From A-Z to Organization2.0: C - Cafeteria — catching the informal

June 5, 2008

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Let’s face it, when you deal with knowledge sharing in an organization, it becomes quickly obvious that most knowledge is shared personally, face-to-face over the telephone or in the cafeteria. In a personal conversation people can describe issues in length, reply to questions and tell the “real” story. Formal meetings often do not give space for vibrant discussions and are often not the forum to describe the pros and cons. Although by listening to the experiences of others, best learning can be achieved.

An ordinary organization has usually a top-down controlled Intranet, where the different departments add their contributions. Sometimes there is even a forum, but in many cases hardly used at all — it is somewhere hidden or a hassle to access. The organizational life is happening somewhere else and employees on a business trip or in a different branch are cut off.

Social software offers at least three new ways for organization to benefit from:

  1. To get a picture of what is really happening in an organization. What are the major topics? What is it what staff discusses and cares about? Not all is going to be public, but a lot more than a top-down Intranet or internal communication by the corporate communication department. Is your organization ready for that?
  2. To bring people with same interests together without typing with your numb finger over the telephone. Personal employee’s pages, such as yellow pages, can be easily linked through common key words (tags) by interests, competencies, blog posts, projects on wiki pages etc. Check your del.icio.us (a social bookmarking site) or this video and browse through it and see yourself how quickly you find like-minded people. On delicious it is often anonymous, but in an organization it is all linked to employees and their expertise, their projects and questions. Check out 20 things to do on a social network in the office.
  3. To increase productivity and emphasize innovation. To imagine employees to network on a peer-to-peer basis. A transparent open network will not only brings synergies and avoids to reinvention of the wheel, but also offers innovations. Like-minded people collaborate on their preferred topics. Staff with similar ideas find each other or new ideas arose out of discussions between people who have different departments.

Why should they do it? It certainly needs transparency and trust but the benefit and mutual gain can come quickly. But this is of course a nightmare scenario to all those employees, who treat knowledge as power. Because in this kind of open horizontal community you are what you share!

How to start?

Here are some rather bottom-up approaches:

  • Start a collaborative tagging experiment over del.icio.us with colleagues to see how easy the sharing of valuable information can be, or open up a room on friendfeed to discuss right away resources.
  • Use external tools for your team to make project management easier. One example could be a blog for your project’s history, milestones and other management tasks.
  • Connect with colleagues through existing social networks such as Xing, Linkedin or Facebook and use it for exchange.
  • Extend informal activities on the web and make other colleagues be aware of it: bulletin board, liftsharing etc.
  • As Joitske commented on my first blog post, you can address a specific problem and use social media for an open transparent discussion.

This is a blog post series about my experiences on web2.0 in an organization, consisting of at least 26 different blog posts highlighting potentials and challenges and focusing on success factors. Please feel free to comment, contact me for further information and/or let me know which other topics within this context you would be interested on.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Organizations can be democratic, flat and passionate

March 9, 2008

The web is full of thoughts and discussion around open, democratic and flat organizations. Most of this discussions and concepts are connected to web2.0, but that is not necessarily new, as Ricardo Semler proofs it in his book: The seven-day weekend. For more than twenty years, he has been experimenting with open knowledge models. I was surprised how good it fits to the contemporary approach, such as the new Wikinomics Playbook formulates.

Democratic

Seven Day WeekendWhile on holidays, I had the chance to read Semler’s book. The cover looks a bit curious, but the substance is quite inspiring. Thanks to Ignatia for recommending me this book. The main message of the book is that it is possible to have an open democratic non-hierarchical and successful company. In his book, already a few years old, Ricardo Semler tells his story about how he has transformed a company for the past thirty years until today, together with his colleagues through an open management model. He proved, to my surprise, that an ongoing cycle of questioning things makes progress and change possible. The book has a lot of fascinating insights next to some repetitions. Here is the excerpt, and here are two great quotes:

And the increasingly popular concept of work/life balance is not all that we seek. Balance also ensues when people are given room to explore so they can find out where their talents and interests lie and merge their personal aspirations with the goals of the company. Once employees feel challenged, invigorated, and productive, their efforts will naturally translate into profit and growth for the organization.

Giving up control also means relinquishing exclusive rights to information. Privileged information is a dangerous source of power in any organization. Information that one person has that others lack can be terribly important, and can give them the upper hand. To annihilate information hoarding and illegitimate power, information must be shared. The argument that competitors might latch onto sensitive information if it is widely known is not convincing enough to stop the free flow of information.

Flat
The wikinomics playbook — collaboratively written by the readers of the wikinomics book — will be printed soon. The online version, freely available, offers many different topics. I, particularly, liked very much chapter 2: “The Wikified Organization.” In the centre there is of course a wiki, which is less a technology than a chance for all to contribute and create something new. “At its heart, the wikified organisation is about communications—wide-open, no-holds-barred, inclusive communications.”

Wikis are not about bottom-up management, they are about round table solving of solutions where titles are null and void, where intellects win and where ideas are valued, not ruthlessly critiqued…Wikis change the paradigm… the goal is a refined idea…. not an idea beaten into consensus!”

With a wikified approach, a team can transform a “good idea” into a “cause,” and a cause has a life of its own. Often a cause is unstoppable—if the idea that spawned it is “good” enough. Later, a cause, if it has enough energy, capital and direction (read as steerage and guidance), can become a movement. And a movement can change the world.

Passionate
The authors of Playbook argue that this wikified approach leads to an ongoing open space of ideas and exchange between passionate driven contributors. Maybe that is why the company 37signals has recently announced a change to a four-day week and that they are funding there employees passions.

Three-day weekends mean people come back extra refreshed on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people come back happier on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people actually work harder and more efficiently during the four-day work week.

It could turn out to be just like the story from Semler. In one part, he describes when the company was introducing hammocks for lunch-break-naps and how this led to a creativity boost.


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