Social media technologies are making fast inroads into organisations. In the context of knowledgeintensive work the propositions of improving communication, information sharing and user involvement seem particularly promising. However, the role and impact of social technologies in enterprises in general and knowledge work in particular are still not well understood, despite emerging scholarly works in this field. In this study we aim to contribute to this stream of research. We investigate the phenomenon of Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) in the context of Professional Service Firms (PSF). Our case investigates emerging communicative work practices on the ESN platform Yammer within Deloitte Australia. We perform a genre analysis of actual communication data captured on the Yammer platform. We uncover a set of emerging practices enabled by the platform within the case company and reflect on our results in the context of the knowledge-intensive nature of professional service work. We find that Yammer in the case company has become 1) an information-sharing channel, 2) a space for crowdsourcing ideas, 3) a place for finding expertise and solving problems and most importantly 4) a conversation medium for context and relationship building.

Kai has written a short summary on his blog. But beware - this isn't a blueprint for Yammer or any other enterprise social network. Neither does it provide data on the organisational value generated by the activity observed. As Kai also points out, in the case of Deloitte Australia:

a number of knowledge-work practices are not carried out within Yammer, even though we found these practices in some of our earlier enterprise microblogging case.

However, this is a great piece of research and provides more insight into the different ways that different organisations make use of social technologies.

Dion Hinchcliffe is visting Australia this week to promote his new book, Social Business by Design, co-authored with Peter Kim. The Headshift Asia Pacific team have been busy lining up speaking events and media interviews all week, however Dion and I have found time to put together a short whitepaper on the state of social business in Australia. This paper provides that all important Australian perspective on the trends and ideas outlines in Dion's book. The paper will be published online later today, but while you are waiting we've posted a video talking about some of the highlights: The criteria for the case studies included in the paper, the differences between Australia and the global experience of Social Business and key insights.

UPDATE: The paper is now available to read and download from SlideShare.

BTW if you are interested in attending either of Dion's workshops tomorrow, Social Business 101 (in the morning) and The Consumerisation of IT (in the afternoon) please contact the Headshift team by email at hello@headshift.com.au to request a last minute registration!

BBC research shows that 77% of the UK's online population is now actively participating in some way. We have been aware for some time that the 1-9-90 percent rule (or 1% rule) of interaction is too simplistic and this research adds more insight in understanding this dynamic. The BBC's model of Participation Choice identifies four key forms: passive, easy reaction, easy initiation and intense participation.

While researching this post over on the Headshift Asia Pacific blog, I came across this graph from a report by IDC. It shows surprisingly high levels of interest in BYOD (bring-your-own-device) in our region. There are more than a few laggards like Westpac, but surely they are fighting the tide?

In 2011, the US hit a milestone — more than half of all adults visit social networking sites at least once a month. But when it comes to using social-networking technologies inside organizations, many business leaders are at a loss to understand what value can be created from Facebook-like status updates within the enterprise. Some organizations have deployed social-networking features with an initial enthusiastic reception, only to see these early efforts wither to just a few stalwart participants. The problem: Most companies approach enterprise social networks as a technology deployment and fail to understand that the new relationships created by enterprise social networks are the source for value creation. In this first of two reports, Altimeter looks at four ways enterprise social networks create value for organizations.

While I think we should recognise the limitations of the Altimeter survey (i.e. the small sample, a variety of organisational/business units sizes and geographies mixed in the results) there are definitely some interesting points to reflect on in this free report (and thank you Altimeter for sharing both the report and the data).

However, I think looking at this report and reflecting on Sameer Patel's reaction, I think he is painting an overly gloomy picture of 'social business' because it hasn't (yet) come up with a set of generic spend x on software y and we promise you'll receive z. (ok I'm paraphasing - read Sameer's post and then read the rest of mine!)

Firstly, no-one in this survey felt that that were measuring the impact of ESNs "very well" (31% said somewhat well and the rest either somewhat poorly or very poorly). Further, many of the measures reported are highly questionable, particularly if used in isolation - e.g. % of employees using it.

Secondly, we have no data here that indicates either how they approached the deployment of these tools or how well they rated the effectiveness of the approach taken. The assumption is that they have all deployed them 100% effectively.

Finally, we have no benchmark data for organisational performance for both organisations attempting to become social businesses versus those that haven't.

I've mentioned before some research in Australia that reported how high-performing workplaces are up to 12% more productive and three times more profitable than their peers. However, only 15% of organisation in Australia exhibit management practices that support this - these are: being highly responsive to changes in customers' and suppliers' circumstances, encouraging high employee participation in decision-making, achieving on-the-job learning through mentoring and job rotation, making effective use of information and technology and attracting and retaining high quality people.

But since the benefits are clear in bottom line terms, why aren't organisations falling into line behind these practices?

In a way, I think I agree with many of Sameer's points but its a stretch to write off Social Business based on this data alone. Really there is whole bigger and more complex picture to understand around what makes organisations more productive or effective that we actually don't understand that well.

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.

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.

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?