Category: Content Management

Employees don’t like their social intranet, study says

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http://www.ragan.com/InternalCommunications/Articles/Employees_dont_like_their_social_intranets_study_s_46552.aspx

I think we are now starting to see the issues companies have faced with ‘The rush to social’ or the social silo.

Every new medium or technology goes through a life cycle. Social intranets (however one defines these) will be no different. It’s part of the phases of this disruptive technology life cycle.

I suspect many of the social intranet are at an early stage of the cycle. One of the main issues I have found is to few companies have enough evidence why they should replace some core needs which I suspect the current intranet has not addressed. For many in the workforce, collaboration often means more work, not less work. Connectivity results in more interactions, some less meaningful than others. Increase in effort often shifts the status quo resulting in internal resistance.

There must also be some choice in the user experience.
Time and time, people want to use the tool they are most comfortable with. For example, activity streams make sense for some employees who are used to high frequency, always on, information flows. However, those accustomed to using email as a task list and structured approach to filing information will find discomfort with activity streams.

Companies that were early adopters of social tools have already begun to see signs of duplication of effort and worries over the governance model. Some of the issues being raised are familiar concerns with early intranet developments of the 90s.

The social intranets that receive harsh criticism from many users will look to blame intranet maangers or IT. But if you don’t have sound governance, you are going nowhere fast. The most important element for an effective governance model – nay the intranet as a whole – is the strength and level of engagement of the end owners. People are the primary catalyst of intranet success.

If the governance is in place, then valued, relevant content can’t help but flow from it. It won’t happen overnight, and does require oversight and enforcement, and an effective user experience to support it, but strong content will surge from the right team (and governance model).

 

A realistic perspective on enterprise activity streams

702From ‘Snippets’

The multiple personality of enterprise activity streams

Why do we follow people on activity stream sites like Facebook…cause we like hearing what they are up to…further to this we can converse with them…and even ask questions and share with people.

Most of the time we know what we are in for…we get updates about their life: experiences, they share articles, pictures, etc…

So what about enterprise activity streams?

I don’t quite think we know what we are in for

ie. we are gonna get updates about their daily work that may pollute our streams

Let me explain…

I’m John (Collaboration Lead)

I follow Jason (Project Manager)

I follow Jason as he shares great articles on managing complex projects, and I also follow him to hear about his experiences.

But that’s just one dimension of what Jason posts about…

Jason’s posts are not just sharing and reflective, he also posts about the here and now of his work. He is a member of many online groups where they communicate about their tasks, and all these posts land in my activity stream. He @mentions alot with other people about things that are very detailed to his task at hand…he is, as we say “working out loud”.

Now I know this is what it’s meant to be about ie. ambient awareness (I know what Jason is up to)…but after a while the intricacies of his work don’t interest me, and become noise in my activity stream.

So I want to follow Jason, the guy who shares research and writes reflective posts on experiences…but I don’t want to follow Jason, the guy who does his “to and fro” work in the activity stream.

What do you think?

stopping the stream from flooding

stopping the stream from flooding

With all the wet weather around in the UK it was timely to revisit these articles regarding managing the stream from social business tools.

http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2012/03/26/enterprise-activity-streamssometimes-it-is-about-the-technology/

http://www.alanlepofsky.net/alepofsky/alanblog.nsf/dx/three-areas-id-like-to-see-improved-in-social-business-software

In all my work within organisations I have yet to see a solution to the management of the activity stream. It’s one of the reasons that email will be with us for a long time. People can organise their own stream of content through their inbox.  With current social tools it’s similar to packing up the sandbags in a flood zone as the torrent of content, updates and communications is impossible to keep up with after being in meetings, telephone calls and catch-ups for much of the day. Yes it is a case of filter failure but the filter needs to come from a gatekeeper otherwise the stream will burst its banks and drown us with content.

The digital must support the physical

Love this piece from RSA.

http://www.rsablogs.org.uk/2012/social-economy/web-20-rise-partisan/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rsaconnectedcommunities+%28Connected+Communities%29

It shows how we can isolate ourselves within digital networks and increase the silo mentality rather than try to increase the transparency. The same dangers may prevent themselves when implementing social technologies and without strong ‘human engagement’ to support the digital engagement many deployments will fail.

I strongly believe the digital world is here to support the physical world that we occupy. We must resist the temptation just to confine ourselves away in the digital social networks but use them to support our real physical world and the relationships and beliefs we develop. In many areas of life digital interaction would not succeed without some physical, real-life human contact.

The 2012 Obama For America (OFA) campaign was the culmination of the president’s belief in the power of neighbourhood action that he acquired as a community organiser in poor areas of Chicago in the 1980s. That faith in bottom-up organising was combined with a massive digital database to produce a campaign that was simultaneously hyper localised and rigorously centralised.

He created a matrix of field officers that were concentrated in the swing states. The Obama camp believed a strong missionary fervour that friendship, contact and the personal touch are how you win elections.

The deployment of adoption of social tools is not about technology. It is about building the right conditions; champions, advocates, support networks and contact points that ensure the purpose of the deployment (generally breaking down silos or barriers, increasingly transparency and knowledge sharing) are successful.