rationality and randomness http://awmitchell.posterous.com a personal blog of eclectic interests posterous.com Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:23:16 -0800 6 reasons to encourage enterprise conversations with collaborative platforms http://awmitchell.posterous.com/6-reasons-to-encourage-enterprise-conversatio http://awmitchell.posterous.com/6-reasons-to-encourage-enterprise-conversatio

(version française)

Bertrand Duperrin explains in a quite remarkable post the risk of backslash when using standard web 2.0 key words while presenting social networks to a new audience. The reason is : there could be some misunderstanding from the audience.

Among these key words : Conversation. Bertrand exposes the issue  :

Try to tell a manager, who’s been fighting againtst chattings that are synonymous with wasted time and bad productivity for years, that his staff now need to have conversations, and, even worse, that his role is to stimulate these conversations….and look at the manager’s face

6 reasons to bring management and the enterprise conversation back together. And to use collaborative platforms to foster the latter.

1 – Conversation = units of knowledge

I have been working in the IT industry for about 20 years. Whatever the country, the industry or the size of the organization, I have always found myself facing this problem : how to capture these priceless bits of information floating around and share them in an efficient way ?

How to foster these coffee machines or telephone discussions where experts talk about the best way to solve a particular problem and help a customer within a specific context ?

Management always has proposed the same solution : bloated Knowledge Management systems and well structured Word documents with corporate templates. Even though this tends to reassure management, nobody uses this system or write those documents because it’s frustrating.

It’s frustrating to write a 10+ pages document for one unit of knowledge.  Not to mention the actual Knowledge Management system that is so complicated that most people are terrorized with the idea of logging onto it.

Reason #1: Within conversations lie many units of knowledge that the company need to capture. It is easier, more direct and far less intimidating to capture these on collaborative platform tools such as Wikis or Forums. And it’s then easier for other people to find them afterwards.

2- Knowledge Management  !=  Documents Management

I was giving a training to some U.S call-center colleagues back then. One of them, Billy-Bob, told me this : When the client calls for a problem, depending on the area where the problem occurs, I forward them to the right document and give the polite RTFM Directive (Read That F***ing Manual). Because, hey, all documents are available online.

Except that, as part of the training, they have to configure a database. Billy-Bob encountered a problem and although the document describing the database configuration was open right before his very eyes on his PC desktop, he directly googled the symptoms (I.e error code) to see what it was. I asked him what he was doing and gave him some RTFM. Which had everybody laughing. Everybody but him, of course.

Reason #2 : When a knowledge worker looks for some information in the 21st century, he uses a web browser to search various types of network documents. Collaborative platforms offer single entry point and search engine on company knowledge (Wikis, Forums, Blogs, documents …).

3 – Conversational communication is more efficient

In one of her many unmissable posts at Creating Passionate Users, Kathy Sierra tells it all : Conversational writing kicks formal writing’s ass.

Kathy has been interested in cognitive science as she suffers epilepsy. So she knows what she talks about : you can see the result of her study on the topic in the amazing Head Firt Series IT industry self-teaching books.

In the blog post, she mentions a study published in the  Journal of Educational Psychology, in which researchers found out that  :

Students who learned with personalized text performed better on subsequent transfer tests than students who learned with formal text. Overall, participants in the personalized group produced between 20 to 46 percent more solutions to transfer problems than the formal group.

According to Sierra, when pieces of information are communicated using a conversational tone (using You and I) the brain thinks it is in a conversation and become much more responsive and involved in the communication. 

Reason #3 : Communicating in a conversational style results in a much better quality of message transmission. Collaborative platforms have a native informal style and therefore nurture better quality communications.

4 – Conversational communication is key for leadership

We have already mentioned it here. Michel Crozier is a sociologist, expert in the study of the enterprise. His analysis (according to a french university lecture) of the tight relationship between the simplicity of the speech and the subsequent team support is rather interesting :

The more sophisticated and complex the communication, the more it sounds simplistic. While simple message appears as a source of wealth, because it allows individuals to make it their own and discuss freely. The involvement of experienced manager, the fact that everyone is convinced of his conviction helps to give considerable strength to a simple message.

I once had a great American CEO. He had a straight forward speech style, both bewildering and stimulating. During the open questions in General Meetings, he would encourage people to ask questions on and on, until the very last drop. He would then willingly answer, using this typically American laid back tone using We/You/I. This always resulted in giving a great feeling of proximity and stimulated employees engagement.

During my long career, I’ve hardly ever been so motivated and convinced by the company strategy than when I left his meetings. A feeling that was shared by my colleagues.

This is something that large companies are looking into. At Intel, for instance, most company executives have an internal blog, Paul Otellini – CEO – included. Thanks to this medium, they benefit from the disintermediation offered by the collaborative platforms and engage in conversations with potentially all employees, regardless of their role and position.

Reason #4 : Excutives speech with conversational tone help to establish leadership and contributes a great deal in engaging employees. Blogs is the perfect media for executives to engage into these company wide conversations.

5 – Fostering weak links

Thanks to collaborative platforms, coffee machine chats became global. In other words, the global conversation has started.

Rather than chatting with always the same colleagues, people we professionally hang out with, people we share the same knowledge with, we have broaden the conversation scope thanks to collaborative platforms on the internet. We now reach different people and roles. The exchange has become much more fruitful, for everybody’s benefit.

Mark Granoveter wrote a theory about this : the Strength of weak ties. The great benefit is innovation. While one confront ideas with always the same people, with the same knowledge and new innovative ideas seldom appear. On the other hand, these new ideas are much more likely to pop up when different people in the company, working in different areas, with different responsibilities engage and chat.

Reason #5 : The global conversation is encouraged by collaborative platforms. It leverages weak links and allows new ideas and new business opportunities to emerge.

6 – Make sense out of knowledge workers contribution

One of the great frustation and source of insecurity at work for knowledge workers is how difficult it is for them to see the actual result of their contribution in large projects.

We have this excellent developper in our team who has been working his ass off for 6 months building a fully integrated Installer for our PLM solution. PLM is an enterprise complex system involving many servers, different components etc … It is was a nightmare to install and configure. Johnny Boy made a great work automating our solution installation, hiding all the gory details of the configuration behind a smooth user interface.

A couple of weeks after the release of this installer, we had Peggy Sue, our lovely Marketing Events Manager storming into the office asking  Who the hell this Johnny Boy is ?

He rose his hand and she ran to him giving him the biggest hug in his professional career. She said : “Oh thank you so much. You made our life soooo easier with your great installer. You don’t have any idea how much this tool has changed our daily work in such a lovely way”.

No matter how much we, in the department, praised his remarkable work, nothing gave more sense to his contribution than this hug from someone he never heard of before, a person and a role he hardly knew they existed. The reason is : all of a sudden, with Peggy Sue hug and gratitude, he touched the reality of his contribution, his piece of software became a life changer. From that hug on, Johnny Boy dedication and commitment (which already were of higher standards) became unbelievable.

The global conversation on collaborative platforms facilitates this type of real life feedback from someone at the completely opposite end of the enterprise organization.

Reason #6 : The enterprise global conversation with collaborative platforms provides employees with a company wide perspective to their actual contribution, together with a real-life feedback. To paraphrase the stone cutter story, it helps turning knowledge stone worker into knowledge cathedral workers. This is a key factor (arguably the most important) to employee well-being and commitment.

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Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:38:57 -0700 Using Technology to Manage Costs | Above and Beyond KM http://awmitchell.posterous.com/using-technology-to-manage-costs-above-and-be http://awmitchell.posterous.com/using-technology-to-manage-costs-above-and-be
The first, and perhaps most important, category of tools will help a firm do the fundamental financial analysis that is necessary in order to understand exactly what it costs to deliver services and how to reduce those costs.  Here are some financial technologies mentioned by the panelists:

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/4aQUIzR5baEN Andrew Mitchell awmitchell Andrew Mitchell
Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:28:08 -0700 Disintegration due to knowledge failure can be instructive to others http://awmitchell.posterous.com/disintegration-due-to-knowledge-failure-can-b http://awmitchell.posterous.com/disintegration-due-to-knowledge-failure-can-b

  1. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Discussion continuing but I've had enough tweeting for now. 37 minutes ago from dabr    
  2. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Good question: "If this HAD had a happy ending, then what would the turning point have looked like?" 38 minutes ago from dabr    
  3. Tim-new_normal timbull Common solution to KM? Organisation wide drinks! #kmlf 39 minutes ago from UberTwitter    
  4. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Company also had failures in other divisions too. 41 minutes ago from dabr    
  5. Tim-new_normal timbull Learning about modes of KM - simple, well definef Vs complex, differentiated processes #kmlf 42 minutes ago from UberTwitter    
  6. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Company probably underquoted for project 2. On assumption that we know how to build ships. (Ignoring complexity of new products.) 43 minutes ago from dabr    
  7. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf So easy to lack visibility of embedded knoweldge. "Isn't it obvious." "Not if you haven't designed it." about 1 hour ago from web    
  8. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf A classic case where we need to know the difference between a Simple org and a Complex org. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  9. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Failing to understand and manage people and knowledge and culture led to destruction of organisational value. about 1 hour ago from web    
  10. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Arthur talking about experience of having USERS do integration testing. Key point of knowledge transfer. about 1 hour ago from web    
  11. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf let the people who are going to use the system, test the system about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  12. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf At least three $100K plus consultancies did not help. about 1 hour ago from web    
  13. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Saw cost of everything but didn’t value personal knowledge. about 1 hour ago from web    
  14. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Engineers understand tangible technology well – will buy it even if they don’t buy skills needed to use it. about 1 hour ago from web    
  15. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Failure to see people and culture as important. about 1 hour ago from web    
  16. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf "it's *absolutely critical* to document your failures" about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  17. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Absolutely critical to document failures. Only way knowledge is going to grow. Know what not to do, even if you don’t know what TO do. about 1 hour ago from web    
  18. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue (Ah, Twitter seems to be back again...) #kmlf about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  19. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Autopoietic organisation cannot survice without generating and using knowledge. about 1 hour ago from web    
  20. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf “..happy to give us a year’s salary to get us off their books. Nett result was to get rid of so much useful knowledge.” about 1 hour ago from web    
  21. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Swipe cards to get between project 1 and project 2. “for insurance reasons (save a few bucks)” about 1 hour ago from web    
  22. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf “.. we were told that there was no way managers would release staff for a couple of hours to listen to other staff tell war stories” about 1 hour ago from web    
  23. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Knowledge workers conditioned to "nose in furrow" mentality. Mgs selected new people rather than reuse knowledgeable staff. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  24. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf management never talked to the people who made the stuff...yet mgt was making the decisions about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  25. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Decision makers did not talk to knowledeable people. Were not encouraged to. Too much command and control. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  26. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Over-centralisation of decision making lead to decisions without understanding of implications (except financial). about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  27. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf The "nose in furrow" mentality of serial production does not work in a novel environment - no-one can see problems when they emerge. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  28. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Proj 2 decided to try to do it with simpler cheaper systems (than the methods they knew to work). about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  29. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf 'socialisation was seen as time wasting' - a toxic environment, not conducive to K sharing about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  30. Tim-new_normal timbull #kmlf Summary of Bills presentation - KM is organisational - slash middle mgmt or drive process TOO much, you destroy KM about 1 hour ago from UberTwitter    
  31. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf People with knowledge were very happy to share knowledge but they were not asked and the structure meant they wld not volunteer. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  32. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf Tacit networks will emerge if given time & not stifled. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  33. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Project 2 not started with right concepts. 5 months into 3 yr project they were already stuffed. (eg config management) about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  34. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf New project was very disparate - *no* serial production possible. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  35. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Major unpaid overtime, major morale issues, significant turnover. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  36. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf ... or met over lunch, after work, etc. Some people still tried to help others but no one was looking for major issues. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  37. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf sounds like micro management and focus on the 'beans' and heavy compliance killed the flow of K about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  38. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf Management brought in to manage "serial production" are not skilled to start up new projects. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  39. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf People started to need cost codes and signed approvals to talk to each other for half an hour. So people stopped talking. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  40. Tim-new_normal timbull #kmlf Strict time costing to the half hour, try 6 minute intervals. I dream of half hour! about 1 hour ago from UberTwitter    
  41. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Owners appointed exec-GM a "close-out" specialist to manage squeeze of last $$ out of serial production project. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  42. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf feral KM - no formal systems. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  43. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf 'Feral" = no formal systems whatsoever. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  44. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf 'feral knowledge management'...not a great thing to do! about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  45. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Documentation management was a MAJOR issue. Sorted out and worked OK. Via 'feral knowledge management' without exec knowledge. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  46. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Mostly managed by sub-contracts. Org had responsibilyt to deliver all IP, including for sub-contracted components. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  47. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf Money spent on a portal, but money for modules needed to make it work not spent, & *no* money or time spent training people to use it. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  48. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Project 1. A lot of problems were encountered but were solved with good relationships and communication. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  49. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Autopoesis - self organising, self creating system. Despite barriers. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  50. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Owners and management had no concept of people issues. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  51. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Project 1 not impacted by management. People left to do what they needed to do. Management were focused on acquisition. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  52. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Not (as externally reported) due to the in-fighting between two family owner groups. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  53. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Absentee owners. Sacking for failures. High management turnover. No change based on feedback. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  54. imgimgimgimg

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Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:20:46 -0700 Some brief points from KM Australia 2009 http://awmitchell.posterous.com/some-brief-points-from-km-australia-2009 http://awmitchell.posterous.com/some-brief-points-from-km-australia-2009

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/4aQUIzR5baEN Andrew Mitchell awmitchell Andrew Mitchell