Collaboration’s Engine & Heart
Mar 12, 2010 Uncategorized
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.
Rahaf Harfoush on the Lessons Learned From The Social Obama Campaign
Feb 3, 2010 Uncategorized
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.
Let people rip, make their own content and use it
Tags: keynote, obama, Rahaf Harfoush
Keynote: Training’s Future with Social Technologies
Feb 3, 2010 Uncategorized
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 the rest of this entry »
Feb 1, 2010 Uncategorized
Reports from Training 2010
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.
11) “We already tried it and it didn’t work”
See THIS post.
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 
College Students Don’t ‘GET’ Twitter – And Why
Jan 26, 2010 Uncategorized
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.
TWITTER / YAMMER – DAY 4 – Professional Uses
Dec 17, 2009 Uncategorized
Yes, that’s right – Twitter is not all fun and games (although it can be – the subject for tomorrow’s post!).
Can it be used for professional reasons? Absolutely. And once you learn this it is hard to turn back because it is so useful.
Remember when I wrote about social networks and the ability to bring geographically disperse, like-minded people together? Twitter does the same thing. I follow people (from all over the world).
People I follow on Twitter
Most of the people I follow I am similar to in some way (except for maybe the llama). Twitter brings us together to allow us to have discussions (albeit short ones).
Here are a few of the most popular professional uses of Twitter. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: #hashtag, #lrnchat, conferences, llama, questions, slqotd, Twitter
Features (”It will do this and this and…)” Is Not Enough
Dec 3, 2009 Uncategorized
Steve Ballmer after the iPhone announcement but before it launched. He says “I like our strategy, I like it a lot” because “It will do XXX and XXX and XXX.”
Note to self: It is not enough to do, but to do really well and simply and intuitively.
Distraction Showdown: Is it Rude at Conferences to…
Dec 1, 2009 Uncategorized
Tags: chat, conferences, iPhone, rude, text
Wiki – Day 2 – How Wikis are Used
Dec 1, 2009 Social Media & Network Challenge, Uncategorized
Week 4: Wikis: Day 2
Some things are beautiful because they are easy to use the first time and don’t need much of an explanation, if any at all. It has always made me laugh that instructions are printed on a bottle of shampoo. Understandable, but still… Other products are just too over the top, or way too complicated to understand.
Wikis are simple: Click edit. Modify. Click Save. Done.
Photo by kristin wolff on Flickr
When a product is so easy to use, its adoption increases (see this post on Complexity and adoption). If we combine these together – ease of use and high adoption – something extraordinary happens: Unintended uses. We think, “Well, if I can use it in this instance, I bet I could also use it here, and here, and here…”
There are many list of how wikis can be used.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: social media challenge, Wiki
Documentation Showdown – MS Word or Wiki
Nov 17, 2009 Uncategorized
OK – Many would argue (as I would) that information in a wiki is easier to create, to share, to collaborate. But that does not mean that it is always done that way – or even most of the time.
In fact, we default to what we have used in the past. We go with what is comfortable.
So, this week’s question is this: What do you use as default? Microsoft Word or a Wiki? I realize that it depends on the context – but overall what do you use?
1) Vote in the poll and
2) add your comments as to why you use one over the other.
