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

Silence of Love and the Power of Storytelling

There are plenty of various different reasons as to why, for the last few years, I have been really excited about the emergence of social software tools within the corporate environment and beyond, but there is one in particular that keeps getting my attention, time and time again, as it has been helping bridge a number of various different disciplines letting them feed, each and everyone of them, from the same source to perhaps become eventually one and the same. Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Social Computing, Learning and so forth are coming along nicely, at long last, looking for a common identity that would reflect a purpose within a work context and it looks like Storytelling is helping big time become the unifier business component a good bunch of us have been looking forward to from all along to boost the way we share our knowledge and collaborate also within the workplace environment: that is, through (beautiful) stories.

At this point in time I think it is undeniable the Power of Storytelling in helping knowledge workers not only transfer their knowledge effectively across with others, but also learn plenty more along the way. There have been lots of great write-ups and insightful articles along these terms on the many reasons why storytelling helps make messages stick, but the truth is that telling stories is not something new and related just to social computing. Quite the opposite: “Since the first humans gathered around a fire, we have been telling stories“. In fact, “telling stories is fundamental to how we make sense of this often confusing world, how construct our identities, and how we tell each other who we are“, as Sarah Jansen wrote beautifully over at the Zahmoo blog a couple of months back.

I, too, have been blogging, just recently, about storytelling and creative work, about what makes a good story and how to share it across or about the power of storytelling and narrative in helping businesses realise their true full potential of the amazing talent their knowledge workers have and how to make the best out of it by helping (re)surface conversations, stories, experiences, know-how that, for a long while, have been hidden away in people’s heads. And now, slowly, but steadily, and thanks to the wonderful work of social tools, we are witnessing how storytelling is no longer a dirty word, but pretty much a highly recommended activity to engage in, whether internally or externally.

So I thought that for today’s blog post I would ahead and highlight how powerful some stories can well be to not just share your knowledge across, as well as embrace a rather fascinating learning activity coming along nicely, but also about how they involve something that is pretty much unique to us, human beings, which is emotions. Rather touching emotions in most cases. Like this week’s Inspiring Video of the Week.

Now, I am not going to say much more about this precious little gem that lasts for a bit over 3 minutes, other than ask you to stop whatever you may be doing at this very moment, sit back, relax, and hit the Play button. And prepare yourself to be wowed and touched in plenty of special places! Perhaps places you never thought you would have them, any longer, anywhere near you. Yet, after watching it, I am sure you will get to enjoy and treasure them just as much as you used to up to not so long ago.

This is perhaps one of my all time favourite Inspiring Videos of the Week, and I am certain that, after you watch it, you will know why. Compelling, touching, mind-blowing are some of the words that surely fall short in describing how wonderfully delightful it is and what powerful messages it conveys throughout! Get ready, here it comes!:

So, what do you think? Do you still feel that storytelling, whether work related, or not, doesn’t have any business purposes within today’s corporate world? Silence of Love surely is going to help us all get rid of that assumption and start figuring out ways of how we are going to incorporate telling stories and narrative into our long term strategy of becoming a powerful Social Enterprise. Something tells me we would all be much better off…

How Playing Games at Work Can Help Boost Your Productivity

I am not sure whether folks may have noticed it, or not, but it surely looks like every couple of years, or so, we keep having an influx of articles, blog posts, mainstream media items, etc. etc. on how more and more businesses are continuing to block the use of social software tools inside of the firewall, just because they feel their employee workforce may be goofing around more than they should. In fact, they shouldn’t at all! So, once again, we go for the easy way out and, instead of figuring out what we could do to address and fix that concern, once and for all, we are witnessing how companies decide to go ahead with the blockage of the Social Web, just because they believe their knowledge workers are no longer as productive as what they should. It’s starting to get pretty boring, and rather disappointing, after all of these years, don’t you think?

I mean, that’s only half of the equation, isn’t it? Yes, of course, there will be a group of knowledge workers, on every company out there, who would try to find any means of not wanting to do their jobs and, instead, do something else. And not just with the Social Web. We have been experiencing this very same concern back in the day with email, Instant Messaging, the Internet, the water cooler, etc. etc.;  all of them having been blamed, over the course of decades, for being responsible as well for people’s lack of productivity and for getting us all far too distracted from real work. And, lately, it looks like the next victim from that group is gaming or playing games at work. Like Angry Birds.

Now, I think you would all agree with me that group of folks who are always finding an excuse to wriggle themselves from their daily work duties are much more of a profound problem with HR itself, and, specially, with the methods they may employ to hire new employees, supposedly, as hard working professionals. Perhaps they may not. So why do we keep blaming technology, and this time around, the Social Web in particular, as the main culprit that keeps enticing knowledge workers into goofing around activities? And now, we have got a new layer … With all of the buzz going on about gamification, it looks like the latest scapegoat to help prevent employees from becoming more productive is playing games. But what happens *if* playing games actually makes you *more* productive?

That’s the rather thought-provoking idea behind one of my favourite futurists out there: Ross Dawson, who, just recently, put together this rather insightful blog entry (Under the heading “Angry Birds and productivity at work: why distractions can help“) where he comes to share how “people who browsed the Web in work breaks were more productive than those who continued working or did other things on their break“, quoting a recent piece of research under the suggestive title “Impact of Cyberloafing on Psychological Engagement“. Just think of it, what would happen if, indeed, playing games at work would make us all more productive, as a way to provoke an interruption in what we are doing at that particular moment to help us break through on a potential issue, or problem, we may be facing and for which we don’t have a solution just yet? And then, when occupying our minds with something else that allows us to trigger our thinking braincells… bang! we find the solution to our problem?!?

Isn’t that quite something? Now, let’s face it. How many times have we been in that use case scenario ourselves, that I have just described above, specially, while on those long working days we keep adding further up time and time again and in which we would eventually need some kind of distraction to help us re-focus, address whatever the showstopper may well be and move on to the next thing… with the problem solved? I am not sure about you folks, but I have got moments like those pretty often, specially, while working on a virtual, distributed environment of multiple projects, multiple teams, multiple tasks at hand, but all of them ending up, always, with the same deadline. Sometimes it pays off to step back, relax, do something that doesn’t have anything to do with what you got stuck with in the first place, let your brain do its magic, find that solution, apply it, and move along, once again. The Social Web is brilliant at doing this. Just as well as playing games.

Believe it or not, I am not much of an Angry Birds fan; instead, I play Words with Friends. Why? Mainly, because, first, it gives me an opportunity to unwind, relax doing something else, while my brain keeps thinking of a solution to something I may have gotten stuck with, and eventually be done with the interruption having another problem fixed, but, also, secondly, because playing games at work allows me to build further on my social trust with my peers, customers, thought leaders, friends, you name it, as I have blogged about in the recent past.

Yes, indeed, the key message in here is how are we going to handle our interruptions, while at work. Having too few is perhaps not such a good thing, since we all need to come to terms with the fact that we can’t work and be consistently productive 8 hours straight. However, having too many is not such a good thing either, since it would probably become far too complex, over time, to stay focus while trying to achieve something. However, when looking into this more in detail, we may need, perhaps, some new, fresh thinking to apply and help us solve the issue with interruptions. Something that I have already talked about last week and which my good friend, Harold Jarche commented on, brilliantly!, on Ross’ blog entry: Measure your knowledge workers by the results they deliver, i.e. their overall performance, and not by their sheer presence at work, or how many hours they put together behind them day in day out.

To quote Harold, since I think he pretty much nailed it, as far as I am concerned, on what I do strongly believe needs to happen within the corporate world, and beyond, if we would all want to facilitate, embrace and live the upcoming Era of the Social Enterprise:

“What’s wrong with playing all day? We need to discard the Taylorist notions that time is money. Results are money. If I play all day and bring in more revenue than my peers who don’t play why would you want to stop me? A results oriented work environment gets rid of this notion of time for money. It doesn’t work in a creative economy” [Emphasis mine]

So, to close off this post, every time that someone comes up to me and shares that influx of news items, blog entries, or whatever else about companies banning social media tools, I just can’t help but share this blog post I put together a little while ago on “Top 10 Reasons to Ban Social Media in the Organisation! — Really?“, which comes to reference this excellent resource put together by Jane Hart that confirms that instead of going the easy way out and keep blocking these social tools, we should perhaps, and finally!, do another piece of research or study on the impact of NOT having social software tools, or games, to build trust, connect, collaborate and share your knowledge with your peers, customers and business partners.

Something tells me that study would actually be rather revealing, if not too shocking altogether! And that’s probably the main reason why we haven’t done it just yet. Too scary of the real impact of not living social to help you become more productive at what you do, regardless of the interruption(s).

How the Social Enterprise Defines the 21st Century Workplace – Moving To The Edge

This is not the first, nor the second time, and I am sure there will be a third time, and many more!, at some point, that I have either heard or read about something that I would think would make pretty upset all of those folks who work on the Internet or with technology in general. Yes, I am referring to the so-called Knowledge Web Workers. Specially, those folks who have made the Social Web their new home. Indeed, in a rather thought-provoking, but very inspiring, article, Douglas Rushkoff comes to question whether we are witnessing the end of jobs as we have known them for centuries and whether we are pretty much experiencing the birth of a unknown need, till now, of a renewed model of jobs. In Are Jobs Obsolete? Douglas keeps questioning whether technology (And the (Social) Web) are part of the main problem we have been having over the last few years in the jobs market with having less and less of them. In a way, not his words, but mine, plenty of folks feel one of the culprits why the jobs market is not recovering fast enough is because of Enterprise 2.0. Or the Social Enterprise.

And in a way, they do have a good point. With the emergence of social software tools and the Social Enterprise, reducing costs, generating more sales leads, improving knowledge flows, faster problem solving, rampant innovation, retaining top talent, keeping current employee workforce happier and more engaged with much lower attrition rates, are some of the very attractive reasons for employers out there to pay attention to social and try to make the best out of it, without having to hire more human talent. Why would you want to hire more people when your current workforce has tripled their productivity, as well as their customer satisfaction, by using social software tools, don’t you think? And right there we have got the main problem. Knowledge workers are not getting hired, because social computing tools are helping solve most of the companies’ problems / issues without having to spend extra money on hiring new resources.

The reality though is quite different. And rather refreshing altogether! Perhaps what could be needed and we just didn’t know about it from before. What employers are doing, and facilitating big time altogether!, is the creation of an Army of Social Intra/Entrepreneurs, who mingle amongst each other, both inside and outside of the firewall, so the traditional concept of a company’s walls are no longer there, fully networked and wired into a complex matrix of personal (business) relationships, that are going to define work for themselves without even, if it needs to be, counting on those employers in the long run. Allow me to explain… They have got everything they need: the skills, the knowledge, the time, the energy, effort and support from others, their extensive and ever expanding networks, and something else that is starting to emerge big time and which, right now, seems unstoppable: plenty of free idle time to do what they have been passionate about all along. And that may, or may not, be related to work.

And this is exactly the point that Douglas makes beautifully in his article. The fact that our traditional concept of work, the one we have been living under over the last few decades, and, which in most cases has been dictated upon us by others without us having much of a say about it, is starting to decline and leave its way behind into a new model of work. One where the traditional corporate environment and the traditional mindless jobs are being overtaken by what a bunch of folks would now call Knowledge (Web) Work.

I remember having read in the past some piece of research (I wish I could have bookmarked it, when I was going through it!) that claimed how amazingly good we are, as human beings, when we have got plenty of idle time in our hands, instead of the traditional job / work, in order to create something new. Whatever that something would be. In fact, some employers are already facilitating some of this themselves by allowing their employees to spend some time out of their own work doing something else. Totally unrelated with their jobs, and perhaps more aligned to their personal passion(s) they would want to pursue further. And time and time again it has been proved to have worked wonders.

So if jobs are becoming obsolete, as we have known them for a long while, and it is starting to look like that!, and we keep building those armies of socially networked intra/entrepreneurs, there is something else that the Social Web, and the Social Enterprise, are helping provoke within the corporate environment: a transition away from measuring performance by your sheer presence and instead measuring that same performance based on the results you provide and deliver, resulting in the elimination of the traditional work hours.

Matthew Ingram describes it himself beautifully in a recent blog post over at GigaOm under the heading “Do we need defined hours of work any more?” and that my good friend, the always inspiring and KM blogger extraordinaire, Bill Ives, developed further under “Do We Need Defined Work Hours?” as well. Indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects of social computing within the enterprise is how it has helped knowledge workers, AND their employers, realise how it’s much more beneficial to measure business results than the hours you put at work while at the office in a place nearby your boss, so that he / she can see you are working away like crazy, when perhaps you may not well be.

I am sure there would be plenty of you folks out there confirming how even though this may well be the current trend it may not be extended enough to appear across the business world, and I would agree with you that may well be the case; maybe, because there will be companies out there that have not started their way just yet to live social, but, eventually, they will. They probably won’t have much of a choice. And the main reason being, I would probably venture to state, it’s due to that socially networked army of Intra/Entrepreneurs that keeps getting bigger and bigger by the day as they themselves keep re-defining the current workforce of the 21st century based on the networking relationships they keep building, cultivating and nurturing over the course of time.

The Trust Agents, the Wild Ducks. The ones who understand that the future of work, their work, is to probably move around the edges, or towards the edges, as my good friend, Harold Jarche put together, rather nicely, a couple of months back under “The 21st century workplace: moving to the edge” with golden gems like this one:

“The 21st century workplace, with its growing complexity due to our interconnectivity, requires that we focus on new problems and exception-handing. This increases the need for collaboration (working together on a problem) and cooperation (sharing without any specific objective).

One challenge for organizations is getting people to realize that what they know has little value. How to solve problems together is becoming the real business imperative. Sharing and using knowledge is where business value lies [...]“

And that’s why those companies that have decided to become social enterprises and empower their knowledge workers to fully live social have already gotten started the path of preparing, facilitating and embracing the knowledge workforce of the future where work will be defined, and carried out by themselves, without having a traditional job, without having defined work hours, with a relevant work life integration that really matches their needs and in an environment where facing complexity and chaos in problem solving, ideation and exception-handling (Read further Harold’s take on that to see where we are all heading…) is going to bring innovation further up into a new level: networked, interconnected, collaborative, open, transparent, knowledge sharing based, engaging and empowering on delivering excelling business results and no longer that sheer presence we have just gotten too used to over the course of decades.

The main challenge remains though for all businesses out there: what are you doing to help prepare and facilitate that army of socially networked Intra/Entrepreneurs, both internal and external? Those who know your company best, your business and your customer base inside out, those who have got all of the knowledge, experience, know-how, skills, AND networks, to help you, as a business, survive in the 21st century? Because, something tells me that if you, as a business, are not ready just yet to help facilitate that change, and be well prepared for it, they will be moving on eventually … and won’t be looking back.

After all, they already have their jobs, their work hours, their passion and motivation to do the work and their extended networks. Basically, the work they themselves have defined over the course of time. With or without you. What shall it be?