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! ;-)

“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.

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.

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.

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?

Enterprise 2.0 is a hot topic as business executives and IT leaders seek ways to bring social technologies into their business. But hype aside, are we close to seeing a social revolution in business? Not so fast. According to our recent survey of 4,985 US information workers, we find that we're still at the very beginning of social software use in business. The employees currently using the technology are early adopters of technology — individuals with high incomes and positive attitudes about technology — who are mostly testing the waters at this point. Thus, content and collaboration professionals rolling out enterprise 2.0 strategies and technologies need to understand how social tools are currently being used before they map out their long-range plans. This report outlines who is using enterprise 2.0 technologies, how they're using them, and the policies businesses need to put into place to support them.

Interesting survey results from Forrester. I've been reviewing some the details shared in coverage on RRW, CMSWire and CIO Asia.

Forrester aren't exactly saying don't bother, but rather the message is that only a few groups of savvy users are seeing the benefits. Interestingly, these standout groups include Generation X and also the the busiest people within a company. In fact, while on one hand Forrester's data suggests social business software isn't critical to users, those users are more productive than non-users. Perhaps they aren't considered critical because critical mass hasn't yet been achieved in the surveyed organisations.

I'm also encouraged by this advice:

Forrester says that while it's good to provide a range of social tools that give workers flexibility, it's more important to find the tools that best address the needs of your workforce. Be sure to evaluate vendors based on how well their technologies address these issues instead of the size of their offering.

This reflects my own opinion that wide spread viral adoption inside organisations is very rare. In fact, I'm talking to more and more organisations where viral adoption has stalled with a group of early adopters - while this is often seen as demonstrating the potential, it doesn't actual help them to move forward to get that all important critical mass.

I also believe that getting social business right can also be a source of competitive advantage, while other organisations continue to experiment (and even fail). The uneven adoption of enterprise social software can therefore be treated as an opportunity at this point.

Anyway, how well does Forrester's survey reflect your experiences?

I’m presenting at the Institute of Information Management (IIM) NSW chapter meeting on 25th October, about moving from systems of record to systems of engagement:

Social Media guru, James Dellow will give us a briefing on some of the emerging trends in the way Social Media tools are changing the way organisations are thinking about recordkeeping, information and knowledge. If pressed, James might also offer insights into the latest technology and tools such as Jive, tibbr, Yammer, Socialtext, Drupal Commons, and the rest!

Where: Sydney CBD, Australia

When: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM

For more details and to register, see the IIM’s registration page for this event.

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