The restaurant was bustling with activity around an oversized circular table at a moderately trendy steak house in downtown Boston. Dressed in my best “I don’t care what I am wearing, but I care what you think” outfit, I was out to dinner with various characters from the enterprise wiki postercompany, Atlassian. Both Jay and I were rotund with transparent geekery and well cooked bovine. Neither of which seemed to stop us from having a glass (bottle? ) of wine too many as we discussed our Confluence implementation with president of the firm – Jeffrey Walker. I think that for Jeffrey and the rest of the Atlassian team in attendance, it was just another night, in another town, with a couple of zealous wiki fans, drunk on the Confluence kool-aid. For us, however, it was a unique chance to both thank and appreciate some of the people who believed in us from the very beginning.

While my interactions with Jeffrey were relatively limited from there on out, he was unwavering in his support and advocacy.  No matter how long it had been since a sale or a marketing event, he was gracious, appreciative, and genuinely interested in our continuing slog through the E2 adoption quagmire. In light of his tragic passing yesterday, we wanted to express our condolences and gratitude to his personal and professional family at home and Atlassian HQ.

Jeffrey, you will be sorely missed. We would not be where we are today without you and the dedicated people at Atlassian.

Thank you.

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For those (5) of you keeping score at home, I feel it necessary to inform you of a recent mark in the W column for the half tactless (me), half talented (Jay), full-tilt team of trans-national transparency here at E2oh. Fire up your boombox and rifle rack because ladies and gents, rising like a $12,000 enterprise-wide, web-based phoenix from the ashes of acquisition, the Wiki is back!

Needless to say, I am stoked. After 3 months of a painful regression through file uploads, track changes, and hourly knowledge assassinations from email, I could not be happier to again, author content in Confluence. I mean really though…how do people do it? I haven’t been removed from that world for decades but Jesus Murphy…I almost missed my handball game with Gordon due to the total time suck of outdated and inefficient tools and methods.

So…I have been a thinkin’. Thinkin ’bout 2.0 and what not. Know how people say ‘If I had to do it all over again…”, and then ramble off a litany of mistakes from their latest project? (Or complete life in my case). Sometimes they even go so far as to turn these pricey little gems of consulting pontification into deliverables we call “Lessons Learned”. Strangely, for as introspective and growth-oriented as this process appears, I always get the sense no one actually “learns the lessons”. They are more just an embarrassing admission of failure recurrence when “learned” again on the next project.

So with that, I figured I would put down on paper (monitor?) a few lessons we learned from our multiple 2.0 implementations over the years. We are essentially starting over in the adoption marathon at our new company, and maybe, just maybe we won’t have to learn these lessons again.

• Lesson 1 – Completely disregard anything said by anyone referring to themselves as a social media expert, selling only a social media strategy, or claiming that it’s not about the technology. The real “experts” out there are the employees with their heads down, screaming like a banshee for a better way to work. They don’t need a strategy.  They need permission and a tool that will enable them to serve as a vanguard for the organizationally elite .  They will guide the rest of the herd, knowingly or not. And don’t call them early adopters. Call everyone else late.
• Lesson 2 – Realize you probably know way less about “how your organization works” than you think. “Culture” can be a tricky devil in the world of limited choice. Maybe your organization hoards information because they have never been given an option otherwise. Don’t presuppose any of the actions of the crowd. Go into projects with a focus on flexibility and agile adaptation to the movements of the masses. This is social software after all, and I know I am not nearly smart enough to accurately predict anything a society might do.
• Lesson 3 – Convince yourself you are never informed enough to always be right. You are only informed enough to sometimes be present. If you ask more questions than you answer, you reduce the risk of looking like a complete knucklehead and increase your chances of getting a second date. Wait…that’s not a lesson I learned at work…definitely learned that in Adams Morgan. Seems to sort of work both places though.
• Lesson 4 – Start a blog and make fun of yourself for being a 2.0 zealot. I mean…we are kind of nutty, right? And just like Dairy Queen, everyone loves a little substance dipped in crunchy self deprecation.

I can say with absolute certainty that I have committed the mistakes driving these “lessons” dozens of times. Hell, I might be committing one of them by writing this post.  As we move ahead with Wiki Part Deux, we’ll keep the scoreboard updated on how we are doing.  Put on your rally caps though, because if my writing is any indication of my ability, I am coming from down a ton and need all the help I can get.

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The hype surrounding Cloud Computing in government has risen to a deafening level as government IT leaders and eager contractors try to find relevance for the technology within the federal enterprise. To make Cloud Computing work for government, it helps to take a step back and understand why the technology has been so successful elsewhere. Cloud Computing isn’t just a way to cut costs and drive efficiency; it also brings technology closer to business users. With cloud infrastructure, users are able to quickly spin up tools that they want use, but aren’t necessarily the choice of their organization’s technology gatekeepers. Cloud platforms let users quickly develop and implement applications in a way that short-circuits typical development lifecycles. This closes the gap between business users and technology. Increasing the alignment between business users and the software and hardware that supports them is perhaps the most important (and often unstated) benefit of Cloud Computing in the enterprise. It’s the reason that Cloud infrastructure and platforms have allowed for the creation of scores of startups, and helped to fuel the rise of Web 2.0 tools behind the firewall. But, does this free wheeling attitude towards the implementation of IT tools resonate behind the doors of government agencies?

It can, and agencies are starting to show how. NASA’s Nebula enables project teams to develop and deploy software to meet their needs, and can take advantage of the scalability Cloud platforms can provide. The GSA’s planned “app store” would allow government users to quickly purchase applications and infrastructure, have them delivered through the Cloud, and pay via a credit card. Agencies that want to make their internal Cloud platforms successful should keep the notion of customer centricity in mind; to be successful they’ll need to keep their private Cloud simple, and accessible to end users. Looking at Cloud computing solely from the lens of an IT director or CFO won’t make Cloud computing anything more significant than the infrastructure technologies that preceded it. By bringing users a step closer to the technology that can help solve their problems, Cloud Computing can be as transformative in government as it has been in the private sector.

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While perusing my Google Reader subscriptions the other day, I came across an interesting post from Venkatesh Rao on the Enterprise 2.0 Conference Blog. Please read the post/comments yourself, but to paraphrase, the basic idea is that as Web 2.0 style technologies move within the firewall (ala E2) they become boring. The “exciting” and “consequential” part of the business is missing from the (insert your 2.0 technology of choice here), because the “exciting” and “consequential” people are missing as well. Similar to this post from Steve Radick, it is more of the theme that technology is a reflection of a culture.  Both posts raise some excellent points, but I found myself shaking my head while reading. I said to myself “Self – am I boring? Am I inconsequential? Was I transparent and collaborative before E2?”

I rarely disagree with these sorts of folks for two reasons. One – they are way smarter than I am. (Seriously. Not being sarcastic. I make it through the day by force of will and dumb luck. ) Two – they seemingly have way more time than I do to write retorts confirming the former. Disagreement sounds like a dicey proposition to me, but in the interest of perhaps proving my point, let’s run a few rounds.

My first issue is this paragraph from Venkatesh:

The exciting people — say the guy leading the consequential re-org, or managing the “bet the company” product launch, is probably far busier than everybody else. But I suspect there is another reason: to put it in terms of an American high school analogy, it is the same reason the “cool kids” avoid the “loser kids.”  Enterprise 2.0 is mostly populated by the equivalent of band geeks. The equivalent of football players and cheerleaders are possibly avoiding it. Just possibly, they might be thinking “nobody who is anybody goes there; nothing that matters happens there.”

Wow. Talk about a shot to my E2 gut. I was in fact a band geek in high school and I think Mr. Rao just stuffed me in a locker and stole my flute-playing girlfriend. On to something similar from @sradick:

Ultimately though, no matter how many pages your wiki has or how fantastic your internal blog is, the technology is going to reflect your organizational culture.  Not the culture you talk about on your website, but the real, honest culture of your organization.

Huh. So if I slap these two thoughts together, I am left with the fact that our Enterprise 2.0 implementations have been nothing more than a transparent magnification of the collective loserdom.

Gentlemen…Respectfully…I disagree.

First off, the claim that Enterprise 2.0 is inhabited by the equivalent of band geeks and high-school losers sounds like a text message you wish you could take back after a SharePoint bender. My dear friend, we are not losers. We are the organizationally elite. We are a minority because of the majority interest’s penchant for feeding tube IT and collaboration that is…well…easy. Keep thinking I sit alone at lunch because nothing that matters happens here. I am sorry, but in the rat race to be a better, faster, more informed knowledge worker (can I still say that?), the cool kid good looks, easy going nature, and belief that all problems can be fixed by relationship X or quid pro quo Y is a surefire sentence to a lifetime of inconsequentiality.

Secondly, the claim that technology is nothing more than a reflection of your internal culture is sleight of hand for change management consultants. Enterprise 2.0 technologies do not reflect a culture. They present a desired future state and an opportunity for that culture to change. It is not that I was always this collaborative or transparent. It is not that I have always wanted to blog (or whatever). In fact, I didn’t think anything of the sort was possible until I was exposed to the technology. Furthermore, I didn’t jump in immediately, thinking that this wiki thing was some sort of missing glass slipper I had been longing to wear. It was the opportunities that the technology presented that allowed my personal culture to change. The capabilities and power of the Enterprise 2.0 technologies are there out of the box. As the culture begins to change and understand their value, the culture itself becomes a representation of the capabilities manifested in the technology.

Frankly…both of these ideas have some merit. However, they are gross oversimplifications. Yeah sure…there are some geeks using the technologies. And yeah sure…the  guy who is a jerk in real life will probably be a jerk on the wiki. But in both of cases, having these events occur in the clear will go a long way toward said “loser culture” breaking down the crippling organizational and technological silos – put there by the football players and cheerleaders –  evidently as a representation of their “winner culture.”

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Jay and I had an interesting conversation with Peter Corbett from iStrategy Labs a few days ago. If you aren’t familiar with the firm, they are the brains behind the acclaimed data-off sponsored by the DC City Government – Apps for Democracy. The idea was frankly brilliant in both its elegance and execution. So much that it spawned the latest incarnation – a 311 API.  Turn over city statistical data to the world (in a somewhat digestible format like RSS) and hold a contest to see who could mashup and deliver the best application. At the time, now Federal CIO Vivek Kundra held the same title in my fair city’s government and has since received accolades along with iStrategy Labs for what turned out to be a real barnburner in the 2.0 world. The DC City government and residents got a handful of really useful apps. Some creative developer got a nice chunk of change. All in all, that sounds like a mark in the W column for the govies in this burgeoning kickball game of transparency.

During our conversation I brought up the idea of bringing data exposition and mashup contests (is that what they are called?) to the developing world. Often times when Jay or I are overseas working within Ministry this or trade association that, the root of our challenges center on getting data from one place to another. Hopefully, that other place being somewhere near Usefultown. (Ever been to Usefultown? Not many people, but there is plenty of parking.)  As such we spend a whole bucketload of our moderately expensive hours trying to solve data-related issues. Either there isn’t any data, the data that exists is bad, or what is produced from the data is typically not citizen focused.

As I spoke about this to Peter, it struck me that we could score a development hat trick by instead of developing these apps ourselves, running a contest sponsored by the IT trade association. 1) The recipient government and citizens would end up with a useful application. 2) An entrepreneurial developer would receive startup funding, spurring private sector growth. 3) The US taxpayer development dollar would have a greater direct impact on the recipient country. I think this idea might be especially applicable for the two projects I have worked on in Jordan. (For those of you just tuning in, one is focused on private sector development and the other on capacity building within a government IT Department.) Within the IT capacity-building program we will implement an executive information system to aid in the development of policy, decision-making, and overall information awareness by aggregating various data sources. As usual, we are slogging our way through the traditional approach of driving requirements, unscrewing data sources, and visioneering (Ha!) what this thing might look like in the end. But, seems to me that if we focused on publishing as much data as possible and ran an Apps for Democracy style contest, we would have a much greater chance at ending up with something spicy. Like I would rather us focus on making the data available and harnessing the collective (and growing) crowd of IT talent, than beating our way through a traditional waterfall, black box implementation.

If I had a nickel for every time I spent months building a “projects database” or “management information system” that ended up serving the needs of 3 people tops, I could buy Montana. Or maybe just a Big Montana. Whatever. Too many nickels either way. It strikes me that the spirit of something like Apps for Democracy applied to international development makes a huge amount of sense. We should spend our nickels exposing government data (within reason) to its true owners, the citizens. Give them the tools to create useful applications and you will outrun any consultant-only driven model. Inspiring constituencies to participate in government and the resulting decisions will prove the centuries old adages of democracy by leveraging the years old approaches of all things 2.0. That, in my opinion is true development.

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