The jury is still out on QR (or Action) Codes, but clearly we are entering a phase of not just randomly applying them but actively trying to educate users on how to make them work (23% have instructions about getting an app to scan the code and other information to encourage people to scan the code). That suggests a problem in itself, however if this is solved the next step will be to make the reward of scanning a code worthwhile.

Bear in mind I'm scanning the code with a smartphone or tablet, so from a user experience or service design perspective what and how do I as a consumer want to do next?

I've previously mentioned Kai's research work looking at enterprise microblogging with Yammer in companies like Cap Gemini and Deloitte. Kai has now developed a model, called the Social Network Emergence Process which he describes in this post. There is also a link to a more detailed working paper and overview presentation.

Back in September, with the release of Atlassian Confluence 4.0, I thought the new text editor was one of the particular highlights of this major version update.

Now with the release of 4.1 this week, there are further improvements to the new rich text editor including:

• Build richer pages, faster with Autoconvert (it automatically embeds content like Confluence pages, YouTube videos, Skitch images, Flickr photo streams, Vimeo videos, and Google maps when you paste a link). 
• Enhance documentation with Image Effects (see the screenshot). 
• Make bulk changes to pages with Find & Replace.

As well as enhancements to Confluence, the fast pace of ongoing improvements to Team Calendars also continues.

Finally, don't forget to get your Confluence Origami Necktie, a fashionable quick-reference guide. Make it, snap a pic and share it on Twitter with the #confluencetie hashtag :-)

We’re floating in data. Our phones, computers and devices are spinning off more data than anyone knows what to do with. At the same time, however, we’re living in an attention economy where eyeballs are a currency, and enticing people to click on links or forward content through their social networks is the key to success. The result is an endless stream of half-baked infographics from marketers who could care less about the art and the science behind true data visualization.

Can these competing forces continue to coexist?

This has been the subject of a long running discussion on Dachis Group's own internal microblogging network. Lets call a spade a spade: if it doesn't meet the criteria of an infographic, then don't claim it is one.

Hat tip Mark Owen.

In the early days of Enterprise 2.0 (mid-2000s) enterprise social software was good at toolkit-style functionality. Blogs and wikis gave people useful frameworks and reference materials for doing bespoke tasks. But there wasn’t much functionality for businesses that run a lot of routinized process.

These early tools appealed to high-end consultancies, law firms, PR agencies, and tech startups, which lean towards more bespoke activities. I suspect that’s where people first got the idea that enterprise social software was for “knowledge workers.”

But social software has changed, and changed fast. In the past year, business has started to embrace social software for more routinized processes as well.

Michael Idinopulos highlights an important misconception that enterprise social software is only useful for certain industries or white collar professionals. I agree also that associating these technologies tightly with the concept of the knowledge worker also adds confusion (for the record, I've never agreed that Enterprise 2.0 was the evolution of KM).

I've certainly come across a number of examples in my own work this year that break that traditional view of where and how we apply these technologies. But, I also think we have barely scratched the surface.

I draw encouragement from the non-profit sector where we can more easily see evidence of service (re)design and social innovation at work. Examples such as the LIFE Programme and Patchwork show there is potential for a much richer dynamic that can impact the fundamentals of how we use IT to support people inside critical or complex business processes when they are working at scale. In fact, this goes beyond Idinopulos' call to integrate the common enterprise social software patterns of activity stream and wikis - the focus is really about humanising IT systems.

Just as they are emerging in the non-profit sector, there are opportunities for the profit making enterprise to do the same in their respective domains. But they will only get there if we address the underlying misconceptions about social software and narrowing the use case to supporting the classic, office-based knowledge worker.

Last week I was invited by Nigel Freitas to participate in a panel discussion about Knowledge Management (KM) for Sky News Australia’s Technology Behind Business show.

Technology Behind Business examines trends and analyses key IT concepts. Each week an expert panel focuses on one type of technology or strategy, explaining its use without the jargon, outlining the pros and cons and providing tips for all types of businesses. The panel in this episode included Felicity McNish from Woods Bagot and Gerhard Voster from Deloitte.

You can watch the entire panel discussion on the Sky News Website.

Cross posted from the Headshift | Dachis Group Asia Pacific blog.

If you are interested in this topic, I've written a reasonable amount about it over the years including a couple of book chapters and magazine articles - most of it accessible through my archive.

Of course, robust discussion on what KM is and if it failed is most welcome! ;-)

'Social Media in Government: Hands-on Toolbox' has been written to help practitioners who are setting up social media profiles and using the tools on a daily basis.  It has been written for public servants with limited experience using social media, but also offers tools and tips that will be useful for those practitioners who have been using social media for some time.

Along with a High-level Guidance document, the New Zealand government has released a toolbox guide to help their pubic servants use social media. Apparently they reused content from the UK (although not Australia?) and Gartner analyst, Andrea Di Maio, thinks its a pretty good guide.

Highlights in the toolbox for me are:

• I like the distinction made between 'Social networks' and 'Media-sharing networks' (although IMHO, Flickr can be both). 
• They attempt a balanced look at the Strengths and Weaknesses of the five types of social media addresses in the guide, rather than focusing on risk or over evangelising the benefits. 
• The methodology of Finding, Assessing, Contributing and Tracking as a way to develop they approach to a particular tool.

Now they are quite upfront that this guide is for people with limited experience and it is impossible to distil knowledge of this medium into a single, static document. I know that, because I co-authored a Toolkit, for the Australia Government Gov 2.0 Taskforce in 2009.

Personally I think this kind of guide remains a double-edged sword. On one hand, we need to encourage people in government to get online. However, I don't think the patterns of online engagement, tools or methods described in basic guides like this really help to create a deeper and more sustainable engagement with the concepts of open government, Government 2.0 or social media either. To quote Dominic Campbell, who said recently:

There aren't enough of us working to transform, challenge and change the inside of government. Not enough taking on the really sticky issues beyond relatively quick and easy wins, such as transit data or street-scene related apps. This needs to change before anything can be said to have gone mainstream. Disclaimer: this is exactly what we're looking to do with apps like PatchWorkHQ and CasseroleHQ, starting to hone in on priority, challenging, socially important and costly areas of government, such as child protection and supporting older people to live better independent lives. The journey is far longer and harder, but (we're hoping) even more rewarding.

Lets stop focusing on examples of Government using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Instead, lets spread ideas that can really have impact.

This is something Dominic and I discussed at GovCampNSW a few weeks ago. Really, understanding the technology isn't the barrier and publishing more and more basic guides won't change that.

“build a Wiki and crowdsource ideas". It’s similar to Wikipedia. It involves the creation of an internet platform that enables managers and employees to add relevant information, and that information can then be edited and peer-reviewed.

Another idea is to “build an internal social network.” Employees can design their own profiles, upload images, provide useful links, add work-related content, and eventually “this will reduce the volume of email communication". In an era of email overload, that can only be a good thing.

Other than this article spreading the usual FUD about social media in the workplace (here is an alternative view), this is pretty simplistic advice for SMEs thinking about trying to proactively utilise Web 2.0 and social software.

Even large businesses struggle with the idea of creating internal Wikipedias - small businesses simply don't have the critical mass. However, there are some practical ideas (use cases) for enterprise wikis (like Atlassian Confluence):

• Managing Meetings.
• Project Management. 
• Reporting.
• Document Drafting and Commenting.
• Publishing and Maintaining Policies and Procedures.

With some tools you can even build simple forms and workflows, although the emphasis is really on uisng a wiki as a lean management tool.

The internal network is a better idea, but in a small business they don't necessarily need to know who each other is but rather what each person is doing and using streamlined methods for sharing information. Microblogging tools - like Yammer - or even instant messaging - using tools like Skype chat - can fill that need. Better yet, these tools are often optimised for smartphones too and younger staff will love using them.

With the right tool, some or all of these ideas above can be combined. For example, Google Apps.

The key themes that small business should be thinking about using social media internally for are:

1. Communication. 
2. Team work. 
3. Productivity. 
4. Information management.

For SME's with a consumer focus, they might also want to think about how the internal use of social media can connect to their external social media and traditional marketing activities. SMEs focused on B2B services can also create extranet wikis for collaboration with their business customers or even extend their microblogging tool to them, focusing on creating an extended private social network rather than an internal one.

My question is simple: if we are going to think about our organizations as cities, what can we learn from people who “design” cities for a living? Those “designers” are called planners and their profession is planning. Who are they? What do they do? How do they plan?

For those of us who are look at social technologies as being situated in organisations that we treat as complex human systems, the design of urban environments presents some interesting parallels with the domain of social business design. As introduction to this idea, Gordon's post about his joint presentation with Thomas Vander Wal at E2Conf Santa Clara 2011 is well worth reading (and looking at). There is plenty of follow up reading in the post too.

Claudio Ciborra’s “From Thinking to Tinkering: The Grassroots of Strategic Information Systems” (in The Information Society 8: 297-309) is still (or even more) relevant today, as it was in 1992. Here are some of his ideas:

• Cherish local knowledge and everyday experience
• Value open experimentation, prototyping by end-users and design tinkering
• Establish systematic serendipity, don’t aim for sequential execution in systems design
• Strive on emergence, except failure

Sounds still familiar, right?

Yes.

We typically view microblogging as the posting of short status updates. And indeed that is what happens most on Twitter, as well as in many cases of Enterprise Microblogging. On Twitter, people mostly post about themselves, or they post links to interesting stuff on the web. In a corporate context, some of our early research has shown that microblogging is useful for people to signal task progress or share resources (Riemer/Richter 2010).

But recently we have started investigated how Yammer is used in large enterprises. The first case we analysed is Capgemini and their use of Yammer internally. Capgemini has adopted Yammer quite early in 2008 and the user community has been growing strongly ever since. Now, what is so special about this case?

Well, what we found in our analysis of a sample of about 1000 posts from July 2010 is that microblogging turns out to be very interactive. Of course people share links and resources or post their status. But the vast majority of posts is part of a conversation, e.g. a communication thread (around 75%).

We have further analysed the various types of postings and the contents of conversations. It turns out that microblogging as a communication channel is a useful medium to facilitate brainstorming, context building and actual knowledge work, not just information sharing.

Read more and see figures regarding distribution of communication categories in our full report, which is available online (Riemer et al 2011).

References

Riemer K and Richter A 2010 ‘Tweet Inside: Microblogging in a Corporate Context (Winner of The Bled Outstanding Paper Award)’, Proceedings of the 23rd Bled eConference 2010 – “eTrust: Implications for the Individual, Enterprises and Society”, Bled, Slovenia, 23rd June 2010, get pdf online.

Riemer K, Richter A, Diederich S and Scifleet S ‘Tweet Talking – Exploring The Nature Of Microblogging At Capgemini Yammer’, BIS Working Paper, ISSN: 1837-1744, http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/7226

I'm at the 2011Enterprise 2.0 Exchange Symposium today, part of ACIS 2011 at Sydney University. Just listened to Kai Riemer's overview of his research into how an enterprise microblogging tool (Yammer) is being used in a variety of organisations.

Above is a report that looked specifically at its use in one organisation. In his presentation he highlighted the different patterns of use across these different organisations.

The short answer is yes, viral adoption can work BUT only in certain situations. This is my attempt to pin down some of the factors I’ve observed out in the field...

...these are the anti-patterns I’ve actually seen:

Posted over on the Headshift | Dachis Group Asia Pacific blog.

The other day I blogged about 3 Intranet Truths.

Looking at my first Intranet Truth ("No two intranets are the same. If they are, you are doing something wrong - stop benchmarking and start leading") its worth reflecting on the first two themes from Step Two Design's Intranet Innovations 2011 awards:

• A culture of continuous improvement; and
• Innovations that are based on very simple ideas

One of the examples they share that embodies these themes is computer animation house, Framestore:

The intranet team created a tool to project manage the visual effects they produce for movies such as the Harry Potter series. Built in-house and displaying data from a third party system, the company’s artists can access tabbed views of complex data about every scene and shot.

Framestore's success isn't based on nice to have features or "best practices" blindly copied from others, but by designing an intranet solution specifically for their users. If you want to replicate their success, show leadership by focusing on learning from their method not their design.

You will also see this same mindset in the way Headshift | Dachis Group approaches our projects, including examples such as Reynolds Porter Chamberlain.

Regardless of where you stand on the Occupy movement, this photo highlights that even if we forget the protests themselves (and the abuses) something has definitely changed. Not sure if we should really call it citizen journalism, more a kind of governance.

Yes, I know I’m an intranet antagonist - but honestly its for you own good. So here are 3 intranet truths - I'll have more to say on this later, but in the meantime print it out and stick it on your wall.

Lee Bryant is co-founder of Headshift, the world's biggest social business consultancy. He believes email's dominance over business communications is coming to an end.

"When email was first developed it was an excellent point-to-point communication tool when nothing else existed," says Mr Bryant.

"I think we've reached the stage where email as means of communicating is overloaded. I think we will see what happens on email today transitioning towards various kinds of both internal and consumer facing social tools."

These are "flow-based" tools such as wikis, micro-blogging and internal social networks, according to Mr Bryant.

"I think fundamentally one of the biggest problems is that social tools communicate slightly more in the open, they create ambient knowledge and ambient awareness for others who are not even in the conversation," says Mr Bryant.

"Email doesn't do that, it's quite a lonely medium.

Lee isn't saying email (or email like) communication is dead, but that it is being pushed out of the way by more appropriate styles of open and flow-based communication tools.

Nathaniel Borenstein, co-creator of the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) protocol, was also interviewed for this article - I do agree with his comment that the universal addressing that modern email support is a good thing, but that this is "not a definition of email."

Unfortunately, we don't yet have true universal addressing across social tools (even with OpenID, I'm sure most users will have identified themselves somewhere via an email account) and email continues to play a role as a personal identifier for using social tools. Similarly, into systems like CoachSurfing, use a physical snail-mail postcard as part of their user verification system.

Social computing has to do with digital systems that support online social interaction. Some online interactions are obviously social – exchanging email with a family member, sharing photos with friends, instant messaging with coworkers. These interactions are prototypically social because they are about communicating with people we know. But other sorts of online activity also count as social – creating a web page, bidding for something on eBay™, following someone on Twitter™, making an edit to Wikipedia¹. These actions may not involve people we know, and may not lead to interactions, but nevertheless they are social because we do them with other people in mind: the belief that we have an audience – even if it is composed of strangers we will never meet – shapes what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Thus when we speak of social computing we are concerned with how digital systems go about supporting the social interaction that is fundamental to how we live, work and play. They do this by providing communication mechanisms through which we can interact by talking and sharing information with one another, and by capturing, processing and displaying traces of our online actions and interactions that then serve as grist for further interaction.

An academic deep dive into the topic from Thomas Erickson, a researcher in the Social Computing Group at IBM's Watson Labs in New York. It includes video interview and commentary from other academics. No, I haven't read/listened to all this content yet, but bookmarking it for later.

Kelli Carlson-Jagersma... social strategy team at Wells Fargo... [says they are]

...expending the bulk of its efforts on identifying use-cases for internal social networking tools and running small pilots in the enterprise to test different solutions and learn what benefits social can bring to the enterprise.

"It's not so much focusing on the tools as the use-cases," said Carlson-Jagersma. "What I mean by that is, what is this problem we are trying to solve? Unless we make it a lot easier for people to do their jobs, or create so much efficiency in the work they're already doing, or somehow integrate communications, having a tool such as NewsGator or Chatter or Jive just adds more noise or something more for us to have to do. So, right away we've been taking a step back and looking at the use-case."

One use-case Wells Fargo is considering is in the area of support centers. "With our service and support operations located all over our geographic footprint, we need to be able to collaborate virtually. We are evaluating current business processes and how can we use social tools to enhance collaboration--not replace what we're doing, but make it more connected and even more efficient." she said.

Carlson-Jagersma added that once the business needs have been identified, only then will her team consult with the business and pilot a social networking tool--or tools, because a combination of solutions is being considered--to implement companywide.

"I think of using social as a way of work, not just as a shiny new tool and something fun."

Kelli Carlson-Jagersma from Wells Fargo talks about their need led approach to workforce collaboration and evaluating software options. Nice to see this approach being championed, although isn't this how everyone approaches internal social business software projects?