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

On Governance and Compliance – IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines Webcast

If you have been following this blog for a while, you would know how I have been blogging for a good number of times about one of those topics that people keep asking me about to share my two cents of the conversation: Social Software Governance and what IBM is doing about it. My short answer has always been IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines.

However, the long answer has always been a story of how a good number of us had been using social software behind a firewall for a while and how, in 2005, we all got together around a wiki and started working over the course of a couple weeks on the initial IBM Blogging Policy and Guidelines document. Yes, that’s right! A bunch of bloggers gathering together to define what would be the blogging policy and guidelines for an entire corporation. Talking about blunt moves!

From there onwards, the guidelines were sanctioned by both Corporate Communications and Legal and the rest is history: years went by and those user guidelines pretty much "regulate" how IBM employees make the most out of blogging. Then, in 2008 we went through a revision of those very same guidelines. Again, a bunch of incredibly active social software evangelists and enthusiasts who, through a good number of various different social tools (Lotus Connections Files, Cattail, Blogs, etc.) finalised that revision (Got the approval from both Legal and Communications again) and we had today’s IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines.

Well, I think it is time to take things into the next level. Although still dealing with that IBM governance model of the user guidelines for social computing tools, I am really glad to point you all to a recent tweet to my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Adam Christensen, shared in the last few hours:

"Have you seen the new education companion to the IBM Social Computing Guidelines: http://bit.ly/2SBUlt ? Thoughts? There’s more 2 come"

Wonderful stuff! What Adam announced yesterday through Twitter was the availability of a new video that talks about governance models, and, in particular, IBM’s social computing guidelines. If you head over to the main link you will see now a new section on the right side titled "Best practices for social computing" with the following text underneath it:

"Many clients and organizations have expressed an interest in learning more about IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines and how we communicate them to employees. Here’s a short video example of one of the ways IBM’s online community educates itself about these guidelines"

And, of course, from there, the interesting part is the link to the video itself, which would launch an interesting webcast featuring Harriet Pearson (IBM’s VP, Security and Chief Privacy Officer) and Adam himself. Over the following few minutes you would be able to go through plenty of sound advice ("Common sense guidelines", as Adam mentions in it already) that both Harriet and him share on what it is like engaging in the social computing space, both inside and outside of the corporate firewall, while being aware of three key main areas:

• "Confidential Information
• Privacy
• Disclaimers"

From there onwards, both Harriet and Adam get to explain, very nicely, some of the fundamentals behind each and everyone of those key areas with some very common examples on "good practices" that clearly match the values from the company, as well as some other interesting data. All done in very simple, yet, very effective terms. The clip doesn’t last much more than two to three minutes, but it is certainly indicative of how important those social computing guidelines are for all of us, as IBM employees.

I know that a good number of companies have been leveraging and reusing some elements from the original guidelines and I’m sure they would also enjoy this new one. And the good thing is that this is just the beginning. There will be plenty more to come! So whenever folks would ask me about what IBM is doing in the area of governance and compliance with regards to social software and social computing my answer is probably going to be not just the guidelines themselves, but also, from here onwards, this short webcast, as well as the story behind it all, probably, because it is just as worth it, don’t you think?

Tags: IBM, Blogging Policy and Guidelines, Social Computing Guidelines, Policy, Guidelines, Compliance, Advice, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Software, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Communities, Learning, Innovation, Adam Christensen, Common Sense, Business Conduct Guidelines, Webcasts, Good Practices, Lotus Connections Files, Cattail, Blogs, Wikis, Social Software Enthusiasts, Social Software Evangelists, Harriet Pearson, VP, Security, Chief Privacy Officer, CPO, Confidential, IBM Confidential, Privacy, Disclaimers, Customers, Clients, Governance 2.0

How to Organise a Children’s Party – On Simplyfing Business Processes

There are plenty of people out there whom I continue to admire and respect a great deal over the course of the years; especially, those folks in the areas of Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Learning and Social Computing. And, certainly, plenty of others in the last couple of years, too!

I am sure most of them do not know it, but through their insightful writing, their always interesting podcasts, their truly inspiring presentations at conference events, their timeless engaging, and equally fascinating, conversations when you meet them face to face, in short, through their sempiternal willingness to share with others what they know, has pretty much shaped who I am today.

They are the ones who initially talked to me about something called Knowledge Management. They were the ones who told me to get involved with it around 2000 to 2001, indicating how it is probably one of those disciplines that will be difficult to bore you at any given point in time. They were the ones who told me that there would be a number of different "comings" of KM, each of them presenting new opportunities, as well as challenges, but always worthwhile exploring. Therefore making it always worth while engaging with …

They are, in short, the group of people, who, over the years, have become, probably without them even knowing it altogether!, my KM mentors. And, for that, I would always be eternally grateful, because most of what I know originates from each and every one of them. And that’s just a tiny fraction of the knowledge that I have been getting exposed to myself! Sometimes I wish I just could move fast enough to keep up with their thinking… I bet you know what I mean.

One of those folks is KM extraordinaire, and good friend, Dave Snowden. He is probably one of the KM fathers, already deeply immersed in that field way before most folks were probably even thinking about KM itself a few years back. Dave has got one of the most insightful and very thought provoking KM blogs you can find out there on the Internet blogosphere (Highly recommended to subscribed to, if you haven’t done so already). One of those blogs with plenty of juicy meat to digest; in fact, one of those blogs whose many articles will shake, pretty badly, plenty of the key, and fundamental, business procedures that we have been using for decades, amongst several other key business areas.

And, every now and then, he does some stellar video appearances that are really worthwhile watching every single second of it. So, today I thought I will blog about one of those short video clips he has participated in. Be prepared to have your business world shaking a little bit. Because it will.

It all starts with a rather innocent, inoffensive title: "How to organise a children’s party (Based on the nature of systems)". From there onwards, Dave asks us all to imagine what it would be like organising a party for 11-year-olds based on three basic types of systems:

• "Chaotic Systems
• Ordered Systems
• Complex Systems"

I’m not going to say much more from there onwards. The rest is just pure genius. I will just ask you to watch through the nearly three minutes that the video lasts, and which I have shared the embedded version below:

(Welcome back!) They say that one of the key mantras from social software is simplicity. Yet, if you have watched the video, it looks like the business, and, in particular, plenty of business processes, are far from being simple and relatively easy to execute. Dave nails it, rather nicely, in my opinion; it’s all about one of the main challenges from social computing within the enterprise: shape up business processes, sorting out all of the nonsense behind their complexity, and get down to basics: get the job done without wasting time trying to figure out how this or that business process really works, specially, when, in most cases, most people don’t know much about it/them. Sadly.

My good friend, the always inspiring and talented Rob Paterson (Another amazing worth while following blogger!), described it quite nicely with these very accurate questions: "Did you cringe when he reminded us of how we usually plan? Did it make sense to be sensible?". I guess that social software has got plenty of challenges within the corporate environment, as the video clearly illustrates. But perhaps there is one above them all that could certainly highlight whether we are in the right direction or not towards embracing it within the corporate world. And, that to me, is the one about how social software will eventually help us simplify most of our already-too-complex-to-handle-properly business processes.

It is a tough challenge, I know, I do realise about it. Yet, it’s probably the one that has got the most promise, because it is the one with the largest amount of work to be done, with plenty of room for improvement on our day to day business procedures. Because, after all, who wouldn’t want to have the best children’s party, right?

Tags: Dave Snowden, Chldren, Parties, Complexity, Sensemaking, Chaotic Systems, Ordered Systems, Complex Systems, Business Processes, Business Procedures, Rob Paterson, Plans, Planning, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Communication, Relationships, Productivity, Simplicity, Simplify, Simplifying, K.I.S.S.

Excellent Customer Support Summarised in a Single Word: ScreenFlow

A few days back you would remember how, in a recent blog post, I stated that nowadays it seems it is becoming more and more difficult, and rare!, to find excellent customer service, as I was trying to share further insights on the recent fiasco I have gone through with both movistar & Apple with the 3GS iPhone. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist altogether, right? Well, today I thought I would share a story with you folks. A story that features yours truly, once again, but this time around on what excellent customer support is all about. But one step at a time…

It all starts with an email sent to my personal account by the Telestream folks, announcing that the super fine ScreenFlow 2.0 is now available for download and upgrade. Now, I probably haven’t mentioned this here before, but ScreenFlow is actually one of my favorite screencasting tools for the Mac, if not my all time favorite (Yes, I know, Camtasia for the Mac comes pretty close, too!). The thing is that ScreenFlow has been there for a while now, while Camtasia is just getting started, so over time I have gotten used to the excellent features, and capabilities, the former has got to offer.

So after checking out what ScreenFlow 2.0 has in store, including some of the features I have been looking forward to for a little while now, I decided to go ahead and upgrade to it. I was advised to check the upgrade link to see how it would work, so I did that. And that’s when the problems started. Apparently, I was not the only one who didn’t go through a successful upgrade to the latest version (A whole bunch of us seemed to have problems with it, too!).

From there onwards, I decided to check what people were saying in Twitter, and when I realized I was not the only one having such problems I tweeted it to a couple of people I follow indicating it was not an isolated problem. By then, I had already sent out a note to customer support asking for further advice on how to fix it. Usually, that have been rather responsive as well, which is always a good sign. So I decided to wait…

In the meantime, I carried on with my daily work and, all of a sudden, I get this tweet from @screenflow where they are kindly offering to help out right there. Yes, almost an immediate response to my tweets. Whoahhhh! Truly amazing! I know that if you have been out there in the Web 2.0 world for a while, as a customer or a vendor, this is pretty much common thing, but yet one has got to experience it in first person to realise the kind of impact it has got! What followed afterwards was a bunch of tweets that helped me sort out my problem and helped me go through the upgrade successfully in a matter of minutes. Goodness! And that thanks to a couple of tweets!

So what originally started it as potential problems and issues to finish off a successful upgrade of my license for version 2.0 of ScreenFlow, it turned out to be an amazing experience with regards to customer support, having helped me solve it within the same day, in fact, shortly after! I am not sure what you would think about this story folks but the people over at Telestream have managed to do something, with a couple of proactive interactions, that movistar hasn’t managed to do in over nearly a year that I have been with them: gain and retain my loyalty, as a customer.

Like I said, I wanted to share this story to also show the other side of the coin. To prove the point that there is excellent customer service out there; that there are some vendors out there that get it, that understand how things have progressed and improved over time in managing customer relationships through engaging actively in the social media space; that there is an opportunity to have an open dialogue between customers and vendors and engage in solving customer problems in the shortest time possible, because, after all, that’s what exceedingly good customer support is all about: gaining the loyalty of those customers that you would want to keep for a long while!

And that is just what Telestream (And ScreenFlow) have managed to do for me. I am a rather happy customer now, who knows he can always count on wonderful customer support from those vendors that care about what matters: their customers. I wish both movistar and Apple would understand that once and for all. Forget about your exclusive rights of distribution and the hype; get down to work, do your business properly and show you care, because right now you aren’t.

Tags: Telestream, ScreenFlow, ScreenFlow 2.0, Camtasia, Mac, MacBook Pro, Screencasting, Screencasts, Customer Loyalty, Loyalty, Customer Support, Customer Service, Customer Service Center, VRM, Vendor Relationship Management, Twitter, Microblogging, Microsharing, Relationships, Connections, Dialogue, Apple, iPhone, 3G, 3GS, Excellence, Customer Stories, Stories, Customer Experiences, Vendors, Movistar, Telefonica, Brands, Branding, Corporate Brand, Lack of Customer Service, Constructive Feedback, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Innovation, Communication