E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

Why Intel Is Investing in Social Computing – Leading by Example

Remember the blog posts I put together yesterday on the topic of "Just Do The Right Thing" by the wonderfully gifted industry analyst / blogger Rachel Happe? Well, today I thought I would share with you what I exactly meant yesterday with that article and also what Rachel probably meant as well in hers: stop all the fuss you are going through to figure out the ROI of social software, and, instead, just go ahead and do it! Plain and simple!

So along those lines here you have got a brilliant blog post put together by my good friend Laurie Buczek (Enterprise Social Media Program Manager at Intel), where she is basically detailing, quite nicely, why Intel is moving in the direction of a successful social software adoption starting very soon. Yes, indeed, walking the talk and leading by example!

What’s eventually remarkable about Laurie’s blog post is that throughout the entire article you won’t see a single mention of business value of Social Software, or figuring out the Return of Investment (ROI) of social software. They are just doing it! They are doing the right thing! And I am really excited to hear that, even though probably not as excited as they may all well be seeing it coming to light in the next few days! Fabulous piece of news, don’t you think?

As a taster of what you will be able to find throughout the blog entry (Not going to reproduce it over here, not to worry) I thought I would share, though, the headlines, the reasons Laurie mentions as to why Intel is investing in Social Computing. I bet most of those reasons would give you plenty of food for thought on your own adoption efforts and perhaps a hint or two on how to overcome some of the hurdles you may still be facing … So here there are:

• "Employees Want to Put a Face to a Name
• Too much time is lost to find people & information to do your job
• Getting work done effectively in globally dispersed teams is challenging
• New hires want to have a way to integrate into Intel faster
• Restructuring and employee redeployment impacts Organizational Health
• We reinvent the wheel over and over again
• We learn more via on the job training, then we do in a classroom
• We need to deliver radical innovation in a mature company
• When the mature workforce starts to retire, they carry knowledge out the door"

Like I said, one of those essential reads for those folks involved rather heavily in social software and social software adoption, who perhaps may be struggling to get the message across and who could do with a little bit of inspiration coming from another major corporation embracing social computing without all the fuss. Just leading by example!

Congratulations, Laurie!! Fantastic news is all I can say! Way to go!

Time now to enjoy the rest of the weekend! Have a good one everyone!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Communication, Rachel Happe, Business Value, Return on Investment, ROI, Laurie Buczek, Intel, Social Software Adoption, Adoption, Success Story

Just Do The Right Thing by Rachel Happe

If you have been reading this blog long enough, by now, you are more or less familiar with my opinion around the subject of Social Computing and trying to figure out its Return on Investment (a.k.a ROI) from a business perspective. All along, just like we did with Knowledge Management from the very beginning, I have the feeling, growing stronger and stronger by the day, we are basically wasting our time and valuable resources on trying to crack what may not be no longer necessary, nor needed. To me putting together Social Software next to the traditional ROI concept is pretty much an oxymoron. Something we try to really make it work, yet, we keep failing over and over again.

Well, I am glad I am not the only one thinking along those lines. On another short blog post I thought I would go ahead and point you to another superb, and wonderfully written, blog post ("Just do the right thing") shared by my good friend Rachel Happe (Over at The Social Organization – Another highly recommendable blog you should be subscribed to, in case you haven’t done so already!) where she gets to share little, precious gems like this one:

"Many business decisions do not need calculated proof to know that they are right"

Or this other one:

"[...] Just do the right thing. Stop the analysis, stop the wondering if you are right, stop the endless hand wringing, and more than anything stop the fear that you don’t have ‘proof’ that something works. Just do the right thing"

Or her brilliant wrap up of the blog post:

"And no, I am not entirely against tracking metrics – I just think we’ve used them as a cruch for so long that we have forgotten how to think for ourselves and use our judgement to solve problems"

Amen to that, Rachel! I doubt I would have been able to put it all in much better words than those you shared in such a sharp blog post! Oh, folks, I won’t spoil the little story Rachel shared over at her blog post as well, but if you head over to "Just do the right thing", find out how some times the big, large enterprise world could learn a thing or two from the small, just round the corner, community business! Fantastic!

Oh, and if you want to go through another thought-provoking, mind-blowing, wonderfully crafted piece by Rachel check out "Radical transparency: Where the rubber hits the road". I will comment on it much more in depth at a later time, but I am sure it won’t leave you indifferent…

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, ROI, Return On Investment, Business Value, Metrics, Measurements, Value Add, Rachel Happe, The Social Organization, Do The Right Thing, Transparency, Radical Transparency, Corporate World, Enterprise, Business World

From Command and Control to Collaboration and Teamwork – Preparing Business Leaders for the Knowledge Economy

Remember the blog post I put together a few days back highlighting a superb video interview with John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, talking about The Power of Collaborating Innovation? Well, I am back again with plenty more! This time around wanting to point out to you folks a wonderful, and very thoughtful and relevant, too!, article by my good friend Oliver Marks (Over at Collaboration 2.0; by the way, really worth while subscribing to his blog, in case you haven’t done so just yet!) where he describes, in depth, the shift the corporate world needs to do to move away from the traditional command and control attitude towards a much more open, transparent, collaborative and teamwork-like environment where social computing can flourish the way we are all anticipating and really looking forward to.

Yes, indeed, have a look into From Command & Control to Collaboration & Teamwork. It is a rather insightful, perhaps a little bit too long , article, but in it you would find precious gems like this one:

"Stepping down from command and control formal authority and instead overseeing a web of relationships and inter dependencies requires you to be able to build an inclusive collaborative approach, more of a leading from behind perspective, to be an effective leader. To allow leadership as collective genius requires you to subjugate your own ego in order to allow others to thrive"

And after you have read through the blog post, check out the video that triggered the whole thing. Once again, it is John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, talking about Teamwork and Collaboration, where he admits to having made a couple of mistakes, learned from them, changed the company’s business strategy to transition from that command and control structure into one much more collaborative and teamwork related and start seeing the benefits right away!

The interview lasts for a little bit over six minutes, and John gets to describe social networking at work with business networks, including some good business cases and success stories, including my favourite quote from the overall interview:

"Many people forget: It’s about collaboration teamwork and then periodic command and control"

I am not going to spoil the rest of the video interview with John, since there are a couple of other hidden gems which I would consider priceless to embrace as skills for that new wave of leaders within the Enterprise. But one thing for sure, if you would want to become the business thought leader of the corporate world of the knowledge economy of the 21st century, start here:

Now, wouldn’t that be quite something? Who wouldn’t want to work with business leaders like those described on the interview, who certainly understand and live the dynamics of social networking within the Enterprise? I would!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Collaborative Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Communication, John Chambers, CEO, Cisco, Cisco Systems, Management, Managers, Command and Control, Society, Knowledge Workers, Oliver Marks, ZDNet, Collaboration 2.0, Teamwork, Group Work, Team Work, Business Leaders, Business Networks, Leadership, Leaders, Knowledge Economy