chieftech’s blog

I'm not a lot of things that people might assume. For example, I'm not that much of a technologist that I can't see when technology fails. Often it's the little things that hurt and I have a mistrust of anything labelled self-service ("self-service for whom? Me or the guy I've just entered that data for?").

Take the case of my local train station. It has a ticket machine that accepts $50 notes, but will only give change up to about $20. Unfortunately the cost of a peak return ticket to Sydney is itself only just a little over $20. And there I was with my crsip, new $50 fresh from the ATM.

I had already watched some guy shoving in $2 coins this morning for his ticket, but the machine rejected them all. It accepts coins but decided it didn't like his.

Luckily for both of us there is a HTBBCS in place at this station. What's that? You don't know what HTBBCS is? But I think that you do... It's a "Human Technology Based Business Continuity Strategy". Or in this situation better known as, A Bloke with some Change.
A Bloke with some Change is needed because if you travel without a ticket you naturally risk a getting a fine from a ticket inspector. You see the technology doesn't fail everyone often enough that it can be accepted as an excuse, but it's not reliable enough to not have the Bloke with some Change.

It could of course be better - they could accept other forms of payment - but you know what, I quite like the Bloke with some Change. In a way he is a much better class of technology because he is multipurpose - he can tell you when the next train is due for a start or why it's running late. Old Mr Ticket Machine just looks blank if you ask him anything.

In the past you had two choices with information technology - pretend it is perfect, or accept it's imperfections (and in many case, this becomes a factor in adoption failure). Today, social computing can help fill that gap. It's not going to solve every problem of course, but in some cases it might just be your Bloke with some Change at a point of failure in your systems and processes. Customer service comes to mind, but there are so many other possibilities.

The Enterprise 2.0 Conference is a Wizard of Oz event for me - I don't mean I'm the Tin Man waiting for a Dorothy to take me down the Yellow Brick Road to Boston, but like many of these overseas conferences it looks like a magical place that I can just glimpse far, far away on the horizon. I actually haven't been following it that closely this year - I've been far to consumed with my own projects and helping to push our local Government 2.0 agenda with events like Public Sphere and Us Now Sydney (have you got your tickets yet for the 9th?). However, I have enjoyed reading a couple of summary posts from Gil Yehuda, particularly installment 1 and installment 2 of the 3 he has posted so far.

I particularly like his point about the frustration of hearing yet more “motherhood and apple-pie” lessons about E2.0. He also writes:

We need to further clarify what we mean when we say Enterprise 2.0. It started to get pretty slippery at times. I heard about many Web 2.0 concepts.  But fewer Enterprise perspectives. Yes, they were there. And indeed those were the highlights of the show. But I'm not going out there and telling businesses that they should allow intranet access to Facebook and YouTube in order to make their workers more productive. Really now. We're inspired by Web 2.0, but we have to bring it to the work context.

I had always hoped that we might see a guiding light coming from the father of Enterprise 2.0 on these matters. I know he has a book coming out and all that (which is great, as its still likely to be essential reading as a primer on the topic) but as the idea of enterprise social computing evolves, I find that I'm still looking but failing to find any new magic in these ideas. Perhaps however its just a case of the concept maturing and that we do understand it enough. Maybe its simply time to stop thinking about it and just take action?

I noticed Susan writing about the Enterprise 2.0 Conference that:

Yes, the baby was born in '06, started crawling in '07, and now is running around like a maniac with boundless energy in '09. The Enterprise 2.0 movement is now a healthy child, growing stronger and more willful every day (just a cabinet door away from getting into trouble...)

Perhaps, what people are gradually learning as Enterprise 2.0 grows up - just like Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion - is that they don't really need any more magic and that they actually do have the brains, heart, and courage to make it happen if they try. Some where over the rainbow indeed?

What do you think?

At the end of tonight's conversation cafe, I asked everyone to tell me what was the most important or interesting thing they had heard - this is that list:

• Care and motivation
• Copy (reuse) what people are doing overseas
• Government 2.0 could really be described as “Government Party” - inspiring things can happen when people meet
• Government 2.0 gives people that care a voice
• Government 2.0 is about maintaining relationships, not occasional engagements or consultations with people
• Government 2.0 is not a brand new idea, its just that government is the last to adopt these ideas. We need to show them examples
• Government 2.0 needs a purpose
• Government 2.0 should make things easy for the user (and they might use government online more)
• Government 2.0 will happen despite government
• Government simply using Web 2.0 is not Government 2.0 - it must include participation and decision making
• How do we include people (digital divide) - social networking could be the way in
• How do we make Government 2.0 accessible
• If people feel valued, they will contribute
• Innovation involves failure
• Its the manner in which Government 2.0 is introduced (behaviour change)
• Not about us and them - we are the government
• Putting a value on knowledge
• What will be the impact of the current economic environment vs the vision of Government 2.0
• We need critical mass to be effective
• What’s the motivation for transparency?
• What’s the motivation?

I haven't done any analysis or sorting of these just yet, but feel free to add any immediate comments (or corrections if any of these are your points) you might have.

At the KM Forum tonight...