Getting ready for a short presentation yesterday I spent some time thinking about collaboration. And I had a sort of epiphany. Here are some quick thoughts…
SHARING is the engine behind collaboration. It is what makes it work. If your org has a culture of hording it will be difficult to collaborate.
DISCOVERY is the heart of collaboration. When we share, others discover. This is what we are trying to do when we collaborate. There are two types of collaboration. Both are expressed by formulas:
1+1=4
I have one piece of information. You have another. We share those and I have two, you have two, thus four. We both have discovered a new piece of personal knowledge. Not that the information was new, but that it was shared. Examples of this is most of the discussion on forums. Some don’t know, others shared. (Hereafter, this formula is referred to as “=4″) This post is of this type.
1+1=5
I have one piece of information. You have another. We share those and I have two, you have two, thus four. But as we combine these four, a fifth is created. We have both discovered a new piece of group knowledge. Although this is a ‘higher’ form of collaboration, it necessarily is not always the goal. Sometimes =4 is all that is needed. But when we need to do more than share knowledge and solve a problem or create something new, this model is needed. (Hereafter, this formula is referred to as “=5″)
Examples: Wikinomic’s classic GoldCorp story: “I have information, you have information. If we put those together we can create new information.” This is the model behind the site innocentive.com.
How can your org collaborate within your org using E2.0 tools?
=4: There are so many blog posts which share information and others ask questions and comment. There are a ton of other ways, but, unfortunately I don’t have time to type them all out.
=5: If there is a difficulty you are running in to, share it. Others will share their ideas. You may be able to take their ideas and create a third idea that is tailored to your idea.
How can your org collaborate with our customers using E2.0 tools? Two quick examples…
=4: A community around any topic is perfect. Anyone have a question? Anyone can answer. All about sharing.
=5: The Pilot (or Beta) community shares information and then comes up with solutions neither had thought of before.
Accelerant
If I have a process I need to fix, I might pull in four people in a meeting and we can all try to come up with a solution. What is wrong with that? There is a good chance we all have similar skills, industry and operational knowledge and experience. This limits =5 type discovery because we are all coming at the problem from the same perspective.
What to do? Invite more people with a diverse knowledge and experience base. This is what E2.0 tools can help with. More participants, more perspectives, more potential unique and quality solutions.
I hear this comment all of the time, “This (Enterprise 2.0) is the same old same old repackaged.”
Yes and no. Saying it that way assumes that a) because it is basically the same, b) the outcomes are basically the same. Point A may be true, but because it is even ever so slightly different it totally changes the game and point B becomes null and void.
There was a post recently by someone who mentioned this fact and she had four great points:
1. Same old same old – There isn’t much new here – it is communication but on a supersonic level.
2. Responsibility – The greater the ability to communicate = the greater the responsibility to do so appropriately.
3. Fact Checking – Making sure information which is passed on could be considered ‘facts’.
4. Work Life Balance – There has been a boundry between social life and work life.
I agree with just about everything she said, yet we are missing a key element.
“If you let anyone create any information there will be so much information that there is no way we can keep track of it all.” We hear this all the time.
Answer: Intuitively it sounds right but is flawed because information overload is already a fundamental feature of nature.
Experiment: Stop what you are doing. What do you hear? What do you see? What is your body feeling? Notice what is happening around you. Is there any movement? What about extemporaneous background sounds? Did you hear and see those things only a few moments ago? Sure you did, but did you notice them? Certainly not all of them, if any of them at all.
Why? Focus and filters. When we read a book we usually focus on the book. This creates a natural filter where only the words from the pages come through. They are so alive that they give us meaning and they tie up our brains, dropping all other senses. Read More..
After Dave’s keynote at Training2010, Rahaf Harfoush, author of Yes We Did, spoke after barely getting off a delayed plane. And we are very glad she made it!
It was a great presentation that gave me a lot of wonderful ideas.
These, again, are my raw notes…
She wrote, “Yes We Did” on using social media for building the Obama brand.
Overarching Themes
Power of strategy in an integrated media campaign – this is a win for strategy. They planned how and why they were going to be online and what they were going to do.
Online organizing = offline action
Consistent Branding & Design (Hope. Action. Change.) Everything that went out fit.
Iterations –
Innovation
Fifty State Strategy – go after ALL states, not the ones you know you can win.
Targeted the disaffected center – go after EVERYONE
Focused on small donations
My Page is the hub. Could donate, make change, etc.
Seven Lessons on building communities
1) Redefine engagement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (mngrs, employees, execs, depts., activities, initiatives…) The most trusted source of content comes from friends or family. All of the other sites led back to MyBO – that was the center. Speak to the group directly without filter of a group.
Be wary of arbitrary metrics
Focus on Value add
Target high engagement users instead of lowest common denominator users. Give that minority to do what they need to get the job done. (Community who want to bring social media to NASA. Give tools, share information, dates, etc)
2) Convert Low End Users
Create very relevant content
Done by emails (1 billion emails)
Hyper-segmented. Your DB (profiles) Segmented by location (link to grassroot activity in the neighborhood), issues that they said was important to them (let them know of policies they were interested to them), financial contributions (how much have they contributed as a sign of respect) Any contribution, no matter how small, was recognized, appreciated and valued. (also do activity levels – take them to the next level)
Over 13 million email addresses collected.
The Ask vs. Nudge – ASK = demand, require, those who are highly engaged. Asked them for a lot of actions. Nudge = easy activity, quick to complete and easy to do and complete. Donate, watch a video
3) Facilitating Existing Behavior
No matter where you were, you could be engaged (iphone app) Make it easy to support us.
4) Incenting the right actions.
Activity index on profiles (!!!!!!!!!!!) with a score (number of blogs, doors knocked, amount raised, groups joined, events hosted – all based on time. If they didn’t do anything for a while, their score dropped. It was a game. (**** Do a ratio rather than a score.) All activities worth points.
5) Personalizing the Mission
Showed the total amount raised. It asked WHY raising was important to you. They were giving $50 to support their neighbors. – link
6) Empowering Motivation
Mashup of Google maps and community organizings.
7) Embracing the Unexpected
When you know what is happening, you can react appropriately. If you are not engaged you cannot react.
Dave Wilkins’ keynote at Training2010 was amazing. I got into the auditorium an hour before hand to see if I could help and to save places on the front row to so we could heckle him. He had me run through the slides of his preso and my reaction was, “It is about time.” What he says in his presentation is RIGHT ON and has needed to be said for some time in front of a large audience.
The essesence for me was this: Training and Learning folk, you are behind in adopting this. Either adapt or become less valuable than you are now, if not (personally) extinct.
Here are my rough notes. Here are his slides. Some times I forgot to write because he articulated the conundrum the learning community was in so well that I was wrapped up in the presentation.
Here ya go…
Déjà vu – Other industries are going through what learning professionals are going through. But more about that later.
Scenario #1 – Enterprise software solution or a new product launch.
Social Learning or not?
67% said yes, 33% said no. Much higher NO than we expected.
Scenario #2 – Workers with specialized expertise on deep, complex and ever-changing subjects all around the country or even the world with social profiles & discussion boards
Gives the Ace Hardware example – 500% ROI in under 6 months, better customer satisfactions, culture of sharing.
Social Learning or not?
93% said yes.
Who owns it? 36% Learning & Dev group, 34% Knowledge Management. Hmmmm. Not convinced that you own it, though, eh? Read More..
I am at Training 2010 in San Diego this week. The next few posts will be from this conference. Not all coherent, I am sure, but rather in not fashion.
Tom Stone’s “Overcoming Obstacles and Objections to the Use of Web 2.0 in Organizations.” I have loved Tom’s sessions at other conferences and expect this will be great as well.
Obstacles and Objections:
Culture & Change issues
Productivity concerns
Connection with L&D
Purpose issues
Control issues
Measurement issues
Technology issues
He is providing ‘advanced common sense.’ I love that. That is so true. Sometimes in new situations it is hard to use old common sense – but it still applies.
“Culture eats strategy for lunch.” You can have the best plans possible, but if your culture is not ready, it won’t go as planned.
1) “Our overall org culture is not ready”
You are behind – sort of. Because these are not new technologies (10+ years old some of them) but not many orgs are not up on this.
Use each tool where appropriate – he skipped over this point because of sake of time, but this is SO HUGE!
2) “Change will be slow. How can we speed up transitioning to Web 2.0?”
Do a pilot – give more people a real experience and get an early win. (See the webinar later this week on how to roll out).
Seed content and retire old tools. Tom had great success with this at ElementK. In fact he uses the word ‘force.’ Force indeed.
Get those who might be strong into other tools or methodologies into this early and get them to be champions.
3) “Our people aren’t techies” They won’t understand how to use it…”
Create training classes on how to use it.
It is new, but it isn’t hard.
4) “Nothing major happens without key decision makers championing it, and our leaders aren’t Web 2.0 people”
Is it really true that nothing happens without them? Question that.
Fear factor: Show them what your competitors are doing with Web 2.0 / Social Media.
Find case studies that show the likely benefits.
USE IT YOURSELF – I can’t stress this enough! Tom is so right here. If you are not a prolific user, how can you explain it?
5) “Our younger workers will get it, but what about our older staff?”
Conduct a Boomer Survey for their insights and concerns. Really, get to know what they think. Include them.
He failed to point out that these tools are age agnostic when you integrate them into work processes. I have found that the age factor doesn’t matter much in the end. Sure, they may gripe more, but if they find it useful, they use it. Read “Diffusion of Innovation” In the first few pages it gives 5 ways adoption happens for anything. Age is not one of those factors.
6) “Using Web 2.0 is a time waster”
Personally, I hate this objection because it is so shortsighted.
Tom says that it is their work ethic. Agreed. If they were wasting time before, they will now. If not before, they won’t now. Tom’s slide says, “People are too busy to waste time – or should be!” Amen.
Tom points out that a lot of this is replacing, not adding to their work.
7) “Web 2.0 tools will produce too much info…”
Define your scope (Excellent). Be specific in your topics, initiatives and define scope closely.
He didn’t mention that this information can be found and delivered to me by person or topic. Right now EVERYTHING gets pushed to us. So using the new tools with the old paradigm is wrong. It won’t work the same.
8) Web 2.0 is very different than training. What are they good for?”
There is a need for ILT, eLearning and this as well. Focus ratios will change, but we will need all of it.
He points out (correctly) that training is a subset of learning. “You need to stop thinking in terms of training only.” !!!!!!
Not meant to replace formal training and supplement, not replace.
9) “What about the traditional roles in L&D of trainers, ID & SMEs?”
We will have a need for all of them. It will just shift the mix.
10) “We intended it for purpose X but they use it for purpose Y”
‘”Be glad that you have found the more valuable use!”
After, validate that there is still a need for the original purpose and build another plan. But don’t shut down if they are using it.
Basically, he says to find out why it didn’t work. Poor communication? Poor purpose? Did you reward and incent?
Me: Actually, the more prevalent case is that they have not tried this exactly, they have tried other things, like a KM software and it didn’t work. That jumps into another full session.
Not many have tried this and have completely failed. They may not have been as widely successful as you thought, but few totally fail
Then he goes through a list of business goals and technologies to consider. Great list.
12) “Who can create content”
Do not allow anonymous. Tom talks about limiting initially to a number of people or certain people. I don’t agree with this. If you do, you are limiting access.
13) “Will we allow people to post just anything?”
Actually, yes. “Be clear regarding scope, and don’t allow sensitive information to be posted.”
14) “How do we know the information created will be accurate?”
Do you trust people to use email properly? Same thing here.
A lot of information is experience. Capture that!
15) “How will employees know what is appropriate to post and what isn’t?”
Do they know that in emails?
16) “What about user generated content behind discoverable for legal proceedings?”
“Same issue for existing tools, right?”
Easy to roll back changes. Archive. Flag content. More visibility so now you know what is going on – more visibility into that,.
Clearly indicate disclaimers.
17) “ROI”
He points out the 90/9/1 rule and applies it to the organization. But I say that is wrong within organizations. It is fine for outside, but not for internal orgs. If you scope it correctly and integrate into how they work, it can be MUCH higher.
18) “ROI for learning” specifically
Point to case studies. Prove the value! Look to competitors. Change in time for onboarding, change in training costs. Speak in their language.
19) “What kinds of security constraints will we have?”
Authentication, Authorization.
20) “Should all tools be from the same platform?”
What are your integration goals?
If you would like is slides, feel free to email him. Or better yet, ask him on Twitter
This short video shows shows snippets of informal interviews on college students’ perception of Twitter. The case? They don’t get it. Whether that is wide spread or not, we really can’t be surprised.
Why? How do I, and MANY others use it primarily? Professionally. To share information about our chosen line of work – oh and some personal stuff on the side. They wouldn’t get Yammer either, as that is all professional.
Wait until they get the working world and reintroduced to Twitter. Suddenly, they will find that there is a lot of great information and conversation going on about their profession on Twitter. Then they will get it.
Racquetball is a fast game. Most of it is played by reflex. Play it enough, and your reflexes – mind and body – become pretty fast. I play a couple times a week with a guy who is better than I am. During a round I will win one game – two if I am lucky – out of five or so. The last time we played there was a bit of meta cognition. I recognized that after I made a bad shot I had to quickly learn from it and then forget it because the ball was being served again and it was time to play.
Working with NASA now, I run into the same thing often. Yesterday I was in a meeting where one person I invited, invited two others. We sat down and he pointed to the other two and said, “Neither of you are allowed to talk.” And, true to form, unless he asked them a direct question (only twice), neither of them did speak. Why? Because he wanted them not to be too negative and pessamistic toward what I was trying to do which was build an E2.0.
I have been asked many times since I have been here a question similar to, “Have we beat you into submission yet?” Basically, has the governmental culture beat any hope out of you?
To that I say, Heck No! Beat me all you want. I feel like Rocky in Rocky 4 where he purposefully took the beating knowing he would come back in the end and win. When others laugh at what I am trying to do I recognize ignorance – they just don’t know what is possible, and I can’t blame them. Numerous times, like yesterday, I have been told, “Over the last 20 years we have tried something like this many times and each time it failed.” Those statements don’t phase me. Times have changed. You may have tried something LIKE this, but you have not tried THIS, in this culture, at this time, with this technology, under these circumstances.
Never give up. Take the punching and smile. And when it all works in the end, just smile. NEVER say or act in any way that would exude an “I told you so” attitude. Just keep going.
Be comfortable being beaten down. Draw strength from it and keep going. Let them laugh and snicker all they want. Then, when it works, invite them to your party and enjoy.
Feb 1-3 I will be presenting at the Training 2010 conference with Dave Wilkins (@dwilkinsnh). In preparation, we came up with a bunch of things that one would need to know when creating a social learning strategy. Each one could take a deep dive, but we wanted to make the list available.
We hope this will help to spark some imagination and help you see, as you plan and implement, some areas you may have missed. (Here is the list in document form. This work is under the Creative Commons Share Alike license.)
Please feel free to add to the list in the comments below.
Checklist of Social Learning Strategies
Cultural Issues Related to Social Learning What do you want it to be? What is it today?
Openness vs. planning? Where is your balance point?
Autonomy and self-direction vs. top-down mandates? Where is your balance point?
What do executives, key stakeholders and “rank-and-file” think about social media and sharing?
What are your organizational attitudes about transparency?
To what extent do learners take personal responsibility and accountability for their learning?
Social Learning Approaches and Methods What “kind” of Social Learning models are you pursuing? How do they integrate?
Codified?
Collaborative?
Emergent?
What kinds of social learning interventions do you need?
Do you need focused Communities of Practice or decentralized social learning that is part of all learning experiences? Or both? Read More..
I have noticed two overarching thoughts in those that ask for E2.0 in their organization / community:
1) They know what they want, but are not exactly sure WHY they want it. They say “we want a blog” but when asked why, they can’t quite articulate that. Sure, they may say that “we want to get information out” but they are not clear on to whom this information will go, or what the information will be or who will write it or how it is different than the purpose of an email.
2) They want to use different tools but not change the way they do things. This is like doing dishes by hand, buying a dishwasher and then still doing them by hand before putting them in the dishwasher.
There WILL be trade offs. One of the major trade offs is that E2.0 is participatory. This leaves the option to participate in their hands, not yours. Organizations too often try to force participation (or in a certain way) and what do they get? Either half-hearted participation or the illusion of participation.
Instead, allow them to participate where and when they feel it will be of most benefit. They will feel empowered and trusted and will be MUCH more effective.
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To that I say, Heck No! Beat me all you want. I feel like Rocky in Rocky 4 where he purposefully took the beating knowing he would come back in the end and win. When others laugh at what I am trying to do I recognize ignorance – they just don’t know what is possible, and I can’t blame them. Numerous times, like yesterday, I have been told, “Over the last 20 years we have tried something like this many times and each time it failed.” Those statements don’t phase me. Times have changed. You may have tried something LIKE this, but you have not tried THIS, in this culture, at this time, with this technology, under these circumstances.
