Enterprise 2.0

Well, the book was officially published yesterday. So I’d thought I do something different this week.

Starting today I’m going to introduce the model for how to apply enterprise 2.0 concepts that forms the nucleus of the book. On Friday, I’ll sum up and leave you with some further thoughts.

Introducing the 4Cs

Andrew McAfee’s SLATES and Dion Hinchcliffe’s FLATNESSES models are both very good, but tend to focus on the components or characteristics of enterprise 2.0. For the purposes of categorizing the social software tools that I cover, I have used a more simple four-category classification model, focused on the action involved. It is imaginatively called “The 4Cs Approach” and comprises:

• Communication - platforms that allow employees to converse with each other, either by text, image, voice or video, or a combination thereof;
• Cooperation - software that enables employees to share content with others in both structured and unstructured ways;
• Collaboration - tools that encourage employees to collaborate with each other on particular problems, directly and indirectly, in both central and distributed ways;
• Connection - technologies that make it possible for employees to make connections with and between both content and each other.

The relationships between these categories and the levels of formality and interactions that exist in a company can be visualised thus, and should be considered within the context of the corporate culture when introducing different forms of social software into an organization:

Day One: Communication

Communication is a fundamental social process - a basic human needs as well as a basic organizational one. In organizations there are different types of communication flow: formal; downward; upward; horizontal and networked. But the one where social software can contribute most is informal.

In Enterprise 2.0, I focus on five social computing technologies that enable communication.

Discussion forums

Internal discussion forums will be familiar to most organizations as their first foray into the world of social software, although they probably didn’t recognize it as such at the time. They appeal to the command and control mindset of many IT departments as they can impose categories, rules and moderation. Discussion forums usually fail when this control restricts the type and immediacy of conversation that takes place.

Blogs

Blogs are probably the most widely known form of social software. In the enterprise, they are used knowledge management, business intelligence and project management and can, over time, provide a rich seam of intellectual capital that can be tapped into long after the original authors have moved on. Blogs generally require less formality than forums. They are less structured and do not rely on others to keep the conversation flowing.

Instant messaging

Whilst the purists might argue that instant messaging isn’t social software, it is increasingly used as a serious business tool. One of its main business benefits is the ability for each employee to have multiple ‘conversations’ taking place at any one time. In a call centre, for instance, an operator may have one chat session open with a specific colleague in a different department helping them answer a customer query, a ‘team’ session that all members of the department participate in, and a search window that provides access to previous conversations on similar topics.

Social presence

Social presence builds on the concept of instant messaging by providing a central update mechanism that broadcasts messages from individuals to their subscribers. There are three types of social presence: informational (e.g. Facebook status updates); temporal (e.g. Twitter); and geolocational (e.g. Loopt). As well as providing a way for employees to communicate with each other, social presence can be a powerful way for the organization to keep in touch with its staff.

Virtual worlds

Virtual worlds allow peope to meet and interact with others in a computer-based spaces designed to resemble the real world (usually!). Inside companies, these ‘intraverses’ provide environments for activities such as holding meetings, conducting training or simply socializing with colleagues.

Summary

For any company investigating the world of social software, communication tools are the simplest, most inexpensive and often most effective methods of experimentation. They work best where the organizational culture is more informal and where individual effort is rewarded over group problem-solving.

Tomorrow: Cooperation