Comments (4)

By Dan Pontefract, 02/06/2010 11:05 AM

Inside the organization, a dilemma now exists and is rapidly taking shape.

Employees want to connect with one another. Reasons are plentiful, including but not limited to the following:

• Increasing job demands > less time to get it all done
• Global workforce redistribution > 24 hour clock syndrome
• Cross functional – cross pollination projects > less formal/hierarchical teams
• Formal information overload > email & intranets are being ignored

Micro-blogging is starting to become a very effective way in which organizations can mitigate some of the aforementioned points. The problem, however, is that due to the rise in popularity of Twitter and its consumer driven use as a life-casting tool, the inherent company benefits get lost in the shuffle.

First of all, let’s discuss technology. I personally don’t care what tool, application or technology is being used to drive enterprise-wide micro-blogging, but it must be secure and ideally it’s behind the firewall.

Stand-alone options such as Yammer, Present.ly, Socialcast and Socialwok (amongst others) have cloud-based and internal VPN instances that you can deploy, but again, I argue that you should bring this functionality inside of your organization for reasons concerning intellectual property and security. Mike Brevoort does a good job of comparing these four tools over here.

Of course, if you already utilize platforms such as Confluence, Jive, SharePoint, IBM Lotus, Salesforce.com amongst others, there are built-in micro-blogging or status update features. Incidentally, the stand-alone options mentioned above have been, or are trying to integrate into the larger collaboration platforms. (this is a smart move in my opinion)

So what has this got to do with leadership and culture?

My main point is that micro-blogging will become a way in which we can flatten the organization. This will drive a missing connection between the field, the front line, the individual contributor, the manager, the director, the VP and the executive suite.

Today, employees are normally ‘heard’ when they are in team and project meetings or individual 1-1 sessions. Occasionally, they chime in on discussions in town halls, or potentially through ratings and discussions on the company intranet or wiki.

When micro-blogging enters into the equation, the connection can be so much more powerful. “Senior Leaders” can lurk, listen and actually get a stronger sense of what is going on in the company be it opinions, ideas, issues, etc. Individual contributors can not only contribute and be part of the dialogue, they can ‘hear’ the opinions and ideas of their peers (not necessarily in their team or even business unit) as well as the senior establishment of leaders.

This can do so much for the organization in terms of leadership and culture, including:

• Better understanding of what is going on in the organization across many teams & projects
• Personalizing the aura of senior leaders
• Seeking opinion before decisions are made
• Driving engagement and the feeling that everyone’s opinion matters
• Providing information that is timely, be it formal, informal or in fact social / community driven

Micro-blogging, by virtue of its definition, has an additional benefit which is the fact the updates are short, concise and succinct. It forces everyone (whether at the low or top end of the company food chain) to carefully think through their update or response.

To me, it’s a natural example of both informal and social learning.

Are there any risks?

If security is sorted out, the risk as I see it is if employees use the tool as a life-casting option. But, as an organization matures in the 2.0 world, it’s my belief that this will be less of an issue and micro-blogging will become a natural part and indispensable piece of the connected workplace.

On Twitter, (obviously an external example) I follow the CTO of Cisco (Padmasree Warrior) and CIO of BT (JP Rangswami). Their external Twitter micro-blogging tweets are transparent, open and shed personal light on their obviously senior roles. Sure, some of their tweets are life-casting in nature (this is Twitter remember – it’s external) but if they are in fact using internal micro-blogging tools at Cisco and BT, imagine how connected they are to their org, and what their employee population might be saying about their leadership?

That’s a culture I would want to be a part of.

Comments (10)

By Dan Pontefract, 11/25/2009 7:47 PM

When I was a kid, I had a dream that I’d have a Bachelors by 20, Masters by 30 and Doctorate by 40. Given life’s development with our household having a six, four and two year old, the doctorate by 40 is just not going to happen.

Unless, there is another way.

Peter Rawsthorne got me thinking in a recent Twitter post.

do the PhD in the open, create your own curriculum & thesis, use all the technology available, supervisors will find you…

I thought to myself, yes, that’s exactly what I should do. Drive this into the open and see what happens. Walk the talk when it comes to my Learning and Collaboration theorem/lifestyle, and go through a PhD 2.0 experience versus yesterday’s antiquated model. (I just can’t afford the 3-4 years of time devoted to the university experience … again)

Then I found Lisa Chamberlin and found I wasn’t alone in this type of thinking. Two months ago, September 2009, she essentially blogged the same thing I’m blogging about here.

In a nutshell, I’ve got company. (and I love her thesis as well)

So, like Lisa, I’m going to take the time to map out my path, figure out if I can somehow get an advisor to sign on, and post my thinking, research, results, struggles, and general musings here. (or at a sub-site of www.danpontefract.com)

If anyone is reading this, got any ideas on advisors or institutions that might take me up on this idea?

Maybe, just maybe, I can hit that final stretch goal. (and thank you Peter for the push)

Comments (1)

By Dan Pontefract, 11/15/2009 9:40 AM

Seeing as it’s been almost 3 years since I’ve been with the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (at various entry dates) I thought it would be interesting to analyze my own personal / professional network to understand if any trends might be occurring. Secondly, I’m using this analysis as a basis to personally reflect on the importance of such tools being made available inside an organization to facilitate a ‘culture of collaboration’.

First, to the data.

If you take a look at the following pie graph (click for larger view), you first need to make note of some context points:

• Total number of network connections between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter is ~1650
• Duplicate or triplicate entries have been reflected, and thus used to collapse the N value
• Immediate family members were removed
• Mutual Twitter entries (both sides following one another) were also reflected, and used to collapse the N value
• No entries from Outlook/Blackberry contacts, Ning, Yammer or other online networks were utilized
• Individuals not a part of any online tool (neighbours, friends, colleagues not in the systems) were not reflected
• Irrelevant Twitter entries (orgs, companies, groups following me or associations that I follow) were also removed. Only industry relevant individuals were kept in the Twitter category
• Thus, total N value equals roughly 1300

Alright, what have I observed?

• Those that I’ve become more chummy with in ‘work circles’ (whether internal or external) seem to be found in both LinkedIn and Facebook
• There is a very discrete line between Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn connections
• Disappointed that only 1% of my total collapsed connections are found in all three categories
• Interesting that 16% of all connections are found in combinations of 2 or all 3 tools – will this grow in the future?
• With cross posting of ‘tweets’ now available on LinkedIn, will this be detrimental or positive in terms of the quality of my connections (as well as pure number)
• Twitter and LinkedIn seem more aligned for me professionally – Facebook is perhaps the odd ball
• New ‘industry’ or ‘circle of influence’ connections seem to start at Twitter versus LinkedIn
• I have only 1 individual on both Facebook & Twitter & not LinkedIn - do you know who you are?

Implications for the Org?

I think it’s fair to say that the sample size of ~1300 is stastically significant for purposes of juxtaposing against the organization of tomorrow.

Facebook is a place where I can share knowledge, photos, videos, a bit of lifecasting, documents and even engage in live chats, etc. This is social learning at its best from a personal perspective but throw this into the mix in the org, and you have something very powerful that’s brewing and only going to taste like a fabulous English Ale in the future if implemented and deployed properly.

LinkedIn is much better at the ‘who am I’, and ‘how can I help’ aspects of social networking … as well as the obvious network contact control mechanism. This too is something critically required in an organization through both hierarchical team structures as well as heterarchical/wirearchical teams or communities that come and go through the natural evolution of projects, ideas, and actions in the org.

Twitter (albeit relatively new versus the other two) provides a much deeper way of sharing concise pieces of knowledge, links, ideas, comments and ‘what am I up to’ that is important to have in the organization as society moves away from the physical water cooler, to the virtual water ’schooler’.

Mix in the standard practice of wikis, blogs, federated search (including formal learning assets via a hidden LMS somewhere) and voila … you have the Social Net-Work-Life Balance an organization needs to drive a ‘culture of engagement’.

In summary, we need tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in the organization (not these ones specifically), but ideally (and somehow) federated with the other tools already in place, or being thought about for the future. Culturally, this is the right thing to do for tomorrow’s workforce.

Thoughts on either my data points, or the latter org points?