i got nothing.

after that failed, i sent a question out on our yammer network to my colleagues and friends asking the same question. roughly 2 minutes and 30 seconds later i had a colleague of mine forward along an example document with exactly everything i was looking for. this was a colleague whom i’d have never even known existed if it weren’t for social networking within the enterprise.

but here’s the kicker…

the enterprise system we’ve developed has cost the firm countless thousands of dollars (probably millions), meanwhile the yammer network we’re using is the free version — no cost at all to us. using this high-cost technology outfit provided me with no answers at all and was actually a time-suck when you look at it, meanwhile a free system available to anyone was able to connect the person who needed information with the person who had the information.

the moral of the story is this: business needs to rethink where it’s spending its money. high cost IT departments in organizations don’t have to be high cost anymore. there was once a time when machines could do things that we mere mortals couldn’t, and so we developed these new systems to supplant humans. the problem is that that paradigm has shifted.

the focus needs to not be on what the technology is capable of, but on what the technology enables us to do.

at the end of the day this change in focus is better, faster, cheaper, and more efficient.

not easier, but better.

image by scootie, flickr artist

i like trance music. a lot. in fact i’d say that i truly love it. the reasons why are many, but aside from being good music it’s the trance community surrounding it which makes it so special to me.

in a musical genre categorized by well defined characteristics, the level of innovation and collaboration is off the charts. to use such common musical elements and structures as other artists and rearrange them to form entirely new tracks takes a great deal of creativity. add to your original mix countless mashups and remixes from other artists and your EP is — the vast majority of the time — largely filled with someone else’s work.

what i love so much about trance is that these artists not only create their music but they actively invite people to take it and make it better — to put their own spin on it (sorry for the pun).

the business world could use a little trance influence.

you never see the giants of industry partnering together to create something special. when was the last time you saw facebook and google working hand-in-hand on anything? or microsoft and apple? or sony and samsung? for that matter, sometimes we even have trouble getting our own internal teams to collaborate together — like information security and the end users.

we were always taught that competition makes everyone better, and there may be some truth to that. business has no doubt followed in that tradition ever since history can remember. but what if we took the time to collaborate a little more? what if we partnered more between business and charity for instance? what kind of mashups and remixes could we make?

that would be some kind of beautiful music.

image by Alvin K, flickr artist

here’s a simple science experiment:

count how many emails you get today from advertisements. also count the number of spam messages that get filtered into your junk email folder. in addition, count the number of emails you get that have attachments to them, especially large ones. then finally count how many emails you currently have across your folders that are unread.

now, you tell me if email is really a good tool to use or not.

image by unclebumpy, flickr artist

i recently came across a post on wired.com’s science section about american bullfrogs and their leaping ability.   in short: when in the wild, bullfrogs have a certain expectation of maximum leaping distance which scientists have previously measured at 4.3 meters. however, at a county fair in california’s calaveras county their bullfrogs have been known to leap over 7 meters when involved in their frog jumping competitions.  that’s quite an improvement!

in business, it seems everyone is focused on collaboration; on finding synergies and maximizing productivity.   but what if we increasingly looked not towards collaboration on our teams, but towards competition?  how would the game change then?

instead of placing an employee or a team on a specific task, why not place two employees or two teams on a task and have each work independently of each other?  for the duration of the task in question, have periodic reviews — once every week or two weeks depending on the length of the overall task — where each presents their current progress.  they will see what the other is doing allowing them to recognize where they’re stronger, identify areas for improvement, and (most importantly) learn from the other.

this kind of competition may hurt burn rates on billable hours for a project but it might just be worth it when you take a look at the big picture.  this friendly jousting between employees working on the same task could lead to more innovation, better products for the client, different options for the client, and an incentive system that’s actually based on something (winning ‘competitions’).

i understand that this method might not work in all situations, but if you can find a way to implement it just think about how much your organization and clients could benefit.

don’t you want to find out how far can you jump?

image by Reini68, flickr artist

when was the last time you had a good idea?  one of those eureka moments?

i remember back in college my roommate and i were discussing which of the honey bunches of oats ‘flavors’ we enjoyed the most.  after trying pretty much all of them, i told him with conviction that hbo with strawberries was my favorite.  i said:  ”the thing i love about it is how your milk turns strawberry-flavored afterwards.”

immediately i thought, ‘hey — they actually make that stuff!’ and i shouted out with such joy, “dude!  what if i make strawberry milk, and then pour that into my hbo with strawberries?  it’s double the strawberry!  how awesome would that be?!”

the very next time we went to the grocery store i bought some strawberry nesquik mix and put my theory to the test.  naturally it ended up being horrendous, but it was still a good idea at the time.

the reason i mention this is because good ideas (even the ones that fail) are almost always a product of some kind of external stimulation.  these ideas come to you through conversations, through listening, through watching other people.  this is why working in distributed teams causes such problems for so many.

this notion of “you have your job, i have my job, and we’ll call each other every tuesday and discuss the status of things,” doesn’t work.  it separates out the work being done from the actual creative process.  as leaders and managers, it’s important that we create environments that support the creative process rather than work against it.

it’s not always possible to have people in the same geography — i think we all know that.  business is global, and so too must your workforce be.  but we can certainly provide them with the tools they need to become better collaborators.  let your employees join and use social networks.  join them on those networks.  become part of the process yourself.  stop using email as your primary means of communicating work.  hold more video conferences and web meetings with visuals.

for those who are co-located, don’t put them in cubicle farms.  give them offices and more than enough spaces where they can come together with their thoughts, challenges, and proposals.  give them time in the day to work on something that’s entirely non-work related.  pro-bono work that they want to work on.  lessons learned from those efforts will carry over into the billable ones.

stop treating people as if they’re just cogs that can be placed anywhere.  find out who works well together and put them in the same space.  if it means moving someone from the 1st floor of your building to the 4th floor, then so be it.  throw those old “organizational standards” out the window because they don’t work anymore.

ideas do not occur in a bubble; so stop putting your employees in them.

image by dharmabumx, flickr artist

i was listening in on a social media community of practice presentation today that a colleague of mine was giving about social media in the enterprise and individual performance.

while i feel that my colleague has done some great work — and really took a rather large bite to create a conceptual model for promoting participation in online networks which is itself valiant — i think it’s important to make the distinction between participation, and adoption.  it’s a distinction that i feel is greatly overlooked.

mike’s model talked about awareness, self-efficacy, organizational trust, and this notion of perceived improvement potential all being drivers of participation.  and i think that’s wrong.  in fact, i think it’s exactly backwards.

you might think that i’m splitting hairs right now; toe-may-toe, toe-mah-to, right?  but participation and adoption do have rather different connotations despite the fact that often times you’ll hear those two words used interchangeably.  i think, however, that you’ll find one is far more desirable (and much harder to come by) than the other.  in fact, one leads to the other.

of the two, participation is far easier to accomplish.  it’s really as simple as griping and grinning… virtually of course.  when many people join online communities, they are timid.  they appear to be introverted whilst they become acclimated to their new digital surroundings.  i’ve written about introversion before (see here, and here), so i won’t go into much detail in this post — but it’s important to realize that some introverts just need a little push and others just a little time.  so in using social media — twitter, yammer, blogs, wikis, etc. — just reaching out with a “hello and welcome..” is all that person may need.

you can raise participation through this ‘welcome wagon’ as we call it on our yammer network, and from involving people in conversations.  ”hey, jesse, i see you’re on the ___ team.  do you have any experience in ___?”  if you ask someone a question directly, chances are they’ll answer.  even if they answer with a, “i’m sorry, but i don’t have an answer for you,” it’s still a step in the right direction.  with some follow up discussion, you can begin to elicit active participation from users.  but you also have to remember that there are other kinds of participation, too.

you can passively participate as well.  there are plenty of people who sign up for twitter or subscribe to blogs and never post or comment, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not there paying attention.  passive users can also derive value from the conversations which unfold and the information that’s shared.

adoption, however, is far more difficult to achieve.  the definition of “adopt” is to take by choice into a relationship.  people can participate here and there, or they can participate by doing nothing but listening.  for true adoption, though, a user must not just use the system or be part of the discussion — they have to push to better the system and take the discussion to more people.  true adoption happens when people take ownership of what’s going on.  it’s something that my colleague steve talks about all the time.  when you adopt something, you choose to make it your own.

i think participation is the catalyst for self-efficacy, organizational trust, and perceived improvement potential — not the other way around.  self-efficacy, organizational trust, and perceived improvement potential then help to lead to adoption.

that’s where i think the difference is between participation and adoption.  they’re not interchangeable; the one actually lays the foundation for the other.

i find email to be a burden to my work.

it’s the hammer in the tool box. the problem is, not every situation is a nail. sometimes you need a screwdriver, and other times you need a wrench. but we’re so dependent on email (i blame ms outlook for it) that we all try hammering in screws and bolts — even when we know it doesn’t work.

even though we have instant messaging, and even though we have enterprise 2.0 tools like wikis and blogs and more, we time and time again return to email.

i think part of the reason is because ms outlook isn’t a mail client anymore; it has become a platform. since people have it open all the time and communication is instant, we use it instead of IM. we send files using outlook instead of posting them to some other service (like sharepoint.. ugh). we schedule meetings through outlook. we look up phone numbers and office locations through outlook. we hold long conversations in outlook. we ask questions in outlook, and we distribute information in outlook.

how frustrating is it, knowing that the place where you keep answers to your questions about multivariate calculus modeling for enterprise decision support is the same place that you keep information about server downtime from the internal IT department and notes about leftover sandwiches from the breakfast meeting being in the kitchen on the 4th floor?  how can anyone find anything in that mess?  we waste more time cleaning, sorting, and deleting messages from our inboxes that have no business being there.  cleaning, sorting, and deleting messages just so that we can find what it is we’re actually looking for.

enterprise 2.0 systems need to be more than a collection of blogs, wikis, and other web 2.0 tools.  it seems to me the easiest way to push adoption is to provide not just the screwdriver, or the socket set (metric, please) — we need to provide the hammer.

we have to add messaging!  instant communication needs to be part of our e2.0 solutions.  we need to create an internal facebook, with messaging, chat, and status updates/content sharing (micro-blogging) all in the same platform.  we have to make it so that people can do their work — all their work — from within one internal platform.

all of our tools, hammers included, need to be in the same box.

image by foreverdigital, flickr artist

i’m not sure exactly what my favorite part of hockey is.  as a goaltender (in my younger years), i have to admit that few things get me going more than a glove save on a 2-on-1 breakaway.  i can still appreciate a fine dangle, however.

i can tell you with conviction, however, that one of the best moments is the celebration when a player scores a goal.  the unbridled passion, the camaraderie, everything great about the sport of hockey comes through in one moment shared by 5 players on the ice (sometimes more).  it’s one single moment that embodies all of what hockey is about.

teamwork.

so why is it, that hockey players — among other athletes — celebrate their teammates hard work together, but we in business don’t?  anyone who hits a home run in baseball is greeted with a collection of fist bumps when he gets back to the dugout,  basketball players get chest bumps after knocking down a big three late in a game, football players get a firm slap on the butt after a big play, and soccer players… well, they do things differently than everyone else.  but no matter the sport, they all celebrate together.

what is it about business that makes us treat the dolling out of awards and kudos as a function of management?  imagine if home runs didn’t come with fist bumps, and soccer didn’t come with… miko vucinic.  imagine a sports world where goals weren’t celebrated, or big plays appreciated, except when from a coach.

so the next time you see a co-worker putting in long hours, or shoveling tons of crap to keep the client happy, don’t wait for management to step in and give an award.  do it yourself.

organize a happy hour in their honor and pay for the first round.  buy them lunch when you see they’re too busy to stop and grab one themselves.  every day there are opportunities to thank each other for doing the hard work that many — especially management — take for granted.  find some way to express your gratitude.

because what good is scoring a goal if no one’s there to… take off their pants?

image by syamastro, flickr artist

blog.  wiki.  ms excel file.  ms project plan.  ms sharepoint page.  basecamp project.

they’re all tools.  while people may prefer one tool over another, whichever tool it is will not take hold unless the culture there supports it.

i see a lot of proposed changes to current work streams and business processes fail because — even with support from leadership — the user base rejects those changes.  there could be a few reasons why:

• it’s not simple.  if the change is convoluted, adding extra steps to the workflow process or time to complete tasks, people are going to reject it – even if they agree in principle that the proposed new method is “right”
• they don’t understand it.  if you make a change that people don’t understand the reasoning behind, they will have a hard time accepting and implementing it.  #1 sign that you made boo-boos?  hearing employees say, “uh.. why are we doing this again?”
• it doesn’t fit.  if your changes contradict the way you do business, it’s only going to lead to confusion and frustration, and ultimately it will be abandoned.

if you’ve tried making changes to the way your team or organization does work in the past and failed, check the process again.  look at what you’re trying to do, and see what your people think about it.  when new tools don’t take hold, don’t discredit their use.

it’s the culture, stupid!

keep the tools and fix the culture.

image by oliver widder, creator of geek and poke

people don’t fully understand social media, and part of it is our own fault — the social media mavens.  i don’t think we do a well enough job of explaining it to everyone.

most people aren’t very fond of change, because change is unpredictable.  am i going to be better, or worse off?  will i be able to adapt?  can i make the necessary changes in me to succeed in this new environment?

the problem with social media, though, is that it’s really not a change from one thing to this other.  in the end, we’re all still communicating.  how we communicate — the tools we use — do (as everything) evolve over time, however.  but it’s certainly not anything to be frightened over.

we need to find better ways to communicate the benefits of social media to yesterday’s enterprise 1.0 stalwarts.  how do you get someone who is so loyal to the old way of doing things to change?

i think it’s in the metaphors.

drawing connections between perfectly understood and generally accepted metaphors with social media may be the key to forming a level of trust that will enable the “old dinosaurs” (who may very well be young guns who just refuse to change) to ease into a social media transition.  the very simple fact remains: many people don’t use it because they don’t understand it.  but what do people understand?

the news.

the news used to be, very long ago, a newspaper that you bought at a newsstand or had delivered to your house.  you’d keep it and read it the whole week until the next week’s edition when you bought the newest paper with the newest news.  but then, the radio came along.  radio and television changed the way that you got your news.  it wasn’t weekly anymore, it became nightly… and then twice daily.  with weather and traffic reports!  it didn’t take a whole week before you learned about what was going on in the world anymore.  but then, the internet came along.  the web again changed the way you got your news.  it’s not twice daily anymore — it’s any time you want.  news is reported as fast as it happens.

in the end it’s all news!  you find out what’s going on in the world around you; the only thing that’s changed is how you get the news.  flash forward from the days of big weekend newspapers and radio programs and into the world of the 1980s.  let’s talk portable music now..

years ago, if you wanted to listen to music, you would have to put a record on the record player in the living room or drop a cassette into the stereo system in your bedroom and enjoy while you sat there (or danced when no one was looking).  but then sony introduced its walkman player in ’79 and you could bring the tunes with you wherever you were.  out for a jog?  riding on the subway?  van halen was never too far out of your reach.  but then the CD player came along with a larger capacity, gave you the ability to skip tracks instead of fast forwarding, and allowed you to easily fit multiple albums in your backpack with the CD’s slimmer profile.  but then, the ipod was born.  now, we can not only skip songs but actively search for a specific song, and with large capacity memories can even store entire music libraries in your pocket.  you get the music you want, when you want it, at any time.

in the end it’s all music!  you play the air guitar, you tap your toes, and you sing along.

social media is the same as the news.  it’s the same as portable music.  we’re finding newer ways of communicating, collaborating, and building virtual relationships that translate into real world benefits.  when we talk about blogs, twitter, youtube, and wikis — what we’re really talking about is just an evolution in communication.  the same way the radio didn’t reinvent the news, and the cd player didn’t reinvent what music is — social media isn’t reinventing collaboration, it’s enhancing it.