the open society & its frenemies (1)

Been thinking a lot about government recently.

I quite like free-market competition. I'm not convinced that many people do though. Labour unions don't like it. Many business people don't like it - they would rather have a cosy, lucrative monopoly (e.g. Bill Gates or Steve Jobs). We like competition with the proviso that we win - and everyone knows that a competition where the winner is known before the start is not really a competition.

As tempting as this position is, I believe some form of competition is good for our us - in part because competition is wired into our natures. Of course, cooperation is too. At best we find ourselves driven by a productive tension. We might as well channel our competitive & cooperative desires into something helpful rather than destructive.

We need a free(ish) market (that includes organisations driven by both profit and/or concern). But we also need strong, effective government. If all these people are competing all over the place then someone has to call them out when they try to do something stupid - because they will, they are human. Self-regulation only works when there are reciprocal ties between organisations and their stakeholders - otherwise the temptation to cheat is just too strong.

But the government may also cock things up - so we have to make it as accountable as we can. Governments should thank us for limiting their power (as an alcoholic should thank the person who hides their booze stash) but that's not human nature either.

So we need to ensure that everyone is accountable to someone. The price of freedom is eternal pickiness.

Who are you accountable to? If you can't answer that question then you'd better find someone soon.

stabilisers

Luke was at the Enterprise 2.0 thang this morning and I caught up with him afterwards.

We talked about the governance / structure issues for social software activities inside the firewall. You want a little structure (policies, templates, limited usage) to begin with. Kinda like the stablisers (AKA training wheels)on this kid's bike. And then at some point you might want to take the structures away (or at least reduce them), because they are actually slowing you down. Now the first thing that happens when you take the stabilisers away is that the kid falls off the bike. And when this happens we learn our lesson and put an even bigger set of stabilisers on the bike and NEVER TAKE THEM OFF AGAIN. Don't we?

Well, we don't. We make sure the first time we take the stabilisers off, our kid is biking across nice, soft grass with nothing dangerous nearby. And we watch them fall off. And if each time we try this, the kid gets more stable then we breathe a sigh of relief. A few kids should never learn to cycle properly but they are in the minority.

Now my concern is that as we implement E2.0 tech and reduce the governance (coz we'll have to), a few incidents will occur and we'll swing back into clamp-down mode. This would be a bad thing. Plan for mistakes to be made. And make sure that the grass is nice and soft.

Collaboration tools

James Robertson has been thinking about collaboration tools. Which is interesting because I have as well. As ever, James is practical & clear in his thinking and suggests a 5 phase model (0-4) for organisations thinking about collaboration. So here are the phases and my responses to them:

Phase 0: Fragmentation
As the usage of collaboration tools grows in an unmanaged and unconsidered way, so does the "fragmentation" of information. Key information is divided into ever-smaller spaces, locked up out of broad use, generating considerable information management and knowledge management problems. (This is not a search problem.)

Agree with this - and not only the fragmentation of information but the fragmentation of activities, relationships, etc. N.B. This is bad.

Phase 1: Gardening
The starting point is to identify an overall owner for the collaboration tools, and to put in place simple governance, policies and management. Rather than trying to restrict usage, the approach is one of "gardening", helping to guide usage , connect the dots and identify best practices.

Also broadly agree with this. Except that gardening might be the wrong word. This is about identifying the existing collaboration tools within an organisation. What they are. Who uses what. What activities they are used for. And then how these different tools might fit together. And where the gaps between them might be. Something like mapping perhaps? The concept of guiding usage is critical here - "Just enough governance".

Phase 2: Business solutions
The next step is to identify key (and common) needs, and build solutions that are tailored to meet them. In this way, clear user needs can guide how to bring together different solutions (wikis, blogs, lists) into more coherent solutions. Possible targets include project collaboration, teaching or e-learning, collaborative authoring, communities of practice or research.

Nothing to disagree with here. Using the map to produce repeatable toolsets.

Phase 3: Rich networks
Organisation-wide collaboration will only be achieved with the silos are broken down between different spaces. This involves recognising the difference between "inwards" and "outwards" facing spaces, and putting in place processes for sharing and linking between them.

Now many organisations are currently in phases 0 & 1. Several are starting to move to phase 2. Are there any out there that have reached phase 3? These rich networks will almost certainly be a federated model.

Phase 4: Coherence
This is the end goal, where there is coordination between the collaboration spaces at all levels, accessed through a personalised portal-like interface. The lines between different "tools" is blurred, creating a single working environment. (There's a lot to be done before anyone can reach this state.)

I look at phase 4 and go "yeah, right". The collaboration tool space is changing very quickly at the moment. Phase 4 feels like a utopia at the moment. And given this dynamic environment, a very unlikely utopia. I think many organisations have enough on their plate trying to get to phase 3. I would feel nervous talking about phase 4 because I can just see a senior exec going: "This sounds great, I want one of these by the end of the month!" and mayhem ensuing. What is more likely in the next 1-3 years are rich networks (collaborative ecosystems) and then richer networks - with tools dropping in and out. "Coherence" feels way too static to me as a goal at the moment.

What do you think?

Enterprise 2.0 Questions & Answers

So when you start talking about Enterprise 2.0 stuff, certain questions keep coming up. Here are some of the ones that I have heard from people in different organisations.

• Have you heard similar ones?
• Which other ones have you heard?
• Do my answers make sense?
• Do you have better answers?

1. We've had Forums / Lotus Notes around for ages. What's new about these tools?

Some social media technologies have been around for a over a decade. What is new is their pervasiveness on the internet and the way they are now leveraged to make connections. They are significantly simpler than previous enterprise collaboration technologies. However some (e.g. podcasts, social networking software) are genuinely new in the corporate environment.

2. Will these tools by themselves make people collaborate?

Implementing a wiki will not lead to collaboration by itself. However the simplicity of these tools can provide very usable platforms for groups (teams, communities, directorates) to achieve their collaborative goals.

3. Are they just fads?

Some deployments of these tools are faddish. However, many organisations are experimenting with them and seeing benefits. The longevity of some of these tools (e.g. blogs have been around for over 10 years) suggests there is more to them than "cool" value.

4. Do they fit into our IT architecture?

They certainly can. Our IT architecture should not quash experimentation & innovation but it should position it correctly. "Just enough" governance of these tools is a critical part of their implementation.

5. Won't more tools just confuse people?

If we are not clear on its role then any new tool is confusing. If there is a clear role for a new tool then we need to communicate it to potential users and position it next to other tools. This is another governance issue.

6. Are their security risks associated with these tools?

If they are implemented poorly there could be a security risk but then this is true for any communications technology. If users are clear on what they should and should not share then security risks are minimal.

7. How will we manage all this content?

Some social media tools promote content management (e.g. folksonomies & social networking software) through non-traditional means. From a broader perspective, we need to examine the findability for all of its content – not just social media. Robust search and analytics tools are critical for effective management of these resources.

Wiki reliance

About a month ago, I was talking to a friend involved with wikis & collaboration at a major corporate. The thorny issue of "governance" came up. What do you need to manage with a wiki. Now part of this relates to the previous post around where wikis fit in with the plethora of other collaboration tools that most organisations have. The other issue is one of "reliance". So if a group (a team or a community) is using a wiki for their own purposes, that's OK. If other people come to rely on their content in a major way, does this then need to be managed more tightly. What do you do about "reliance"? Do you end up moving from the left to the right of the "after" diagram here. And if so, how do you make that decision?

Now if your organisation has decided that your wiki is your intranet, not really an issue. The thought that came to my mind was: viewer metrics are key here. If you have a team of 10 people working on something and only 10 people visit those pages, no worries. If 10,000 people visit those pages then that may indicate that this stuff is becoming important. And hey, it might even be worth investing in developing this content more.

What do you think?