Social Media

The human brain sometimes creates connections where none seem to exist. And maybe this ability of people to create connections between seemingly unrelated things which creates value. No, i am not saying i am doing that, but reading a rather thought-provoking post about Social media needing to grow up, actually got me thinking about some rather interesting thoughts which have been doing the rounds.

To begin with, this is an interesting post. I would think this is more to do with the shape of things going much into the future, but maybe this is a possibility. I have written a bit about this earlier. The basic concern i see is that there are plenty of interests in the current organizational structures, and web 2.0 technologies, in large part, seem to have the tendency of tugging at these, and it is this which could be the central point of resistance to evolution of organizations into the e 2.0 environment.

But thats moving away from the thought i was writing about. There is, these days, an advertisement running on tv, for !dea Cellular ... about the proposal to making shopping malls in the fields, and the possibility of having an opinion poll, reaching out to the people, to get their opinion on a particular proposal. What seemingly is only an advertisement, can become the vehicle for possible change ... change, which could possibly change the way a lot of things work. Click here and you could post your opinion, as well as see the ad ...

The point i am trying to make here is that one doesnt need a highly complex complex technology platform to move towards a more participative way of doing things ... whether it be in the political space, as the advertisement shows, or it be in the organizational environment. Relatively simple platforms can be used to reach out, and to develop participative value-creation in the organization, too. The iportant point is the recognition of the need to tap into the resources which are distributed, and not always recognizable. For, one doesnt know what ideas could emerge from where. As i have written before, this is something which Cisco seems to be doing.

Marketing And Web 2.0 ...

There is a lot written about the impact of web 2.0 in the marketing space. About how organizations can use the power of web 2.0 to rive their marketing activities. This said, there are still a large number of companies (the majority?) who havent brought onto this concept.

This brings up the question ... why not. Look at it this way ... around a decade ago, Rodgers and Peppers wrote a very interesting book about 1-to-1 marketing ... interesting because the book describes how the entire process of selling would change. And, it has. Today, everyone is talking about, if not doing, personalized campaigns. In a scenario where consumers are receiving more and more media messages from organizations, with one program being sponsored by Coca-Cola, and the next one by Pepsi, these messages can be distracting at best, and confusing at worst.

And this is where the power of web 2.0 can deliver value to marketeers. Look at it this way ... In a web 2.0 world, people are looking towards their friends for advice about things. This has been happening for a long time ... remember that restaurant you went for Dinner to, because a friend recommended it? Or, consulted a doctor because a friend told you he is good? So whats new, you might ask ... put simply, new is the scale. Today, we find web 2.0 taking this entire recommendation process to a different scale altogether. Rather than just talking to your friends (who could be sitting in any part of the world, or whome you arent even in touch with too often), you can access information from your friend's friends.

Put simply, today, consumers can become brand ambassadors who are far more effective than any formal brand ambassador. Most IT companies have some form of referenceability program in place, where they try to get referenceable customers, who can then recommend their work to prospective clients.

How does this impact marketing? Lets look at it in a basic sort of way ... Traditional marketing talks about the STP model. Here, though, the segmentation is based on what the organization feels their market is, and the targetting is done based on what the organization perceives this segmentation requires. So, you identify segments, identify their requirements, and target your products at these requirements ... What a lot of marketeers are missing out on is the role web 2.0 can play in this segmentation process ... identifying communities can help them build segments at a micro level, which couldnt be done earlier. And the positioning part is simple from here on ... blogs targetted at the community, with participation from the community itself.

The most interesting part of this is the simplicity. More useful is the participation aspect ... read consumers describing the products they want, and the organization building products, and positioning around this feedback. What this requires, however, is ample investment, more in terms of effort and organizational time, than money, into community building. And this is where a lot of marketeers today are not focussing.

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.

Study In Contrast ...

The other day, i was flying Air India, and was reminded about the sheer contrast in the working style of companies operating in India. Let me write about this ... one of them, Air India ... solid government of India carrier, and the other, Airtel ... shining example of private sector enterprise.

Air India, when you walk into the airport, is not the most shining check-in counter. The check-in can be quite an experience ... they somehow havent quite gotten the hang of checking in maximum number of people in the minimum amount of time, though the check-in counter people can be nice, or surly depending on their mood. Airtel, on the other hand, is suave, swanky, the perfect marketing machine ... your interactions with Airtel will get you thinking about the amazing effeiciency, etc., etc. ...

Walk behind the facade, and the story is quite different. While Air India gives you good, rock-solid service with a smile within the aircraft (coupled with some of the smoothest landings you could get, and food which is excellent, too, at least compared with some other airlines ... Kingfisher comes close ... and, i remember reading an article by veteran journalist Jerry Pinto, comparing an experience he had with Virgin, and with Air India ... few years back, though i cant find a link to it!), when it comes to Airtel, the service ends at the front-end. Behind the facade, its all about dropped calls, no network coverage (go anywhere, do anything, except in the heart of Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore ...), and a call centre which has perfected the art of providing no service, and only apologies for lack of it.

Go, Air India!

Diversity ...

If you were to see this picture, you would believe the Honda City is the most popular car in India. This actually is an interesting thought ... the first time i came across this idea was when i was studying Statistics ... and, this kind of drove home the point about the importanc of sample size.

Though, i am not writing about this here. Like i have written before, we need to look outside our fields of specialization, to come up with new ideas. If we focus only on our limted areas, we will be seeing only the two Honda City cars parked there, and not the other cars which are parked around them, and would lose out on a whole lot of knowledge which we could have otherwise gained. As we can see, if we focus only on the narrow area which surrounds us, we will not come up with thoughts which are outside of the limited scope of thoughts we run with. Also, the knowledge that the Honda City is one of the popular models, not the only one, would escape us.

Any of us who have done the KM seminar circuit would see this. You see the same set of people, you hear the same things being said in most of them ... new ideas are missing. Only if you look outside of this circuit would you come up with thoughts which are not on lines which are already being circulated.

This also drives home the point that professionals in any field of work must look at scenarios where they can look at the larger picture, because the smaller picture, as you can see from this photograph, can be quite misleading.

Organizational Layers ...

I am not sure whether this is the appropriate topic for this post. But, whatever ...

As you probably already know, i am currently reading The Knowledge-Creating Company (almost through), and maybe its because my expectations from the book were sky-high (having heard so much, over a period of time, before i got round to reading it ...), but i found the book, while bringing out very prolific insights, at places, has ideas, which were, at the time of writing, quite appropriate, but over a period of time, tend to seem dated.

One such idea is the concept of the hypertext organization. As the concept of synthesis of the beauraucratic and the task-force oriented organizational structures, this is a wonderful idea (and, one which has not really been implemented too well in organizations to date ... primarily because the various components linked together by the hypertext tend to become islands or mini-organizations in their own right, and the balance to be obtained between the beauraucratic and the task-force oriented organization structures is very hard to achieve). However, there is a concern i have with some concepts mentioned about this.

What i am talking about is the relationship between the business system, the project team, and the knowledge base. I dont think i am competent enough to comment on the relationship between the project team and the business system (after all, i am myself still trying to achieve this balance between the two contrasts of beauraucracy and task-force orientation ... much like a lot of other managers), what i find a little discomforting is the distinction which is made between these two, and the knowledge base layer.

To my mind, this distinction is at best artificial. According to the authors' own model, knowledge is an inherent part of the business system, and the project teams (read tacit knowledge). To this extent, shouldnt the systems related to identifying, and then sharing of knowledge, leading to the generation of the knowledge spiral, and to the unhindered discovery and flow of knowledge, be an integral part of the operational structure of the organization itself? Otherwise, Knowledge Management by itself becomes an end, rather than a means to another end, as envisioned in the corporate vision.

The Knowledge Creating Company ...

This book is one of the most renowned books when it comes to the subject of knowledge. This is The Knowledge-Creating Company by Nonaka and Takeuchi. Interesting reading, no doubt. And, i am sure i am learning a lot from the book. But, having said that (and you could say this could be because of very high expectations), i find the book a bit of a disappointment. Firstly, it is a bit confusing in the way it addresses definitional issues, and secondly, it focuses on the new product development aspect, in a way which at times doesnt feel relevant in other scenarios.

Firstly, the authors mention that metaphor and analogy are tools for externalization. However, this raises the question as to whether storytelling as a means of knowledge sharing should be treated as externalization, or whether it should be treated as socialization. According to the definition in the book, it should be treated as externalization, and this somehow doesnt ring too true, because a story is not really exlicit ... By the meaning of the word, the story is really tacit, because the real meaning and moral is hidden somewhere in the story, rather than being explicitly detailed, like in in data sheet. These two are qualitatively different, and this theory doesnt seem to address this difference. In other words, there is, to my mind, a difference between specific and generic knowledge (essentially, knowledge that is presented in the context in which it was created, vis a vis knowledge that has been abstracted from its context and presented in a generalized form), and this dimension of knowledge doesnt seem to be addressed here.

Secondly, somehow, another thing doesnt really come out too well ... That socialization, externalization, and combination are modes which are primarily from the sender's perspective, and in a sense, all of these must be followed by a step of internalization, otherwise the communication is incomplete. As such, internalization should be a component of all the three steps, but this doesnt come out well. For example, if someone were to write a document (externalization), does this by itself imply knowledge sharing? Or, would someone need to read and understand this document for the knowledge sharing cycle to be completed (ok, so a rather simplistic example, but adequate to actually get the point across, i suppose)? Also, the demarcation between the different steps doesnt come out too well. Although the impression one gets is that these four are substantially different forms of knowledge sharing, this difference doesnt come out clearly, and at the same time, the idea that comes out is that demarcation between the different modes is blurred. For example, if a discussion is considered to be socialization, when does this discussion move from being socialization, to being externalization? Or, if someone is writing a document based on their experiences, and is referring to other documents, would this be in the realm of externalization, or would this be combination? Somehow, the fact that many forms of knowledge sharing are a combination of these multiple modes, and people would move seamlessly from one mode to the other (as these modes are defined) doesnt come out too clearly.

Having said this, the theory is a very useful model to understand the concepts, and it would be extremely nice if the authors had built upon it, to take the nuances to the next level.

Would welcome all your thoughts and criticisms on the topic. Please do write in ... Would help me understand the fallacies in my arguments. Thank You!

Relevance of Communication

The other day i was asked a question ... about the role communication skills might play in the realm of knowledge management. This got me thinking ... interesting topics ... this is not something i have read much about, nor have i written about it myself.

Let us try to look at it from two perspectives:

From the perspective of explicit knowledge, this is a no-brainer ... if you are trying to write something, put something to paper, you are in the process of communicating with the world through the document which will result. So, there must be ample and proper articulation, which in turn requires sufficiently good writing skills. This is important because when you are doing so, you are trying to translate a picture which you are carrying in your head, to a set of words, and there is the very real possibility (something which happens more than one would like to see) of meaning being lost in the translation.

Moving now to the realm of collaboration ... today, when we are talking about web 2.0, collaboration deals more and more with an ongoing conversation ... through blogs, wikis, through social networks, etc. However, this is where my viewpoint begins to differ from the traditional one. the way they have been developed, and their essential philosophy, is totally opposed to any kind of structure. There is some, of course, which is in the interest of brevity (which is why we still divide posts into paragraphs which can be more easily digested), but apart from this, this paradigm of social computing has rather little to do with the sophisiticated techniques that one is taught during communication skills trainings. Apart from the basics ... Keep it short, capture the interest of the audience, and make sense at what you are talking about.

The impact is interesting ... while communications are becoming more and more informal, they are also becoming more and more vibrant (read twitter ... which reminds me, i need to graduate to twitter one of these days, except that i am just too lazy to create my network all over again over there, when i have already done so over at facebook). Lots has been written about the way sms has changed the way people communicate. To my mind, a lot of this is applicable to the social computing space as well.

Looking Ahead ...

This is a question a lot of people are asking, and a lot of people are talking about. Is web 2.0 going to change the way we work? The answer seems to be yes … that web 2.0 is more than just a set of tools … that it’s a new paradigm for business. The basic concept of this paradigm being the "democratization" of knowledge creation, dissemination, and absorption. In other words, anyone today can write a blog, create knowledge, disseminate it, and anyone can read anyone's blog, interact with the blog (through RSS Feeds, and Comments), and absorb what the author of the blog is saying (simplistic example).

What not too many people are talking about is how this new paradigm is going to change the way business functions. Like, in the 90s, e-commerce changed the way companies worked, by expanding their boundaries, and increasing collaboration with business partners. However, web 2.0, to my mind, is far more profound a change. Why? In one word ... People! Till now, all changes have been focussed around the classical management approach ... optimize, streamline, etc. ... where the focus has been on analytical functions, and business processes. Even the web, for all the changes it brought about in the 90s, had these changes focussed primarily around business processes, and not people ... something i have written about.

Take a simple example ... in the 90s, there was the concept of the webmaster. For the last so many years, the concept has quietly disappeared from the websites i frequent. Indeed, i would believe, that to a large extent, the webmaster is getting replaced by ... hold your breath ... users. No, we are not quite there yet, but the fact is, more and more, users are creating content rather than just relying on webmasters to do that. Once we realize this, its simple to also figure out that the possibilities that are there with people are far more than there are with business processes. People can do so much more than processes can. And this is why i believe why this change is more profound.

Another aspect which we might need to look at ... With this "democratization" of knowledge happening, there are certain things which could change fundamentally. First of all, this "democratization" would lead to concentration of decision-making rights on a particular subject to a particular set of people, while at the same time, decision-making rights would get diffused across the organization (or maybe, the word might be scattered), if we look at it from the corporate level. In other words, decision-making rights would no longer rest with a privileged few, but rather, be distributed among people best suited to take them. Something i have written about before, based on a post by Andrew McAfee. This has interesting implications ... What this means is that the patterns of power-holding would also shift drastically.

Which brings me to the point of power ... The nature of power has changed over the centuries, since the modern business world has come into being. This has been manifested by the way power has been wielded in human relationships. Now, "democratization' of knowledge, and the consequent distribution of decision-making rights would imply distribution of power in the organizational context. Now, human beings crave power ... there cannot be ay disputing that. Which means, that one could expect staunch resistance to this kind of movement. Some of which we are seeing even now in the organizational context. Though, in all probability, this may not be enough to stop the way technology, and hence, business is going to evolve. This, too, is something we are witnessing today. In other words, we are, today, seeing the evolution of business, and the resistance to this evolution which one would expect.

The important offshoot of this is that while we are seeing changes in the way power is distributed in organizations, if we superimpose on this the fact that human beings crave power, one would expect, over a period of time, the nature of power to change, both in terms of its sources, as well as in terms of its manifestation. One would expect this change to occur based on knowledge sharing. In other words, reputation of individuals, and how worthy they are seen to be (regardless of seniority, function, etc.), would probably play a key role in defining the position of people in the organization. In the "web 1.0" context, position defined reputation ... going forward, this could change diametrically.

More about how networks could impact this ...

Just a few thoughts i have been pondering upon ... Welcome all comments, and thoughts! Thanks ...