Keeping the Faith: The E2.0 Evangelist

It's said that when asked if she would join an anti-war protest, Mother Theresa responded that she would rather be pro-peace.

I was reminded of the Mother Theresa story in a post by Euan Semple and it was timely for me after a long week.

Many of us who push the concepts of social computing, and enterprise 2.0 are often referred to as "evangelists". From my experience, this is a pretty good way to describe what we do. We spend huge amounts of effort & time bestowing the values of engaging employees, providing them an opportunity to be heard, to really collaborate en mass.

And we have to do that without having hard "proof". Belief without proof? Well, I guess that's referred to as faith. Considering the number of blogs I have seen that talk to "trying" to calculate an "ROI" for Enterprise 2.0, I am guessing that several others share this challenge on selling the concepts of social computing in an organization. It's hard, it's really really hard!

So why is it so hard? Well, corporations are often geared towards "risk management". When I've had to push concepts of social computing in my professional career, I have on several occasions encounter folks that jump to "risk management". Why not? Haven't we trained people to think this way?

Companies often say they want to promote "risk taking" and "innovation" but we don't reward them for that. The truth is that we ask for this, but when we take a risk and it doesn't pay-off, the company often comes down hard on those people. Actions speak louder then corporate messaging. Over time, we train people to be risk averse. You won't get fired for NOT adopting social media in the company.

When did all the departments shift from being centres of excellence to becoming "risk management" centres? Human Resources (HR) is about what we shouldn't do. Corporate Communications is about what we shouldn't say, Finance is about what we shouldn't fund. Someone help! We are "risk managing" ourselves to death!

Perhaps the pendulum has swung in the wake of the big corporate scandals. Perhaps it's just reinforcing Maslow's hierarchy and we're too busy worrying about survival that we're nowhere close to self-actualization. Whatever the reason, one thing is clear, and that is the challenge ahead of all E2.0 evangelists is enormous.

But keep faith my friends! Because in your organization, there will be people that "get it". That will support your concepts. They may not get it yet, but they will. Because what you're evangelizing isn't about a bunch of technology. It never has been. It's about the human potential. About a more efficient and effective way to collaborate. Collaboration is the ENTIRE reason a company exists. That's why we brought people together, because we could do more together. Our perspective needs to change and you need to be that agent of mental change management. In a way, you too are managing risk. The risk that your organization will be irrelevant if doesn't start thinking about what social media means.

I'll give you a tip. There is no "one way" to succeed. I've seen top-down, bottom-up, middle-out evangelism that have all been successful. There are several tactics you can use, but I'll save that for another post. For today, I just wanted to remind you that it's worth the effort and you're not alone! Don't give up.

Simplicity

When chatting about the "empty quarter" (those people that are unlikely to adopt social media), I am usually asked what we can do to tap into that group of people. We can't ignore them because they have the richest experience in an organization, and they are closer to retiring with their "institutional knowledge". One response is to drive towards "extreme simplicity".

Here is a funny comic by Eric Burke that purposefully exaggerates this. I realize that several people have criticized this comic as not being more realistic and try to explain the need for complexity but.... It's a comic! It's a fun reminder of a need for simplicity.

Lessons on Innovation, Collaboration & Leadership from Steve Jobs

Fortune put out excerpts from an interview with Steve Jobs earlier this month. Jobs makes some very candid, and direct points. The whole interview is quite insightful and helps to disprove some of the common misconceptions around what collaboration is all about.


Misconception 1: Collaboration means "wisdom of crowds" is better than "experts".

I am not sure why there seems to be an argument in many forums about whether "wisdom of crowds" is better than "experts". Optimal collaboration taps into the masses, but is refined through the experts. It's not one or the other, it's the intelligent collaboration of both.

So you can't go out and ask people, you know, what the next big [thing.] There's a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, 'If I'd have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me "A faster horse." '

In reference to the debates over embedding a sophisticates OS X in a cell phone Jobs states, "I had to adjudicate it and just say, 'We're going to do it. Let's try.' The smartest software guys were saying they can do it, so let's give them a shot. And they did."

Misconception 2: Innovation is the result of an individual genius.

There have been several noted authors that have proven this to be usually wrong. Read Andrew Hargadon's work on, "How Breakthroughs Really Happen". For example, the light bulb (the symbol for innovation) wasn't actually created by Edison.

In discussing people, Jobs talks to the need for passion in addition to smarts. "They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself."

To be the best requires individuals to understand broadly and not just their area. "So the way to do that is to have them know everything, not just in their part of the business, but in every part of the business. "


Misconception 3: Who cares if it's not perfect. Get your product out and then iterate.


There is much to be said about focus and getting it right the first time. I've often heard folks argue that, "Shoot first then aim later. Who cares if the bullets are cheap"... I guess the problem with that approach is that you can kill the wrong thing, and you can't "un-kill" if you made a mistake.

"Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we've got less than 30 major products. I don't know if that's ever been done before.... People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are."

"At Pixar when we were making Toy Story, there came a time when we were forced to admit that the story wasn't great. It just wasn't great. We stopped production for five months.... And if they hadn't had the courage to stop, there would have never been a Toy Story the way it is, and there probably would have never been a Pixar.we never expected to have another one. But you know what? There's been one on every film. It's been that way with [almost] every major project at Apple, too.... Take the iPhone. We had a different enclosure design for this iPhone until way too close to the introduction to ever change it. And I came in one Monday morning, I said, 'I just don't love this. I can't convince myself to fall in love with this. And this is the most important product we've ever done.' "And we pushed the reset button. "

The article has many more insights and worth the read.