficulté à  cause de limites moins claires », rappelle Fonner. « Il devient facile de naviguer de sa vie professionnelle à  sa vie personnelle, mais c’est aussi stressant car vous êtes sans cesse en train de passer de l’un à  l’autre ».
  • « One recent buzzword that I hear a lot is « gamification ». Especially gamification of utterly boring Enterprise Software and consumer experiences in commercial transactions. A heroic attempt to solve one of life’s mysteries; why work sometimes drifts towards boring and in particular why ESW tend to be so unimaginative. »

    tags: gamification fun games enterprisesocialsoftware BRP processes

    • What triggers my scepticism is the « verbification » of the noun indicating that you take something existing, without challenging the assumptions nor changing the underlying, then simply… eh… gamify it.
    • The purpose of « Gamification » seems to be to cover up some manual and tedious process in an effort to make it more « fun » (that word makes me double suspicious).
    • Games could give an answer, no doubt, but the question is; what to learn from games, what works and what is the core? Then apply the core learning to Enterprise Software instead of adding a flimsy layer on top.
    • Sounds like simulation does it not? Sounds like a real work process stripped of the boring stuff does it not? And indeed it is, both.
    • But simulation of real life processes, which equals an opportunity to run those, requires a « process engine » that can deliver any sequence of activities and punt back the resulting reactive activities.
  • tags: communities communityequity equity measurement metrics communitymanagement

  •  » With the worldwide explosion of social media usage, businesses are feeling extreme pressure to be where their customers are. Today, that street corner is increasingly virtual, located inside a social media or social networking site. But in an environment defined by customer control and two-way dialog, are customers anxious to engage with businesses? « 

    tags: socialcrm crm value customer customercare socialmedia businessvalue communities socialcommerce

    • Businesses are rapidly embracing social media not only to build virtual communities, but also to create innovative social commerce programs, improve customer care and streamline customer research.
    • Businesses need to realize that most consumers do not engage with companies via social media to feel connected. It turns out, customers are far more pragmatic.
    • In fact, customers are far more interested in getting tangible value, suggesting businesses may be confusing their own desire for customer intimacy with consumers’ motivations for engaging
  • tags: airlines socialmedia lufthansa engagement brand customer customerengagement casestudies

  • « I found a common thread on process centric adoption in the Deloitte Center for the Edge’s Social Software for Business Performance report and Michael Sampson’s User Adoption Strategies book. This advice is reflected in my post on Emergineering from last fall. »

    tags: socialsoftware adoption processes casestudies socialbusiness enterprise2.0

    • The experiences of Alcoa and OSIsoft prove that social software can achieve meaningful improvements. How did they succeed where so many others did not? Both Alcoa and OSIsoft employed a simple tactic: they avoided focusing on adoption. Rather, they identified specific operational pain points in the business that social software could address. By focusing on something tangible, broadly relevant and widely acknowledged as a problem, they overcame initial skepticism.
    • Patterns emerge within these deployments that change their nature and branch into new uses of the technology — but leveraging the core process (or processes) is vital to gaining high participation and sustained user attention.
  • « Almost all executives want more and faster information, and almost all companies are racing to provide it. What many of them overlook, though, is that the real aim should be not faster information but faster decision making €” and those aren’t the same things. »

    tags: decisionmaking decision information informationoverload reporting report

    • That frustration has led many organizations to try to speed up the delivery of data and analysis, particularly in the context of decision making (typically described as “business intelligence,” or BI). But few organizations have reached an optimum with regard to how fast important information reaches in boxes, desks and brains.

    • Lack of information flexibility is another common problem. While standard reports can still be useful, as the amount of information in companies grows it becomes increasingly difficult to anticipate all information desires and delivery frequencies ahead of the need.
    • Inflexible standard reporting means not only that paper is wasted, but that an even more valuable resource €” executive attention €” is misdirected.
    • Decision makers can digest only so much information, and only so fast; still, executives tend to request much more information than they can actually use.
    • The real question when it comes to information delivery is how fast and flexibly to do it so that what ultimately gets faster and smarter is not the information supply, but the decision making that determines a business’s performance.
  • « In this interview, Forrester research analyst James Kobielus talks about how ‘social business intelligence’ combines business intelligence, knowledge management, social networking and collaboration, social media monitoring and analytics. How can it help your business? »

    tags: businessintelligence socialbusinessintelligence knowledgemanagement socialnetworking analytics data

    • Traditionally, BI has been about reporting, dashboards and ad hoc queries, and it’s been about the ability to track key business performance and metrics. Traditional BI has been focused on delivering intelligence from data warehouses and other databases, rather than directly from the other users.
    • Social BI is bringing a collaborative experience into your BI environment, which means that more and more of the BI tools that are available today are allowing users to ask questions of each other and quite often to link those questions to specific reports or visualizations that are presented in their BI environment.
    • The big new growth area is in bringing unstructured and semi-structured information from social media sites into the overall BI and analytics environment.

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