Comments (15)

By Dan Pontefract, 05/08/2010 10:10 AM

I find myself in the center of an intellectual tempest.

The traditional ‘learning’ folks are trying to sort out how to revolutionize the industry by augmenting their formal learning strategies to incorporate social media, social learning, social networking and the like. It’s a good thing to witness, but slow as molasses in some circles.

The Human Resources and Organizational Development folks are mulling over their competencies, values, leadership development programs, amongst other elements trying to embed flatter, more connected ways of working. Also good to see, but at times I see these folks in other companies plodding along without involvement of the Learning side of the house, or the technology outfits.

The technology groups (be it IT, Systems Analysts, ERP groups, etc.) are busy trying to synchronize existing investments with new instances of 2.0 collaboration technologies and platforms. They often do so without synchronizing their efforts with the Learning function(s) or the HR/OD groups.

And finally, corporate communications, marketing and even perhaps splinter social media teams are all either contemplating or incorporating social media, social networking and/or social learning concepts into their workflows.

Do you notice something here?

As I’ve written about previously, I believe that an organization needs not only an internal 2.0 Adoption Council, they need a cross-functional team (the Enterprise 2.0 Org Structure) to help ensure all the various pieces of a 2.0 world seamlessly come together, mitigating any confusion for the employee, partner, or customer.

But to get this going, I believe we need to introduce, recognize and accept the New Holy Culture Trinity for the Organization. That is, an updated leadership framework, coupled with the integration of Learning 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 concepts will help drive or augment a 2.0 connected ‘culture of collaboration’.

Together, united, in unison.

Actions:

• Update your existing “Leadership Framework”
  • Every organization has their mission statement, their values, their competencies, their leadership programs — each of these could potentially be ‘updated’ to incorporate a flatter, more connected way of operating as individuals, in teams, and as an organization. (think Tom Malone -–Future of Work)
• Implement “Learning 2.0”
  • Whether you have an internal corporate university, a decentralized learning structure, or a completely outsourced model, your model should be adapted to be formal, informal and social. Whether it’s old school or not, the ‘learning department’ plays a significant role for the organization, and if adapting to a 2.0 culture, it needs to grow up. (a little more info about Learning 2.0 here)
• Enlist “Enterprise 2.0″ Technologies
  • Not in isolation, but as part of the puzzle, Enterprise 2.0 technologies such as wikis, blogs, video system, rankings, ratings, comments, discussion forums, profiles, networks, micro-blogs, content sharing, site sharing, etc. can all become an integral part of the new culture, if mapped in accordance with the updated leadership framework and Learning 2.0 concepts.

I’ve written about Learnerprise in the past (the combination of Learning 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0) so think of the Holy Culture Trinity as a more thoughtful way of ensuring organizational success, keeping all three concepts in mind.

UPDATE: looks as though Ross Dawson is thinking similarly with “What Enterprise 2.0 means for the CIO and IT department“.

Comments (9)

By Dan Pontefract, 04/18/2010 9:17 PM

I’m lucky to be a member of the 2.0 Adoption Council, founded by Susan Scrupski. As a member, I have access to a plethora of sharing, information and intellect as it relates to how individuals are driving Enterprise 2.0 in their respective organization.

Naively, it donned on me recently that the members come from everywhere in the organization; IT, Learning, HR, Consulting, Customer-Facing and even Social Media specific teams.

And then it struck me – the Org Structure of Enterprise 2.0 should be exactly what Enterprise 2.0 calls for, which is a cross-functional, collaborative, open and seamless environment that enhances organizational innovation, productivity and engagement.

But what should that look like?

Andrew McAfee, in Enterprise 2.0, New Collaborative Tools For Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges pens the following:

Most of the tools of Enterprise 2.0, however, do require both behavioural and technological changes and are therefore long-haul products.

By tools, I believe Andrew implies both software and process are potential barriers to adoption, and as such, we should be patient with Enterprise 2.0 strategy for the organization. Thus, in order for the ‘practice’ of Enterprise 2.0 to successfully roll out across an organization, perhaps we should link the org structure to the technology adoption life-cycle developed by Joe Bohlen, George Beal and Everett Rogers at Iowa State College.

If we make this alignment we can see the Enterprise 2.0 org structure come to life. The first diagram outlines four key org structure phases plotted against the technology adoption life-cycle. The key piece is to establish, up front, a cross-functional Enterprise 2.0 core team made up of at least one member from HR, IT, Corporate Communications, Customer Facing Business Unit(s), Learning/Corporate University, Social Media (if you have one) and ideally an Executive Sponsor. (see figure two)

Once the Enterprise 2.0 core team is established (embodying the spirit of E2.0 itself) the members will strategize what ‘great’ looks like for the future health and success of the company. But ensuring that this is a cross-functional and equally representative core team will drive positive aspects such as but not limited to:

• Learning reshaping their ‘training department’ to become E2.0 specific (formal, informal & social)
• HR and/or Learning ensuring core competencies are revised to include E2.0 principles
• HR helping to drive other key HRIS and HR process linkages to E2.0 strategy
• IT obviously stating what’s possible, what’s not, and aligning to other technology plans and/or investments (previous, current or future)
• Customer facing representatives indicating requirements and thoughts to drive profit/revenues
• Corporate Communications outlining potential impacts to any and all things related to formal company-wide communication linkages
• Social Media Team (if you have one) obviously wanting to have a seat at the table
• Executive Sponsor to ensure someone at the senior leadership echelon of the company is both aware and supportive of where the ‘vision’ is heading

Once the E2.0 Core Team has in fact established a working theory of adoption, including the combination of technological and behavioural change, it’s time to recruit E2.0 ambassadors, mentors and champions. According to the technology adoption life-cycle, that’s up to 13.5% of the organization getting close to ‘early adoption’, so it makes sense to align however many ‘ambassadors’ you need to help champion your technological and behavioural changes, be it through pilots, mash-ups, Google labs-esque opportunities, as well as flatter and more connected ways in which to collaborate and communicate. (ie. The behavioural bit)

If the ambassadors, mentors and champions have done their job, all of your alpha and beta work should now be readying itself for enterprise-wide formal adoption. At this point, the E2.0 org structure has official top-level executive sign-off as well as rollout. The exec’s not only buy into the vision, and approve the plan, but they recognize the E2.0 core team as the delivery agent of E2.0 for the organization; a first for many companies which is a cross-functional, every business unit represented virtual team moving things ‘officially’ forward. At this point, we are up to 50% of the organization adopting the plan, past the so-called Tipping Point, and aligned with the technology adoption life-cycle too.

We now get to what I refer to as the Organizational Assimilation Point. 50% of the organization is not on the ‘bus’ yet, but with the leadership of the E2.0 Core Team, and ambassadors now gaining in strength as well as executive level buy-in, we can align the entire E2.0 vision principles to all HR processes, practices and policies. By doing so, we ensure the ‘late majority’ and ‘laggards’ can in fact adopt, and most importantly, adapt to a new way in which to operate.

And finally, however long this takes, at the end of the cycle we can deprecate the term Enterprise 2.0, as we will have successfully integrated every aspect of the original plan into both the technological and behavioural processes of the company.

In summary, the org structure of Enterprise 2.0 starts first and foremost with the cross-functional equal weighting team. A leader for this team will naturally surface over time. As there is a litany of technological and behavioural changes for the organization to consider, I believe it’s easier to view the org structure and E2.0 strategy rollout as it relates to the technology adoption life-cycle.

Comments (10)

By Dan Pontefract, 01/23/2010 3:52 PM

Since 2001, Microsoft has sold well over 100 million licenses of SharePoint generating more than $1 billion / year in revenue. It’s quite amazing, in my opinion, considering the product is relatively archaic and institutionalized.

Enter SharePoint 2010, due to release in Q2 of 2010.

As customers begin to appreciate the delta between previous versions of SharePoint and the 2010 enhancements, it’s my belief that more and more organizations will utilize it as a basis for becoming the ‘employee gateway’, or, as I wrote earlier, a window into the organization. It could be that the social computing and learning capabilities outshine the other functions of the platform itself.

Why?

There are three reasons in particular found below, and one bonus reason at the conclusion of this rather long posting:

1)      Learning Management System Federation

2)      Facebookisation of the Enterprise (see Confused of Calcutta for more details)

3)      Content, Collateral and Community

 1)      Learning Management System (LMS) Federation

As we shift from ‘training is an event’ to ‘learning is continuous, collaborative and connected’ through formal, informal and social learning opportunities, there is less need for a stand-alone LMS and a greater need to connect the functions of an LMS (course registration, eLearning player, etc.) to a collaboration platform itself. SharePoint 2010 has better 2.0 collaboration potential than previous versions by a long-shot. We need to establish a new line of thinking; employees should parallel formal learning with informal and social learning opportunities, so embedding the LMS into the SharePoint 2010 platform begins this transformation.  David Mallon wrote about this integration potential last year.

There are a few companies providing integration of an LMS into the SharePoint 2007 platform, and I’m certain they are working on the next version of SharePoint 2010, but I’m not completely sold yet on any one company in particular in terms of a recommendation. (but I’m keeping options open)

• Competentum– not as integrated into SharePoint as I would like to see
• Operitel– an extension of SharePoint, not necessarily embedded into the core
• ELearningForce – pretty well integrated, but their sales team requires some improvement
• Intralearn – seems to be more of a web-part than complete integration
• Lanteria– promising, but more of a traditional LMS baked into SharePoint

Microsoft itself has developed the SharePoint Learning Kit. It’s a noble start, but the company is missing the point. Turning SharePoint into Moodle may be somewhat advantageous for public schools and/or universities who utilize SharePoint, but corporations want something with a little more, well … integrated 2.0 rigour. I’ve approached Christian Finn of Microsoft to surface my thoughts and present my overarching argument to him later this quarter. In essence, Microsoft is missing out on a humongous opportunity by not having an out-of-the-box integrated LMS as part of SharePoint 2010.

(NOTE: Amanda Fenton pointed me in the direction of Rachel Fichter, who did exactly this for Credit Suisse – link to Amanda’s notes - thanks Amanda)

2)      Facebookisation of the Enterprise

JP Rangsawami coined this term in a recent blog posting of his, but I’m borrowing it to further my point around SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint is often referred to simply as a document management platform by those that don’t really understand its true intent. Granted, without proper governance, disparate SharePoint sites have infiltrated organizations and, sadly, given rise to the bad reputation.

If, however, SharePoint were to be a bit more like Facebook (and Twitter and LinkedIn and so on) perhaps it could further the argument of becoming the new employee gateway.

Perhaps I am naively oversimplifying things, but take a look at the SharePoint 2010 screenshot below:

This is the ‘out-of-the-box’ view an employee could see utilizing the vastly improved ‘my sites’ functionality. Imagine, if you can, how this could become the place in which the employee loops back into the organization in terms of displaying their skills, bio, what they’re working on, what they need help on, what communities they are a part of, etc. If you extend the thinking into the learning world … he/she could display how they could assist others (think mentor/coach/SME) as well as the place in which they register for formal courses, in addition to contributing back content & expertise through videos, comments, blogs, wikis, etc. (see below)

Imagine customizing this to the specific requirements of your organization.

This indeed could become the Facebookisation of the Enterprise and further validate the hypothesis of SharePoint 2010 becoming the new employee gateway. (NOTE: Electronic Arts really pioneered this type of thinking already on the SharePoint 2007 platform through the leadership of Bert Sandie – fellow 2.0 Adoption Council member and Canadian)

3)      Content, Collateral and Community

With Microsoft having woken up from the 1.0 slumber and realizing that 2.0 type of functionality had to be embedded into SharePoint 2010, we now have access to a collaboration platform that embeds end-user editing tools into the SharePoint navigation system itself allowing for ease-of-use editing on the fly when it concerns blogs, wikis, and content in general. It will be much easier now for end users to add documents, videos, audio and various pieces of social 2.0 collateral than ever before.

This is a good thing for several reasons:

• Formal content can now be searched and referenced with informal and social content
• Employees spend less time searching for any type of content, collateral and people/expertise
• Employees also spend less time uploading and/or editing content
• The aspect of ‘community’ should be easier to drive through better connections and access to content in a more timely manner (the use of ‘presence’ inside an all Microsoft environment is but one example)

4)      The Bonus Reason?

Microsoft has more than 100 million licenses of SharePoint out there … before SharePoint 2010 has even released. How many organizations are going to throw out this investment in favour of alternate social computing and learning platforms? A good question – no answers here though, only my personal speculation.

In Conclusion

Although I may come across as Microsoft-centric in this post, it’s merely my personal observation through the past couple of years as social collaboration platforms (and technologies) have surfaced to the forefront, that SharePoint 2010 is going to force organizations to rethink their LMS, Facebookisation and general Content strategy. Perhaps this is in fact Learnerprise.

Tony Karrer has stated he thinks there will be a lot of SharePoint related activity happening this year as well. There is an online discussion happening over at LearnTrends you might be interested in as well. If you are in fact utilizing the SharePoint Learning Kit, there is a forum entitled the Learning Gateway User Group that you might like to visit.

And finally, I believe Matt Asay said it best:

SharePoint (2010) is Microsoft’s best attempt to connect desktop applications like Office with centralized, cloud/cloud-like collaboration and storage. Yes, Microsoft has other initiatives like online Office, but none marries so well its legacy profit centers with future innovation. And, given that SharePoint is already a $1 billion and frenetically growing business, it has momentum that other initiatives don’t.

As an aside, I’m not entirely convinced Microsoft has sorted out the mobile strategy either, when it comes to SharePoint 2010. I hope I’m wrong.