The Workplace Blog

Boxes and Arrows just published an article on Social Networks by me. The article covers some key theoretical concepts in social networks and touches upon some of the applications in the marketplace. Take a look and let me know your thoughts on it. Its the first article in a three part series. The later parts will discuss information sharing on social networks and some workplace scenarios.

You know a web trend is “tired” when the strategy consulting firms discuss it. They’re often the last to pick up technology trends. So when I started reading this Booz Allen Hamilton article on web 2.0, I expected more of the same. But it is slightly different. Rather than just lamenting the end of traditional marketing, it also discusses how Web 2.0 provides new opportunities. Now that’s a nice change.

Jane McConnell is running the 2007 Global Intranet & Portal Strategies Survey. Submissions close on August, 30th 2007. If you participate in the survey, you’ll receive a free copy of the standard report while the enhanced version of the report will not be free. She has also published some preliminary results of the survey. To participate email Jane.

The Sloan Management Review discussed the challenges surrounding enterprise software in an article recently. They quote a multi-year study of over 400 companies which showed that IT departments tend not to be innovative leaders within an organization but rather conservative forces. Forces who are viewed by business executives as “cost sinks and liabilities”. Is that a fair characterization?

I do not want anyone who is managing an email infrastructure or a company-wide customer databases to be too innovative. I’d choose conservativeness any day. But at the same time, there are other areas in which IT managers can be innovative. Like in its uses of web 2.0 technologies. Rather than deriding these technologies as light-weight fads, IT departments can help their business clients and themselves by setting up web 2.0 labs to explore new uses of these technologies.

More importantly, IT managers should form closer relationships with their business counterparts. In today’s context, every business leader needs to understand IT well - so let them. It may bring in new ideas and new champions. IT infrastructure (like ERP systems) is increasingly getting commoditized or outsourced. Value is derived from the fringe, innovative end of an information technology infrastructure. IT managers may not have all the skills to reap those benefits so befriending a business head may not be such a bad idea even if it means less control.

Assignment Zero was a spectacular project that aimed to use crowdsourcing philosophies to interview experts about crowdsourcing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a complete success. However, many of the interviews are gems and are worth reading. I particularly enjoyed the Howard Rheingold and the Eric von Hippel interviews.

Something that we often ignore when developing user experience solutions is what is termed as the “phenomena of emergence” in information systems circles. In a nutshell, the phenomena of emergence implies that the new piece of software or service created will develop new uses once it is in the hands of the users themselves. These uses maybe completely different from what the designers and developers had inscribed for the users. The users of the solution may take it in a new direction.

The critical question is how do you create a software solution that allows for the phenomena of emergence? And the answer maybe a little simpler than you thought. When designing, rather than focusing the solution on interoperability with existing information standards and infrastructures, focus on providing as much flexibility into the solution itself. Flexibility so that the users can mold the solution to their own needs, environments and usage patterns. This does not meet customization and lots of dollars for consultants - it simply means designing the solution so that it can change and evolve too.

One can argue that something becomes a phenomenon when McKinsey decides to do a global survey about it. That seems to be the case with Web 2.0. According to the survey, the most popular investments are in web services, collective intelligence and peer-to-peer networking (see graph below). Wikis and blogs get far less attention.

I find these results rather interesting. Firstly, web services is not always categorized as web 2.0. In fact, it predates web 2.0 by a few years and represents something more technical and different. Secondly, wikis and blogs are impacting businesses immensly and I wonder why they did not get much attention in this survey. Maybe this is because the respondents were mostly on the IT side and so high up in their organizations that unless a technology cost a lot, it would not appear on their radar.

Also of interest is the number of people using web 2.0 technologies for collaboration within their organizations versus for communication with partners and customers. Managing collaboration internally wins. Now that’s an interesting statistic!

Web 2.0 technologies and values are bottom up and user driven. The savvy marketers, HR managers and IT gurus that are most in touch with their customers and employees will be the ones who will know best how to leverage the technologies. The others will probably tell you that web 2.0 is not important or will focus on more technical or positivist solutions.

The report is available for free though registration is required.

The 2007 Global Intranets Survey is being prepared. If you would like to participate email Jane McConnell. If you have not yet had the opportunity to download - free of charge - the results of the 2006 Global Intranet Survey Study, do so now. The last report showed that senior executives aren’t too sure how business critical intranets are. It will be interesting to see whether this year they think any differently.

One of my favorite Information Systems thinkers is Dr. Claudio Ciborra who passed away in early 2005. He drew upon phenomenology to explain some of the challenges in information systems.

Probably one of his most important contributions was the notion of improvisation in information systems. He explained that while we attempt to control our corporate environments via technology so that we can effectively manage inputs and outputs, that might not always produce the best results. Claudio argued that improvisation is an important aspect of any information systems scenario meaning that as human beings some of our best results come when we are allowed to improvise in a given context. As a result, he felt that when designing or using information systems we must not ignore our “moods feelings, affectations and fundamental attunement with the situation.” Our solutions too must give us enough flexibility to improvise.

In other words, our own humanness shapes our thinking, our responses and actions. This may not have been revolutionary for the social sciences, but when first introduced in the context of information systems it was revolutionary. So the next time you are designing or using a system, whether it is a website, an application or a wiki, recognize how your moods affect your interactions. And use those moods to imagine new designs as your users will always have different moods in which different solutions will meet their needs. In other words, let the improvisation happen.

For more on improvisations, read Labyrinths of Information.