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.
The Department of Education & Communities in NSW has published a range of materials during 2011 addressing various aspects of social media and how people working in this department can and should make use of it. Above is a video introduction to their internal microblogging tools, Maang.
Their social media policy has links to more resources, including an An introduction to Digital Citizenship for the workplace.
“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):
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:
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.
This is a long anticipated play by Yammer to expand the foot print of its platform. I haven't had a chance to play with these new features just yet, so can't comment on the user experience or maturity of the new tools. However, I am wondering how this will affect Yammer's business model in respect to the enterprise and government sectors - the more it adds, the more chance that a purely viral deployment approach will bump into other enterprise applications and systems, which may result in the need for a more formal adoption and procurement approach.
UPDATE: Alan Lepofsky provides a more detailed review and point of view.
Lots of people scratch their heads about the application of social media to actually doing work, particularly with the focus on social support for people in the workplace. Some commentators have highlighted the need to integrate enterprise social software capabilities directly into employees' workflow (and ironically some are quite evangelical about it, but I digress).
I've noticed a flurry of new task-orientated tools appearing, including:
(I'm sure there are more out there that I've missed)
This one isn't new, but in the same vein NationalField also offers some interesting activity rollup features to help managers.
Also, many of the social suites also offer lightweight task and project management - e.g. Jive SBS, IBM Connections and Atlassian Confluence (if you want heavy weight task management, check out Jira).
Of course, task management isn't new and won't suit every workplace culture or workflow. But these new plays in social task management may be able to achieve a beach head into organisations that have resisted enterprise microblogging tools like Yammer but by following the same basic user-driven adoption approach that can sneak over the firewall.
Would you rather be Doing and Striding than Yammer'ing? ;-)
Image credit: Task List CC BY-NC-SA
Status.Net, the open source microblogging software (which powers the Twitter alternative, identi.ca), released version 1.0 in the last few days. Status.Net already had a good engine under the hood, but there is quite a selection of new out-of-the-box features in this release that really benefit end users.
Apart from the flag ship identi.ca network, who is actually using Status.Net? In this recent interview with Status.Net, it was reported Deutsche Bank, Motorola Mobility (case study from 2009) and SAP are using the software. I had also heard that the UK government was using Status.Net on their internal secure network, however I don't know if that is current.
So, why bother with Status.Net when there is a good selection of commercial competitors in the marketplace?
Firstly, Status.Net do offer a hosted version, with free and premium options. If cost is a concern then it certainly looks like one of the cheaper options, with the premium version starting at only US$3 per user per month. Status.Net already supports a range of desktop and mobile apps, so users won't be missing out on critical features taking this option.
But as you would expect there are some differences and gaps - you certainly aren't going to get the system integration or extra collaboration features that tibbr supports or that Chatter offers with Salesforce. And while you can federate Status.Net servers, its not quite the same as Yammer Communities. This can be a good thing, because on the other hand Status.Net was never designed just for the enterprise market and you can use it in ways that enterprise-orientated products wouldn't be a good fit for.
Perhaps the most interesting option with Status.Net, since it is open source, is to host your own - this might be an option if you:
Status.Net might also be a good option for a pilot, where firewall or corporate policy completely blocks the use of externally hosted tools.
I should point out that at version 1.0 for other than the basics, the administration and configuration of the site does still require the direct editing of configuration files and style sheets. However, if I look at the Elgg experience - where the back-end admin has improved immensely with the 1.8 release - then I'm sure this will improve with time, but its quite as easy as installing and maintaining something like Wordpress.
Personally, I do also find the Extended Profile plugin a little frustrating in its current implementation - for an enterprise use-case, I think the extra profile needs to be better integrated with the main interface as its easy to miss these details when browsing a user or updating your own profile - but this could be addressed as part of your own customisations.
Overall, I think Status.Net is worth watching and including in your list of options particularly if you either want something that just does core enterprise microblogging or you have some other non-standard use case in mind.
Dennis Howlett interviews Chris Robinson, CIO of KPMG Asia Pacific, about their tibbr pilot:
I wanted to know why KPMG would invest in what many people see as technology toys. In the above video, Chris talks about the many needs KPMG has identified as it adjusts to the 21st century.Among other things, he says that the payback in terms of improved talent retention and the ability to actively connect KPMG alumni back to the mothership provides more than enough ROI to justify the spend. And that’s just the start. In their case, KPMG is using its rollout as a pilot that demonstrates value to the larger global practice. Oh yes, and for the naysayers out there – it is being used as a secure communication connection between KPMG and its clients.
Listening to the interview, you will hear that tools like email and Sharepoint are also still part of the user's information landscape at KPMG, but they are also mixed with other tools like SAP. tibbr's role in many respects isn't to supersede those tools but compliment them.
A lot of attention is being directed at the use of public social media during the London riots (for good and bad). But, if the experiences of my own company are anything to go by then its likely that organisations based in or with staff in the UK will have used internal social media to respond to the riots too.
Globally we used it to check in with our UK based colleagues, to make sure everyone was ok. If they needed our support, there was a channel already in operation for us to use.
Our London team also used internal social tools for dealing with the practical issues that the riots created, including:
While they didn't need our help directly, because we work outloud we would have known quite quickly if that situation changed. Most importantly, being a global company doesn't stop us from providing social support to our colleagues in times of crisis because we have the tools in place to connect with everyone who works for Dachis Group around the world.
And quite honestly, I can't understand how some companies are still trying to deal with events like this without giving staff access to collaboration tools like social intranets, instant messaging and enterprise microblogging. No wonder, as we heard during the Queensland floods, that staff in some organisations were forced to resort to using public tools like Facebook to communicate and collaboration internally despite the risks (and all the more reason why governments should think carefully about how they might choose to censor social media, as it might impact on business and community services too).
Social intranets are now maturing to the point where some organisations are moving on to their 2nd iteration of software tools. In this instance, following a 12 month trial with Yammer, the Department of Education & Communities in NSW (aka "DET") have migrated to Socialtext. They are calling their social collaboration tool, Maang (an Aboriginal word for 'message stick'). This is a big deployment, with over 150,000 users having been automatically provisioned into Socialtext compared to the nearly 10,000 users of Yammer!
One of the things that impressed me about DEC's approach is how well they supported their initial pilot (they were a case study at Intranets 2011 in Sydney) and it looks like that work is continuing with the new platform - they are thinking beyond just the technology.
Its quite likely that as organisations experiment with social collaboration tools and look for the best fit solutions (and there are many dimensions to this) then such a transistion is something that many will need to manage. For example, during my time at CSC they moved from multiple wiki experiments, then a corporate pilot of Confluence before finally settling with Jive SBS (just after I left).
Note: I couldn't embed the Prezi above, you'll need to click through to view it. However, there is some great background information you can spot there about the supporting policies and guidelines that DEC have built around Maang.
