This is for all of you, who share the daily burden to convince people for open knowledge sharing through the Internet for the benefit of all. That outdated hierarchies contradict potentials free flows of ideas and creative work in self-responsible teams and the persistence to follow-top down work styles and information-flows.
Here comes a list of statement you might (or not) avoid to say when you want to convince colleagues or clients for such changes. Please share more as I am sure you have plenty. 
* Tell the IT people that there are stuck in the 80’s, far from reality and will soon be obsolete.
* We will not implement a website. It will be a mashup consisting of social networks, blogs, wikis, widgets, maps and much more.
* Let us move the informal conversation online. We will have real-time interaction from all employees tweeting 9-5.
* Forget about email. It is oudated and we will share openly information across departments and hierarchies.
* Inside – outside does not matter anymore, so re-think your Intranet and open it.
* Let’s give up the documentation management system and let all employees tag files how they think it is best.
* You know that the Intranet with organizational structure does not corresponded at all to the dispersed expertise in your organization.
* Yes sure we can measure the results of online knowledge sharing and prove each invested penny.
* Your employees will have full control of the website themselves and we turn off the workflow function.
* Forgot about desktop solutions. Outource your applications to external providers.
* We do it the wiki fashion – everybody add expertise where they know it better across your organization web.
* Have you heard of Firefox and Skype? They are dangerous tool luckily blocked by our firewall.
*
Yours thoughts?
This is for all of you who share the daily burden of convincing people about the value of open knowledge sharing through the Internet for the benefit of all. The outdated hierarchies and top down work styles restrict free flowing ideas and creative work in self-responsible teams, so what can you do?
Here comes a list of statements you might (or might not!) avoid when you want to convince colleagues or clients to make such changes. Please share more as I am sure you have plenty.
- Yes sure we can measure the results of online knowledge sharing and prove value for money for each invested penny.
- Tell the IT people that there are stuck in the 80’s, far from reality and will soon be obsolete.
- We will not implement a website. It will be a mashup consisting of social networks, blogs, wikis, widgets, tagging, maps and much more.
- Let us move the informal conversation online. We will have real-time interaction from all employees tweeting 9-5.
- Forget about email. It is oudated and we will share openly information across departments and hierarchies.
- Inside – outside does not matter anymore, so re-think your Intranet and open it.
- Let’s give up the documentation management system and let all employees tag files how they think best.
- Your employees will have full control of the website themselves and we can turn off the workflow function.
- Forgot about desktop solutions. Outsource your applications to external providers.
- We should do it in the wiki fashion – everybody will add their knowledge and expertise across your organization web.
- Have you heard of Firefox and Skype? They are dangerous tools luckily blocked by your firewall.
Your thoughts?
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Good question, Chris! On this topic, I am always reminded of this piece of advice from Euan Semple (more on tactics than on statements), which I found to be extremely valuable.
“The secret to success with Enterprise 2.0 … isn’t to try to make people change … it is to do something that can’t already be done.
Don’t try to get your powerful people to behave differently – they have everything to lose. Don’t try to improve your existing processes – you will be seen to be breaking something.
Focus instead on the things that are desperately trying to happen but aren’t and the people who are desperately trying to connect but can’t. Do things that make the impossible possible and your success rate will soar.”
How did you know all the things that I said in the past months?
Some more:
- Let the junior staff use social media and encourage them to use it to promote their work.
- If we work at home and on week ends why hinder staff to do some personnal stuff online during work hours?
- In times of multi stakeholder partnerships, we have to rethink Branding.
Hübsch: Christian Kreutz zählt auf, was man vorsichtshalber *nicht* sagt, wenn man zur Organisation 2.0 werden will: http://j.mp/8eaP0k
Organization 2.0 – what you should avoid saying http://www.crisscrossed.net/2009/12/04/organization-2-0-what-you-should-avoid-saying/
crisscrossed / Organization 2.0 – what you should avoid saying http://bit.ly/59hP7s
RT @sdohrn: RT @ckreutz: Organization 2.0 – what you should avoid saying when attempting change. http://bit.ly/4z6LDv
Christian your analysis is right on. I believe what is hindering organizations to embrace org2.0 is the fear of loosing control by exposing their “content”. Another challenge is to convince people that creating a website is not the pancea and not the only way or not necessarily the most appropriate way of sharing knowledge.
Talking from my own personal experience, I believe if we can bring on board the legal departments, then we’re in business. Personally speaking for me, IT division is not a problem. They understand the potential and benefits of org2.0. I had a challenge to bring on board comms colleagues, but I must say, slowly but surely they’re coming on board. Now, need to work with legal guys!
Lovely new design
The most frustrating part for me has been that social media interactions just feel more intuitive and natural–and productive in the ways I’ve experienced being highly productive.
I used to have relatively strong disagreements at the foundation I worked at years ago when they were pushing video-conferencing to replace face-to-face meetings. I kept thinking that the most profound insights and creativity always happened “in between” the formal sessions–during coffee breaks, over lunch, casual encounters when moving between sessions, and particularly when the formal sessions completely broke down. I’ve got a colleague in international development that spends all his time at conferences in the hallways to converse with other folks “escaping” the formal structure.
For me, Enterprise 2.0. Gov 2.0–virtually any social media channel–recreates that “in-between” space, where interactions can spontaneously occur, where the pressures of “productivity” and deadlines are released enough to see and experience things in radically different light, and therefore always fresh opportunity. Can it be measured against a cost-benefit analysis? Probably not, but for the sake of argument, what if it were possible to measure ALL the communications that took place around a given community/organization/enterprise–formal and informal–and flag the points where the greatest creativity broke through? I think it almost invariably happens first “in-between” and then enters the “formal” discussion.
And that’s what social media opens up–a rebalancing of the “in-between” spaces with the formal structures.
Just thinkin…
This is for all of you who share the daily burden of convincing people about the value of open knowledge sharing http://bit.ly/4Jr9Ws
For all of you who share the daily burden of convincing people about the value of open knowledge sharing http://bit.ly/4Jr9Ws (via @zia505)
"Organization 2.0 and what you should avoid saying." Thanks to @ckreutz – http://bit.ly/4Wqsh6 #HNW
Nice list: "Organization 2.0 – what you should avoid saying" http://bit.ly/8c1sNQ
RT @schaeferblick: Nice list: "Organization 2.0 – what you should avoid saying" http://bit.ly/8c1sNQ
Let your staff post comments on blog posts like this…
Thank you for the list, Christian, it made me smile since it is so true. You neither can argue by the tools alone, nor the effects regarding the daily worlk. The first comment by giulio who cited Euan stating to produce something radical yet much needed business process, while perfectly true is equally the most difficult part and not installing the plattform or teaching your clients how to use the WYSIWYG-Editor in the Wiki or blog.
Stop and watch the organisation. How much time are they are willing to allocate and expect this willingness / readyness to alter during the process. So how much time are they are able to allocate initially? Ask yourself which tool would fit into the time the client’s staff is willing to allocate and then consider the possible effects this tool might have on administrative business processes, network communities, collaboration structure, knowledge management and time to market. Then consider the timeline as the use of the tool may likely to trigger an emergent structure that might be particularly useful but overlook initially.
A folksonomie emerges out of the use tagging tools with metrics at hand for dominating tagged items and how they shift over time. While at the same time knowledge and domain expertise becomes documented through the use of tagging. Maybe there is already a knowledge management system installed, which can utilise this folksonomie, for example a kind of skill yellow pages displaying automated updates of the tagging profile? From a systemic perspective look for theses process interfaces and show your client that there is much extra value added available as a indirect results of the use of these tools.
I believe installing X2.0 is not a traditional IT-project. For one the system setup is not a problem, software is cheap if not free to use anyway and runs often in the web browser. The cultural dimension is the most important part and it the trick is to understand the client’s perspective and to offer a unique fit. After all, the statements above show a perspective into the organisation, i.e. x2.0 to be used for internal business processes like knowledge sharing and collaboration. Yet, x2.0 can be used explicitely for community building with suppliers or customers in business process networks for example. Thus, it is never good to forget the client’s business strategy when thinking about the emergent properties benefitting the organisation.
regards
Soenke
@Giulio nice hint to Euan’s tactics. I only see the challenge that these newer approaches do not necessarily help “you connect where they can’t”. A blog is a a new channel of discourse. It does not necessarily help you to make things faster for example. I imagine document sharing is something much more concrete then.
@Roxy very interesting point about the legal. Yes indeed I get same feedback, that actually some organizations want such change and go now through the long process of legal changes (e.g. social media policy, permission structure – outside vs. inside).
@Ken very nice formulated. It is exact this sphere of daily exchange that is often not taken serious enough, although it places such a vital role in organizational productivity and creativity.
@Soenke so true it is so little about tools and much more about culture. All these tools are still very new and probably take years to mature.
But sometimes it's also about avoiding lingo and wrong arguments to convince managers see: http://su.pr/1V5elB #KMers
And there's also 'un-marketing' KM: what you should avoid saying @ckreutz wrote a brilliant post about this: http://su.pr/1V5elB #KMers