Links for this week (weekly)

  • “Gamification is a hot topic for consumer applications. It is changing the way the companies, especially the start-ups, design their applications. The primary drivers behind revenue

    and valuation of consumer software companies are number of users, traffic (unique views), and engagement (average time spent + conversion). This is why gamification is critical to consumer applications since it is an effort to increase the adoption of an application amongst the users and maintain the stickiness so that the users keep coming back and enjoy using the application.

    This isn’t true for enterprise applications at all.”

    tags: gamification enterprisesoftware software consumerapplications enterpriseapplications rewards applicationdesign

    • For enterprise applications, the end user is not the buyer. The buyers of enterprise applications write a check but don’t use the applications, and even worse, the end users have a little or no influence on what gets bought.
    • The fundamental reason behind poor adoption of the enterprise applications is that they are simply not easy-to-use and they almost always come in the way to get the actual work done. In many cases, they are designed to be orthogonal to the actual business process that it is supposed to help an end user with. Also, in most cases, these applications are designed top-down to serve the needs of senior management and not the real needs of end users e.g. a CRM system that helps management to run pipeline reports but doesn’t help a rep to be more efficient and agile
    • There’s a significant potential to apply gamification elements to increase the end user engagement for the enterprise applications, make them sticky and fun to use, and make it a win-win situation for the buyers as well as the end users.
    • . Also, for the most consumer applications, the individuals don’t compete with other individuals on aspects beyond the application. The employees in a corporation aren’t necessarily known for healthy competition and the gamification rewards might aggravate the existing rivalry.
    • I clearly see an opportunity to link the reputation, gained through some kind of contribution, to an economic reward. I know of a case where a manager had set aside 20% team bonus based on contribution to a group WIki as means to open up information and help others. It did work.
    • That’s how the applications that people rarely use should be designed; it should use the affordances and principles that the users have witnessed and experienced some place else and it should be broken down like carnival stalls to make the journey easy and fun.
  • “The news that Cisco is dismantling its unique structure of councils and boards to reduce bureaucracy presents a cautionary tale and an insight into the true meaning of teamwork and collaboration in organizations.”

    tags: cisco casestudies councils communities boards organization management hierarchy teamwork accountability resourceallocation

    • But rather than reorganize to move from a functional structure to solutions groups, or implement a matrix organization, Cisco created overlays on top of the same organization structure. Councils and boards had their own hierarchy — boards reported to councils, projects emanated from boards, and they all drew resources from the functional groups
    • for a technology company that must be nimble and responsive, this became a drag not an accelerator.
    • But no, that does not mean the end of a division of labor, identification of decision-making authority, and individual accountability.
    • A small work group I observed recently heard the word teamwork and thought it meant that everyone should be in on everything, and everyone should discuss everything before anyone did anything. This produced wasted time, lack of clear accountability, and balls dropped all over the place,
    • No group is actually leaderless, although it might be highly collaborative. The group might distribute and rotate leadership roles and responsibilities
    • But when everyone is responsible, no one is responsible.
    • Winning teams combine specialized roles, in which players have deep expertise that they continue to refine through practice, with knowledge of others’ roles and how to support them. They have the flexibility to mobilize fast for particular plays, guided by a common strategy, but each person has clear accountability for his or her performance in the service of the team.
  • “The modern business enterprise is easily defined. It has two particular characteristics: it contains many separate operating units and a hierarchy of executives. As a social innovation the modern enterprise was born when the volume of economic activities reached a level that made administrative coordination more efficient and more lucrative than market coordination.

    Before the rise of the modern firm, the activities of small, often personally owned enterprises were enabled and constrained by market and price mechanisms.”

    tags: socialmedia change organization internalization costs networking constraints coordination valuecreation ecosystem

    • The important innovation of the modern firm was to “internalize” activities by bringing many discrete components under one roof and under a system of coordination
    • The big idea behind industrial management was to purchase or set up units that were fit enough to operate as independent entities, but instead integrate them into one system.
    • The principle of internalization permitted the flows of goods, services and information to be planned from one unit to another.
    • The practices and procedures that were invented at the dawn of industrialism have become standard operating methods and are still taught in business schools today.
    • First, all financially successful offerings involve customization, or aggregation by the end-user. This means that companies must thrive in situations where very little information or communication can be made routine.
    • Second, all successful firms are actively involved in emergent, responsive interaction with people “outside”: customers and network partners. These firms understand that value is not created inside the organization but in the larger ecosystem they are one part of.
    • Interaction can only partially be planned in advance. People need to participate based on transparent information and high quality communication systems enabling responsiveness.
    • A larger and larger number of the contributing individuals are necessarily customers and network partners who are outside the company Intranet as we know it know. The explanation for this is that it is now more expensive to internalize than to network. T
    • This is why there are no, and never will be, successful social media implementations inside firewalls.
    • The enablers have turned into a constraint.
    • The systems of value creation need to be architectures that make wide area participation possible. The goal is interoperability and low barriers to experimentation and networked learning.
    • The difficulty is that this context has to make sense in the world we are going to, and not the world we are coming from.
  • “Dans l’exercice de communication qu’entreprennent les entreprises sur le web il existe bien entendu les initiatives de digital marketing sur les produits et services qu’elles délivrent, mais il y a aussi l’ensemble de la démarche de communication corporate tels que l’e-reputation, le marketing RH et la marque employeur. Si aujourd’hui il n’y a plus rien d’original à entreprendre cette démarche sur le web, il y a quelques éléments clés qui vont permettre des approches innovantes et assurer une performance plus importante et durable.”

    tags: e-reputation employees ambassadors employerbrand engagement participation hr trust

    • Cette confiance digitale se construit dans le temps, au fil des interactions entre l’entreprise et les différents interlocuteurs virtuels.
    • Le second élément est de créer une relation de profondeur avec les membres du réseau. La relation de profondeur est basée sur le niveau d’interaction entre les différentes parties prenantes. Il faut faire participer, faire interagir les parties prenantes pour créer de la valeur
    • Il s’agit des salariés ambassadeurs. Cette démarche qui vise à engager, faire interagir et participer activement des employés dans la discussion et l’échange avec l’écosystème de l’entreprise est à la fois une source de transparence et de profondeur de lien.
    • Il est aussi vrai que c’est une sorte de reconnaissance publique que d’être choisi pour représenter sa fonction, son poste ou même son pays pour son entrepris
    • Quoiqu’il en soit, il est toujours mieux de faire se former à quelques règles de bases sur les principes de bons usages des réseaux sociaux
  • There are many benefits to implementing social networking. Here are some of them:

    tags: socialnetworking enterprisesocialnetworking engagement innovation learning communication collaboration culture communitymanagement facilitation

    • There are many benefits to implementing social networking. Here are some of them:
    • Having a social intranet where employees can share and engage with others goes a long way to build employee engagement. People build networks that cut across the silos of teams and departments.
    • However using a social intranet which has the ability for employees to “like” and share their news, and add comments makes employee communication move from a “passive-broadcast” model to a conversation between the organization and the employees
    • Participation by employees in the conversation also builds ownership.
    • A social network where employees share their status, activities, bookmarks, documents helps in building an awareness of what colleagues are working on and serendipitous learning. I
    • The mere fact that an organization deploys an internal social network shows that it values openness, transparency and feedback.
    • Leveraging community management to get people to share and connect with each other is a skill that requires not just knowledge of the tool, but also group dynamics and people facilitation.
  • “En lisant le très bon (et assez courageux) billet de Laurent, je me suis interrogé sur les freins à l’évolution rapide de la pensée dans les entreprises. Est-ce que la raison se trouve dans le déficit de confiance que les annonceurs portent à des consultants externes qui manquent trop souvent d’humilité, de crédibilité et surtout de compétences marketing suffisantes pour intégrer les enjeux des media sociaux dans les disciplines fondamentales ? Ce déficit conduirait-il à s’intéresser de façon obsessionnelle à un sujet secondaire : le ROI ?”

    tags: communication socialmedia externalcommunication ROI topdown communitymanagement communitymanager socialmediamanagement brand badbuzz

    • Les media sociaux seraient donc le royaume du collaboratif, de l’échange, de la conversation ? Oui, sauf au moment où il s’agit d’impulser la mise en place de l’organisation qui va avec. Le frein numéro 1 à l’évolution des structures est l’absence d’implication d’une direction générale qui doit aligner les décideurs de l’entreprises autour d’un plan stratégique et opérationnel absolument top down, marketé autant que possible et intégré
    • La bonne nouvelle est que les grands patrons comprennent très vite les enjeux et la posture à prendre dès lors que le sujet passe en haut de la pile de leurs urgences. La mauvaise est que ça se produit souvent pour de mauvaises raisons : une crise… Dans les deux cas, l’accompagnement externe requiert un niveau d’expérience que les experts des media sociaux n’ont pas toujours, en cela je rejoins le point de Laurent.
    • laisser les clés à un consultant extérieur n’est forcément pas une bonne idée. Et considérer qu’un plan stratégique sera implémenté par un community manager, même malin, est un non sens.
    • le responsable des media sociaux (Social Media Manager), senior, légitime, membre du codir, respecté des autres managers fonctionnels. La plupart du temps, il se sera entouré de spécialistes externes et aura constitué avec eux une équipe opérationnelle internalisée
    • Seule une fonction stratégique transversale peut imposer un tel bouleversement culturel dans la rapidité de mise en oeuvre décomplexée.
    • La question du retour sur investissement est complexe puisqu’elle s’est toujours basée sur des indicateurs plus ou moins légitimes mais acceptés par tous comme preuve de réussite
    • Il “suffit” de répondre aux questions qui fondent les enjeux de l’entreprise : les medias sociaux me permettent-ils de recruter de nouvelles typologies de consommateurs ? Ma présence sur les media sociaux me protège-t-elle en cas de crise ? Ma relation avec mes clients est-elle effective partout où mes clients se trouvent
    • Evidemment, lorsqu’on considère le ROI par action tactique indépendamment d’un enjeu stratégique, le ROI est toujours plus complexe à déterminer, sauf à décréter à quel objectif il contribue et à préciser de quelle façon.
    • Une marque tente des choses sur le web, ça ne marche pas : encourageons là à tenter d’autres choses plutôt que de l’envoyer à l’échafaud pour une production discutable qui au final divise d’ailleurs plus qu’elle ne provoque un rejet généralis
  • “Activity streams have been around a while as a concept, but are getting a bump in interest. IBM talked them up at Lotusphere 2011. Microsoft added an ActivityManager class in SharePoint 2010 for MySite and profile changes, although they didn’t talk about it much or connect it to the rest of SharePoint. In fact, most categorizations place activity streams under “social software” for historical purposes, not that their value is limited to social status updates.”

    tags: activitystream informationoverload attention attentionmanagement

    • I have cautious optimism about activity streams.  Applying attention management is difficult because there are so many systems to apply it to.  Creating a fulcrum for setting up alerts, filters, recommendation engines, and the like yields more value from the investment in time and money for managing attention. 
    • Unfortunately, right now the focus seems to be mostly on plugging everything into the streams.  The resulting deluge of status updates may give activity streams a bad name.  For that reason, I’d like to see attention management controls and UI built into activity streams from the start, not evolve over time. 
  • ” Surtout, il apparaît que Deloitte accorde une certaine autonomie à ses employés, en faisant confiance à leur capacité jugement. En retour, les salariés semblent enclins à participer davantage au destin de l’entreprise. Ils n’hésitent ainsi pas à relayer vers l’extérieur leur sentiment positif vis-à-vis de l’extérieur.”

    tags: casestudies deloitte hr recruitment socialrecruitment recruitment2.0 cooptation

    • Quand la firme a mis en place un système de recommandation ou de proposition de candidature (récompensé par des cadeaux comme des tickets de concert, etc.), les employés n’ont pas hésité à faire la promotion du cadre et de l’entreprise dans laquelle il travaillait. On peut douter que dans certaines autres entreprises, moins portées par une culture plus participative, la sauce ait pris de la sorte.
    • Aujourd’hui, près de 40% des nouveaux recrutements opérés par Deloitte Australie (1.500 par an) passent par le système de recommandation.
    • Deloitte, en effet, a accepté d’ouvrir les canaux des médias sociaux presque sans condition.
    • Des candidats peuvent poser d’eux-mêmes des questions sur la page Facebook « Your Future at Deloitte« . Ces questions se retrouvent automatiquement relayées dans l’intranet propre de la firme. Chaque employé qui le souhaite peut répondre de lui-même.
  • tags: socialcrm

  • “Pods – also known as self-directed work teams – have been around for more than 20 years. Pods are 30% to 50% more effective than their traditional counterparts. A survey of senior line managers offers some of the benefits derived from implementing self-directed teams:

    Improved quality, productivity and service.
    Greater flexibility.
    Reduced operating costs.
    Faster response to technological change.
    Fewer, simpler job classifications.
    Better response to workers’ values.
    Increased employee commitment to the organization.
    Ability to attract and retain the best people.”

    tags: pod innovation podularity reward complexity interdependance modularity casestudies 3M amazon

    • Modular components are a critical element of a connected company. But to take advantage of pods you also need a business that is designed to support them.
    • Perhaps one of the reasons more companies haven’t organized around small, empowered teams is that their business architectures don’t allow it. It’s not easy to plug modules into a platform that isn’t designed for it.
    • Xerox, Procter and Gamble, AT& T and many other companies have credited self-directed teams with marked impact on their operations, including improvements in customer service, manufacturing, inventory management, and other productivity gain
    • 3M has roughly 100 autonomous profit centers, each of which operates like a separate company. As operations grow, profit centers divide in order to keep each group small and agile
    • In the 1990’s 3M implemented “self-directed work teams” in their manufacturing operations. The teams do their work as a team and manage themselves. Managers in this system were freed up to become coaches and teachers – essentially full-time trainers. Self-directed teams were not a top-down directive at 3M.
    • Bezos does have an answer though: Break big problems down into small ones. Distribute authority, design, creativity and decision-making to the smallest possible units, and set them free to innovate. Small teams focus on small, measurable components that customers value
    • Teams are limited in size to about 8-10 people. At Amazon they call them 2-pizza teams: If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.
    • Self-managed teams must not only have authority, they must be accountable for the results they deliver. The results the team is responsible for should be clear and measurable. There is some debate over whether self-directed teams should be compensated on a pay-for-performance basis.
    • So I believe successful teams should be rewarded in other ways: by being recognized by their peers, or allocating more of the resources that make them successful, like better equipment, more people, support, and so on.
    • This is where culture is critical. The culture of the company should be clear about expected behaviors like resolving disagreements, dealing with underperformers and so on
    • Technical standards help to reduce friction, but they are secondary to culture. Focus on culture first, and teams will start to demand the technical infrastructure they need to perform.
    • What you want is a part of the company that can be treated as a “black box.” If you can clarify the inputs and outputs you expect from a group or department, and what is inside the black box has limited interdependencies with other units, you have a sandbox where you can experiment with pods.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Head of People and Business Delivery @Emakina / Former consulting director / Crossroads of people, business and technology / Speaker / Compulsive traveler
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