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?

Created with local and regional governments in mind, although I'm sure it has broader application, this toolkit is the outcome of a partnership between two European design firms and Design Flanders.

You need to buy the toolkit, but they have made some posters and templates available for download.

Hat tip to the Putting People First blog.

This video is a promo for a new'ish book, This is Service Design Thinking, but it provides a nice short explanation of what service design is about. Hat tip to Anel Palafox.

An interesting interview with Peter Gill, from Technology One, who talks about the importance of putting users in control and iteration when implementing... no, not enterprise social software... but business intelligence software.

Its not actually that surprising to hear that a user-centred approach also works in this context - I'm more surprised (and refreshed) to hear a vendor outside of the social business software domain talking in these terms. From my perspective, business intelligence is a knowledge activity and the social business design archetypes (connections, culture, communication and clarity) are equally applicable to this business need.

Pity its taken the BI industry so long to learn this (and this is me speaking from my own experience of trying to 'rescue' BI projects that have gone wrong in the past).

BTW Also worth a listen, Mark Jones covered social media and consumer driven technology in the enterprise in podcasts earlier in the year.

Mark Gilbert from Gartner spoke at the Gartner BI summit in Sydney recently. He said that firms shouldn't deploy collaboration software "out of the box" - I disagree, but I disagree because I'm being pedantic, although I think it is important to be so given this is a Gartner person speaking.

Overall, I think Michael is right to be pedantic. What I'm not clear from Gilbert's statement is that when he talks about the need to adapt collaboration (and social software), is he talking about actual developed customisations or customisations achieved through configuration and user-generated information architecture.

However, Gilbert also mentions SharePoint - and that does complicate things, because of the way I typically see SharePoint deployed, which is with little thought. If we read "out of the box" SharePoint to mean, you've just finished installing the software, switched it on, and announced job done then I can understand why Gilbert might be concerned.

Does this argument hold for enterprise social computing tools? It depends. Architecturally speaking, other "pure" tools of this type (by which I mean, are designed to be or have specific heritage in social software) typically have a greater resilience for dealing with organic and emergent usage. However, I would also encourage people to design for adoption anyway, remaining open to exploring customisation through both development and configuration based on user's and business needs.

Bringing me back to the beginning... you can *sometimes* deploy out of the box. But even while that might be the end of your technical activities, its only the start of the project.

BTW You can come and debate this with Michael and I at the Intranets2011 conference, where we are both presenting.

Despite the possibilities for collaboration, a Design News survey reveals engineers are avoiding social networks due to concerns around security and irrelevant information overload... Even joining engineering-specific groups on LinkedIn or Facebook resulted in a whole lot of noise and useless chatter, respondents reported, as opposed to serving up focused, practical solutions to real-world engineering problems. "It turns out a lot of the discussions turn esoteric or philosophical and are not really things I found to be useful in the day-to-day functioning of the business or my day-to-day engineering efforts," says survey respondent David Willis, PMP, engineering group manager for Agile Engineering Inc., a manufacturer of precision electromechanical systems. "Even though I was in focused areas, there was no focus."

Design News is a journal for engineers and engineering managers who build real world products. Apparently many are disappointed with their experience of using social networks for collaboration. Not surprisingly, they want collaboration embedded in their work processes. Traditional forums and instant messaging appear to be more immediately useful.

Honestly, I'm not surprised. If you are going to apply social technologies to a situation without considering the specific needs of the people involved, what do you really expect?

This build it and they will come mentality also underplays the importance of a range of different skills needed to run a successful community of practice or virtual team. Sure, they'll come but they won't hang around for long if they don't get value from participation.

Hat tip to Bertrand.

We are not providing real time information on how many parking lots are available or the current length of elective surgery waiting lists. For such information, they should contact the hospital or their doctor respectively,

I commented on MyHospitals the other day, but only just came across this related coverage.

My immediate thought in response to this quote from Alison Verhoeven, Senior Executive at Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), is: but why not?

Don't factors like access to parking also affect the patient and the patient's carers, friends and family as they move through the health system? It leaves me wondering exactly who the 'My' in MyHospitals is.

I love Xplane's visual meditations but this one caught my attention today because it reminds me of a simple ethnographic approach I like to use in my consulting work.

For many people, their desk represents the intersection between their physical workspace and their digital workspace. So, this make it an interesting place to directly experience and observe as part of the user-centred design process.

However, where this isn't possible maybe sketching your desk could be an alternative way of engaging with people about the people, places and things they interact with?

James is a Senior Business and Technology Consultant with Headshift Social Business Consultancy. Headshift is a leading international social business consultancy which helps organisations use smarter, simpler, social technologies to improve business performance, communication and customer engagement.

Both James and Professor Hasan gave examples of using IT in the health sector not just to collect vast amounts of statistical information to tell us what is happening but stories of real people that can give insight into why things happen.

James described the UK website ‘Patient Opinion’ where patient stories, the majority of which are positive are guiding new directions for the health system.

Follow up media release to my presentation at the University of Wollongong's SInet event. I was asked to focus on health care, so as well as Patient Opinion I also shared some Australian examples of how the Web is being used to help people with mental health issues to share their stories:

• The Your stories section on the Headspace site; and
• The Our stories section of the VPS Open Minds site.

I also talked about some work that Headshift is involved with working with an organisation that is trying to improve how community services are being delivered to families, which also has an impact on their overall health and well-being. I explained how user-centred design can be complementary to the social innovation process.