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.

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.

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?

The greatest metric for predicting job satisfaction and engagement is the social support perceived by the employee. And job satisfaction and engagement directly correlate with productivity. So the best and fastest way to more connected and therefore more productive is to receive more social support from others at work, right? Not so fast.

...

The past two decades of research on social support has mistakenly focused on how much social support you receive, not how much social support you provide. It turns out, that giving feels better, does more for you, and provides greater returns in the long run, than getting ever does.

Not using that wiki or internal social network that your company setup for you? Maybe the only person you are hurting is yourself.

I know that a social workplace provides benefits to organisations, but its good to see some emerging research that points out the positive impact on employees who provide social support to the other people they work with.

At last week’s E2.0 conference in Boston, I was surprised and pleased by the way my “in-the-flow” phrase has gained common currency.

I was also surprised, but less pleased, by some of the “best practices” I heard flying around. Whether in keynotes, sessions, or just hallway conversations, I heard a lot of claims of dubious merit, claims like:

• Start with a small pilot and let it grow virally
• Invest heavily in community management, because a community is only as successful as its managers
• Workers won’t use social software without personal incentives
• Workers who don’t belong to the Facebook Generation don’t “get” social software.
• Social software adoption requires a culture of collaboration
• You shouldn’t launch collaborative tools without a collaboration strategy

There’s a common theme behind all this advice: You should be scared of launching enterprise social software, because achieving adoption is really hard, really time-consuming, and really expensive.

Sorry friends, but I’m calling Bullshit.

I had to read Michael Idinopulos' post a couple of times to make sure I understood it.

Basically - in a round about way - he is describing two things:

• The complex nature of organisations. 
• That social business tools work, because they help people get work done 'in-the-flow'.

I agree entirely - and this makes the AHA case study a great example.

But lets address this issue of organisational complexity.

Sometimes a simple intervention - like introducing a new technology - can make an immediate impact. But we don't actually know why, although we can observe the benefits when it works. Do the same again in a different situation and you take a gamble on the outcome. For systems of engagement, this is the problem of copying macro level case studies when change actually happens at the micro level of individual groups and individuals. Sometimes it only takes an influential blocker, a critical system that doesn't integrate well, a policy that can't be side stepped or a group that has already picked their own solution - suddenly the dynamic changes.

I use those words deliberately, because the character of some organisations is to be conservative, others are prepared to to be more reckless. Smart organisations take a design-led middle ground. They don't follow knee jerk reactions to new technology, but they don't fall for shallow thinking either.

To help make that point, here are some different case studies (I'm focusing on enterprise microblogging, as there is a level of commonality between them - but this also follows on from some earlier posts):

• Yammer at Suncorp - the viral adoption pattern.
• tibbr at CIBER - tried a couple of solutions, before finding what worked for them.
• Yammer at a small medical practice - hit a technology challenge.
• Chatter at Den-Mat - ran into people and skills issues. 

Each of these examples had a different journey (Micro), but each had a positive story to tell (Macro).

Incidentally, the CIO behind the case study that Idinopulos described has written a detailed post describing the "15 Key Steps for Successful Implementation". This isn't simple, but the steps make it less complex; and its all about finding that fit so that users can get into the flow easily.

Misguided social business advice urges us to automate and digitize whatever we can that might make work more efficient.

It puts new digital architecture on top of old digital architecture. It tries to separate content from process, as though process were content-agnostic.

Wise social business advice has a generative orientation. It has a creative flavor.

Wise social business advice starts with the questions like: “What more can we contribute together, to each other?
What tools can we use to foster and support these contributions”?

CV Harquail mythbusts seven different problems with superficial thinking and approaches to social business. Each is worth reading, but the point quoted above particularly caught my attention. I think the same concern should be directed at the similarly misguided and reductionist goal of creating more efficient 'digital workplaces'. Simply layering, integrating or flattening digital architectures ignores the sociotechnical relationship between technology, people and how (and why) we organise.

Hat tip to Andrew McAfee, who observes that:

According to this picture, there has been exactly one development that’s greatly changed the course of humanity — changed it just about 90 degrees. And it’s a technological development.

Of course the big question is what next? Unless of course you believe in the singularity? :-)