• CIOs: It’s Strategy Time

  Ex-McKinsey man and now Socialtext’s director for customer benefit (I am not sure about this is the right job title, Ross Mayfield said something like this at this weeks Interbational Forum in Enterprise 2.0 in Milan) on how CIOs can benefit from Enterprise 2.0:

  Snip: “Strategic relevance can be a sore spot for CIOs. Although most line managers agree in principle that IT is strategically important, CIOs still struggle for a seat at the strategy table. Senior leaders in manufacturing and other operationally intensive industries understand the importance of IT. But in other sectors, line management has a hard time seeing IT as more than a back-office support function. That’s particularly true in professional services, pharma, media, and other knowledge-intensive industries which traditionally create value through individual talent rather than operations.

  Enterprise 2.0 is changing all that.”

  I think he’s right and there’s much to decide and get right now in the outsets of Enterprise 2.0 - we get most of it when we conceive it as strategic issue for the company (and by strategic I sure don’t mean something like “important” or the like alone) - the task is now for CIOs to find a place at the boardroom table …

  tags: strategy, enterprise2.0

• Why intranets will destroy the “corporate website”

  via Injelea: Paul Miller about why firewalls are to be lowered

  Snip: “In fact, the emerging trend is for increasing access to be given to intranets for people outside the firewall; suppliers, contractors, customers, former staff etc. Major companies globally are looking to open up to their marketplaces, customers and consumers. They are also looking to increase their presence and engagement with social media and emerging 2.0 technologies.”

  I think so, for example we see that Open Innovation efforts imply an open platform (and why not open up an existing intranet to become more of an extranet in this case). And when we want to have more cross-border collaboration I think that (access-controled) wikis can be a very feasible and cost-effective thing to have, so it’s wiki as extranet, is it?

  tags: intranet, collaboration, openinnovation, wiki

• Intranet Strategietage der ECM WORLD

  German conference about Intranet strategy - July 1. and 2. in Zurich, Switzerland.

  Snip
  “Am 1. und 2. Juli finden in Zürich zum ersten mal die Intranet Strategietage statt. In 4 Seminaren wird das ganze Spektrum des Intranet Managements von 3 Intranet-Experten beleuchtet:

  * Intranet-Strategie und –Management
  * Redaktionsprozesse und Content-Qualität
  * Intranet-Governance und Zielcontrolling
  * Suche und Informationsarchitektur”

  tags: intranet, enterprise2.0

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Ideas for the measurement of Enterprise 2.0 effects

  I have commented on Björns post on how to measure the RoI (overall the effects of Enterprise 2.0).

  Numbers and “ways to proove it” are of varying importance in organizational decision processes - we all know that many things get chosen and done without clear-cut rentability calculations etc. - yet getting executives to buy into Enterprise 2.0 pilot projects can profit a lot from well-defined numbers.

  Please, read my comment and tell me what you think.

  tags: metrics, measurement, enterprise2.0

• Twitter on your intranet: 17 microblogging tools for business

  Dion writes about enterprise microblogging tools, showing that there are some issues to solve if we want to use this for “real business” ™

  One of the things is Filtering, i.e. how to dig out the tweets that are relevant to your work and current context. This will in my mind make out hte difference - enabling microblogging to become the tool for knowledge workers, not only in communication with peers, but also for exploring and searching information.

  tags: microblogging, twitter, enterprise2.0

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

To support our efforts in bonding the community we organizing some bi-monthly “Enterprise 2.0 Community Luncheons” in different cities in Germany - and would like to motivate anybody who is interested in doing so elsewhere. We announced the first round of Enterprise 2.0 Community Luncheons for Hamburg, Cologne and Frankfurt on our XING group “Enterprise 2.0″.

I am happy to see anybody at one of these events - or organizing some more community bonding events elsewhere.

In an internal discussion of our Advisory Board regarding the topics of the E20 SUMMIT program Joachim Niemeier posed the question whether classical economic measures are suitable to measure and verify Enterprise 2.0 effects. Though cases like the TransUnion project (cited by Dion in his blog post on determining the ROI [cross-referencing to the post of Ross Mayfield]) give a proof of evidence for measuring the E20 effects with the classical ROI formula - many projects have difficulties in measuring it. As from the discussions about this problem at E20FORUM the main difficulties in measuring are perceived as the difficulties in identifying and quantifying the “net profit” from Enterprise 2.0 activities - as the nature of effects is mainly soft and intangible. As this is planned to be a major discussion at E20SUMMIT I would like to sort my ideas on this to stir up the discussions upfront.

In regards to a distinguished discussion I’d like to differentiate the notion of Enterprise 2.0 into two dimensions of impacts. In a recent German article for the T3N Magazin Martin and I have discussed (as already a lot of other people before) the characteristics of Web 2.0 apps and social software in comparison to classical “information management systems”. Besides mentioning the leveraging characteristics of being mainly open-source concepts with light-weighted architecture and a “simplified user experience for the masses” we focussed on Tim O’Reilly’s main point: the supplement of the social dimension and the network effects. This lead us to the point that the usage of Web 2.0 tools within the enterprise (as the notion of Enterprise 2.0) results into a more transparent and outward focussed information gathering that itself implies again a more transparent and effective collaboration. We quoted Lee Bryant at this point who is talking always about the change from a world of “content objects & processes” towards world of “feeds & flows”. So in regards to the ROI discussion we have therefore to distinguish the impact on information management & distribution within the enterprise from the impacts on collaboration.

At this point I would like to focus on the part of “information management & distribution” as this is a precondition for the impacts on collaboration and also seen as the more difficult part to measure.

Measuring the value of information management & distribution

For the further discussion I’d like to equate the term of “information distribution” to the technical dimension of “communications” - leaving out the social, emotional and intential aspects of communications. Why am I doing this? Because the “communications” discipline within the enterprise has a long time existant valuation problem which is recently addressed by “value based” approaches (see a explanation on “value based management”) that might be very suitable towards the valuation of Enterprise 2.0 effects.

At least within the German speaking PR community there is a controlling (or better KPI) model - based on the ideas of Walter K. Lindenmann and Norton/Kaplan. The latter have discussed a “strategy map“, a concept that illustrates the causes and effects on the building of business values. “The strategy map links the long-term game plan or competitive strategy of a business with its operational activities.”

In referring to this strategy map and its different “perspectives” Walter K. Lindenmann has developped a three-level KPI model for the valuation of PR effects, that constitutes the foundation of valuation for the IPR toolkit (IPR = Institute of Public Relations) as well as the German PR association (GPRA / more German background papers at CommunicationControlling.de). The model consists of three interdependent levels of impact:

1. output level: e.g. questions whether the message has reached its target group
2. outgrowth level: e.g. questions whether the message has been perceived and understood
3. outcome level: e.g. questions whether the message has changed the knowledge, opinion or behavior of the target group

As this model is not including any reference to the financial dimension of the strategy map Lothar Rolke added in article in 1997 the term “outflow” as a forth level that questions the business effects. While the GPRA is nowadays not differentiating between level 2 & 3 and therefore proclaims only a three-level model (output / outgrowth & outcome / outflow), for a further discussion on how Enterprise 2.0 is effecting the business value a differentiated four-level model would be more suitable.

The connecting pieces of these levels are the “value links” that constitute a causes and effects diagram like this example for the “value links” in communications by Mirko Lange:

I won’t translate this model as it is only a fictional examples of a value link system. Actually the causes and effects differ from industry to industry and from company to company - as the value generation differs in all kinds.

I first heard about the practice of this model in a non-PR context from the people of aexea at our Swiss Intranet Management FORUM about Intranet governance & controlling. They are using it to evaluate the effects of an Intranet project which in return resemble the targets of Enterprise 2.0 projects but mainly driven from a centralized viewpoint of organizing it.

As from the common practice of working with this model they have added a input level to the diagram that discribes the denominator of the classical ROI formula in terms of costs for the Intranet management. “Output” describes the produced content by the input - in quantity, frequency, reach & actuality, comprehensability & usability. “Outgrowth” explains the perceived messages from Intranet output - measured for example by the knowledge about the contents of the distributed messages/information. “Outcome” indicates the effects from the “outgrowth” in regards to the changed behavior in terms of participation in any Intranet services. At the top of the model “outflow” pictures the business effects of the changes in behavior.

Evaluation approach towards Enterprise 2.0 activities

Returning to the starting point I think this model is a very good approach in describing the effects of the impacts of E20 activities on the corporate “information managenet & distribution”. In contrast towards the classical ROI formula the model takes into account the “soft effects” of the activities.

In the following I put together some potential key indicators on the (for me) four main E20 activities: tagging, blogging, “wiki”-ing and “social network”-ing:

I think this little practice shows quite nicely that using a more differentiated approach to the valuation of Enterprise 2.0 is very useful as it illustrates the achievements made in an earlier stage.

• The enterprise implications of Google Wave | Enterprise Web 2.0 | ZDNet.com

  Dion analyzes why Google Wave might be of importance to Enetrprise 2.0 people - and argues that it’s very fitting to our concept of FLATNESSES.

  I fully agree and am definitely looking forward to kicking the tires of Google Wave.

  Snip “Google has launched many communication services since its inception yet none of these have had such obvious business utility or attempted to reinvent the collaborative process from the ground-up.”

  tags: googlewave, hinchcliffe, collaboration, communication, enterprise2.0

• Why is Google Wave a tsunami?

  blogged about Google Wave, with a humble effort to explain what makes Google Wave important from my perspective.

  It’s like they say that the toys of today are the tools of tomorrow, but there are of course more elaborate arguments included

  tags: google, wave, collaboration, infrastructure

• Upcoming: International Forum on Enterprise 2.0

  I am on my way to Milano for the International Forum on Enterprise 2.0 - hoping that there will be decent translations for the italian language parts.

  Blogged a short upcoming notice so you all know where I am

  tags: frogpond, enterprise2.0, conference

• Working in Groups

  @rosspw writes up on some of the “Tips for Working Successfully in a Group” - remember Randy Pausch.

  A bit of wisdom for those of us involved in helping teams collaborate more efficiently … I liked it for its focus on getting “collaboration infrastructure” right as a start

  tags: teamwork, collaboration

• Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today? - O’Reilly Radar

  Tim gives a good rundown of Google Wave - as always more action is happening in the comments. There’s a discusiion touching bases on many accounts (Think Ray Ozzie’s Grrove, Jon Udell’s Practical Internet Groupware and more), what it all means to Facebook, Friendfeed and whatever (personally I think that it’s more of a threat to Facebook and not so much to the lifestreaming idea of Friendfeed)

  So, given that that the toys of today are the (enterprise) tools of tomorrow, what do we make of this as Enterprise 2.0 people?

  tags: google, communication, wave, collaboration, enterprise2.0

• The year of the shift to Enterprise 2.0 | Enterprise Web 2.0 | ZDNet.com

  Dion writes a concise analysis of the developments we will see in 2009 for Enterprise 2.0 - a good list, tons of studies referenced and some additional highlighting in the text.

  tags: enterprise2.0, forrester, hinchcliffe, analytics

  • Intriguing new just-released reports now show that between a third and one half of businesses either already are or will be employing so-called Enterprise 2.0 tools in the workplace (blogs, wikis, and social networking/messaging) in 2009.
  • The data also show that security concerns remain high, access is actually fairly low, compliance with mainstream enterprise data practices is poor, and some workers aren’t planning to get anywhere near them.
  • Nearly one in two businesses will make use of Enterprise 2.0 software in 2009.
  • Forrester
  • actual employee access to the said tools is fairly low
  • Business use of social networking has rough parity with personal use, while a quarter of people are not planning to use the tools at all.
  • TMCnet and IntelliCom Analytics
  • consistent business use of the social networking tools tools across organizations of all sizes and around the globe, ranging from 35% to almost half,
  • Also, some workers are determined to be disengaged, with about 25% reporting no plans to use social networks, period.
  • Concerns about the security issues with social computing is high, around 80%.
  • Pretexting and phishing are now widely regarded as a serious threat
  • At least 50 percent of organizations will use wikis as important work collaboration toos in 2009.
  • Society for Information Management’s Advanced Practices Council (APC)
  • Management of content types like SMS/text messages, blogs and wikis are largely off the corporate radar in 75% of organizations
  • AIIM State of ECM Report for 2009
  • A major change has taken place in many organizations over the last year and so there is imbalance and uncertain about how to best use the resources at hand.
  • Using the right tool for the job while at the same time understanding that the Enterprise 2.0 tools change the very nature of the job is going to be essential for achieving good outcomes in virtually every organization.
  • Blogs, wikis, and activity streams (those event lists in apps like Facebook and Twitter that tell you what’s happening in near real-time)
  • The intrinsic design of these tools creates much more of a usable, accessible information ecosystem than traditional tools. These traditional tools can create powerful, local information flows but little build-up of value over time or collective intelligence. In other words, the new social tools change enterprise knowledge flow by making it more social, more open and public, discoverable, and ultimately, the most leverageable.
  • When should social tools be used for getting work done and when should the older, traditional tools be used that keep information submerged and unusable by the rest of the organization.
  • Hint: The create the most value for the organization (and themselves), workers should generally default to social tools unless the information is highly sensitive.

• Google Wave

  Snip “Google Wave is a new communication service previewed today at Google I/O. “A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

  One example of the many blogposts concerning Googlees new play, Wave. I noted some more general links in my blogpost herehttp://www.frogpond.de/index.php/archive/why-is-google-wave-a-tsunami/

  tags: Google, opensource, communication, collaboration, wave

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.