Conversations ...

There is a rather interesting post by Nick Milton about the value of dialogue in KM. Nick makes a very important point about the non-clarity of the knowledge available with "suppliers", and the knowledge required by "customers". This is so because, by definition, we cannot articulate everything. And this makes conversations very important. And with conversations, i am not just talking about people talking face-to-face, but conversation as a generic presence within organizations.

Another aspect which i wanted to bring out here is that the value of conversations also comes from the fact that conversations bring out a shared context which is important for knowledge-sharing to happen. While i believe that with knowledge-sharing within the organizational context, the organization plays an important role in creating a shared context, within this larger picture, between the supplier and customer, there must be a shared understanding of what is being shared. This becomes even more important the more diverse the supplier and customer in terms of their background, whether geographic, work area, experience, etc., because the more diverse they are, the more important conversation becomes a way to bridge this contextual gap.

Lets take another step further. If we look at the KM scenario today, we find that content management is something which is already a given. Its not as though organizations are starting to implement content management. Rather, the concept of content management is already matured, with organizations already having a good understanding of what it is about, and what it entails, and the benefits they could expect from it. On the other hand, collaboration, rather, conversation, is something which is emerging as a concept in organizations. Which means that CKO's probably need to look more closely at this aspect of KM. Maybe we need, in addition to CKO, someone as CCO ... Chief Conversation Officer?

Further Enterprise 2.0

If you thought the previous post ended abruptly, that was because i was going to continue to write on the topic. One thing that comes out, i think, is that communities have a role to play in organizations, but they wont bring down the hierarchical structure of the organization. Rather, communities would continue to blend with the hierarchies of organizations, while at the same time, deliver value within that context. One way of looking at it is that communities may align with the way the organization delivers value to the customer, contributing to the value creation process. Whether this be product development, marketing, sales, production, communities could be aligned to this. This is because, as i wrote in the previous post, business processes align the efforts of different parts of the organization to the objective, and hence, if communities are to deliver value, they would need to be aligned.

Dion Hinchcliffe writes in his post about social business:

Dozens of Fortune 500 companies are formally using Enterprise 2.0 tools today and are not reporting this. They are however reporting better productivity, improved communications, the ability to find information, and cost reductions. But not the collapse of corporate structure. What is true is that additional lines of communication are opened including channels to weak ties and other broader influences. The traditional org chart, never a very good measure of what people actually do at work other than identifying who does their performance reviews, is being augmented by the social graph, not replaced.

This is the point i am trying to make. That communities would blend with corporate hierarchies, in a way that the organization as a whole can leverage communities for achieving something. Probably the idea that communities are a tool which can be leveraged by organizations to solve business problems needs to be considered? Please do post your comments ...

My Two Bits

Over the last few days, there is a lot of discussion around Enterprise 2.0, started off by the post by Dennis Howlett, where he things Enterprise 2.0 is a crock. Andrew McAfee blogged about what he thinks about this. What are they saying?

Dennis believes:

Like it or not, large enterprises - the big name brands - have to work in structures and hierarchies that most E2.0 mavens ridicule but can’t come up with alternatives that make any sort of corporate sense. Therein lies the Big Lie. Enterprise 2.0 pre-supposes that you can upend hierarchies for the benefit of all.

Andrew writes that:

I believe that over time companies that don’t use them will fall behind those that do, but how far behind, and over what time frame? Not that far, that fast.

He goes on to give examples of how some of these tools can be used to solve specific business problems.

However, the point that we probably need to think about is that the way for organizations could be somewhere between these two. True, people dont have the time for web 2.0 or any other term. But, are there better ways of achieving things than the way they are done now? There probably are. On the other hand, are hierarchies so bad? Not necessarily. Its what you do with them that probably builds or takes away value from these. There would be, in organizations, a mix of hierarchy and community which would co-exist because this is probably the model which would bring value, as also take care of some of the things which communities throw up which organizations cant manage. For example, lets not assume that communities are so self-driven that there is going to be no need for someone to define your objectives, and do a performance appraisal. True, appraisal systems could have a community component which defines how well you can create value by being part of a community, but this would, probably, be the way these two viewpoints would merge, if they do.

Lets look at this in a simple way. Maybe this is oversimplification, but it illustrates. If communities were to be the cornerstone of the business world, the organization would either yield to communities (dont think thats probable), or becomes a loose gathering of communities. Let us keep in mind that with the latter, the communities would need to be in synch with each other, and not pull in oposite directions. How would that happen, if there were not going to be any hierarchy? Today, this is achieved by business processes, which are brought together by some form of hierarchy. To look at it another way, even commuities have hierarchies. You find some people emerging to lead a community, and this may or may not be based on the hierarchy of the organization.

Its Cyclical ...

One thing to be said about people in India ... everyone has a theory about everything. Now, this is not to say that this is a localized phenomenon, pnly thing is, this is the only country which i could try to write about. So here goes ... My neighbour probably has an opinion about Salman Khan's neighbour's dog's dietician's hairstyle! Phew!

No, thats not what i am writing about. But, the point is, i have an opinion about something ... a theory, if you may. And thats what i am going to write about. And, the theory is simply this:

Civilizations face cycles of something or the other.

OK, so i havent quite refined this theory, but it is a theory nevertheless. The way i see it, time is cyclical, not a straight time ... if it exists at all. No, lets not get too theoretical here, but without doing so, i cant seem to be able to make a point ... i am writing about a theory after all, remember? And the theory is simply this ... That everything seems to be going round in cycles.

For example, take human civilization. The earliest points of history where we know of human beings as social creatures record the idea of a community ... a tribe, maybe, for want of a better word? Anthropologists may be able to identify some of them in the tribes of today. And what did man do after that? Somehow got into his head the idea that big is beautiful. No, no ... no snickering, please! As a mechanism of protection from rivals, and for hunting/gathering, probably the tribe structure and size was the most suited one. But then, agriculture came, and man settled down, and the village came up as a social unit. This social unit, to cut a long story short, over a period of time, metamorphosed into the kingdom, which later metamorphosed into the nation-state, which now has gone and converted into trading blocks. Along with this, there was also the evolution of human beings from sical creatures into asocial elements. Where the individual began to gain more importance than the collective. I am not saying whats right or wrong (i have no reason to do anything of the kind), the point is, things have changed over a period of time.

Having said that, today, as we must have seen, given the wave of technology, man is moving again towards the mode of community. We are, today, more and more, parts of networks, parts of groups or a circle of some form of connected people ... connected by shared tastes or interests, but whatever be the connection parameter, more and more, people are becoming part of a community, and more and more, we are seeing this community creating value, and driving change in a world which is today seeing this transition with some sort of helplessness. There are people who are convinced that the new things which are coming wont help in any way (though probably they wont say it in so many words), but who understand that there isnt much which can be done about it. Today, new products are created by communities, problems are solved by communities, new markets explored, existing markets expanded by communities ... communities are even driving public opinion ... the world saw that at Iran! To summarize, today, more and more, it is communities ... communities which bring together people, invidivuals who share something (akin to the tribe?), which are coming more and more into their own.

Communities

There are some interesting tweets coming out of E2.0 (yes, i am becoming little active at twitter), more on the subect of communities.

Luis Suarez has been tweeting regularly from there, two of them catching the eye ...

Wish folks would switch from Community manager to Community facilitator; much more engaging & less notion of mandating

Communities need a Sponsor, one or more Leaders, one or more Coordinators, members & content. NO MANAGERS!

Interesting thoughts, these. The thought that communities need to be facilitated, not managed. And this is somewhat of the paradox of communities (though not really paradox, but since it doesnt align with any particular school of thought, it becomes somewhat so) ... something i have written about before ... that communities, while they may be self-forming, they need some kind of impetus from somewhere to keep going.

Take the example of groups at facebook ... or at linkedin ... there are quite a few groups there. But, most of the groups, over a period of time, lose some of the momentum, and become dormant. This, probably, is true of all communities? Even in human conversations, say if you meet someone from college after a long time, the conversation goes well for some time, and then there is a lull ... unless someone picks up the thread and takes it forward.

Now, communities are made of people, so this should be expected of communities, too. Which is why, i agree with Luis that there must be facilitators who can ensure the conversation in the community carries on. Managers would bring in their own form of structure or agenda, which may not be the best way to drive communities. Instead, facilitators need to blend with the community, understand the nature of the conversation, and steer the conversation, if required. Not really required to steer the conversation if its going on as it is. More about picking up the thread, and ensuring there are means to revive the conversation as it begins to wane.

What this means is also that communities need some form of external impetus. Within the organizational context, communities need some inputs from the organization, and are not completely self-forming, self-regulating. There is a role which the organization has to play, and this role could be of facilitating the conversation, letting the outcomes of the conversation evolve. Which is to say that unlike, say, a task-force, a community cannot be about specific targets or specific objectives, but rather, of bearing in mind that the conversation, of itself, would lead to some results. There could be some intervention, however, which could guide a conversation, but this must be seen to be non-intrusive.

Web 2.0 ... All About Adoption

There is an interesting post by Jevon MacDonald, about e 2.0 taking the stage. Especially where he says ...

The interconnections and interactions between people spark great value, but the more costly traditional tools have missed out on this great reservoir of of value, but the newer lower cost solutions offer these gems up wonderfully with a little coaxing.

What is interesting here is the part about little coaxing. And this, in my experience, has been the trickiest part. Like i have written before, the key to web 2.0, and the evolution of the structures around e 2.0 is heavily dependant on the adoption of these initiatives. And, more often than now, this requires more than a little coaxing.

Another thing he mentions ...

The promise of bringing social tools into organizations has never been about complicating worker productivity. It centers on allowing individuals to act more independently and to make smarter decisions more easily.

The idea here shouldnt be to have people taking time from their daily schedule, to contribute to the network. Rather, the contributions to the network have to be an outcome of the daily work of people. Much like facebook ... you dont have to specifically go out there and mention that you have written on someone's wall. The activities you perform are reflected on the page. And something like this is also required within the firewall.

Update ... after having written and published this, i came across this article about SocialText 3.0.

A Tale Of Two Companies ...

I have recently been trying to understand the differences between organizations, and how this relates to their entire outlook towards the basic idea of knowledge-sharing. And, the results havent been surprising.

This is a post about two companies ... both are in the same industry, both are headquartered in the same city, and both are in more or less the same business, having more or less the same business model. What I have been trying to understand is the differences in their opinions towards collaboration ... specifically towards communities. And, the difference is immense.

Company A has an environment where there are vibrant communities. These communities are more often than not driven by a set of community champions, who understand the requirements of people participating in these communities, and also take up the ways to meet those requirements ... the basic idea ... communities need to provide value to people who are participating in them, otherwise there is no reason people should participate. And people wont participate till they find value coming out of these communities. This is a circle, as i have written before, and organizations need to find ways to break this. In organization A, this is being done primarily by the community champions.

Company B, on the other hand, has communities which are vibrant, essentially in fits and starts ... in other words, the communities will suddenly come alive for some time, and then go off to sleep. What organization B has not been able to do is break the circle.

The question is why ... is this a people issue? Both companies have community champions. And, as i had written earlier, they have community managers ... So, where is the difference? Ah ... the people. But then, it has also been seen that there is not much difference between the types of people these two companies have working at them. After all, they both pay around the same, and they both hire from more or less the same set of colleges ... So, maybe people are not the issue. And, this is intuitive ... We are all social animals. Which means that we need to relate to others. And, collaboration is but a manifestation of this.

The question that this brings up ... If people are not the issue, then what is? The company? Maybe ... Or, maybe, culture ... OK, i brought this up. I still dont know what organizational culture means. Or, even if i do know, i dont think i can articulate this. But, then, there is definitely something else ... One of the reasons is the messages from the top ... what are the messages (not words ...) that emanate from the senior management! If they think its a waste of time, then it is ... If they think its not a waste of time, it isnt.

Reminds me of a story i had heard ... about the traveller who was travelling to Damascus. He met a wise old man just outside the city, and asked about the people of the city. The old man asked him where he was coming from ... he told him Cairo, and also mentioned that he had heard the people of the city are mean, and bad-temered. The old man told him he as right. Later during the day, another traveller was travelling to Damascus ... he, too, met the old man ... and, asked the same question. The old man asked him, too, where he was from. He said he was from Istanbul, and that he had heard that the people of Damascus are very nice and friendly. The old man told him that he had heard right. OK, so thats not the exact story, but i am sure you get the point!

Communities ...

Here is an interesting post about communities ... about how to run communities ... Rob Howard has written a rather interesting piece about this. There are a few points here which i wanted to write about ...



Firstly, there is the point about generating value. This is an interesting part. Actually, this is the chicken-and-egg situation which i have written about before. With communities, people wont adopt till they find value, and communities wont generate value till people adopt. And it is this cycle which needs to be addressed by organizational intervention. Of course, different ways would be used in different scenarios, but one way could be to identify community evangelists, or managers, if you will, who can spread the word ... generate awareness about communities, and the value these communities can generate for people who join in. Of course, this would need to be supplemented by some sort of rewards program which the organization would need to bring in.



Of course, this idea of value also brings to the point that when people join a community, they are, more often than not, looking at getting, rather than giving ... and hence, the organization may need to invest expertise into building some content, some expertise sharing, to attract people to sort of follow the experts. This could be one way of getting out of the cycle. Of course, this still doesnt address the basic problem. If the only reason people join the community is to read the comments of these experts, the community would stagnate over a period of time ... how lang can one or two experts sustain a community? Not long enough, one would think. Which means, that over a period of time, there would need to be some means of inviting more and more people to write, to share, and give, rather than passive receivers. Some form of value for contributors to the community must be developed. Here again, different things work for different people, which means that a rewards mechanism which reaches out to a maximum number of folks would be helpful. Recognition, perhaps? Or, maybe, brownie points? Or, maybe this kind of mechanism for advertising the contributions of people?



The most important point Rob raises is about the value of the community. Since the community is going to oeprate in a articular context, it is a little easier to identify where the community should have reached, or what the community should have delivered after a period of time, and this should be more than simply number of posts, number of replies, etc. (which, by the way, is the way a lot of organizations i have interacted with measure ...). Having said this, there must be some form of balance between the achievement of the community, and the contribution of individuals. The temptation to hide individuals beneath the umbrella of the community is high, but it must not be given in to. Otherwise, over a period of time, you end up driving away people from the community.

Social Computing ... Observations And Implications

I was watching this awesome video which Luis Suarez has made, posted over at his blog. There are some very imortant point that Luis is making over here, especially when he says that with social computing it is no longer you versus others, its you as part of a team, of a community.

What i liked probably the most was the idea that in an open platform as social computing can provide, it quickly becomes clear who is contributing how much, and what. The whole idea of free-riding is something which can be taken care of. Though, to my mind, that is a tad oversimplistic. Folks will find out ways to get around this. This also could have implications for the way people work ... bringing in more transparency ... and, to my mind, this is one of the very reasons this kind of a change would be resisted in a large number of organizations. Not just because change is usually resisted (which i believe is not, its just that the value proposition of the change is not usually communicated well enough ...), but also because a lot of people are not comfortable saying out things in the open.

What is also interesting is that unlike with email, you can control what you read. Of course, this might mean you miss out on something. But, as Luis says, networks have a way of informing you. While this is valid logic, this rests on the assumption of adoption. And, this is where the chicken-and-egg situation i have written about earlier comes into the picture ... the network cannot deliver value till there are plenty of people in it, and you wont have plenty of people in the network till it start delivering value.

There are two things i would add to the number of excellent points Luis has made ...

Let us first ask, what is the most important asset for an organization (knowledge-based, i am assuming here ...)! The most probable answer you would get to this question is ... People! Yes, they sure are. But, if people are the most important asset, why is it that Knowledge Management systems are content-centric, and not people centric? After all, content is a proxy for people, isnt it?

Look at facebook, for instance ... the focus of the entire network is the people ... when you login, you see what your friends are doing ... you are seeing content which is generated, for sure ... but, content that is generated by people, or, in other words, content in the context of people, which brings people to the centre of the entire schema. Ditto for twitter, too ... the first thing on a tweet is the picture, and the name of the person who has written it. Even your favourites are content, but they are about the people ... the focus being on the people who are generating the content.

This has another benefit ... Unlike documents, or static content, which goes obsolete over a period of time (by the time you post it, as Luis says), the people who write the content dont! People are more up-to-date than platforms are!

Another thing which comes up is, if you are emailing a document to ten different people, you are sending ten different copies, one to each one of them ... you are in effect isolating one from another. Contrast this to the social computing paradigm, where you are bringing people together, by bringing them to a single copy of the document.

Communities And Structure

I had written about whether communities can cope ... some thoughts about a post by Rachel Happe ... Rachel has written some of her thoughts here. It seems i got the central point of her post wrong ... though i do agree with her, something which i havent really read too much about, but have been thinking about for some time.

While i agree with Rachel's central point about the tension between structure, as described by the corporate hierarchy, and the self-forming, self-regulating nature of communities, i also believe that there is some sort of common ground between the two paradigms ... agreed that successive generations have been looking for it, as Rachel points out in the example of the Church, but having said that, we need to keep in mind that most of the work in organizations doesnt bring out the passions that religion does. As such, there are basic differences between the way we need to communities within the organization, and without.

Since i can afford to look at communities within the limited context of the organization, and that makes it easier to treat them, since there is a particular context you are looking at them in, i would tend to do that. And in the organizational context, the organization, through shared goals is the ideal medium for discovering this common ground. Definitely, this common ground would keep on shifting from tie to time, and as such, communities would either need to be realigned, or recreated altogether. Matter of fact, we are yet to see this tension between the structure on the one hand, and the free-spirited communities on the other ... for the simple reason, that within the organizational context, communities tend to be not as free-spirited, and not as self-regulating as they are in the more generic context. This is of course not true for all organizations, but this has been my exerience with the organizations i have interacted with.

And this is the aspect of communities which i refer to when i talk about the paradox of communities ... that while communities are self-forming, and self-sustaining, they are nevertheless looking at the organization for poviding the context for their functioning. Without a well-defined context, they are definitely going to be rudderless, and are going to lose direction. What this however means is that given the context to operate upon, communities can actually keep their direction. This is not to say that they would be laser-focused, or anything like that ... they are definitely going to meander, that being human nature, but having said that, on the whole, communities can be taking direction from the organizational context.

Communities Going Forward ...

I came across this wonderful post by Rachel Happe, thinking Can Communities Cope? ... interesting what Rachel has written in this ... why i say this is because this sort of encapsulates what i have been thinking about for some time now, without being able to articulate it.

Rachel has it right that communities have lifecycles ... lets face it, human civilizations have lifecycles (although we do feel a sense of permanence, but this is only because we are experiencing only a small slice of this lifecycle, and hence, this seems to be permanent, much like a sufficiently small slice of a circle would look like a straight line), so it would be only normal to assume that communities would, too. And this is where the organization must step in ... first of all, the organization needs to realize the value that communities can bring, and once this can be experienced (maybe not directly demonstrated, but experienced, either through participation, or anecdotally), the organization must put in the effort to rejuvenate communities when they seem to be flagging. And, this, to my mind, is the paradox of communities ... supposedly self-forming and self-sustaining, they nevertheless need the organizational push, because this is what provides them the context for their existence, at least within the organizational perspective.

Of  course, this is also having an impact on the structure of the organization. Though, it would be naive to assume that structure would go away ... something i have written about before here, and here. It would, however, be naive to assume the end of the organization (not that i have come across anybody doing that), though change is definitely happening.

CT 2.0 ... or Mobile 2.0

Nothing really cryptic about it. This post is inspired by my friend and colleague Pushpanjali ... today at Lunch, she was telling about the way caller tunes are infectious. Yes, caller tunes. For the uninitiated, caller tunes are those nice songs you hear when you call up your friends. Well, what Pushpanjali had to tell me was that she had setup the caller tune for a particular song (its actually a hot favourite these days!) on her number. Now, service providers give the functionality, in one way or the other, to copy your friend's caller tune! So, her husband copied the caller from her, and his friend copied the caller tune from him! And this can be really cool , considering the number of songs you have to browse through in order to setup your caller tune.

This, to my mind, is the essence of web 2.0. People connecting with people, and generating, discovering, and sharing content through these connections. Of course, the nature of these connections is what actually defines the nature and quality of the content you would discover, which is why, social networks become all the more important. More often than not, if you have a query, you would not get the answer from a friend, but from someone your friend knows!

Fantasy App ...

Is it a pointer to me being a wierdo if i am fantasizing about an application? Well ... maybe! But then, whatever ...

I have been using both facebook and twitter for over a week now. And the way i see it, both of these applications actually complement each other. While facebook is about connecting with folks, and doing your own thing, twitter is about being yourself, and just penning down your thoughts from time to time. I am thinking of a facebook homepage where updates from twitter, from my network get reflected, and where i can not just keep in touch with what my friends are doing, with their statuses, photos, work, play, etc., i can also keep in touch with what they are thinking.

And, this is a pointer to a larger thought process ... Right now, i am confused about which social network i want to log into. So, i log into twitter, because i want to share my "thoughts of the moment" with others, and i log into facebook to connect with friends. And, i log into ning for communities, and ... What is required, to an extent, is an aggregator, which can give the functionality of the social networks i am a part of, in a single place. This way, i am sure a lot of folks would save a lot of time not having to update multiple social networks?

There is, of course, the argument of diversity which multiple social networks brings in, but i dont see too much logic in that, considering that most of the folks on my network in facebook overlap with those on twitter, and hence, the impact of diversity is only minimal.

On E-Mail ...

I quite agree with Luis when he says that email is probably not the best way to communicate. In fact, looking at the way email has come into the business ecosystem, it basically replaces the inter-office memos that used to circulate in offices. Email brought those online, and made them instant, so an electronic "inter-office memo" could be sent instantly to someone, without having it being sent by hand, and reaching the other person after hours, if not days, depending on whether he was based in the other building across town, or across the globe.

Thing is, with the advent of email, and its widespread adoption, the mindset of people has not changed much. While e-commerce technologies were changing the way things were being done, the fact is, people still have the mindset of inter-office memos. So, what is wrong with it, is the question that comes up. Something is ... The way the world is changing, and the way the world of business, and the nature of work is evolving, this inter-office mindset may not be the best possible tool for building a business for tomorrow, when the participants in the business are going to be far more distributed (if not fragmented), with work going more and more to places and people who can do it much better than where it is being done now.

However, i was reading a post by Dave Pollard ... interesting reading! He makes a compelling case for more open-ness in business interactions. The new paradigm of openness in the organization could change the way things are being done ... though, i would guess this is going to take a long time. No matter, as long as the world of business is on the path, we will get there sometime. Having said that, i am not sure whether there would be any such thing as "nothing in the inbox", because it would, in all probability, be "lots in your feed reader"!

A lot has been written about this, too ... about the feed reader replacing the inbox ... but, thats not so much the issue, considering that this would be symptomatic of increasing open-ness in interactions, and generation of content far more dynamic, and up-to-date. After all, people are usually more up-to-date than platforms.

Social Networking ... A Study

Alain has pointed on his blog, to a post about corporate social networks being a waste of time. Interesting post ... and, the study seems to be an interesting one. But then, isnt this something which was waiting to happen? Somehow, what managers seem to ignore is the fact that when people network outside the firewall, they are having fun, while when they do so inside the firewall, they are working (not necessarily the same thing as having fun, isnt it?). Something i have written about before, and here, and here.

Actually, this is something to be expected. Though, there are a couple of things that i was thinking about, with this post ...

1. Million Dollars for Social Networking? What were they even thinking! First of all, we must understand, that most of the web 2.0 pieces are quite anti-thetical to the traditional technology project management scenarios. There is no need for multi-million dollar contracts, and 2 year, T&M project life-cycles, with consultants flying back every Thursday, blah blah ... This is a different paradigm altogether, and unless we understand this, we are probably going to end up grabbing the wrong end of the stick. because, once we realize this, we will understand that its of prime importance that web 2.0 be driven by business users rather than technology users. And, once we can get business users to drive this, there's still hope.

2. We also need to understand that advertising of these tools is also of prime importance. Dont advertise about it, and people wont come to know about it, and if they dont know about it, they wont come there, and if they dont come there, the entire point is lost, as the post says.

3. Community Managers, to my mind, is something which is definitely required as a concept. Whether full-time, or part-time, dedicated or not, is a different issue altogether. For all that is said about Communities of Practice being self-organizing, in the corporate sphere, communities need some amount of prodding from the organization. Remember, smooth functioning of these communities is in the interest of the organization. Thing is, this is an aspect which a lot of managers forget. Rather than being managers, these are essentially champions. These could either be people who are Knowledge Managers, who are driving the adoption of communities in the organization, or these could be Subject Matter Experts taking an active interest in social networking.

Either way, there has to be a separate effort to drive adoption ...

Interesting Idea ...

I guess its true ... Every alternate day, there is an interesting idea which is taking shape in the world ... especially on the web. I came across one such idea the other day ... but first, the way i came across this idea is actually as interesting as the idea itself.

I was indulging in some self-awareness ... i have a visitor map on my blog. You can click on this to enlarge the map. I did that the other day, in order to see the visitor map of my blog in more detail. No, this is not what it is. There was a banner of a website on here, which caught the eye ... and, i must say its quite an interesting idea ... Its idopia ... and an interesting idea, i must say.

What can you do here? Not much ... Actually, i am also just exploring this. Off the cuff, what you can do is, ask a question, and post it ... and, people can respond to the question. Not quite a discussion forum, though. Its more of a polling tool. Any question you have in mind, you can ask, and people can support, or oppose the idea. You can also post details about the question you are asking, enabling people to understand what you are asking in detail, before they respond.

In addition, you can also get an overall picture of the kinds of questions people are asking, what are the responses people are posting to them, and also, which are the most active topics which are garnering the most interest.

What is most interesting is the way this could be utilized in the organization. Couple of scenarios come to mind ... Would people prefer e-learning to in-class training for a particular topic? Or, do people like the new compensation plan for salespeople? As a standalone tool, though, this might have limited utility, but used in the larger context of social computing tools, this could be quite an interesting tool. A blog, say, could have a reference to questions related to the topic on the blog, as a quick reference to readers, or members of a network could use this tool to find out what people think about a particular topic. Seems interesting, and i possibly, people could find more innovative ways to use this, than any one of us can think of?

DIY Web

OK ... So, I am adding to the web 2.0 cacophony. At the cost of doing that, allow me to say that today, after a long time, i was reminded of the basic axiom of web 2.0 which is:

Web 2.0 = DIY web

Interesting ... if you would see, i have added a widget from the official Dilbert site to the blog. This means you could read Dilbert off my blog. Sounds cool? Well ... cooler still is the fact that a technological dinosaur like me could achieve something so technically complex. And this is the sheer wonder of web 2.0. The DIY nature of this.

However, this is not something which delights traditional Information Technology folks. SOme folks would feel that they lose control over the technology landscape within the organization in a web 2.0 world. However, this need not necessarily be true. The role of Information Technology could be redefined to facilitating the adoption of web 2.0 ... of defining the platform, the technology, and of maintaining the levels of DIY which the user community demands. In simpler language ... on the web, there are folks out there who develop widgets which anyone can use. In the organization, the Information Technology organization could assume this role. This would require them to be in much closer contact with the user community, and would give them a greater understanding of the requirements of users, making Information Technology more central to the scheme of organizational things. And this could change the way Information Technology interacts with the rest of the organization. And, to my mind, for the better.

KM will Happen ... KM or no KM

I have been thinking about this for some time ... and then, I came across this post by Luis Suarez. What got me thinking about this is the back-to-basics kind of thought process that Luis seems to be coming up with. Luis also refers to a post by Dave Pollard which I think I will take some time to read, and digest. Something to nibble on, and digest in a leisurely manner, I would say.

To bring in my perspective ... Over a period of time, I have been meeting folks practising KM in some form or the other ... and, coming up with an interesting conclusion. Something that I have summed up in the title of the post ... KM will happen ... KM or not KM. Even if there is no formalized KM mechanism, KM does happen. Take an example ... I was talking with some folks from the metals industry ... They have been fostering KM in a largely offline mode. Social computing somehow becomes more of the social rather than the computing part. Which got me thinking ... Back in the 90s, with the emphasis on TQM, the whole idea of Quality Circles was much the rage ... And, I am now trying to figure out ... How were these different from communities? There have been a number of replies I have got, but bottomline ... These are a group of people interested in a particular topic, coming together, with an aim in mind, to share their thoughts.

Which is something that happens even without formal KM ... And, has been happening for quite some time now ... a few centuries, maybe? People come together, communities are created without giving them the name ... And, there is quite a healthy exchange of thoughts. More and more, communities are becoming transient ... People come together, perform some things, and the community disappears ... But, this is to be expected, considering the changing nature of human interactions.

So, where am I headed? Simple ... I am talking about bringing the human aspect of KM more into the focus ... Somewhere along the way, KM became more and more about technology ... Actually, it started that way, and just that the nature of the technology changed over a period of time, from databases to web 2.0 ... But, the focus has to be on the people ... A lot of people have said it, but not many who have followed. Which is where the entire conundrum of adoption comes in. Any KM initiative is as effective as its adoption by people. Something I have written about earlier ... And, something which needs to be pushed ... As you would find in the writings of a lot of thinkers of KM, its about how many folks are actually going to use it.

Communities and Collective Identity

There is a nice post by Dave Snowden about Aggregative or emergent identity? Rethinking Communities. Quite an interesting read, and thought provoking, too ... Something I have been thinking about, for some time. One important thing that Dave highlights ...

My take on that issue by the way is that while all communities are networks, not all networks are communities.

This rings a bell. We network a lot with folks we like to interact with, but that couldnt necessarily be called as a community. Whats the difference? Basic difference ... Shared goal. Which is why, networks that we find on social networking sites, and networks we find in organizations should not be equated, and should be studied as two distinct identities. This distinction derives from the goal ... OK, so we could argue that a lot of times, communities dont necessarily share the same goal. But then, more often than not, they do. Whether mutually decided by the community, or imposed by the environment, the goal is there.

And this, to my mind, is where quite a few of us are erring. The dynamics of communities, regardless of the parallels, are different within and outside the organizational context. And, this organizational context is what makes the difference. Communities within the organization, for example, need some kind of organizational support. This is a paradox of communities that I have written about earlier. Its important we stopped seeing this as a paradox, though, and consider this an important part of the creation and sustenance of communities in the organization.

Leadership in Virtual Worlds

Kuldeep Reyatt asked a question on linkedin the other day ... About the possible nature of leadership in the virtual world. While I responded to his query on linkedin, this did open up a thought process ... What does a leader in the virtual worlds look like? Definitely not with 2 heads ... But, with a head which matches the scenario?

The question, I think, has implications on the way Enterprise 2.0 shapes up, too. To my mind, there are aspects of the virtual world, and the problem solving process there, and the same process in the web 2.0 world, which are similar. The largest one being participation. Or, the collaborative nature of problem solving activities. Does this mean the two are going to be identical? I dont think so. Would they be similar ... I think so.

The word to describe it could be "democratic". Or participative, if you may? Though, in a totally different connotation. What this means is that there may not be any permanent leaders ... and this is something which we find in organizations today as well, with specific folks leading teams tasked with solving a particular problem. Rather than rely on the organization hierarchy, more and more, there may be people emerging as leaders in the specific scenario, or to solve a particular problem, based on their expertise. There could be different kinds of leaders ... thought leaders, action leaders ... And different scenarios, or different problems might find different, at times highly unlikely leaders emerging from the community itself. IBM has done a story about Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders which points somewhat in this direction, too. The underlying idea being ... It will be the passion, and the knowledge that people bring to the problem solving scenario, which, in all probability would decide the shape of leadership to solve that particular problem. What this implies is a much more fluid leadership scenario, with leaders not being decided on traditional parameters.

Does this mean traditional leadership will go away? Not at all. It wouldnt, and I would think, it shouldnt. Leadership, in its able form, provides the glue which keeps things together, and people pointed towards a common passion, or a common vision. But, within this context, there could be a level of leadership which is much more open. And, this is happening today, too!