The Digital Divide

Love this piece from hypertextual

http://thehypertextual.com/2012/05/03/21st-century-management-social-business-and-feminine-values/?goback=%2Egde_1829403_member_112419553&blogsub=confirming#blog_subscription-3

and supports my belief that the skill sets are dramatically changing for those with stewardship over platforms (many have no need to change but I'm sure the rest of us do).

It got me pondering on the new structures organizations need as various functions and technologies are becoming increasingly intertwined and extend not only to, but beyond, the firewall. In many organizations departments have traditionally selected someone who knew a little about technology to be the main contact with IT. The same approached happened with functions such as Knowledge, Marketing, Training etc. Now we require top-of-the-line technologists within departments, who are dually knowledgeable in both their specialist discipline and technology to really understand the way the digital environment works. It’s an area where intranet teams have led the way, being early adopters of merging business needs with the possibilities of the digital environment. As the digital world moves on the disciplines and roles of intranet teams will change. From the early days of intranets (we could trace this back to 1989 is we look at some of the early IBM work) the role of the intranet team has been based around the development, governance and maintenance of a database (or database apps). As intranets move away from the firewall the skill sets change. I believe we are looking more towards managing a users experience with content and relationships, in numerous areas, rather than managing a database that a user engages with. The softer nurturing skills will become more valuable, rather than development and design. Most organizations may be some years away from this model but times are changing and intranet team skill sets will change with them.

Love this piece by Braco Dimitrijevic from 2006 (currently showing at the Tate Modern – London) which expresses the dangers of crushing the innovation and creativity of ‘artist’s (we can replace artists with knowledge workers in the corporate environment).

The great gold rush to a social organisation should be tempered with a vision of what the future could look like. If everyone within an organisation becomes ‘social’ are we running a risk of conversation and sharing overload or do we just need to adjust the way we work to learn how to consume what’s relevant? Ideas welcome.

Excellent article - be interested to know if anyone feels the 'intranet' skill sets need to change to adapt to the 'game changers'?

http://www.csc.com/insights/insights/78770-the_next_generation_of_digital_game_changers?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 This is an exciting development for intranet teams, with changes to the scope and role of the intranet meaning an opportunity to redefine what they do and how they work. Intranet teams have traditionally been rigidly built around the organizational structure and technology, with the intranet team often emerging as an afterthought. The dawn of the social and digital workplace represents the possibility for some radical re-shaping of intranet teams in order to prepare for these shifts as well as open up new career opportunities in the area of social and collaboration.

Where content has been a central focus, this evolution will mean putting relationships at the centre of what intranets can achieve.  As this starts to happen, the intranet team’s role in the organization moves beyond design and communication towards that of a facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing.

In addition, as organizations emerge from the recession, a new paradigm is becoming apparent as technology provision is no longer limited to the traditional IT department and argument over whether the colour looks right, or what graphic goes where. The availability of tools, many open source or “freemium”, outside the firewall and employees’ desire to use them in place of outmoded enterprise systems is compounding this trend.

While IT and intranet teams control, the new generation of workers are looking to innovate, share, collaborate, learn and engage not inside the physical boundaries of an office nor the virtual boundaries of a network but a social or digital workplace that spans the globe.

The behaviours, attitudes and expectations of employees are undergoing a seismic shift.  A new generation are entering the workplace, at ease with technology and redesigning our perceptions of private and public in the digital environment . This new generation, with a reputation for limited digital patience, attention seeking and being at ease with showcasing and communicating via digital platforms, will put pressure on traditional intranets to evolve in my dynamic and interactive ways.

These changes in the workplace do not mean that the fundamental skills we have looked at for intranet management are no longer needed, but they do mean that intranet teams need to respond by developing new key characteristics:

·         Becoming more agile and fluid – able to adapt quickly to new technologies and ways of working. This may mean learning new skills quickly, or bringing in these skills from other parts of the organization, or outside.

·         Becoming more user-centric – focused on fostering communities, and facilitating interaction and knowledge sharing. Nurturing the capabilities to make best use of the digital platforms available.

·         A broader scope – the intranet team may no longer be called the “intranet” team – an opportunity to re-write the definition of what the team does. For example, “Digital Communications Team” or “Web and Workplace Centre of Excellence”.

·         Leading by example – as the intranet team increasingly takes on the role of facilitator/ enabler, it is key that they demonstrate new ways of working in the social or digital workplace in their own behaviours. This is further emphasized by the fact that as the workforce becomes more technologically savvy (anyone can set up a blog, start microblogging, or find what they need on the web) everyone is becoming an “expert”.

• Being the innovators  – as traditional boundaries and ways of working are challenged the intranet team need to become ever more creative in understanding the opportunities for the organizations online channels to develop and merge in new ways. To do so it is essential that the intranet team understand emerging technologies on the web and the user behaviours associated with them. 

Is it me or are larger graphics making a comeback and is Pinterest leading the way?

Pinterest is a step in an ever growing visual direction. There is definitely a need to step away from heavy text laden social and knowledge platforms in the age of smartphones and tablets. People want to be captivated by images and I think Pinterest fills the niche.

Even top news sites like the BBC have moved towards a more graphical display to signpost content.  Strangely enough Facebook have started to limit image size (more memory size than pixel size – is this a sign that Facebook is no longer ahead of the curve!).

At the moment I am working with some young artists and they love what Pinterest offers. Whether large organisations can derive benefit from it is another matter.

Much of my work is with organisations internal applications and there is a shift toward imagery across some areas such as intranet homepages. When intranets and external websites first entered the arena we saw large graphics used to make impacts on news items or links to key content. As more and more content piled onto sites the  trend then went to reduction of graphics and more links. Maybe we are all looking for a simpler doorway to content and relationships. Rather than bombard users with links, text and documents  the trend may be back to’ less is more’ but more relevant content with large, bold graphics as a signpost for them?

I must confess I always thought something like audioboo would take off as people became fed up with text and documents. Maybe Pinterest is the visual answer as we enter a more colourful and visually pleasing digital world.

I'm a keen reader of the Chieftech blog and saw this interesting take on the digital workplace

http://chieftech.com.au/what-is-the-digital-workplace-mostly-harmless#comment

The 'digital workplace' (or whatever people call it) is far more than grouping some technology as a response. For me it's an enabling cultural change to the way we work, manage, lead and combine work with the changing needs of our life.

If you shepherd some technology products under a banner for employees who still spend hours travelling to an office to plug into a network extension and spend one day 'working at home' where they complete their standard weekly powerpoint presentations, then this fails to understand what can be achived.

The digital workplace is a mindset and technolgy toolkit that enables organisations and employees to truely shape the environment where they can innovate, create and begin to gain some work / life balance that reflects the growing change of the society we live in. It will provide us the ability to be flexible and agile, enabling us to combine work with true quality of life - raising our children (rather than atching 30 minutes before bedtime) and caring for elderly relatives, having freedom to think and create in an environment create by the you rather than sat at a white desk, in a white office. 

Organisations that have the tools but still expect powerpoints, use the term 'working at home' and continue with the statics processes around people development and innovation (just look at the standard yearly appraisal systems) will be on the wrong side of the digital divide.

Leaders need to understand where best employees can innovate and create, employees need to develop disciplines and behaviours that understands that the physical office is perhaps the worst place to get their work complete and Intranet Managers, or whoever is respoonsible for stewardship of this toolkit need tolearn more nuturing and relationship skills rather than managing a database behind a firewall.

It's a 'must happen' for organisations (particularly in the West) that will enable us to complete in a new economy. The alternative of more of the 'corporate shoulder pads' of the 1980s is something that will ensure organisations fail to atract the best talent and the best responses to changing markets.

Love this article from Social Business News. 

http://www.socialbusinessnews.com/is-social-business-just-knowledge-management-2-0/

I am a strong believer that 'social' we be far different to KM. From a visionary perspetive you could argue it begins to give employees a voice that has been eroded since the 1970s - maybe not so much in how an organisation is run but certainly in how it delivers a service, innovates and connects.

It certainly questions how KM has been run in many organisations. If a virual deployment of Yammer can do more to connect and share that a KM program we have to look at how that business has been running.

It shifts the skills that are required to provide stewardship of this process (not capture or manage) as eluded to in some early posts on 'digital divide'

http://digitaldivide.posterous.com/changing-skills

http://digitaldivide.posterous.com/the-value-is-in-the-playground

It raises questions around roles of Information Management, Taxonomies, documents etc. The incoming generation want to connect around people and relationships and avoid the clutter of documentation. This won't work immediately for many organisations, particularly in highly regulated environments but the cultural use of technology has always driven the compliance agenda and no doubt social will eventually do the same.

Moving towards a social enterprise will enable wider skill sets to be used to create these conversations and relationships. No longer would we need management of information and documents but facilitation of groups, people and relationships around some core principles and conversation topics.

It certainly is an exciting time as the social enterprise changes the way we work, lead and deliver value to organisations and our own work / life balance.

Saw this on the Linkedin wires yesterday.

 http://blog.web100.com.ua/2012/02/28/study-enterprise-social-networks-failing-to-meet-expectations/

Enterprise social networks failing to meet expectations is hardly surprising news. Too often we approach the implementation of a ‘social network’ as a technology deployment and is managed and treated this way. The technology is a response and until you find out what the issue is any response is pointless.

Last week I spoke to a very large global bank who have deployed a social platform. It was a IT led deployment and they were having problems with adoption. When asking who the current users and communities were the response was they were all IT focused. I asked about the use cases, personas, key tasks etc that the platform was ‘social’ platform was meant to address. They have none. The focus was on deploying a product and then finding a need. Rather than asking better questions from the business, gaining greater insights and working with groups to define purpose and focus. The last 15 years of website development has shown that if you build it people won’t come. You need to find the need, propose a solution for the need and then work, in both the physical and social areas to ensure there is understanding and adoption.

No one says “lets get back to email” but everyone involved in creating a social enterprise has to ensure the approach is client centred, define actually benefits from the results and continue to sell the value proposition. In essence, step back from creation and look at curation - what do we want this to achieve. The business rules for introducing social are no different from any other successful adoption.

Some years back I worked with a large service line, within a global organisation, to successful deploy a social platform to coordinate the activity around their first Director conference. A key element was the group already had a defined structure with leadership and governance in place, essential when looking to progress solutions. The approach to the Knowledge Lead was not to introduce a new platform but to look at addressing their issue around garnering ideas and feedback from a widely dispersed group of very busy people.

Lots of time and attention was given to the sponsorship and governance of the potential solution before we even discussed the technology. We had to get the concept and purpose right, and also the topics. If people don’t talk about the topic already, you have the wrong topic. We worked on how a potential community platform could improve user end-to-end tasks, how it could provide direct solutions to business problems and needs and ensured we talked about it effected the bottom line. Not a mention of the platform name or technology until all these elements had been sold, together with some quantifiable, measurable impact on the success of the group. Importantly we also had a timeline and retirement strategy in place.

Social enterprises will only make an impact within organisations when people responsible realise it takes lots of work to understand what the pain points are within the business, what need a platform COULD address and talk about garnering greater insights into business issues rather than knock on the door with a ready made product looking for a purpose.

Following an interesting debate on "social enterprise: real or fiction?"

http://www.zdnet.com/debate/social-enterprise-real-or-fiction/6346201

Organisations needs have not changed since the industrial revolution but the role workers play in that role has. The adoption of social (or maybe we do need a better word to reflect the virtual engagement or connecting behaviours that was so hard to attain for a worker) starts to give a voice to people who actually understand and do the work. This has incredible impact in terms of changing the way organisations are structured. Anyone who goes through the pain of appraisal processes, training courses and many of the practices that belonged in the 1980s realise the potential of thsi digital workplace to change the way employees begin to take control of their working lives. Organisations still have the power to hire and fire but now employees have the ability to create wider networks and not leave their careers in the hand of one boss or organisation.