How does social software get in an organization?

February 25, 2008

In older days, new software and applications came to an organization via the IT department. Nowadays, it is easier for social software to reach organizations in different ways because no firewall can stop it. To keep social software and its potential for knowledge sharing behind the firewall it is a contradiction.

Social software arrives in an organization in many different ways. Traditionally, it used to be installed software, where the desktop was — or still is — protected to prevent any misuse. As the web becomes a platform, applications are more and more web based. For example, a whole office suite can be accessed online. Calendars, project management and to-do lists are also offered for free. And of course blogs, wikis and social networks are just one click away. Clearly this changes the role of the IT department.

Dennis D. McDonald elaborates the different adoption models social media. He sees four different models in which social media and social networking are taken up by organizations:

  • Top down
    In the “top down” model organization’s leaders implement and lead the adoption of tools and techniques such as blogs, wikis, social networking systems, shared bookmarks, and podcasting.
  • Bottom up
    In the “bottom up” model the workers start blogging, using wikis and social networking systems to advance their jobs.
  • Inside out
    This is a variation of “bottom up,” only this time the tools are adopted internally by the organization and their usage spills over into external markets, members, or customers of the organization.
  • Outside in
    In this model the adoption of social media and social networking by the marketplace progresses to a point where the organization can no longer ignore it, especially if usage by competitors starts to become public.

But why is it interesting to know how it happens?

  1. It says a lot about the organizational culture.
  2. It lets you connect it better to existing web solutions.
  3. Too many different social software not connected nor taken with enough care will lead to another information overload and frustration.
  4. Social media needs its audience and that can flourish itself in an organizational environment as long as people are aware of it.

Top down

It has its advantages because tools are available right in the organization and resources are given to promote them. However, there are not necessarily adopted as easily because it does not prove an added value per se. Especially, focusing purely on a tool can become easily a dead end. More important to motivate engagement in the dialogue in order to experiment is a key, and that is much easier with the support of the management. However, the top down approach can only be a trigger or role model, but success evolves through a horizontal community.

Bottom up

It is the most obvious way and what is happening in many cases. Facebook is, for example, a mixture of private and professional contacts. But can a social network be build informally through a web in an organization? Employees can easily experiment with blogs out in a secure place for free. The time until a specific software is on every desktop can take ages. In contrast, web tools are a click away and they are getting better everyday. This “guerilla method” has also its disadvantages that the more people there are, the more different tools are used. Organizational knowledge is not linked and dispersed over the net. It is also questionable whether it reaches a lot of colleagues.

Inside out
This is, however, an great attempt for an open network, where the organization can benefit best from internal and external knowledge. Few companies or organizations are doing this as far as I know. But until today the potential is not used if you look at social network, which marginal or not, are all grasped by an Intranet. I can think of Sun Microsystems. This approach blurs the boundaries, but leads to improved learning and innovation. That is what the book “Wikinomics” is all about. The resistance, especially from the management to it, is surely the strongest for many different reasons. This approach leads, however, to interesting debates about whether information has to be confidential and what should be open for sharing.

Outside in
This is happening still very rarely. Surely blogs and wikis are tested in many organizations. However the outside pressure on organizations is in my opinion still low, because not enough organizations have proven the success of advantage of social software. However Larry Huston gave an interesting interview Innovation Networks: Looking for Ideas Outside the Company.

I don’t believe we’re at a tipping point yet, but I think, in the future, the companies that identify those assets outside and begin to build relationships with them have a real shot at building a competitive advantage and preferential relationships.

Often, employees have to find their own way to get all sort of information out from the web. A comprehensive feed subscription would be needed to deliver employees with good and relevant information available.

How does web2.0 arrive in your organization? What are the obstacles before it flourishes? Can you see the different ways it happens? Which key success factors are embraced by an organization and its members?


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Comments

6 Comments so far

  1. Kevin on February 27, 2008 11:34 pm

    Let’s not forget ASPs (application service providers) that were all the rage a while back. I think what we are seeing now is an entrenchment of company sensitive, mission critical stuff behind the corporate firewalls while less “sensitive” applications are outsourced to “ASPs” (an unfortunate acronym!).

    So, much of the web2.0 stuff that people might like to develop - which is by its nature collaborative, especialy with external organisations - does not, per se, fall into the same category as company sensitive, internal data. So it’s not surprising that such applications do not have the same strictures applied and can therefore be outsourced (while still respecting privacy laws, of course).

  2. ckreutz on February 28, 2008 7:38 pm

    Thanks Kevin for your remark. Yes I agree ASPs play a significant role. Richard Dennison discuss this in his post a bit further: http://richarddennison.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/what-is-an-intranet-2/

  3. Joitske on February 29, 2008 7:41 am

    I wonder whether besides top-down bottom-up it is not an important distinction whether employees or management are introducing it. And what about the role of the IT department or people with a special role in introducing technology? You could probably say a lot more about all kind of change processes. Seems nothing much is written about that?

  4. ckreutz on February 29, 2008 7:48 am

    To my experience so far often IT personnel has comprehensive knowledge of the technology behind social software but very limited experience (and interest) in the communication and knowledge sharing. But that isn’t there job anyway I guess. I also think it is best if employees introduce it themselves, however, I believe there is a lack of social media “experts”. With web2.0 finally new demands of skills are needed. but rarely existing in many organizations. For example: Online community facilitation, wiki gardening etc.

  5. Peter-Anthony Glick on March 2, 2008 11:13 am

    Good post Christian. You mention culture as an important factor and that is absolutely correct. In organizations were knowledge-sharing is not the norm (and that is I’m afraid still the majority) the best way in for social software is bottom up. Well, it does’nt have to “go up” at first, an Web 2.0 should spread horizontally until it reaches a critical mass for the CTO/CIO to notice it. Then, what should happen is for the best Web 2.0 tools to get a diserved recognition, get an “Enterprise 2.0 tool” status and be deployed (top-down this time) in the organization.
    I wrote about it recently (http://leveragingknowledge.blogspot.com)
    Peter

  6. ckorakas on April 4, 2008 2:21 pm

    Web 2.0 will always come through the “window” so to speak …

    Entrenched organisations like mine (European Commission) not allowing users to chat over Lan or use skype and the rest, requiring you to provide password to go out on the Internet, are increasingly faced with a situation where users , a very rapidly part of which are already using web2.0 in their out-of-work daily lives, will join up web based communities (facebook and others) to keep in touch with other colleagues and friends. The commission network of facebook (requires a valid Commission mail to register) counts already over 3500 members …
    Web2.0 is also used in many cases to facilitate their work. Lacking flexible and versatile tools, the most advanced users will use Google Docs for collaborative drafting of documents and yahoo groups to maintain online work groups …
    The risk is of course very high in terms of confidentiality …
    If the right tools are not provided inside … they will be found outside…

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