More fun with Enterprise 2.0 diagrams

Thanks for all the help and suggestions on the collaborative work of art in my last post. I’m still getting to making corrections/suggestions that came in on the comments. In the meantime, you can help yourself to the diagram, as Nathan Gilliatt did. It’s now much improved, adding Business Intelligence. Just shoot me an email, and I’ll invite you to the collaborative space on Vyew.

Also, thanks to Sandy Kemsley for re-posting on Stowe’s blog.

In my daily Starship Enterprise 2.0 cruise throughout the galaxy, I came across this awesome diagram from Mazyar Hedayat‘s pm blog. Check it out:

UPDATE:  hat tip @tebbo.  This chart was originally created by one of my favorite e2.0 people in the blogosphere– Dr. Todd Stephens who is an accomplished author, blogger, and enterprise collaboration guru.  Check out the original post here (the link displays the image more clearly too).

Circles of Expertise in 2.0 for Biz

For a long while now, Jevon MacDonald and I have been grousing about how the different players involved in delivering 2.0 solutions to business can often be confused and misunderstood. We started working on a graphic, which I’ll happily “open source” for anyone’s input or for re-purposing. Just send me a note and I’ll invite you to the shared space we are working on at Vyew.

Generally speaking, there are primarily four logical groups with similar characteristics:

Digital Marketers: These are the good folks who track what you’re searching for and buying on the web. They create digital brand extensions of leading brands and develop imaginative ways to capture your attention online.

Social Media: This group comprises a vast group of players who are exclusively focused on how communications in the interconnected social web impacts influence. Predominantly, the people involved with monitoring social media are involved in marketing communications.

Enterprise 2.0: Within the Enterprise 2.0 area of expertise, whether it’s behind the firewall or out on the open Internet, this core area specializes exclusively on delivering a business value via 2.0 technologies.

Mass collaboration: This group is more symbolic of a new way of thinking about collaboration than any specific 2.0 tool. The notion of reaching outside of your boundary (whatever it is) to co-create innovative solutions is key here.

Although there is overlap among all these groups, the areas of focus are distinctly unique. Of course, businesses can benefit by incorporating the expertise from all these areas, but they’d need to source it separately.

Andrew McAfee: Rebel with a Cause

A number of us at nGenera have been discussing internally what it means to communicate and create a supportive, yet fluid culture in the 2.0 era. One of our guys asked the question, “what was your ‘a-ha’ moment when Web 2.0 suddenly made sense and you became a true believer?” I’ve had a number of “a-ha” moments, but my very first was probably when I disagreed with Andrew McAfee (the widely acclaimed father of Enterprise 2.0) and published my POV on my blog. The piece got picked up in an influential blog that gave credence to my argument. I didn’t know Andrew (Andy) at the time, and was slightly terrified to take on a Harvard professor in the blogosphere. But in that single interlude, I realized that my tiny voice could make a difference. I could contribute to a greater discussion without the typical stereotypical handicaps (gender, class, education, privilege) that would otherwise squelch my opportunity to be heard. In other words, the “egalitarian, unstructured, emergent” platform of the next generation web was really that– a deeply satisfying democratic clearinghouse for idea-sharing and progress.

Since that time, I’ve come to know and really like Andy. I was always curious about how his own background might have had some bearing on his ideology regarding enterprise 2.0. I took the opportunity to have a one-on-one with Andy at the Enterprise 2.0 conference to get a more complete picture of his history and path to fame. It didn’t surprise me to learn that Andy grew up in a small town in the mid-west. His parents divorced when he was a boy, and his Mom worked hard as a single mother to give him and his siblings an excellent education. He characterized himself as “socially awkward” and a bit of a math and English geek. Through the pages of the New Yorker magazine, which he read cover to cover, he found a “periscope into something else” that he wanted to belong to. A top student, Andy left high school in his Junior year to become an undergraduate at MIT where he was accepted early. At MIT, he felt he was, “finally among my people.” He described his fellow students as “bizarrely talented in different ways.” He joined a fraternity, pulled off a double major in Mechanical Engineering and French (Humanities) and eventually left MIT with two M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Management. He describes one of the highlights of his life being the day he received his admittance letter to MIT.

As far as foreseeing his web-celeb fame, he could not be more surprised. In fact, he says he had, “No master plan” and “fell into business studies by accident.” Although he worked as a consultant in operations management after graduation for a few years, he found the business professional life, well, boring. He made a decision to return to school to get his doctorate, at Harvard this time. He wrote his dissertation on (gulp) modern ERP and the performance of on-time shipments before and after an R/3 installation.

During our breakfast, I had posited that because of his unprivileged background, he might have a bent toward “subverting the prevailing paradigm.” He said he wasn’t sure. But he said through his own experience, he learned “expertise can be emergent” and that few if any of his peers in college came from privileged backgrounds, but all were vastly talented. He cited the example of his mom who started as a bookkeeper in downtown Chicago and worked toward an accounting degree at night. Today, she’s the CFO of that company.

I think I’m going to disagree (with love) once again with Andy. When you see him tooling around Cambridge on his motorcycle in his leather jacket, you wonder if he’s not just a little rebellious. After all, he’s the iconic champion of turning business and technology on its head– removing the walls that separate individuals and encouraging management to consider there is an alternative to hierarchical command and control. They say there is a perfect job out there for everyone. Andy McAfee has earned the right to lead the culture clash that comes with e2.0. I can’t think of a better candidate.

Prepare Ye: the We Generation is Upon Us.

So, yeah.  I wanted to change the world in my 20s.  In some ways, I thought I could with Unix and my first Mac.  But, mostly, I just ended up talking about it a lot to anyone who cared to listen.  Today’s 20-somethings have the tools to effect change like I never did.  They have instantaneous access to information, strong social networks with which to groupthink and self-organize, and a somewhat unbridled sense of optimism that everything is possible and within their reach.  I grew up in the Me Generation of the Reagan era and although we excelled at the selfish art of Machiavellian achievement, in the end it took my generation down a path that led to, well, the S&L scandal, Enron, one-dot-oh greed, and now, the subprime meltdown.   Our narcissism is our legacy.  

Lately, there’s been some grousing about how the GenYers (Millennials) are overhyped.  I disagree.  I don’t think we’re talking enough about the next generation of “we-wired” digital immigrants.  I know our clients are looking at this demographic set seriously.  The digitally-astute army that’s about to descend on the corridors of power in corporations around the world brings with it a welcome promise of radical change and constructive disruption.  

Larry Dignan, a fellow irregular, wrote recently, 

“So what really happens when these Millennials run into IT departments at large corporations where they are most likely to work? They will run into a brick wall and realize that it makes sense to centralize some IT functions. They’ll realize Web 2.0 is insecure. They’ll realize you can’t share intellectual property on Twitter. They’ll realize that remote data wiping is pretty cool when you lose your phone. Bottom line: If there’s any touchy feeling collision course between Millennials and business, the latter will win.

Why? Ultimately these people have to get jobs–and often these jobs are at places like Johnson & Johnson and General Electric. Sorry folks you won’t be bringing your own management practices–and latest greatest Web 2.0 apps–to those places.”

As it turns out, we talk to companies like GE and J&J all the time.  We’re conducting a large research project right now on “Redefining Employee Computing” with 24 member corporations, many of them global– half are in the Fortune 100 (of those, 6 are in the top 50 and 3 are in the top 10).  I can assure you that the generational “collide” is a high priority board room and management issue.   It’s so strategic, many corporations are preemptively prepping to accommodate the new workforce and rethink their old school management processes.

Here is CTO, Greg Simpson of GE talking about how GE views the Millennials.

 

A Year’s Summary of Personal Reflection II

It’s that time again when I feel compelled not only to wrap up highlights of the Enterprise 2.0 conference, but to divulge my thinking on where we are in the progression of widespread 2.0 adoption — in our personal lives and at work.

It’s hard to top my impassioned first post on this topic from last year: A Year’s Summary of Personal Reflection. Not only was I drinking the Kool-aid, I was mixing the powder and stirring the pitcher. Where last year I was overwhelmed with the newfound freedom that comes with social networking and collaboration, this year I’m focused more on the practical application of how these tools can drive productivity gains and measurable improvements in business performance.

This year’s Enterprise 2.0 conference highlighted several themes I’ve seen over the past year. 1. frustration, 2. abundance of choice, 3. breaking out of the echo chamber, and 4. dividends. Here we go:

Frustration Canyon

The frustration story comes from two directions ending in the same place. Atop one mountain, we have so-called “evangelists” (like me) who are frustrated with the slow pace of adoption in the ROW (the Rest-of-World who is not gung-ho for e2.0). The adjacent mountain has a crowd of interested observers that can’t see the landscape clearly, are somewhat intimidated by the pace of change, and question the utility behind the hype. In the middle is a canyon of confusion. During the latter half of 2008 and by next year’s conference, we should see this gap closing. As more case studies emerge, and more business cases get approved, the evangelists will no longer seem so freakish, and the potential buyers of e2.0 technologies will have settled into a sensible course of action to web-enable their workforce.

Rejoice in Choice

I caught up with Ismael Ghalimi recently who said he is tracking nearly 800 products in the Office 2.0 database. Agile development methods and low-cost cloud computing alternatives are turbocharging startup activity, breaking down time/cost barriers to product development and release. With the welcome addition of major enterprise vendors introducing 2.0 features and product suites, the choices are ever-abundant to start experimenting with these tools at relatively low and sometimes no cost. I was amazed at number of players I had never heard of at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference… and even more amazed at what they could demo. Standouts for me included Newsgator’s Social Sites, Trampoline Systems, Groupswim, Igloo, and Socialcast. The barriers to adoption may be steep, but the barrier to entry in this category is below sea level. Take some of these products for a spin.

The Echo (Prison) Chamber

Whether it’s Twitter, Friendfeed, Plaxo Pulse, blog posts, or the ever-languishing Facebook… the 1% continues to talk to itself and hone the global agenda for Enterprise 2.0. The goal this year is to do the hardcore missionary work and break out of the echo chamber. If you fancy yourself an e2.0 expert, start investigating industry trade shows (like retail, entertainment, banking, hospitality) where you can illuminate the non-converted. The blogosphere has spawned web celebs in various circles and enterprise 2.0 is no different. It’s important to remember that everyone tracking this space or participating in it is dwarfed by the number of people who don’t even know it exists.

And finally,

Lifetime Dividends

I may be taking a more sober, Realpolitik approach to 2.0 evangelism, but I’m still a die-hard believer. Through the pages of this blog, you can see how my life has irrevocably changed since I started tracking this sector. The reason my life changed so dramatically is due entirely to the rich, personal relationships I’ve formed over the course of a few years. I challenge everyone reading this blog to calculate the economic value of their own social network. Contacts and rolladex’s have been driving business for decades, but the deep, penetrating personal understanding we have for each other is unparalleled in modern history. In other words, relationships scale. With each new Twitter follower, with each new blog reader, I compound the likelihood I will achieve some personal or business benefit from simply connecting to a stranger. The 2.0 web begins and ends with people. Imagine the possibilities when everyone in the world is socially connected. That day is coming. I can only imagine it will yield a greater humanity.

Photo credits: (canyon) John Donahue, (night shot) Nosterdamus on Flickr.

First Day Surprise at Enterprise 2.0 Boston

There were workshops yesterday at the Enterprise 2.0 conference.  The first one, Social Computing Platforms: IBM and Microsoft revealed an unlikely sturdy competitor in the sea of terrific startups that are competing in this new arena.  IBM, yes, IBM demonstrated a competitive product.  I had never seen such a thorough demo of Lotus Connections.  It had a terrific UI, more 2.0 features than I could even keep up with, and the woman who was taking us through the demo, clearly “got it.”  Who wouldda thunk?  

By comparison, the SharePoint presentation was, well, uninspired.  There was a healthy back channel chat conversation on the comparison between the two products.  We were particularly damning of the SharePoint product demonstration in the back channel (which is found on the conference’s Clearspace community viaMeebo.)  If you’re coming to the conference, be sure to check out the back channel chat, as I found that the back channel conversation from real customers was much more interesting than the material being presented.

Many of our clients are turning to SharePoint to deliver 2.0 functionality.  From this day forward, I will be urging them to consider Lotus Connections, if they must choose an enterprise vendor for their global operation.  The dark horse here is Oracle.  Over the next few days, including a private dinner with Oracle with the Enterprise Irregulars, we’ll be seeing a lot of what Oracle is bringing to the table.  It would be terrific if there were two good legacy enterprise choices for large enterprises.

Of course, the wide range of excellent startups offer a clear alternative to the enterprise players.  I also attended Dion Hinchcliffe’s Implementing Enterprise 2.0 workshop.  It was a solid roundup of data and commentary on where we are today with Enterprise 2.0.  Dion had a new vendor on the scene, Aegeon, give a short demo of its offering, Spaceo.us.  This product holds particular promise because of its emphasis on bringing existing enterprise IT assets, including SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, into the social collaboration platform.  Spaceo.us also placed first in Stowe Boyd’s Launch Pad finals.  You can see demos of the producthere.

Finally, thanks to @stevemann, we had a great dinner with friends at the Enterprise 2.0 Mayhem dinner. Here is a short video clip from blogger-extraordinaire, Luis Suarez, whom I finally met in carbon for the first time.

Update:  Luis is saying, “”Knowledge is Commoditised. Connections not!”

Groundswell co-Author Josh Bernoff talks Social Technographics in Austin

I attended a luncheon today sponsored by the Internet Strategy Forum. The invited guest was Forrester‘s Josh Bernoff. Josh’s topic was “Winning in a world transformed by social media.” He cautioned the audience to not focus on technologies, but rather relationships and the prevailing deeper social trends creating the “groundswell.” Bernoff describes the groundswell as a “social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other rather than from traditional institutions.”

His presentation was chock full of popular social media/community examples, many of which I’d seen before, but always interesting to see in aggregate. He also outlined how to approach the exercise in leveraging the groundswell with tips on setting objectives, understanding roles, measuring success with metrics, building a business case, etc. The high point of the presentation for me was his discussion related to what Forrester calls, “Social Technographics.” It’s basically a graphic representation of where customers are on the social media activity ladder. Additionally, Forrester claims to have analytical data that will profile your target customers’ social computing patterns by age, country, and gender (that map to the activity ladder). Check out the profile tool. Would be interested to know how they built this tool, but have to admit, it’s kinda fun.

Slides explaining the Social Technographics ladder:

All of this and more is explained in the Groundswell book. You can get more resources at the Groundswell site.

The Rise of Enterprise 2.0: Andrew McAfee Keynote, Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo

Nice high-quality video interview here with Andy in Tokyo.

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by grl with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license.

FREE ITSinsider Pass to Enterprise 2.0 Conference

TechWeb is offering a free conference pass (at a $2200 value) for a lucky ITSinsider reader. All you need to do is post in the comments why you subscribe to/read the ITSinsider blog and why you want to go to the conference. Special preference will be given to an ITSinsider reader who adds me to your blogroll. 🙂

Of course, most readers are already going, so I’m not sure if I’ll get any takers here. If you’ve not signed up yet, and you didn’t win the ITSinsider free pass, you can still register and get $100 off by registering with this code: CMBMEB14 CMBMEB33. The pass is unlimited, so everyone can use it.  The demo pass gets you into see the keynotes and general sessions, launch pad, Enterprise20pen and various networking events.

Very happy to meet you in “carbon” as they say.

photo credit: Alex Dunne on flickr.

Splommenters– please “no comment”

Correction: Spammenters*

Shame, shame, shame. I realize Social Media is the new black in the art of PR, but how irritating is this? Tammy Erickson, our in-house workforce guru, published a post today on women’s progress in the workplace on her Harvard Business School discussion leader blog. Her first comment was from Ms. Kimberly Rosenberg who lavishes her with praise then notso deftly segues into how she is using Microsoft Office Live for Small Business (no hyperlinks intended) to increase her productivity.

I sleuthed around online on Ms. Rosenberg, and it appears she has left virtually the same comment on at least 4 other blogs in the past few weeks. Ewwww.

http://www.blissfullydomestic.com/2008/04/an-organized-ho.html

http://experts.internetbasedmoms.com/aurelia/finding-balance-as-a-wahm

http://www.entrepremusings.com/index.php/2008/04/24/why-arent-there-more-rich-women-entrepreneurs/

http://empowerwomennow.com/news-women-entrepreneurs/index.php/how-to-get-your-partner-from-zero-to-hero-in-your-business/

Microsoft Office Live for Small Business product management– what are you thinking? So blatant an attempt to hawk your wares? Buy an ad. There are right ways and wrong ways to engage the blogosphere. Please start feeding any number of the excellent social media blogs that will instruct you on how to do this right. If Ms. Rosenberg works for a PR agency, send her to social media school. Or send her to start doing some homework here (Chris Brogan) and here (Brian Solis).

The smoking gun:

*Update: Thanks to Lara Kretler, the best term to describe this practice is “spammenting.”