chieftech’s blog

Through some serendipity, I came across Zaana Howard's CPA Australia case study on enterprise microblogging. In these three parts, we again see a very familiar viral and low friction adoption pattern.

From this experience, Zaana highlights the benefits (knowledge sharing, better communication and expertise location) but also a number lessons learnt, that hinge particularly on the point that "viral success is not enough".

This reminded me that a couple of years ago I came across an organisation that was awash with enterprise social computing tools - wikis, blogs, video, rss, dashboard etc - but each tool was lost within a sea of legacy and traditional intranet and information management tools. The average user in that organisation could barely find anything on the intranet that was already there, let alone the new wave of tools.

It was a shame because the earlier adopters had embraced them and could see the future benefits, but they were actually talking about removing all the social computing tools from their systems because mixing the old and new world was completely unplanned.

BTW Have a look through my blog archives to find more case studies and examples of enterprise microblogging at work.

Dates – January 28th, February 4th, February 11th, February 18th at 12:00 p.m. ET

January 28th: Webinar #1: Social Computing Adoption in the Enterprise “the Before” – learn how to best develop the business case, gain buy-in, select technology and establish the team

February 4th: Webinar #2: Social Computing Adoption in the Enterprise “the After” –gather best practices on implementation, policy formation, training, and community management

February 11th: Webinar #3: EMC Enterprise 2.0 Case Study

February 18th: Webinar #4: Raytheon Enterprise 2.0 Case Study

Unfortunately 12pm E(S)T is something like 4am in the morning here on Australia's east coast, however they will be posting the deck from each Webinar on slideshare.

In 2010, the Gov 2.0 community needs to think harder about how this movement will bridge economic disparity. Open data, open source, social media, transparency and collaboration are great, but look around the room at the people it serves and ask yourself, ‘how is this bridging the digital divide?’

I’m not saying Gov 2.0 isn’t accomplishing this on some scale. I’m saying there needs to be more of a conscious effort to do so. There needs to be consideration as to how this is catering to more than just the iPhone-wielding, Twitter-tweeting community, or we risk further alienating those who need government most.

An important point. Its something I've talked about back at the Public Spheres on Government 2.0 in Canberra and Sydney. However, its also important to remember that Government 2.0 doesn't need to save the world - it just need to contribute to help saving lots of little bits of the world in ways that really count. Its one reason why Patient Opinion continues to be one of my favourite case studies for meaningful Government 2.0.

"Even though we have a small staff--around 33 employees--there were many silos built up across the department," he says. Microblogging, he hoped, would help get his staff talking and collaborating.

After evaluating several microblogging tools, Eby and his team decided on Socialtext's Signals, a microblogging tool that is accessed via a browser, mobile device or an Adobe AIR desktop application and is integrated with a wiki, social networking profiles and "activity streams" (which are similar to the Facebook News Feed).

This CIO article highlights 3 enterprise microblogging case studies - two of the case studies are about large technology companies (still interesting, but not necessarily reflective of everyone's experience). However, the other example describes the experiences of St. Louis Public Radio in the US, which only employees around 33 staff.

For me this reflects my own personal rule of thumb that its not just the size of an organisation that makes enterprise social computing useful, but the structure of the organisation and how these different roles relate to each other.

I need to come back and read through these slides a little more carefully, but on the face of it this could be a great case study of what Social Business Design is getting at - the application of social computing holistically in an organisation. Its not just about social media marketing, but neither is just about 'Enterprise 2.0'.

What isn't so clear for me is how well the outside and inside is connected... but still its a good start.

Hat tip to Lars Basche.

This is an extranet but doesn’t look like it. It has a lot of workflow built into it. Removes “black box” approach so that clients could see what work is being done and when. Mallesons wanted to provide predictable service levels, demonstrate value, provide round-the-clock service. For clients, system provides project progress, financial reports, alerts, current awareness, training, resource availability, secure deal and data rooms, automatic data generation, sophisticated security, and (in next release) correspondence and know-how.

References PeopleFinder, which is an internal system the firm developed, to locate lawyers in real-time (for internal use). Goal was to answer more calls in real time. Connect is an extension in some ways of this system but with different emphasis since it’s client facing.

Shows a screen shot of Mallesons Connect. It shows total projects, active projects, and unpaid invoices. Provides detail on Active Projects. “My Feed”. All Web 2.0 technology - everything is interlinked and dynamic. Mouse-over an active project shows key info including WIP and key contact and if that contact is currently available. A more detailed screen shows fee-earner calendars and contact info. Provides faceted search across portfolio of projects. Financial summary page provides graphics and tabular summary. All data are real-time.

Mallesons has been one of the more obvious examples of an Australian company making explicit use of Web 2.0 approaches in solutions like PeopleFinder to solving business problems and using it to get a competitive edge. PeopleFinder addresses what might appear to be a relatively small issue in their business, but imagine the impact on productivity and client satisfaction they have achieved by reducing the use of voicemail.

Today I was reading about Mallesons Connect, their client extranet, which was showcased as the International Legal Technology Association's conference the other week.

Incidentally, Aussie law firms like Mallesons have always been a little secretive about their technology achievements - so don't expect to find a lot of details floating around the Web. However, there is plenty of hints at what Connect is all about if you look (including the post linked above):

• Above and Beyond KM blog: Are Law Firms Ready for Transparency?
  
• Caselines blog: ILTA 09 Panel--Technologies That Will Disrupt Traditional Legal Practice
  
• Article by Kate Eginton in an ILTA White Paper, Knowledge Management More Than the Sum of Its Parts (PDF file)

Its great to see an Australian company being showed cased as an innovator on a global stage like this.