Technology And People ...

I am reading an interesting book ... One named Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker. OK, so i am a little later, but even so, i think some of the ideas put in the book are still relevant almost 25 years after the book was first published. This post that I am writing is about a statement in the book:

Technology can be imported at low cost an with a minimum of cultural risk. Institutions, by contrast, need cultural roots to grow and to prosper.

Now, while this is being written in the context of Japan, and how Japan, in the 19th century, consciously took the route of importing technology, while creating the social institutions locally, this concept can be looked at further, to see whether this is relevant to organizations, and if it is, how it can impact organizations.

To begin with, this idea seems to be as though it is relevant in the context of organizations, too. Technology is straight-forward. Technology works the same way, gives the same output independant of the scenario around it (well, some of us who work as consultants, or with customer support may not agree, but more or less ...). On the other hand, people dont necessarily. Which means that technology, being culture neutral, can be brought into the organization easily, while adapting the culture of the organziation to the cultural framework that is inherent to quite a few new technologies, is a different thing altogether. For example, ERP brought the paradigm of business processes cutting across departments (breaking down silos, that was the idea), while Web 2.0 tools are bringing in the next wave of bringing down silos (which only means that silos didnt really go away, they just metamorphosed to a point where they werent looking like silos).

The question this raises, then, is whether the technology tools which the organization adopts should be compatible with the predominant cultural scenario of the organization, or whether the point of introduction of new technology is leveraged to try and drive the cultural context of the organization to a different direction (remember package-enabled reengineering?).

I dont think there is an answer which would answer this question for all. But the point is, the compatibility must be there. And this is something we looking at this from the KM perspective must also bring to the equation, especially with Web 2.0 technologies, because the paradigm of these tools is quite different from the earlier paradigms of organization structure. True, ERPs also created a different paradigm, which has changed the way organziations work over the last decade or so, but this was around business processes, not about people. Web 2.0 tools, on the other hand, are bringing a change which is oriented towards people, and the interactions between people, which impacts dynamics of interactions between people at the organizational level, with the blending of communities and hierarchy, as i have written before, here and here, which means that the compatibility between technology and culture is more important with these tools.

Why KM Fails ...

On his blog, Nick Milton brings out the parallels between some of the reasons why E 2.0 fails, to why KM fails. The reasons that are listed here make sense. It stands to reason why these reasons would contribute to the success of a KM initiative. However, there is one reason which, while being mentioned in meaning, is not actually mentiond on this list. This, i would say, is value.

One of the major reasons for KM initiatives to fail is that there is no clear demonstration of value that could come from these initiatives. Now, i agree that quantifying value from KM initiatives is something which is not straightforward. So, thats not what i am talking about here. What i am talking about here is the value that users of these initiatives can expect to get in their day-to-day work. In other words, why they should participate in these initiatives. Without this, KM initiatives become just another initiative among others, and the message of the things which KM could achieve for the organization, and for people, is lost. this does come out in the form of adoption, but maybe this should be stressed upon more clearly.

Another aspect that could probably be added here is that KM should be a part of the day-to-day work of people, and not something additional that they have to do. As i have written before, participation in KM initiatives should be an integral part of people's day-to-day work. This may not sound too important, but this is probably one of the largest impediments to greater adoption.

One Size Fits All?

This is a question which i have been thinking about for some time. Mst of the organizations i interact with have KM programs which are standardized across the organization. There is one portal, there is one set of guidelines and processes which are applied across the organization when it comes to engagement of the business with KM. The assumption is that if you put all the tools out there, people across teams can find the tools which they find useful, and use them as they require.

The assumption behind this approach is that KM is not an initiative which is meant to solve specific problems. In other words, KM is seen as an initiative which is loosely linked to business processes, and as such, the adoption of KM is seen as the logical thing to do, by itself, without any other reason to do it. And this leads to the scenario where the different functions in the organization see KM as an external entity, or at least, external their line of business, leading to a scenario where KM is seen as an initiative which is running on their own with not much engagement either required or existing with the business teams. And this, in turn, leads to far lower engagement, and so, far lower adoption of KM initiatives.

A lot has been written about how KM needs to be linked to business processes. Some folks talk about baking KM into business processes (baking ... not something i want to talk about ... am off sweets!), and as i have written before, this relationship between KM technology and the business processes of the organization is quite important. An important part of this is to keep knowledge-sharing simple, so that it is a part of the day-to-day work of people, rather than additional work, as i have written before. The important aspect of this, however, is that instead of being trying to be one thing which can meet all the requirements of different sets of people across the organization, KM can move to a scenario where it becomes a set of tools, practices, and processes, which are tailored to solve the business requirements of different people at different parts of the organization. In other words, what this means is that different people in different parts of the organization have different requirements, and different problems, which need to be solved by KM. Came across this interesting paper about Social Computing at Intel ... and this talks about something on similar lines.

Any thoughts? I am trying to refine this idea, looking forward to inputs from you.

Social Computing ... Concern?

A lot has been written about how social computing, and some of the web 2.0 tools have changed the entire paradigm of content creation, and how today, anyone, in any part of the organization can create content, and discuss things with anyone else, and contribute ideas, and so on. One of the applications of this is what is termed as crowdsourcing.

There is a question which comes, though. And this is probably something which is not too well discussed. The scenario i am talking about is within the organization, and it is in this context that this scenario comes up ... the thing is that today, organizations are using social computing tools for getting people to connect with each, and in the process, the organization can listen in, and identify topics, thoughts, ideas, which could create value for the organization. However, and this is what we probably are not discussing ... when people are writing their thoughts (lets say a blog), they have a specific set of things which are their priority, which probably align with their performance appraisal criteria. What does this mean? This means that if you are trying to crowdsource ideas, for example, the ideas, or thoughts that you would come up with would be closely aligned to the interests of the people participating in this sourcing activity. To this extent, this implies that, at the end of this kind of process, some form of evaluation, whether by a set of people or by a community, is something which may be quite important before these can be taken forward. This is not just the idea of getting approval for specific ideas, for example, but rather, of sieving the ideas that do come up in this activity, and identifying the interests which those ideas serve, if at all, and then, build on those ideas keeping this in mind.

Is this something which you think should be discussed on a broader level?

Keeping Knowledge-Sharing Simple

This is a topic which keeps coming up from time to time ... i have blogged about this, and recently, there was an interesting post by Andrew Gent about this. There idea is simple ... its about keeping the entire gamut of knowledge-sharing activities simple. My friend, Sujit Sahu, has an interesting phrase for this ... Sarudemo Wakaru ... which, i am told, means make it so simple that even monkeys should understand it. Now, this is not to build any comparisons whatsoever, so if you are thinking something, that is purely a product of your mind. But this does make a point.

The idea, again, is to make knowledge-sharing a part of day-to-day work for people, rather than having it as a separate set of activities that they need to do. Because, it these are to be separate activities, then people tend to treat them as line items on a check-list, and while it may get done, you are probably not getting the most out of it.

One way of doing this is to make knowledge-sharing a part of the business processes of an organization. Now, this entails a number of things. To begin with, it requires some platform which enables this. Given that in most organizations, business processes are carried out on some technology platform, the idea here could be to blend the KM platform into this platform itself. While this may be feasible from the technology perspective, this doesnt seem to be so simple to do. Another thing, which is probably more important, is to actually get people to do it. And that, to my understanding, is going to be the challenge that it is today.

Coming to the other aspect of the complexity of knowledge-sharing, the idea of taxonomy comes in. Taxonomy, as we know, is meant to classify information, so that it is easy to find. The question that probably needs to be answered here is how much taxonomy is too much? And to what extent can we rely on search as an alternative to taxonomy? Something i have blogged about. However, this becomes simpler, for example, if we look at the paradigm of blogs, for instance. Here, tags suffice to describe the content of the conversation. Or, if we look at social networking, the network itself could be the source for information, as i have blogged about. So, there is taxonomy, search, and networks (or shall we say conversations) which could be combined to build a mechanism which is simpler, in a way that it enables people to discover knowledge more easily.

Integrating Learning With Work ...

Came across an interesting post by Tom Gram ... strategies for integrating learning and work. This blog touches on an aspect of KM which i think is something which is important, but not much talked about. This is about making knowledge, and learning, an integral part of the day-to-day work of people, something i have written about.

There are two reasons for this ... As we agree, knowledge is an important part of the day-to-day work of people. Even if it is not the so-called knowledge work, i believe that all work is dependant on some form of knowledge, which is important to doing that work well. We also agree that from day-to-day work, people learn a lot. There are new experiences, and there are things which give us the opportunity to learn.

If this be so, then it would be only logical to have a scenario where knowledge sharing, and knowledge creation are an integral part of the day-to-day work of people.

What does this require? As most work is done on some kind of system or another, whether it be e-mail, or IM, whether it be transaction processing or planning, these are the touchpoints at which the appropriate kind of knowledge needs to be made available at the point of use, where people are doing their work. Also, the learnings which arise from the work people do need to be harvested at that point itself.

For one, this needs to be incorporated into the systems which organizations use. Another, this requires building components into the work components of people for knowledge dissemination, and knowledge capture. For example, mechanisms for feedback or ideas which can be leveraged on a larger scope could be built into transaction processing as well as into planning activities.

Any thoughts? Agree or disagree? Please write in with comments.

The Culture Aspect, And Shape Of Things ...

There is a nice post by Ana Neves about the interaction between culture and KM. This post explores the requirement of the right kind of culture as a pre-requisite for a successful KM program, and it rightly goes on to the idea that while the right kind of culture is a nice to have thing, its not necessarily a must-have thing. This is an important conclusion, because given this, an organization can still look at KM at a tool to not just enable free flow of ideas, but also, look at KM as enabling the free flow of knowled in the organization, and as a result of this, create a more sharing culture. Though this, to my mind, is much more difficult to achieve that building a successful KM initiative on top of culture that is conducive. As Luis rghtly points out, it can be done, but it would probably take much more time.

Having said that, as you know, E 2.0 is here. No, i am not going there, but with blogs, twitter, and other tools, its almost like being there (minus the beer, of course!). Lets take a look at the agenda, though, and its quite interesting. Theres cloud, of course (one would expect it to be, which makes me think maybe i should sit up, and at least try to understand what clouds mean), but apart from clouds, the words i am seeing more of are Open Enterprise, Enterprise 2.0, Social ... This is interesting. And a clear indicator of the way KM is going. There is more and more emphasis on the conversation ... the social, the people aspect of KM. Which is something which should have been there in the first place, over the last decade, when people werent just part of the discussion. This is a nice sign, because this implies that KM is evolving, and the move towards the 2.0 world is something which everyone is taking note of. Having said that, organizations would need to ensure that the KM 1.0 parts of documentation, best practices, content-based KM is not pushed to the sidelines, because that too has a role to play.

But thats not the point i am trying to make here. The point is more than in the 2.0 world, culture plays an even more important role. Because the 2.0 concepts have people at the centre of the entire paradigm, the question of culture, and the relationship between KM and Culture becomes even more important to discuss. Plenty has been written about E 2.0, but even if we dont go to that (something i feel will take much more than we seem to think ... simply because E 2.0 is about disaggregation of control), the very paradigm of the social enterprise, or web 2.0, or social computing, or whichever way you look at it, requires a change in the way things are done, a cultural shift. And here, again, i think that the right kind of culture is a very important pre-requisite, but not a necessary one.

Some Defining Points ...

Recently, Luis Suarez blogged about about an interview he had given about some of the questions which are on the minds of a large number of knowledge managers, and not just knowledge managers, at that. What i liked about the interview was that some of the basic questions which a lot of people have on their minds were asked, and answered, and not too much jargon, at that.

There were, however, a few things which stood out, which i thought required to be blogged about.

First, the idea that organizational knowledge is a combination of structured and unstructured knowledge. Now, this seems to be a reasonably well-established idea, but maybe not as much as one would think it would be. Quite a few of the people i interact with give me the idea that in more organizations than one would think, structured information still is what knowledge is considered to be. And therefore, the focus becomes the document management systems, with not much highlight on the unstructured part of knowledge.

Another thing that Luis talks about, which i think is an important of the emerging aspect of social, as represented by social computing, social networks, etc., is that of letting go of control. This is easy to discuss, but that much more difficult to implement, though, and is probably something which would be more of a gradual process, taking far more time than one might think, as organizations get to understand the implications of this, and develop the confidence that letting go control is not about a free-for-all. Rather, i would say that its about letting go control in specific ways, rather than replace hierarchy altogether.

Another aspect Luis talks about is the knowledge is power aspect. This is something which i like to discuss whenever making a presentation about Knowledge Management. Thing is, we have grown up with this paradigm, and it is only recently (if you have a few gray hair, you would think of this as being recent) that this paradigm is being dismantled by the evolution of technology. Probably today we are seeing a statte of transition with respect to this, but this is happening.

KM And Work

Andrew Gent has written an incredibly interesting post about the idea of sustainable KM. Why i say interesting is because this reaches at one of the basic issues around KM ... why should people actually participate? As you would agree, KM programs are not really going to be a success without the participation of people in the organization. And, if this is just additional work, why would they? Something i have written about before ... The idea being that the way we need to look at some of the web 2.0 tools within the organization, should be different from the way we find adoption for these outside the organization.

The question is ... if there are internal blogs, there are going to be some people who are going to write, and a host of people who are going to read, and few who will comment. But, would this reach anywhere the kind of participation the blogosphere finds? I dont think so, simply because of the questions that Andrew raises.

Which is why, i feel that some of the activities which KM programs expect people to do, in order to make the KM program successful, should actually not need to be done at all. These should be a product of the day-to-day working of people. For example, if someone is accessing documents on a particular topic on the corporate repository, maybe this should automatically be updated on their profile. Or, if someone is working on a particular project (according to the company systems), then this should be updated on their profile too. In other words, people should be doing their work ... technology can be harnessed to do the rest from there. Of course, this is not going to capture all the work that is being done out there, but this would be a good way to get people to see the value from programs like KM, and give an easier way for people to access what others are doing, without having to go through a lot of information.

G-Drive

I read this article in the ToI today ... about G-Drive taking your desktop online ... The article says ...

The GDrive would make it possible to access and update information like emails, photographs, music, documents and spreadsheets from any device with an internet connection.

Now, this is quite interesting. What this is saying is that there need not be a distributed mechanism for storing information. Now, this has been a concept which has been doing the rounds for quite some time now. I remember coming across this in the 90s. Question then is, how is this different from some of the earlier attempts at getting data onto a central server rather than store it on your desktops? This is close on to the massive advertising campaign that Microsoft is running for Windows Skydrive. The idea seems to be to have people store their data onto a "cloud computing" resource (apologies for having misquoted the concept, but then, i never really understood it completely ... or, to be precise, haven't been able to understand how the concept is different from the World Grid project, or Grid Computing, that Oracle was talking about a few years back!).

The article also raises a very important question ...

However, there are some who think that trusting Google with so much personal or commercial data is dangerous, for information may not be as safe in the cloud as it is in a computer.

Now, this is the classical dilemma that a lot of organizations, especially folks within organizations, who are trying to get people to share the information they have access to, have been facing. How do we get people to share information, and knowledge which flows from this, with others. Here, however, its not about how, but the question seems to be rather, of, how to address these concerns.

Though, thats not even what i am thinking about. I am looking at how a concept like this is different from the content management systems which a lot of organizations implement, with an idea of getting content from people's hard drives, and putting them on a server, for easier, and wider accessibility. But then, even in a scenario like this, the question is not so much about the "cloud resource", or the platform for storing this information, but rather, about the need of people to do so, this need, in turn, being derived from the motivation to do so.

Cause And Effect ...

I have long believed, and continue to believe (unless someone can convince me otherwise) that innovation is best when it is broad-based. No, i am not saying this with the benefit of hindsight, but rather, from the many Rum and Water consumed with colleagues (primarily Old Monk, but then, i am no connoiseur ... did i get the spellings right there?), cribbing about the so many stupid things which the senior managers keep doing from time to time. No, i am not taking names ... i am still good friends with most of them, so dont even bother to ask, my dears! Fact of the matter is, if you ask the many people working on the field about the things which the organization is doing wrong, you will be sure to get answers ... plenty of them! Of course, you got to be careful how you ask, though. Ask it too stiff-collared, and you might not get any answers whatsoever.

So, whats the point, i hear you asking. Stifling a yawn, maybe? Well well ... the point is simply this ... that when it comes to innovation, the ideas are out there. Legend tells of legendary innovations the creation of which is the stuff of legends (my take on Kung Fu Panda, which, by the way, if you still havent seen, you probably must ...), so let me not interfere with the legend. But the point is, so many of the innovations we see around us, have come from, at times, stupid ideas. Which is something i believe in strongly. That at the "bottom of the pyramid" is where the brilliant ideas exist. For another similar idea, read my previous post. And i believe, that social computing is a fabulous tool to tap into this vast treasure of ideas which is readily available, only needing the possibility of a treasure hunter coming and discovering the treasure, and generating value from it. In other words, the one most important aspect is that people have the ideas, and these ideas are based on knowledge. Most of these ideas come from very intimate understanding of work, organization, market, customers ... only thing, the organization must be willing to invest the energy required to listen.

And probably the most fabulous tool till now to enable organizations to listen ... whether to customers, or partners, or employees, is social computing. True, you have had discussion forums and similar technologies around for some time now, but then, i dont think they have been maningfully deployed. This is not to say that social computing tools by themselves are a magic pill, which implies that they too have to be meaningfully deployed. In addition, they are, at best, the ears ... the organization also needs to be build up the entire apparatus, from the external auditory meatus, to the tympanic membrane, the cochlea, the cochlear nerve ... all the way to the brain (click here for the diagram). Without this, all the organization has is the proverbial "deaf ear".

Having said that, a question which i am asked quite a few times is whats the cause, and what effect. Can the success of social computing lead to greater participation, or could greater participation lead to the success of social computing. It is obvious that the latter it is, but what is not so obvious is that the former is equally valid. In fact, if we look at it as a circular phenomenon, we would be able to understand that social computing cannot succeed without enhanced participation, and enhanced participation wont come about till social computing is seen as a success (why would someone waste their time contributing to a platform which is not too widely accepted?). The answer is give is simple ... Value. Value creation, and the perception of this, is the way to break this circle. There are a number of organizations which have done it, and a lot of organizations which have struggled. But the fact is, the possibilities are enormous.

New Cisco ...

Happy New Year ... Here i am back to blogging. And i thought it might be cool to blog about an artile which is quite interesting ... about how John Chambers is turning Cisco socialist ... no, dont get too carried away by the topic. What comes as socialism seems to be more of democratization. In a nutshell, what we are talking about is the way John Chambers is getting Cisco into a struture where ideas, and delivery on these ideas happens at various levels and geographies in the organization. What seems like the logical next step from web 2.0 technologies, the form of enterprise 2.0 seems to be taking shape at Cisco, is what one would gather from this article.

There are a few thoughts that come out ...

distributed idea engine where leadership emerges organically, unfettered by a central command

The logical next step from the initial idea of e 2.0 ... though the point to see here is that the way, and the level to which this can be distributed depends on the level to which the central command is ready to relinquish authority. And this is the question which is either being asked, or will be asked in most organizations as web 2.0 proceeds.

"We want a culture where it is unacceptable not to share what you know," he says. So he promotes all kinds of social networking at Cisco: You can write a blog, upload a video, and tag your myriad strengths in the Facebook-style internal directory.

This is the important part ... the atmosphere where people believe that its desirable to actually share what you know. Without this, any kind of organization structure, or any kinds of web 2.0 tools would fall flat, not delivering on their possibilities. And this can actually be facilitated quite simply ... by turning people into contributors. By keeping in mind that everybody at every level of the organization has some form of expertise and knowledge which can be leveraged by the organization.

Chambers is convinced that the role of the CEO has to morph. He recalls a lesson he learned working for An Wang of Wang Laboratories, whom he has often called one of the smartest people he's ever known: "One person cannot anticipate a market transition.

And this is the key. Assumption has been in most organizations that there are a set of people who have the know-how which can be leveraged to drive innovation, and to take advantage of opportunities that evolving markets present. This is the assumption which is being questioned more and more by organizations, and this is the kind of thought process which would bring up ideas ... maybe not all ideas radical, but definitely, can bring up ideas which are in synch with the market, as well as bring up ideas which can drive the new ideas to delivery. What John Chambers also comes up with is interesting ... that the key is that the CEO, and the leadership of the organization has to morph. Most management consultants would tell us that managers should be coaches, but this is easier said than done, and misses the point that the leadership has to simply provide direction, and develop an atmosphere where people can actively contribute to the development of the company, if for no other reason, then simply because this development signals their development as individuals as well as employees in the organization.

Social Computing In Organizations ... Interesting Study

There is an interesting paper by HP's Social Computing Lab about ... Long Tail in Office Conversations. This paper actually validates a lot of the thoughts that have been emerging from a number of thinkers in the social computing space, but even so, i would think this is a must-read for anyone interested in the subject.

Having said this, let me first tell the route by which i reached this paper, and this will be an indicator of the role serendipity plays in knowledge discovery ... I have set a google alert for social computing. This gives me a daily mail about some of the things happening around social computing. Today, one of the entries in this alert was this blog by Puneet Gupta (which i had some difficulty understanding, and probably more so agreeing with) and here, Puneet has written about this paper.

Coming now to the paper itself ... there are a few points which stand out here. Though, what this research does also is to validate some of the thinking which quite a few of us have been writing about. Some of the things which i wanted to write about ...

While these tools significantly lower the barriers to producing content, employees may perceive there to be little incentive to invest their own time in providing this content for public consumption.

As i have written before, what people are looking for is value from their interactions. The question is, how this value is derived by participants in this space. One of the means, of course, is recognition. As a number of folks have written, recognition is the equity of those who are contributing their thoughts and expertise to a knowledge platform.

The “long tail” of expertise and interests in large, distributed organizations offers potential opportunities for broad and diversified access to knowledge.

This is an interesting point ... that, as organizations are trying to deliver more value to customers, they necessarily need to enter domains which are niches of sorts, and as such, organizations find that the requirement for knowledge on highly diverse topics grows as this happens. As i have written before, this is one of the challenges which faces KM. If the topic is a niche, where are the people who can contribute, and impart knowledge on these niches (and the ones who are there, are too overloaded with work, to really bother about doing this). This then means that the organization must invest to some extent to create knowledge, maybe even from external sources, in these niches.

Encouraging adoption of social media within organizations requires overcoming these two challenges: motivating people to contribute information, and helping people to locate relevant information.

This is the key ... adoption. Adoption, as i keep telling anyone i talk to, is the key to the success of any KM initiative. And the issue that the paper is talking about is simply a demand and supply issue. First, how do we get people in the knowledge marketplace to "supply" knowledge, and even if are able to do this, how do we convince people to come this marketplace to "consume" knowledge ... in other words ... generate "demand". Which is why, i like to look at the KM role as a sales role ... selling the idea of "selling" to people who have knowledge, and selling the idea of "buying" to people who need it. Although, more and more, i find, the issue is to get people to contribute, rather than to locate ... with search, and (as i have written before, and so has Nirmala) communities.

What i found particularly important about this paper is the way it summarizes the strategies people use when they are looking for knowledge:

• Novelty
• Popularity
• People
• Topic

This is sort of the thing i was debating with Nirmala and Anjali.

Though what i found most interesting in the paper was the observation that ...

commenting patterns tend more to intra-group discussion.

What this implies is that more and more, people are using these platforms for more effective interactions within a particular group or team (not necessarily organizational, but could be based on any parameter, i guess ... maybe function, department, or even technology?). This also implies that more often than not, the usage of tools like blogs tend to revolve more and more around a community rather than a general read it all kind of scenario (one wouldnt expect it to be the latter, anyway, but this just validates that). The question this brings up ... what implications does this have for the organization? The way i see it, one important thing this brings up is that the key to generating adoption of these tools, and enhancing the level of collaboration groups or communities, which share a common parameter, either in terms of their objective, or interest. This could generate far more adoption than doing a be all things to all people approach. Any thoughts about this? All thoughts welcome ...

Wiki Meets Social Networking ...

An interesting page i came across ... MySpace - WikiPatterns ... looks like a social networking meets wiki kind of concept. Though, i am not yet clear how or why we should look at this kind of meeting place. Rather, i would look at it the other way round ... that the central point for any kind of platform need to be the people ... the wiki is incidental. Well, not exactly incidental, but then, not the central point either, which is what seems to come out of here, unless i am missing something.

Having said this, this seems to have value when looking at the entire idea of social computing within the organization. Here, the point of importance from the organizational KM initiative perspective would be the wiki, because this is what can bring together the thoughts of people from diverse perspectives. However, this doesnt take anything away from the power of the social network, and hence, the way to look at this might be to look at the person centric social networking as the centrepiece driving the other pieces of the social computing strategy. This is something a lot of organizations seem to have missed out on, as i just said. I dont know why this is, but this is something which we need to look into, because what is happening because of this, is that the social computing initiatives of organizations are largely missing the point.

Competing ...

A rather interesting one about creating a knowledge-sharing company ... who can pass reading something with this kind of title? Which is why i changed the title to my post ... Well, the story told about GIant Eagle is quite informative.

This points out to an interesting thing ... most organizations do not have the policies and incentives to have people collaborate with each other. In fact, i like the way Russ Ross puts it ...

Now they’re competing in the marketplace of ideas.

And this is the basic difference. On the one hand, you have what some people call the "scarcity" mentality ... which is about scarcity of things going around. Which means that if there are two people, there is no way both of them can get what they need, there is some trade-off that needs to be made, and in the process of making this trade-off, either of them, or both, have to give up something they want. In fact, this is one of the basic assumptions classical economics is based upon, and this is something we have grown up with. The other is what people call the "abundance" mentality ... which is about their being enough for everyone's needs. As Mahatma Gandhi said, that there is enough for meet humanity's needs, not greed.

The question is, which mentality you subscribe to. In the knowledge sphere, of course, the "abundance" mentality seems more apt, but its not really possible to get people to actually move from one to the other with different contexts. Having said this, there is the whole idea of how an organizations can build up the environment to enable people to think abundance. This is not too difficult to do, actually ... what this requires is transparency, and removal of a threat perception ... though, as humans, we somehow find this is difficult to do.

People, Or Technology

As i have written before, Dr. Kavi Mahesh, moderating the panel discussion on the role of technology in KM, was of the opinion that at times its fashionable to downplay the role of technology in KM. My friend Anjali has raised a comment on this ... that people are the centre of KM.

I quite agree with that. In fact, theres no two ways about it. But, the way i see it, in practically most systems (and Peter Senge has mentioned this in Fifth Discipline as well), it is very, very difficult to attain an equilibrium. And, the larger and more complex the system, and the larger the gap, in terms of time, or otherwise, between cause and effect, the more difficult it becomes. Which is why, we fine, inspite of economic theory, hardly any markets which are at equilibrium. The way i see it, its like a pendulum ... it goes from one end, to the centre, which is the equilibrium, but due to intertia, it overshoots, and so on ...

I think this is, to an extent, happening in the people or technology aspect today. People are at the centre of KM ... there is no way i am going to try to negate that. But, after a decade of overemphasizing technology, the pendulum is now trying to move towards the centre, which is the equilibrium between the three aspects of people, process, and technology. Having said this, the changes in the technology landscape are such as they cannot be overlooked, which is somewhat bringing the technology dimension to the centre, along with the people.

In fact, you would find that i have a separate label on my posts for "People Aspect", which is the way i can show that i believe that the people aspect of KM is critical, but at the same time, the technology also is very important.

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.

IBM And Social Networking

IBM announced the IBM Centre for Social Software ... i am sure all of you must have already read about it. I am usually quite slow at tracking news. But then, i eventually do get round to it. So, thats that ...

But, what am i writing about? A simple statement which Erica Topolski, a spokesperson for IBM Media Relations made ...

Do a few conversations about nonwork topics take place? Of course, just like they do in the hallway at work. What we hear from customers and have experienced internally, however, is that these do not interfere with an employee's ability to get their work done.

This is quite what i keep on saying wherever i am talking about social software. This is one of the major refrains that i have heard ... the link to loss of productivity. The question i usually ask to this is ... How many times have you been to a business meeting where the talk was only about business? Never, i would think. Why would it be any different here? Probably no reason. To begin with, when we are talking about social computing within the organization, we need to take into consideration the fact that people have objectives and targets to meet ... everyone is conscious of that. Add to this the fact that even without social software, there is part of the conversation which happens everyday, which is not work-related.

What is even more interesting is what they are hearing from their customers ... that these dont interfere with people's ability to get work done ... which is related to the first point i just made ... people know that they are going to have appraisals, that they have to meet their objectives.

Another question which comes up is that of the impact on confidentiality. What i say here is that since most of the organizations are talking about internal implementations of social computing tools, this issue may not actually be an issue.

Generalizations ...

There has been a lot written about the advent of the digital native ... of the generation Y (or was it Z, or an unknown alphabet after that?) folks entering the workforce, and forcing companies to move more and more towards media of interaction they are comfortable with. And, how they are so uncomfortable with email, and how they want their collaboration and communication immediate.

While this is one side of the story, there is the other side, as written about, for example, by Siva Vaidyanathan, about not all people being tech-savvy. Quite an interesting reading. One thing i believe in, and the reason why i have not written about the Gen-Y aspect of the boom in social computing, is that there is no such thing as a Gen-Y-er. I mean, each and every individual is distinct, and while there are statistical trends, these are at best averages, and the way i see it, far from the ground reality.

Let me explain ... Lots of studies have been done ... reams of data generated, and analyses published. Great! Question ... how come i dont see too many studies coming out of China? Or India? These are two countries which are bringing the largest number of young people into the workforce. And, this is where the difference lies. In India, for example, there is no such thing as a Gen-Y. Sure, it is there as an abstraction ... but, the digital divide is so huge, that it makes any kind of generalizations extremely harzardous, and i wouldnt make any predictions based on these generalizations. Sure, there are trends ... But, how far are these percolating to every section of society? I am not too sure they are. Though, of course, I havent read much about China ... would appreciate if anyone could point me to resources about the emergence of the Gen-Y in China?

Coming to the other part of this article ... Where Siva writes about ...

Many use Facebook and MySpace because they are easy and fun, not because they are powerful (which, of course, they are not).

Thing is, this again seems to be a generalization. First of all, this seems to be based on something which is not really logical. I quite agree that a lot of folks (including me, i suppose ...) use facebook because its easy, and its fun! But, how does that imply that it is not powerful? Or, are the two unrelated? Even if they are, there seems to be an assumption that facebook is a tool which is of no utility at all. Mainly because its fun?

The way i see it, the utility of facebook is, in large part, due to its ease of use, and the fact that its fun. In a world like ours, where the distinction between the personal and professional spheres are no longer distinct from each other, we are seeing platforms which are making work more fun, and leisure a little less so (remember the last time you checked your work email on your Blackberry while on vacation, and you will know what i am talking about). Which is to say that there should be no relationship interpreted, between the fun factor and utility.

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.