Why "Tweet" and "Like" are primitive social actions

Social technologies are not mature. They are a primitive multi-layered bunch of technologies, that are clumsily integrating with each other, while also integrating with and changing our individual and collective thinking and communication habits and skills. They will probably change the very nature of what it means to communicate. And someday, we will forget that they are a technology altogether ...

The year we kill social business

Social Business (or #socbizz in Twitter) has reached buzzword status. If you want to live by the ambitions that were behind it, you probably need to kill it.

From social objects to business objects ?

Moving from a document-centered work organization to a relationship-focused one is a long, difficult journey. Adapting some insights about social objects to the business world can help accelerate the pace.

Unleadership

If we are serious and ambitious in our drive to transform our organizations into next generation social enterprises (or social businesses), we need to unlearn most of what we think we knew about leadership, and focus our R&D efforts on next generation leadership.

Beyond Talent Management - musings from SuccessConnect

I was in Amsterdam these past two days, invited by Pierre to witness the presentation of SuccessFactors. It was a pleasure to discuss with Pierre and French team, with Patchen and CubeTree team, and get some insights into the company's new developments and vision. I was impressed by the execution power the suite gives you and by the vision that was presented to me. But more than that, I could indulge into some day-dreaming about what comes next for talent-centered, innovative corporations ...

Executing from your Talent environment

First thing that caught my attention, you could start working, collaborating, executing, right from your "talent page". If I understand correctly, Cubettre and Jambok give the suite the possibility, first to connect and collaborate and then to accelerate content sharing and social learning. Of course, that's what many social collaboration software suites do ... But the starting point, here, is your own "talent" page (home page) the one that is linked to talent management processes. That makes a huge difference

Another key point to me was the very "toy-like experience" of the suite, and namely in its mobile version. 

I have been working in E2.0 projects these past few years, and quick adoption is key to reach the benefits of extended professional collaboration (innovation, labor productivity, process efficiency). As Patchen had it, if your collaboration environment is linked to your talent management suite, if the user experience is close to best practice (Apple, Facebook), you can achieve 100% adoption. Point taken. I have not seen 100% adoption so far, and sometimes threats to adoption come from HR teams focus on control. This might be an answer.

HCM suites have the potential to make talent management a strategic capability, way beyond it being a simple addition of professional practices. Adding social collaboration to this capability is a great move.

I wrote some years ago how we were moving to people-centered corporations. I also wrote that collaboration would bring talent management from execution to strategy ... That is the vision I understand Successfactors has

Strategy from the HR field ?

If I try to look into what adoption of similar HCM & social suites could bring, I would underline:

• First, a great agility for Talent Management processes. Social collaboration has the potential to "break the process sequence" if necessary. That helps accelerating execution and saving "muda", as they say in lean manufacturing ...
• In second place, if social collaboration is widely deployed, it will greatly help Talent Management culture deployment. This is when Talent Management can become a capability (when it is shared by at least every manager from top to front-line);
• Then, HR professionnalisation is made easier from tools like Jambok or just from "folloving" the activities and social production of selected peers; of course, professionnalisation is not limited to the HR team;
• Tying collaboration to people management will help its deployment, as said earlier. The key point here is that the collaboration culture can be driven from the HR perspective (behaviours, usage, values, ethics). This is a key point. Collaboration through social technologies has a great potential for improvement, and that is why it should be driven from the beginning by strong governance (and not control). You could choose tool governance, what some corporations are doing. The danger here is to end doing just that, governing tool deployment and forgetting about professional behaviours and values evolution; 
• Finally, when you link collaboration to HR, it should be easier to identify professional behaviours that foster innovation. And that is key in the 21st century economics.

Beyond talent management

Let's dream for a moment. Imagine that corporations adopt integrated and distributed HCM suites, and that they are conveniently linked to a state-of-the-art collaboration environment (social technologies, mobility). What could we imagine for a such corporation ?

• In the first place, and regarding talent management, you could go beyond "breaking the processes sequence". In fact, there is room to reinvent talent management practices and fundamentals by learning from new collaboration practices and behaviours. And reinventing talent management practices is key if you want your corporation to transform itself into an innovation-based corporations;
• And that is just the beginning. Because, to take full advantage of the mass collaboration opportunity, management practices too, have to be reinvented (see what social value means). In my view, corporations need to move from managing execution to managing innovation, and that is a huge step;

I wrote some months ago, that you need depth to thrive in the new, accelerated, connected, real-time business environment. Making collaboration a key capability, and not only enabling it through tool development will make all the difference.

Maybe it's time for HR to take the lead

The Deep Brain and the Quick Brain

Foundations for social network strategy in a connected world

I have spent the past two years leading internal collaboration-based change management programs. Slowly, the conversations are developing, pushing us to the next issue: how to leverage the internal conversations to find a right voice for the corporation in the social web ?

This is not an easy question, and it does not solely revolve around marketing or PR, because, beyond general conversations (that are not always very well considered), what is just begining to happen within the companies I help is new capability development. And I still do not see that happening in the wider social web, at least not to the same level, unless there is a well identified corporation behind (open innovation, for instance).

In the past few days, a post by Brian Solis (the Micro Disruption Theory and the Social Effect) and a tweet by Ross Dawson (using twitter to build the global brain) inspired me to finish organizing my thoughts.

I understand that a global brain is indeed under construction, that I will call the Quick Brain. To participate meaningfully and profitably in this quick brain, corporations must strive to become Deep Brains and then learn to master a new voice. In this world, strategy would revolve around Engaging, Deepening and Twitting (or socializing).


The Quick Brain

The sheer size of online links, searches and conversations has helped rise many voices that wonder whether we are still able to think by ourselves in this environment (see Is Google Making Us Stupid, by Nicholas Carr). My own thought has been that yes, by linking, conversing, searching, we at least loose some of the time we previously had for deep thinking.

And yet, I for one spend a huge amount of time in this new game, and I would say that the share of global attention being devoted to the web is growing fast. The new skills that I am developing (quick reading, tool switching, quick writing, fast thinking process switch, ...) are key to participating in the conversation. But what exactly am I doing, what am I accomplishing in this web ?

The description that Brian Solis makes of Contextual Networks was very helpful in making me understand that role. As I see it, when I participate in a conversation or just forward some information that was interesting or helpful (RT or liking), I am part of an ephemere contextual network, in which I am bound by topic and time to other people. This network is based on existing connexions (friends, contacts, links, followers, depending on the social platform), yet different from those connexions, and it serves a specific purpuse (forwarding a piece of information and increasing resonance).

It is possible therefore to say that the accelerating linking of people in the web is similar to the development of a new kind of infrastructure, let’s call it the human infrastructure. Its objective is to accelerate the transmission of information from one person to another, using existing links and search engines, but also those contextual networks defined by Brian Solis. The web has hypertext links for individual usage. The human infrastructure has contextual networks that it uses to, yes, think (in want of a better word to call this process).

I could then say that, when I tweet, blog, comment, RT or contribute, I am an individual component of this Quick Brain.

Why do I call this brain the Quick Brain ? Because it seems to me that its primary purpose is to accelerate the rythm of information/knowledge sharing, thus provoking insights, inspiration, learnings, ... in the members that are touched by that sharing. And it also seems to me that, in order to think deeply and organize my thoughts, I need to disconnect (or at least, partially disconnect). This brain goes fast, and it inspires or surprises or helps learn. It does more than sharing but does it think ?

To answer that question I would say that deep thinking rests with individuals and organized groups or communities. In that sense, it is clear that companies, much like individuals, are supposed to think. Or at least think deeper than the quick brain.


The Deep Brain.

I make a difference between corporations operating and corporations thinking. Corporations need to be good at operating their business models and also at advancing ideas and concepts, and later use them either to develop services (R&D) or to solve client problems. Increasingly, it’s their ability to continuously advance ideas and solve problems, and transform new ideas and solutions into lean operations, that makes a difference.

The knowledge economy is not a new concept and corporations are used to developing ideas and solutions. What is then different with the arrival in corporations of social computing, E2.0 or, as I like to call it, improved and people-centered collaboration (I have already said that we are entering a time of People-Centered Organizations)?

The main difference is the soft infrastructure that the companies are developing. Yesterday, and contrary to what happens in the Quick Brain, there was a Knowledge Infrastructure in most companies, but not yet a Human Infrastructure. Companies were (most still are) knowledge-centered. With the arrival of social networks and other social computing tools, the corporations have an opportunity to recenter themselves around people or talent.

I would say the Deep Brain is the new, people-centered, corporate working environment that leverages both the strengths of the organization and of the social networks. Like the Quick Brain, the Deep Brain has in speed a fundamental asset, and yet it strongly differs from the Quick Brain:

• People (employees) have the ability to create their contextual networks depending on their interest or they can participate in existing contextual networks. Still, many of these contextual networks are long-lived (existing functions or departements), and they maintain strong ties with a number of employees; the attention spams are wider, and people concentrate on a limited number of topics because they have a result to reach;
• The number of topics itself is limited, and most of them concentrate around the professional field of the organization;
• People (employees) have developed strong common ways of working. Not only do they share a common knowledge, they are also able to work together very efficiently (today, this is what we call a corporate culture);
• Most important, to my mind, employees do not engage in conversations or contextual networks only based on their personal interest or attention; they engage in these contextual networks based on their professional responsibility and interest.

When I started thinking about the difference between the Quick Brain and the Deep Brain, I was thinking that there would be a difference in tools: twitter would more useful in the quick brain and blog in the deep brain. Actually, I think now that the important thing is usage, that very often comes after tools. It is how people in a corporation use these tools in consistent ways that will make much of the efficiency of their deep collective thinking.


Engaging, deepening, connecting

How then to leverage your Deep Brain to make a difference in the social web ? That is what I plan to work on for the next months. But I would give a number of insights:

• It is more important to engage your people than to train them;
• Only based on a special kind of motivation is there a chance for collective deep thinking;
• That ability for collective deep thinking will probably be a key skill, and it will be a part of your employees personal reputation, therefore making a strong impact on your corporate reputation.

Your people will be ready to connect, based on skill and reputation.


How do you think this distinction between deep brain and quick brain is helpful for a social network strategy design ?

Un nouveau lien entreprise - individus ?

Le 16 avril, l'Institut Boostzone tiendra son deuxième atelier de travail pour 2008, "Les Nouvelles Navigations Professionnelles"

Nous travaillerons autour des questions suivantes:

• Les réseaux sociaux et la révolution du 2.0 sont-ils en train de redéfinir la nature du lien entre l'entreprise et les individus ?
• Ne sommes-nous pas en train de rentrer dans un nouveau monde, en termes de création de valeur et de partage de cette valeur entre les entreprises et ses collaborateurs ?

La première question a trait à la mobilité, et elle est plus complexe qu'elle n'y parait en première approche:

• Que la mobilité professionnelle soit explosive semble un fait aujourd'hui couramment admis: la mobilité est géographique, fonctionnelle, hiérarchique, industrielle, poussée par un environnement très compétitif d'un côté et par une tendance d'un nombre croissant d'entre nous à poursuivre nos propres projets personnels et professionnelles;
• Un fait qui semble moins clair aujourd'hui c'est que l'entreprise est arrivée au bout de sa logique d'optimisation. Tous les "gisements de productivité" ayant été actionnés, les salariés restant dans les entreprises sont de plus en plus indispensables, comme le prouve la focalisation de ces dernières sur les problèmes de rétention;
• La mobilité est aujourd'hui aussi intellectuelle (continuous partial attention), un point qui est difficilement géré par les entreprises, notamment dans le cas des experts les plus pointus. Ceci n'est pas un phénomène négatif, mais probablement, au contraire, un signe de nouvelles façons d'apprendre et de partager qui se développent dans la sphère sociale, et que l'entreprise doit apprendre à intégrer.

D'un point de vue de la valeur du travail et du partage de la valeur, nous sommes au sein d'une tendance plus large, à mon sens, qui est celle de la valorisation des actifs immatériels. Les questions posées sont pratiquement subversives !

• Dans une économie où l'innovation prend de plus en plus d'importance, et dans laquelle les moyens de transformer une innovation en services abondent (capital risque, marchés virtuels, peer networks, concours d'idées lancés par des entreprises, ...), que devient l'apport d'un expert dans son entreprise ? En préparant cet atelier hier avec Martin, nous nous posions la question, doit-il être rémunéré par un salaire ou comme un investisseur ?
• Et qu'en est-il de l'investissement fait par les entreprises pour développer de nouveaux collaborateurs ? De l'investissement réalisé pour créer des environnements de travail innovants ? Est-ce encore une dépense qui va en P&L ou un investissement en capital ? Avons-nous aujourd'hui les bons outils comptables pour rendre compte des processus de création de valeur dans les entreprises ?
• Et évidemment, si cette question est posée, se pose aussi celle du partage de la valeur créée.

A mon sens, ce petit débat sur le partage de la valeur deviendra grand. Et les entreprises qui prennent aujourd'hui les devants (voir Google...) construisent un avantage compétitif très solide.

Process 2.0

Bertrand rappelle dans son blog une conversation passionnante que nous avons eu il y a quelques semaines: l'entreprise 2.0 va-t-elle éliminer les processus ?

Nous étions assez d'accord sur le fait que si entreprise 2.0 il y a, il s'agit plutôt d'une couche supplémentaire par rapport à l'organisation existante: celle qui permet à chacun de s'identifier, de partager et de collaborer facilement sans avoir recours à la hiérarchie et en dépassant les frontières traditionnelles.

Evidemment, cette couche ne va pas remplacer les processus. Elle devrait cependant permettre de les rendre plus agiles. Je m'explique: dans un processus, les personnes sont organisées en suivant la succession des activités de celui-ci. Et pour modifier un processus dont on se disait qu'il avait "du potentiel d'amélioration", on faisait classiquement appel à un consultant, qui, en quelques entretiens et pas mal de réflexion, proposait une remise à plat ... cher

Aujourd'hui, le phénomène collaboratif permet à tous les acteurs d'un processus de s'organiser en communauté. On passe d'une vision "process owner" à une vision "process owners" ... une petite lettre qui change tout.

En travaillant sur la capacité des process owners à collaborer (se faire confiance, partager leurs connaissances et perception sur le processus, demander de l'aide, accepter de l'aide, ...) on est de fait en train de passer d'une vision remise à plat des processus à une vision processus dynamique.

Ce qui est somme toute logique. Un processus est fait pour répondre aux besoins d'un client, interne ou externe. Et le rythme d'accélération de l'évolution de ces besoins ne va faire qu'accélérer.

Comme je le disais dans mon post précédent, il va falloir changer nos façons de travailler et nos façons de manager (lire à ce sujet l'article Leading From Behind sur HBR), et c'est cela qui va prendre du temps, plus que la mise en place de la structure entreprise 2.0. Comme toujours, d'abord les outils, ensuite les usages ...

Collaboration based change management

Some quick thoughts on the next wave of change management, on which we are beginning to work

- First, it is as important as reengineering was. If then we changed the processes, now, we are going to change the way we collaborate ACCROSS processes (and more generally, the way we collaborate);
- Second, it is going to take as long as reengineering did. Uncovering processes and making them effective and efficient was a long road. Imagine about identifying key skills and knowledge, prompting people to making them visible, pushing people to call on others for help and problem solving, asking people to proactively share, help, collaborate;
- Third, it involves tools. Not the same tools though. ERP-like software was a good way to make processes visible and to control them. But now we need tools that help people make their own work more impactful and visible to others. It is not "command and control" software that we need, but "peer production" environments;
- Finally, it is all about web 2.0, enterprise2.0, ... I mean, it is collaboration based ! We need to invent new types of change management projects in which we invent the future as we go.

Then we changed the processes. Now we are going to change the culture. And that will not be done top-down

Réseaux sociaux et amitiés

Comme à peu près tout le monde, je suis assez impressionné par la vitesse de développement de Facebook et la pertinence de l'ouverture de leur code.

Je trouve leur style éditorial encore à revoir. "Jean and Claude are now friends" - vous avez du voir ce message des dizaines de fois. L'analogie avec les réseaux NON sociaux est amusante. Prenez le TGV ou les autoroutes par exemple : "avec l'ouverture de la ligne Paris - Strasbourg on va enfin pouvoir passer un week-end à Strasbourg". En d'autres termes, on va enfin pouvoir aller à Strabourg.

Faux.

On pouvait de tout temps aller à Strasbourg. D'ailleurs, lorsque ni les autoroutes ni le TGV n'étaient disponibles, c'est le voyage lui-même qui était d'une autre nature. En étant un brin excessifs, on pourrait dire que le TGV et l'autouroute ne permettent pas de voyager, ils suppriment l'espace. Et donc une possibilité d'apprendre, de comprendre, de faire une transition entre deux régions, entre deux géographies. Ce qui n'est pas un jugement de valeur, juste un constat. Il y a toujours d'autres moyens pour rattraper le temps perdu lorsque l'on arrive a Strasbourg et essayer de comprendre, de s'adapter.

"Jean et Paul are now friends" est un peu excessif. Je me demande ce que supprime cette accélération de la vitesse de la "mise en relation".

Are French politics an example of mass collaboration ?

Rather interestingly, Segolène Royal launched a massive "collective" writing of her "Pacte Presidentiel". This was built around a website, "Desirs d'Avenir", in which I have seen interesting and high quality discussions and "wikis". This was complemented by real life meetings all around France. Both streams of events resulted in a small team analyzing and trying to reach conclusions to actually write the candidate's "Pacte Présidentiel".

As someone that has been trying to help organizations develop internal network and communities, I was not optimistic about the impact of this methodology. So ambitious ! It seemed too quick to work and producing a real document felt to me like manipulating people.

And yet, the candidate made it to the next round. As always, it is not so much the contents as the social network created around a person, an idea or a group that is important. Even in politics.

If she goes all the way to the presidency, how will she continue with her "community-oriented" policy-making ? Will she push it and break barriers in this brave new world or fall back and risk being seen as only another talented politician ?

In any case, we have not heard the last of "mass policy making"