Mesh07: Edelman's PR advice applied to Enterprise 2.0

Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman, the worlds largest independent public relations (PR) firm kicked things off this morning at Mesh 07. I am not a PR person myself but his insight can be applied to any enterprise looking at adopting Web 2.0 technologies (i.e. Enterprise 2.0) such as blogging, and social forums. Here are some of his comments and my corporate view to them.

"Don't leave the whole conversation up to the opposition."


You may be bold enough to introduce corporate blogging but how would you respond if you started receiving several extremely negative comments? Some "purists" would argue that you must never "govern" these comments. Personally, I believe that if a comment is inappropriate and adds little to the conversation, it should be removed. Definitely, Techcrunch personality, Mike Arrington was upfront with the audience yesterday in saying that he regularly re-edits his comments after-the-fact.

At a minimum, you SHOULD provide the counter arguments and support for your blog. Being accepting of criticism doesn't mean just hiding until the bombing subsides. Your supporters will be looking for your support and want to hear your side of the story.

Another important point... THINK before you blog or crowdsource. For example, providing an opportunity for anyone to create a commercial for the Chevy Tahoe in a climate where there is heavy evangelism over environmentalism isn't the wisest move. For those who know the story, several "creative" people took up the offer from GM but created attack ads that put the Tahoe in a very negative environmental light. Perhaps another communication medium would have been better.


"There is a trade-off between Control and Credibility"

Edelman suggested middle management would be a good place to start blogging. He talked to the Microsoft example in which Robert Scoble, gained credibility by being transparent and genuine as illustrated in his public attack on his own company. In the long-run, Microsoft may have benefited from letting Scoble's opinion flow instead of shutting down the conversation.

Another example was the Dove campaign on YouTube, "In search of real beauty". The Dove brand rose considerably with this transparent approach.

In the end, Edelman gave 3 points of advice.

1. Make your stories visual. Go beyond the words.

2. Don’t let yourself be defeated by set backs. You will fall a few times.

3. Don’t let clients put you in a box. Stand your ground.

This was just the kick-off. No Doubt you will see many more blogs coming out of Mesh 07!

Mesh07: Digital Blinders - Are We an Inch Wide and a Mile Deep?

Today I attended the Mesh 07 Conference and for me the most interesting (philosophically intense) session was the one titled "Digital Blinders - Are We an Inch Wide and a Mile Deep?" with a panel consisting of Mark Schneider, Nora Young and Mark Federman.

To be honest, I had no clue what this would be about. As I sat down I noticed a cartoon backdrop depicting 3 teenagers slouched on a couch surfing the web and commenting on sensational pictures of Britney Spears. The tag line said "The Death of the Newspapers"

We were quickly informed that this session was to discuss whether the abundance of information has caused us to be passive, lazy consumers of mass content lacking depth of understanding? It was kicked off by an excerpt from Al Gore's recent book, "Assault on Reason" in which Gore expresses anger over the media's single focus on salacious topics such as Paris Hilton, OJ Simpson, Laci Peterson, etc... while the US quietly made catastrophic errors in judgment about the environment, and the war on Iraq.

Of the many points discussed, the one concept that made me really think was whether the allowance of self-organized social communities actually drove collaboration further apart? The reasoning is that people are more apt to look for websites, communities, articles that support their disposition on certain topics rather than counter arguments to their pre-conceived ideas.

As communities of like minded people form, it reinforces their positions and causes an "us versus them" divide. Mark Federman, pointed to our Western education system that reinforces the zero-sum assumption in the way they teach children then you are either "right" or that you are "wrong". You can not have two right answers.

After the session, I chatted with some peers and discussed the implications to a company. Here are a four concepts from that discussion.

1. Focus on creating integrated forums that offer multi-perspectives instead of separate forums dedicated to specific interests.

2. Provide access to multi-source of information for multiple perspectives.

3. Focus on improving critical thinking and the ability to process multiple arguments and identify strength of arguments.

4. Accept the concept of emergent understanding and that it is ok to NOT have an immediate position.

Looking forward to tomorrow's session.

Collaboration in the Enterprise

I recently did a podcast with Stephen Hayward of Project X. We talked about collaboration in the enterprise beyond the "touchy feely" concepts and within the framework of driving the customer experience through innovation, agility, holistic understanding, and employee engagement.

Here is the background and link to the Podcast on Collaboration in the Enterprise

Enjoy...

A Code for Enterprise 2.0 Practioners?

1. VALUE AT ALL COSTS THE PERSONAL IMPACT OF SOCIAL COMPUTING

2. PEOPLE AS NOT RESOURCES TO BE EXPLOITED

3. REALIZE THAT THE CROWD IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT



Those would be my first three statements in a code for the new Enterprise 2.0 practitioner. Why do we need a code? Because the implications of social computing go far beyond a piece of technology. The personal nature of social computing means we have a moral responsibility.

Being at the beginning of Enterprise 2.0 means that we will undoubtedly see several failures in addition to the triumphs. A Code (built through collaboration of course) will help the advancement of Enterprise 2.0 as a discipline.

I was reminded of the awesomeness of the impact we can have during a discussion over coffee with Jevon MacDonald of firestoker.com. Jevon and I shared stories of our experiences in social computing as practitioners and lessons learned. Both of us had experiences which started with an ambitious objectives in the earlier years that produced results very different than what we were hoping to achieve.

The BIG lesson though wasn't about "being overly ambitious / progressive goals with social computing", or even "how to be successful in an Enterprise 2.0 implementation". The BIG lesson was that the beliefs, thoughts, ideas of individuals was more than just data and information. It was a representation of themselves personally. Depending on the topic at hand, the implications are that 'heated comments, critics, rants, and worse' bcome personal attacks. These could have long lasting and severe implications.

I am however, more than ever, a huge proponent of the positive aspects of Enterprise 2.0 having witnessed amazing results in both a cultural sense and a business value perspective. My point isn't to scare people away, it's to remind all of us practitioners that we're dealing with more than just some interesting technology. We're dealing with people. That's just background on the first statement, I'll talk to the other two statements in future blogs but I really would love to hear your thoughts.

Are you a practitioner?

What do you think of such a code?

What lessons have you learned?

What other 'rules' would you add?

Three "Best Practices" that Kill Collaboration

"Why must we keep convincing people about the importance of collaboration!? This is not a new topic or a radical concept. We all know it's good. If man, by nature is a social creature, then why haven't we cracked the nut on collaboration".

This was a statement made by a participant at a meeting I recently attended. It was one of those comments that just made the room stop for a minute and think. It was a legitimate question, that was rooted in frustration over years of work on the topic of collaboration.

I've written a set of blogs (Desire, Opportunity, Capability, Connectivity) that talk to the ingredients required for collaboration. If you're really interested in creating a collaborative work environment in a traditional company or in a Enterprise 2.0 organization, I suggest you read those 4 articles.

In this blog, I thought I'd focus on 3 controversial reasons that actually kill collaboration. These 3 obstacles, are often considered "best practices". You may even read these as proud statements on the next resume you review but, it could turn out to be the reason your organization can't get to the next level of collaboration.


1. Well defined, measurable set of objectives directly linked to compensation, recognition & rewards tailored for each employee.

There are several proponents of having well defined measurable objectives and tying them directly to compensation. Management by Objectives (MBO) & Jack Welch are just a couple of names you'd hear praising the benefits. It seems logical that if you do a good job, and it's linked to your objectives then you should be compensated for this.

The difficulty lies in the individual nature. The first concern is around the competitive aspects of this kind of model. If your knowledge or expertise could really assist someone else but helping them had no relation to your objectives, would you help them? What if we took it one step further. What if your helping of someone else actually hurt your ability to meet your objectives? Perhaps it would take you away from completing your objectives or actually go counter to your objectives? What if the more important thing for the company was helping that other person?

Often a cascading objectives model (one in which, you get your objectives from your boss, and she gets them from her boss, etc..), leads to solio'd thinking. Opportunities that arise that cut across silo's (and requiring collaboration) are simply never seen. It's not that people want to be malicious, they simply don't see the opportunity.

Is it possible to structure objectives, that allow for collaboration that still are well defined, measurable and linked to compensation? The answer depends in what "well defined" means. In theory, an objective about collaborating could resolve this. It's worked for other organizations. If you go this route though, keep in mind the implications it has on organizational structure as well. Proceed with caution, you're changing institutional models that may be as old as the organization itself.


2. A strong track record of success & being an expert.

William Torbert and associates have done some very interesting research looking at effective leadership styles. One of his findings is that most leaders are good leaders. In fact they would be considered "experts." How could this be a bad thing? Well, think of when you last asked for help. I bet it was likely because you needed help! Why would you ask for help if you knew how to do something? The answer of course is that there could be a better way...

Collaboration fails when the participants, aren't really listening. This tends to happen when we become experts in a field (or believe we are experts in a field). It becomes even worse when others also identify you as the expert in an area seeking advice and recommendations. What happens is we are so confident in our ability, that we simply get things done. We understand the most complex issues and when someone, with basic understanding offers a suggestion that could go against years and years of thinking in a field, we tend to dismiss it. If you're a parent, and consider yourself to be a good parent, how likely will you listen to someone (who doesn't even have a child) give you some parenting advice???

Acknowledging this is the first step to becoming more open & receptive. Torbet talks about "Alchemists" who can "transform" information and concepts into radically new things in a collaborative model. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean you need to collaborate on everything and that expertise isn't a good thing. It's knowing how to be receptive to collaboration.


3. Focus on getting things done and taking quick action.

Today more than ever, we are praised for our ability to get things done. Business moves at the speed of thought. Competitive pressures drive us into action. We must take first mover advantage.

I won't argue that speed & agility aren't critical for today's successful business. The problem occurs when we find out afterwards that we were running the wrong race. Short-term solutions that provide immediate payback cause us to ignore the longer term implications. In addition, we mis-interpret action for speed. We see the guy who is busy responding to e-mails, & making decisions as more productive then the guy who is chatting with his team over coffee.

Reality is that the race starts way before we even get to the start line. It's in all the preparation we do prior to. Collaboration, in these early stages sets the stage for swift action. As Covey would say... Seek first to understand the problem/opportunity and then to be understood.

Conclusions

For each of these factors it's all about balance. Those things that created success may at a certain point, be the same things that stop us from getting to the next level of collaboration.

What do you think? Have you experienced any of these? Do you have other examples?

Banning Facebook in the Workplace

One of the biggest aspects of web 2.0 is the growing nature of social network sites such as Facebook (which is growing at a phenomenal 5% a week). Facebook provides a communication vehicle that is rich with multimedia content, and more importantly provides an informal communications environment in digital space.


Recently, Facebook has been banned by several notable organizations in Canada (e.g. Ontario Government, TD Bank) and undoubtedly others organizations will follow suit. Where do you fall in this debate? The standard hypothesis that has lead to the banning of Facebook looks something like...

If Facebook is about socializing and it is known that employees are spending much of their time on Facebook, then employees must be "unproductive".


Personally, I don't have an issue with this. Although I know there seems to be a lot of writers of this topic that view these actions as "short-sighted." or "delaying the inevitable". Although I am an optimist on the potential implications Web 2.0 & Enterprise 2.0 could have on organizational culture, I try to be a realist as well.

Providing a means for self-organization, empowerment, employee engagement, or alternate communication means shouldn't be mistaken for providing the employees the right to do anything they want. Enterprise 2.0, should be about employee engagement and collaboration. It's not about anarchy. If one can't make a strong argument on the business value provided by a set of actions, then an organization not only has the right to question the activities, but has the obligation to shareholders (or taxpayers) to do so.

For Facebook, the "business value" arguments have included "higher employee satisfaction" and "improved communications" but the argument hasn't received a lot of support. However, the elected officials are 'exempt' from the government ban because of the argument that Facebook is a growing communication channel and is essential to reaching their constituents.

I do believe that social networking sites have a place in the enterprise, but Facebook in it's current state simply is not geared towards creating business value. That's not to say, it can't evolve to an enterprise product, or that other tools could emerge based on the "informal communication" concept but they need to be geared towards delivering business value.

Every great leader has understood that it's not just about being smart (or even right). It's also about impact & influence. Influence increases, when the leader is able to relate the vision/mission with those aspects & concepts that touch a personal level. The ability to do that, is enhanced through relationships. My point here is that social networking, and the informal communication offers a new way to create the relationship that in the past required face-to-face interaction. This could be a future productivity application.

For example, how many times have you just phoned a colleague (not a friend) at work just to ask them how their weekend went without any other purpose? When was the last time you sent an e-mail to your boss with no other purpose but to ask about the game last night? Odds are you don't do this. E-mail and the phone tend to be formal communication mediums in the work environment. Heck, you even have to have a subject heading on your e-mail. Now, if you happened to bump into your boss, you might just ask if she caught the game last night. You may even know she is a huge Hockey fan and that she coaches her kids' team. This is informal communication, that leads to stronger relationships.

Don't confuse informal communication with personal communication either. You may bump into a colleague and ask them how they are, just to find out they are swamped with a major project. You likely wouldn't have sent them an e-mail asking, if by chance they were swamped with a new project. Informal connections provide you this knowledge. This may be useful immediately, or somewhere down the line. It may be useful for yourself or somebody else that you connect with.

Facebook, and similar sites do this in digital space. I've allowed for a few 'business' contacts enter my network on Facebook and am amazed how quickly I seem to be 'getting to know' them. Today, I tend to use LinkedIn for my business contacts but it doesn't nearly allow me the same level of informal communication. It would be interesting if Facebook did decided to enter the Enterprise market.

How to harness the good aspects and minimize the potentially negative aspects is the trick. But like most things, the answer is going to be some shade of grey because it sure isn't black or white.

Status: Rex is inviting you t0 comment on his blog.

Citizens of the World.... Unite! - IBM & Business Objects crowdsource to help the world.

Can we make a difference?



I was reminded of this video today, as I was reading the following e-mail from BusinessObjects:

"Global Warming. World Hunger. Childhood Education. Clean Drinking Water. Human Rights. Extreme Poverty. Basic Healthcare.

THE WISDOM OF THE CROWD VERSUS THE PROBLEMS OF THE PLANET.

On May 15th, join Bernard Liautaud, Don Tapscott, John Schwarz and others as they gather to see if our collective intelligence can be put to a higher purpose—solving the world’s great problems.

Learn more about this in a video message from John Schwarz. We invite you to become part of an exciting new online community dedicated to seeing what happens if data lovers, business thinkers, technologists, academics, visual artists and others put their brains together to discover new ways of sharing ideas, analyzing information, and working together in a global mind grid.

Our goal is to change the way problems get solved, to work on issues that have a global impact, and to challenge the conventions and paradigms of online communities. "

I also have been sent information from IBM on their "Global Innovation Outlook" which asks "Have you ever thought about changing the world? Or maybe just one continent at time? How about Africa? ". IBM plans to use crowdsourcing to gather ideas on how help Africa through business development that will be discussed by thought leaders around the globe.

Both of these appear to be noble causes, but I can't help being skeptical whenever there appears to be "product placement" in the requests. Perhaps it's a small price to pay for the opportunity to truly help the world? A word of caution, if the "marketing" of their corporate services goes to far, it will turn people off and potentially turn them off from other future attempts at global crowdsourcing.

I hope for the best and plan on participating as well.

Time will tell us the outcome.

Social networking in the Enterprise is not the same as on the Web

BusinessWeek ran a story last week, "Digg's Mob Rules", about the recent challenges faced by Digg. The dilemma is about a very popular Digg article detailing how to illegally copy HD-DVDs. Having been requested by a copyright consortium of heavy hitters, Digg removed the article, only to have the tens of thousands of Digg participants re-post the article or variations of it.

Digg owns the forum but the content is borrowed. This argument could be applied to all social networking forums. If Digg imposes it's "value" system will it risk alienating it's audience? Will it risk the authenticity of mass collaboration? . Clearly the Digg rules around banning pornography, or hate messaging seems to work through the self-governance model because the large majority would agree with the rules. But what happens when the crowd disagrees?

Whatever the answer turns out to be, this topic illustrates a key differentiator between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. And really the point I want to discuss.

In Web 2.0, the social-network IS the business but in Enterprise 2.0, the business is only harnessing the social-network for it's real business.

The implications of this statement is that Governance with a capital "G" has an important place in the enterprise even if web 2.0 doesn't tolerate it. In my opinion, the goals of business are specific and doesn't include providing a completely open platform for democracy relating to all business decisions. It's about running the business.

Definitely there will be arguments that providing a free forum with no governance can provide insight to the deepest parts of the organization. Or that this is an attractor for retaining employees. No doubt these aspects can be harnessed. The line though is to what extent.

Even the whiz kids of the Web 2.0 era have clearly opposed complete democratization of decision making. Apple's Steve Jobs gave clear design instructions for the iPod to not have an ON/OFF switch even though his designers wanted it. Even Google itself was turned down by everybody at first as a viable business requiring Sergey Brin & Larry Page to go it alone. Had they based their decision on the opinions of the masses we may never have seen the likes of Google!

Top-down decision provides agility in pushing breakthrough concepts ahead even when the majority of people "just don't get it". Agility is one of the biggest competitive advantages a company can have.

So what does governance look like? Well that's another blog.

Thoughts?

E-Mail... That was so yesterday...

I heard a comment the other day, which I though somewhat dates me. The person was being asked if they used "e-mail" to which the response was, "Not really... It's kinda formal... Like sending your friend's parents a thank-you note." No surprise the response came from the younger generation.

Many years ago, I decided to create a Yahoo e-mail account just for things that I didn't want my "real e-mail address" from being bombarded with. I thought that I'd keep my "real" e-mail reserved for "real" friends and not solicitations from web sites. This worked well for a long time. My personal e-mail had all my personal communications and my "yahoo" e-mail had all my other stuff.

Over time though, my personal e-mail started to go down in size and my Yahoo e-mail started getting bigger. The funny thing is that the Yahoo growth wasn't really e-mail. It was notices telling me someone commented on my blog, or a response to my blog, or my friend just posted a picture of me on facebook, or a friend just posted something on my wall in facebook. It turned out that...

E-Mail was primarily just a pointer for me to use things that are replacing e-mail....

Why is that? I believe the answer to be "personalization" and "socialization". Is this not exactly what Marshall McLuhan was getting at with "The medium is the message"

In my working day, e-mail is probably the biggest "work" communication vehicle for me today. Easily in the 100's of emails a day. Notice, I view this as communication and not collaboration. No doubt I'm copied on things i don't need to be, invited to things I don't care about, but also a lot of important relevant e-mails too.

Perhaps social networks are ready for the enterprise? If it allows for more personal communication, that increases trust and openness... If it allows for informal communication... The opportunity to collaboration and the willingness to collaborate could benefit?

Still unsure how most big companies would see this though. I am certain first reaction is "waste of time"... Hmm.... What do they think of E-Mail?

Thoughts?