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

McAfee’s Hypothesis and The Adventures of Molly Discovering Social Software

After last week’s blog post on "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections — Collaborating Effectively through Wikis" in which I tried to cover in a few words a quick response to that really insightful article put together by Andy McAfee under the title "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Email" (as I am finishing up the last touches to a much lengthier entry), I have noticed how on Friday Andy put together a follow-up under the heading "McAfee’s Hypothesis (plus contest results)", which is just as good and which surely is going to have a much lengthier reply as well from yours truly shortly.

However, I thought I would venture into sharing an initial response to the latest blog post from Andy in this series. Especially after reading through his rather provocative and perhaps controversial, too, McAfee’s Hypothesis:

"Within organizations, collaboration technologies are dictated by the most powerful person involved in the collaboration"

Well, meet Molly. At IBM. Molly is a knowledge worker. Like you. Like me. A knowledge worker who always wants to do a good job. Actually, a better job. Even if her boss doesn’t ask her to do so she will still do it. She will go the extra mile. She is a professional. A knowledge worker. Like you. Like me. What we have been hired for in the first place.

In short, in today’s corporate world, Molly is a knowledge worker who has taken responsibility for her work life. Like my good friend David Gurteen would say Molly would be that knowledge worker that "continually strives to understand the world about her and modify her work practices and behaviors to better meet her personal and organizational objectives. No one tells her what to do. She doesn’t take No for an answer. She is self motivated".

She understands the organisation. She gets all the help she needs from her leaders, because she knows they trust her to do the right job. After all, that’s what they hire her for. Her boss knows that she may need some guidance and, eventually, she gets it from the weekly meetings they hold over the phone. Her boss understands that to get the best results Molly needs to perform at her best. And, as such, all what her boss does is to provide that guidance to help her excel at her job. Because that’s what Molly expects. As a knowledge worker she gets to thrive, while at work, at the stuff that she’s really passionate about. It’s all about building and nurturing mutual trust. Trust that works in both ways!

And you can’t stop that. Molly knows what she has got to do. And, most importantly, she knows who she is going to connect, reach out and collaborate with to get that job done. How? Well, of course, through her adventures discovering social software at IBM (that’s where she works, by the way!).

What I have just mentioned above may seem to be unrealistic, yet it is happening in multiple places within the corporate world right as we speak. And much more often that what you could expect! And just like I referenced the three episodes from Jean François Chenier on "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections", I would love to introduce you today to "The Adventures of Molly Discovering Social Software at IBM".

Like I said, I will be putting together a much lengthier blog post trying to share my 2¢ into the whole conversation. But today I would like to share with you that series of YouTube videos that one of my fellow team (BlueIQ) members, Anna Dreyzin, has been putting together over the last couple weeks to demonstrate what a poor job email does when collaborating and sharing knowledge, and how, perhaps social software can help fill the gaps it leaves behind.

The reason I wanted to share these two stories is actually a twofold one. First, each of the episodes clearly shows how when talking about group collaboration email may no longer cut it, as it used to. So, perhaps, it may be a good time now to look for alternatives, i.e. social software tools. Again, the scenarios presented in both stories will be self explanatory to contexts that we can all relate to, because I’m sure that most of us can relate to both of them. And quite a bit! If not, judge for yourself, by going into each of the episodes or just check out the embedded the versions included below.

The second reason why these two episodes are going to be helpful to people out there is because they actually try to explain a little bit what the job of my team is like on a daily basis. I know there are plenty of people who have asked me in the past what is it that I do at IBM, as a social computing evangelist, and, being part of a team of people called "BlueIQ".

Well, these two episodes will certainly help shed some light on what it is I do with my team: mainly, helping accelerate the adoption rate of social software within the firewall. And it is with stories like these from Molly where we focus more on the tasks at hand, more than just tools and their features, to help accomplish them effectively. I know some people would call it Task Centric Computing, and I would be okay with that. In fact, that is exactly what we do. Except that we always try to inject 2.0 flavours as often as we possibly can.

And we do that with the invaluable and amazing help of a worldwide community I co-lead with another colleague, Josh Scribner, of over 870 ambassadors, or evangelists, or just simply social software enthusiasts, who volunteer their time to help spread the message around social software (Basically, how knowledge workers can make use of social networking tools for a business purpose). And it is down to videos like these, amongst several other activities I may be able to talk about at upcoming blog posts, that help demonstrate, somewhat, how email may no longer be the best of the collaboration tools available out there, even if the most powerful person involved in the collaboration still things that it is. Hummm … maybe not.

The Adventures of Molly Discovering Social Software at IBM (Episode #1)

The Adventures of Molly Discovering Social Software at IBM (Episode #2)

Hummm… Not anymore!

Oh, oh, before I forget … I would strongly encourage you to have a look into the follow-up blog post that James Dellow (a.k.a. @chieftech) has put together under "Email – No Surrender?" where he has got an amazing thought-provoking and mind-blowing conclusion with this great piece starting it all off!:

"[...] Suggested organisations contribute to the problem of misusing email (rather than me calling for its elimination) by:

• Failing to provide alternative and more effective communication channels;
• Creating a culture of secrecy and information hoarding; and
• Not providing the right policies and training for staff on how to use the communication technologies already available to them.)" (Emphasis mine)"

Just brilliant!

Tags: Andy McAfee, YouTube, Videos, Jean Francois Chenier, IBM Lotus Connections, Lotus Connections, Connections, Group Collaboration, Web 2.0, 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, David Gurteen, Knowledge Workers, Trust, BlueIQ, Anna Dreyzin, Task Centric Computing, Josh Scribner, Social Software Adoption, Social Software, Evangelism, Evangelists, James Dellow, ChiefTech, Headshift, Dachis Group, Dachis

The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections — Collaborating Effectively through Wikis

Earlier on today, and through various different sources, both inside and outside the firewall, I got alerted by several folks on the latest blog post put together by Andy McAfee on a very thought-provoking, insightful, and dear to my heart, topic, that I thought I would share over here a few more insights on it, since a bunch of the folks who told me about it indicated how Andy might have called me out for my endeavour on living "A World Without Email".

The title of the article is "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Email" and I can certainly tell you it’s a very worthwhile read. It will make you think twice about how you may have viewed email as a collaboration tool all along. It will also make you question, as a social computing evangelist / enthusiast (If you are one), what you have been advocating all along with regards to email and its (mis)use within the corporate world, to the point where perhaps it is not such evil after all. I tell you, a very worthy read.

Now, I am already preparing a much lengthier response to Andy’s thoughtful article (I will probably be sharing it over the weekend, in case you are wondering…), but I thought I would put together a blog post on something that can certainly introduce quite a bit the main core idea that you will see on that extended response.

Andy comes to question whether e-mail has got a place in the current collaboration landscape within the enterprise, as perhaps the one and only that works, the one that cannot die, the one that knowledge workers cannot do without as an essential tool to collaborate and share their knowledge with their peers. In short, he comes to propose that those folks who have been saying that e-mail is nowadays pretty much dead, as a collaboration tool (After all, "Email is where knowledge goes to die" — does that quote ring a bell?), should probably cut off some slack and stop attacking it in the first place.

Like I said, I’m already putting together a much more extended response than this one, but I thought I would get the conversation going questioning the validity of email as a collaboration tool altogether (which is not the same as communication either, by the way!). If you have been following my project on living "A World Without Email", you will know how all along, for the last 19 months, and going!, I have never mentioned that email is dead. Quite the opposite. I still see plenty of value in using email as a communication tool for one-on-one confidential / sensitive exchanges as well as to process calendaring and scheduling events altogether.

However, during that time that I have been doing this, I’m now more convinced than ever before that for the rest of the various different interactions email is as bad as it can get. So why don’t we see that with a story? With a hilarious one actually. One of those scenarios that I am sure everyone can relate to, because we may all have experienced it a couple of times already. Perhaps far too often even!

No, not to worry, I won’t try to kill e-mail right away (Like I said, I still see the value of it. Very much so!), I am way beyond that level. What I’m going to share with you is a story that will explain, very nicely, why its misuse keeps falling short of everyone’s expectations as a powerful collaborative and knowledge sharing tool.

Actually, it’s not one story, but three. All coming from the same source, my fellow IBM colleague Jean Francois Chenier, who over the last few weeks has put together a series of video clips under the heading "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections", demonstrating, very effectively, why email does not cut it any more in our current collaboration landscape.

If you remember, I have already blogged about episodes #1 (See "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections – On the Misuse of Email" for more information) and #2 (See "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections – On the Business Case for Corporate Blogging" for more details) and it is now the turn of episode #3: "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections — Collaborating Effectively through Wikis".

In this particular video clip put together by Jean Francois, and over the course of nearly 6 minutes, you will see that particular scenario where I was mentioning what group collaboration has been all along (Not a pleasant experience, as you’re about to watch. Quite the opposite!), and what it would be like by making use of something so relatively simple as a wiki. Yes, a wiki. That online web collaborative space where people can keep adding content top of each other’s content in a very open and transparent manner.

Not to worry, I’m not going to spoil the contents of the video for you. I would just ask you to sit back, relax, and watch through it. Not only will you be nodding, like crazy, all along agreeing with most of the various different points that are made throughout the video, but you will also have a really good laugh. Once again Jean Francois has done a terrific job in describing, very faithfully, some of the most fundamental flaws behind email as a collaboration tool, in my opinion. But I will let you go and watch the clip, so that you can have a look and judge for yourself:

So, after watching all the three different episodes I’m sure you will probably understand a little better why I still keep going further with this endeavour of living "A World Without Email"; not really because of email itself as a system to communicate effectively, but more because I don’t feel it is very good as a tool that will allow me to collaborate, share my knowledge across and innovate with all knowledge workers and my peers. More than anything else now, because we have been misusing it all along! And in cases pretty badly, too!

And that’s just what I keep fighting against. Not the tool itself, but how we keep on misusing it, left and right, to no avail. So, over 19 months ago, it was about time for me to say "STOP! Think before you fire a new memo. There may be a better way. Let’s find it! Together!" And after having said that, even more, after having lived through it all along till today, there is no way that I would go back! No way!

I saw the light. I saw how I stopped getting headaches, or getting stressed repeatedly for something that was always out of my control or having that strong sense of not being productive enough (Because my inbox was being used as a delegation machine by the rest of the world! Literally!) and so forth! Just like the man in the video I learned to stop worrying about email and eventually moved away to more proper collaboration and knowledge sharing tools: social software.

(Like I said, I will be responding to Andy’s blog post with a bit more detail later on this week… for now let’s go and enjoy "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections" — episode #3 and see how much you could relate to the story shared… Or not.)

Tags: Andy McAfee, YouTube, Videos, Jean Francois Chenier, IBM Lotus Connections, Lotus Connections, Connections, Wikis, Group Collaboration, Web 2.0, 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, Bill French

Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch

If you ask some people out there what social computing and social software are all about for them, they would probably tell you that it’s all about the tools, about this new set of social technologies, about all that fancy stuff that you can do on the Internet nowadays in a much simpler and more effective manner, without being too technical for that matter. In short, they would probably tell you about a new set of social tools that have transformed the Web as we know it making it much more open and participatory for everyone.

And they may be right. Why not? For me though, as I have been mentioning over here in this blog for a long while now, it is a whole lot more than just tools. Or technologies. To me, social computing within the enterprise is about everything, but the tools. It’s a philosophical and social corporate movement, a lifestyle, a new way of connecting and interacting with people, both inside and outside of the firewall; one where the main focus is not on the technology itself, but on the people behind it.

Yes, I’m talking about culture. Indeed, it’s all about a cultural shift, one that is starting to take the corporate world by storm at multiple levels, going from a grassroots bottom-up approach all the way to a top down executive level. If you ask me, I would even venture to state that is unstoppable at this point in time. We are probably far too immersed in it already to just want to back out of it altogether. So if it were just about technology itself, we probably could have done it already, but since the change is much more profound, like I said, I don’t think there is a way back. And that’s a good thing.

So I thought that today I will put together this blog post to start talking about something that it’s been on my mind for a while and which touches base on how receptive, open and collaborative the culture of a particular business needs to be in order to adopt and embrace social software. There are a couple of blog posts out there that I would want to reference on this topic, but I still haven’t finalised my thoughts about neither of them.

Yet last week I bumped into another YouTube video that brought back that conversation into my mind of how collaborative your corporate culture needs to be in order to embrace these social tools. And while I finalise that entry, I just mentioned above, I thought I would put together this blog post sharing that video to give you some hints as to where that follow-up conversation will be heading to, and what my two cents on the topic would be so far.

And it all starts with a rather provocative statement: "Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch". Funny, I’m just going to be linking to a YouTube video that talks about culture and strategy on the same sentence. Quite an oxymoron, don’t you think? Yet it’s social computing the glue that would make it stick together and make sense of it all, especially if you want to have a much more open, transparent and collaborative culture within your company that aligns, at the same time, quite nicely with your own business strategy.

I tell you, this is one of those videos that will make you think for a little while on the topic. It surely has done that with me after I watch it through. It lasts two minutes and 24 seconds and I’m certain that it would do the same to you… In fact, after watching it, I just couldn’t help thinking how important the corporate culture will be for every single business on their successful adoption of social software.

Specially, if that collaborative nature already pre-exists before embracing these social tools. But again, not going to reveal much more till that other follow up and upcoming blog post. Instead, here is the embedded video I would want to share with you folks now to then open up the conversation for a future series of blog posts… on Social Computing, Business Strategy, Culture and how we could combine them all into a single corporate entity… Nice and exciting challenge, eh?

(Video clip courtesy of Coffman Organization)

Tags: Philosophical Movement, Lifestyle, People, Culture, Strategy, Business, Business Imperatives, Enterprise, YouTube, Videos, Coffman Organization, 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