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

A World Without Email – Year 2, Weeks 34 to 36 (On Meaningfully Managing Streams of Content)

It looks like this is going to be one of those weeks where I sense I will be putting together more than one blog post on one of my favorite topics as of late; of course, living "A World Without Email". It has been a while since the last weekly progress report that I have shared over here, I guess it is a good time to talk a bit about what has happened since the last time that I blogged on this topic.

At the same time, I also thought I would post an entry about this subject due to the good number of articles that have emerged over the last couple weeks, and all around the recent release of the first beta from Google Wave, as it looks like plenty of people have been wondering, and questioning, whether Wave would be replacing our good old e-mail systems. Or not. So I thought I would share a few comments on that, too! Although perhaps that will be coming up in follow up articles…

Now, not to worry, I’m not going to overload you folks with a whole bunch of articles on these very same topic. In fact, I’m going to be asking you, towards the end of this blog post, or perhaps in another one, what would you think about a crazy idea that occurred to me just the other day. But let’s go one step at a time…

To get things going, here you have got the weekly progress reports for the last three weeks (Week 34, week 35 and week 36), of which I am just going to embed the one from last week. Week 36:

As you would be able to notice, things have gone rather well: week 34, well under the follow-up challenge I set up at the beginning of the year of 20 emails, or less, a week, and then the other two weeks, 35 and 36, with things pretty much steady on that very same count of 25 emails, which is not bad… Not bad at all!

Still looking good, more than anything else, because I have been comparing these numbers, per week, to last year’s, and the total number of emails is a lot less that what I was even getting last year. W00t! Hopefully, it will keep the same way from here till the beginning of 2010 and we will check what the final drop down of incoming emails has been compared to last year’s. Fingers crossed…

For now though, I think it is a good time to move into one of the articles that I would want to comment on, since it has caught plenty of attention when Dana Boyd (a.k.a. zephoria) first published it a few weeks back.

It is titled "Sometimes I Feel Like a Bitch" and you will be able to read it through if you click on this link. Dana makes some really good points as to why email seems to be the best way to reach out to her to communicate, collaborate or to share a piece of information, or knowledge, with her. She comes up with a good number of very valid reasons as to why most of the social software tools available out there don’t work out for her rather well. Quite the opposite!

She talks about information overload emerging from these social tools, a term that I’m sure we are all familiar with, and, perhaps, get to suffer from on a regular basis. However, we seem to may have forgotten the wise words from the always insightful Clay Shirky on this very same topic: it is not about information overload, but "Filter Failure". So, somehow, after reading through Dana’s article, I think that we may not have done good enough in providing relatively good filtering systems. Even better collaborative filtering systems. Somehow, judging from her thoughts, there is still plenty of room for improvement in that area, but, in my opinion, it’s the key towards making sense of all the information and knowledge that we get exposed to through social software on a daily basis, that Web of Flow (That Stowe Boyd has been talking about for a while now). Otherwise, we are going to continue suffering from information overload for a long while still… And not just from social software.

One of the other items that Dana mentioned, which I found rather interesting, was the fact that she feels she can control better the number of interactions by handling those emails versus the ones coming from social software tools. Well, I doubt it. What’s wrong with fragmentation? What’s wrong with handling fragmented interactions? Fragmentation is a healthy thing. It’s how our brain operates. In fact, we, as human beings, are capable of handling fragmented interactions much better to make sense of the information and knowledge that we’re exposed to a regular basis. I mean, if you are looking for pictures, or you want to upload your own, where would you go? Probably, Flickr or Picasa Web Albums. And what can you do in there? Yes, I know, find or share pictures!

The same thing happens with your favorite social bookmarks. If you are looking for a specific link, I’m sure you will be going to Delicious and try to find it there. You may as well have all of your bookmarks (Or a large chunk of them!) shared with everyone in that same Delicious. Yet, that’s the only thing that you would do there for. And these two are just doing some examples from the hundreds of them that are out there on the Web. The Web is fragmented. And that’s a good thing. We just need to get used to it and, as such, start treating it like a fragmented space where we go find the information and knowledge we need to be able to make an educated decision on the task(s) at hand that needs to be completed.

This is certainly a point that I would want to share with you folks and which touches base on some of the stuff that Dana mentions as well. She is stating, more or less, that people treat social software tools like another Inbox (With its private conversations, a la direct messages, for instance); in short, one that is going to replace what we had before. In a way, she’s right! We are still treating these social tools as if we just had another Inbox to work with, i.e. another space we need to go to check what has happened since the last time that I was there. And, since most people have not been taught how to effectively make use of these social tools, they go back to what they know, and what they have learned in the past by themselves, without anybody’s help: their email Inboxes! Just because they may think they know how to handle those interactions better. So, eventually, it all turns out to be just another mailbox, when in reality it could be something completely different… Alas it is not!

Which brings me to my next, final, point; one I would like to quote from her own blog post, as perhaps being the main overall problem: "[...] But I don’t know how to meaningfully manage streams of content". That is just spot on!! It is not about information overload; it is not about the fragmented Web; it is not about treating social software tools as just another Inbox,. It is just about the fact that we probably don’t know how to manage streams of content that just matter to us and the social networks we are part of. And since we don’t know, we just tend to go back to what we know, i.e. what we have been handling, relatively well, for the last few decades: email. Again!

So, perhaps, that’s our challenge for social software to make it into the enterprise world. To train and educate, through whatever the learning activities we can come up with, our knowledge workers about the shift that we all need to go through by moving away from a single focal point of interactions into multiple streams of relevant, and collaboratively filtered, content just for me. Perhaps, when we do that, we would start thinking that is not so difficult, after all, to make sense of something that has been intrinsic all along to all of us from the very beginning of time: our very own social interactions.

Tags: Google Wave, Wave, Weekly Progress Reports, Reports, Email Reports, Dana Boyd, zephoria, Clay Shirky, Information Overload, Bad Filtering, Filter Failure, Stowe Boyd, Fragmentation, Fragmented Web, Task Centric Computing, Inboxes, Inbox, Streams of Content, Managing Streams, Web of Flow, 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, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, A World Without Email

Tribal Leadership by David Logan

For a little while now, my good friend Paula Thornton, has been educating me on a concept that, although it’s been there for hundreds, if not millions of years already, it is becoming more and more important by the day within today’s corporate environment. It has got to do with Leadership. With a "new" way of managing not only your organization, but also your workforce, as a leader, and not so much as the traditional manager. A "new" type of management that, if you ask me, surely has been very well hidden over the last few decades within the business world. And it shows still even today!

However, and, probably, thanks to the emergence of Social Computing within the firewall, this kind of leadership I would want to talk about today is starting to flourish once again, and, probably, without a small chance of going back into hiding. And that’s a good thing! We need it! Very much so!

Yes, if you have been following Paula for a while now you would know that I’m actually talking about Tribal Leadership. Quite a fascinating topic, to be honest! One that I’m very grateful that she pointed it out to me, because after reading a good number of the different resources that she has been putting together already, I’m starting to sense that is the kind of leadership that we would very much need for the corporate world to survive in the 21st century.

Indeed, it has got *that* kind of impact. So, in order to help spread the message around a little bit more on this topic, I thought that I would go ahead and share with you folks a video presentation from a recent TED.com event that Paula recommended I should watch. And I did. And WOW!! "Truly inspiring" would fall short big time, if I were trying to describe it in a just a couple of words.

It is actually a presentation done by David Logan, a USC faculty member, best-selling author, and management consultant, at the recent TEDxUSC event where over the course of nearly 17 minutes he gets to talk about the five different types of tribes that are out there and that we can all relate to. In his presentation he actually talks about the different levels of tribes and mentions how we should always try to aim to be part of rather type #4 or #5 of those tribal groupings.

Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil all the fun for you. Instead of me detailing what each and every one of those tribes are like, I’m going to go for a short blog post today where I would just point you to the video itself and encourage you to spend 17 minutes watching it. It would be worth every single second of it. In fact, I would even go one step further and state that it’s probably one of those TED videos that sure is going to change the way you view things (In this case leadership and management), to the point where it’s actually going to shake about some of your thinking and make you want to have that kind of leadership within your own business. Like… NOW!

Goodness! I would want that! Actually, I think every single business out there should be looking forward to try to find that new kind of tribal leadership. More than anything else, because not only does it make sense (you would know what I mean after you watch the video), but because that’s the kind of leadership that you, as a knowledge worker, we want to have for your day-to-day job. And if that is not the case, then you are not aiming high enough. And, perhaps, you should!

I tell you, I’m going to keep this blog post very short, but watching "David Logan on Tribal Leadership" is probably one of those things that you would be grateful you have bumped into, or you will be grateful as well to Paula (Like I am! … Thanks!) for sharing the link across and help enlighten us all. So without much further ado, here you have got the direct link to the video and in case you may want to watch it right away here it is the embedded version of it:

Excellent stuff, don’t you think? I told you, "truly inspiring" falls short time and time again! Oh, if you would want to read, or listen, plenty more around the topic of tribal leadership check out this other link to the Zappos Web site where you can download (For free!!) the audio book for "Tribal Leadership"… Talking about essential resources to go through that will help shape both the management and leadership skills of today’s corporate world… And those of tomorrow’s!

Tags: Paula Thornton, Rotkapchen, Leadership, Leaders, Management, Managers, Leadership Skills, Management Skills, Tribal Leadership, TED, TEDxUSC, David Logan, USC, Tribes, Books, Zappos, Audio Books, 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, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity

The KM and Social Computing Culture Changes

I know that for a good number of years Social Computing and Knowledge Management have been walking different paths. Even more, I would probably be able to state that all along they haven’t gotten on well with one other. Quite the opposite! Knowledge Management doesn’t want to do anything with Social Computing, because of the chaotic, messy and unstructured sharing of knowledge and information, and how little control organisations may have over it all, specially within communities (Which are currently the major drivers of social software adoption within the business world). And Social Computing doesn’t want to do anything with Knowledge Management because all of the "management" piece of knowledge and that willingness from KM to control both the flow of information and knowledge within an organisation.

I know that I may be oversimplifying in this, but I am sure that you would agree with me that is very rare to find some common ground between traditional Knowledge Management and Social Computing. Yet, to be honest, they are both the same! They are both trying to help improve the overall productivity of knowledge workers. That’s probably their main premise. Each of them placing the focus on the own key areas: KM on the processes and tools and Social Computing on the people themselves.

Still, like I said, they are both the same! Or, at least, trying to achieve the very same thing! So why do we still keep them both separate as if they where fighting against one another when they could actually complement each other? Remember? The good old KM pyramid graphic of tools, processes and people?

Well, that’s what I would like to talk about today. Especially, after I have covered some of this, just recently, in a couple of recent posts ("Defining Knowledge Management and Enterprise 2.0 — Sharing Your Story" and "Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch"). However, I would want to pick things up again from the latter article I put together. The one about culture and strategy and how Social Computing could well be the glue to make it all work out just fine within the corporate environment.

Now, for a minute, I would like you to do me a favor. In that trend of thought outlined here I would like you to substitute Social Computing for Knowledge Management. Outrageous, I know! But bear with me. From there, and I know how you are starting to get a bit nervous, I would like you to go and read the absolutely wonderful blog post that Nick Milton (From Knoco Ltd) put together under the title "What Is the KM Culture Shift?" and read through what I think is one of the most inspiring articles around KM AND Social Computing that I have read in a long long while!

Nick is back at it sharing a couple of great stories that I’m sure we can all relate to (both of them!). But towards the end of the article he comes to put together a very thought provoking couple of sentences that explain very clearly, in my opinion, the cultural changes that will need to happen, RIGHT NOW, in order for both Social Computing (or Enterprise 2.0, whatever term you would want to use) and Knowledge Management to succeed in the current business world.

I am going to quote those few words over here, because they’re just far too good to miss out on them, and they surely would set the stage over what I would want to add further out in the next couple of minutes:

"BP had been through a deliberate process of culture change, bringing in a culture of Openness, Performance-focus, Networking and Empowerment. This was the culture change that made KM implementation so much easier in BP. So how do we characterize this change in culture as it relates to knowledge? For me it is a profound shift from the individual to the collective"

Goodness! You will have to agree with me that Nick is just spot on. Right on the money! Right in the middle of the challenge every single organization out there is currently facing with the adoption of social software within the corporate firewall. Just brilliant!

But it gets better. Way better! Take a look now into a follow-up blog post that he put together under "The KM Culture Change", where he’s sharing a link to a recent YouTube video that he did where he explains in plenty more detail what that cultural shift needs to be like.

In fact he explains further what that profound shift from the individual to the collective is going to be like, or should be like. So, as a teaser, I thought I will quote, very briefly, some of his major key points and then I would just leave things right there and point you to the YouTube video so that you can savour an amazing four minutes of inspiring thoughts that will make you think for a while. And if you don’t believe me, here’s the teaser:

• "From “I know” to “We know”
• From “Knowledge is mine” to “Knowledge is ours”
• From “Knowledge is owned” to “Knowledge is shared”
• From “Knowledge is personal property” to “Knowledge is collective / community property”
• From “Knowledge is personal advantage” to “Knowledge is company advantage”
• From “Knowledge is personal” to “Knowledge is inter-personal”
• From “I defend what I know” to “I am open to better knowledge”
• From “not invented here (i.e. by me)” to “invented in my community”
• From “New knowledge competes with my personal knowledge” to “new knowledge improves my personal knowledge”
• From "other people’s knowledge is a threat to me" to "our shared knowledge helps me"
• From “Admitting I don’t know is weakness” to “Admitting I don’t know is the first step to learning”"

And here’s the embedded video for you to enjoy just as much as I did:

Some pretty amazing stuff, eh? Still think that Knowledge Management and Social Computing should keep fighting against each other as opposed to perhaps help one another into providing, once and for all, that original premise where Knowledge Sharing is all about a successful combination of the best technology with the top notch business processes "managed" by the best talent you have got as a business: your knowledge workers. Your people!?!?

Maybe we should quit fighting against each other and, instead, "admit that we don’t know it all as a first step to learning"… … What do you think?

Tags: People, Culture, Strategy, Business, Business Imperatives, Enterprise, YouTube, Videos, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, Conversations, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Productivity 2.0, Knowledge Workers, Business Processes, Technology, Tools, The People, Nick Milton, Knoco Ltd, The Individual, The Collective