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.”
Tags:band geek·crossfit·dissent·loser
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.
Tags:data·government 2.0·international development·roast beef·transparency
As of 12:01 AM Saturday, May 9 the ink has dried and both Jay and I are officially employed by Deloitte LLP. While for all practical purposes the BearingPoint Enterprise Wiki was a resounding success, its future remains unclear. Starting on an old laptop in my basement, served through a cable modem hack, the 16,000 person community has grown to produce over 100,000 unique pages and garnered over 1 million page views in 1 year of production. As a community we pushed the boundaries of what traditional wikis were asked to do, and through a wirearchy of avid and enthused users, proved a novel approach to enterprise application deployment. Whether this model will translate into our new company are both an exciting challenge and a somewhat bittersweet realization.
Essentially for Jay and I, the BearingPoint Enterprise Wiki is over. Sure, there may be a next step that looks the same and meets the same ends, but the experience where we cut our Enterprise 2.0 teeth is going the way of the dodo. In realizing this, I wanted to say thanks to some people who helped us along the way.
To the early adopters and long time supporters – For believing that from the moment we got up on the soapbox, we were not just tool jockeying the app du jour, but striving to make our company a better, more transparent place. You had the faith to participate, advise, lobby your own teams, provide top cover when we stepped a bit too far out of line, and pass the hat to fund our early pilots. As the leaderless organization virally grew outward, you were both the messenger and the artist, crafting the theme of transparency into something that met your individual needs. From the early adopter Managing Directors to the core support team that just hung up their admin spurs on Friday, thank you for your support.
To Atlassian, Contegix, and Customware – For believing that while it may take a while, we would turn out to be a decent investment. You always treated us fairly and are shining examples of how proper business should be conducted. We may have been a little late to pay from time to time, but you stuck with us, focused on the longer term relationship. From the support engineers and sales staff to the developers and executives, you were critical to this process and I thank you for your support.
To Kevin King – For being the unsung, high-side hero of the project and believing from the very, very beginning, that this was a good idea. You were untiring in your contribution to the team and put in hours beyond my understanding to make sure the ship kept afloat. Jay and I both know that we couldn’t have done it without you.
While the parties above represent the core of responsibility for the project, there are thousands of individual contributors and champions throughout the firm. They each helped to make the BearingPoint Enterprise Wiki a success, and if it were possible to sum their collective experiences, you would find the elusive and sought after white rhino of Enterprise 2.0 – Return on Investment. I can only tell you for certain, that it has changed my life. I am better at my craft. I produce better content. Conceivably, I am a better consultant. However, most importantly I have the opportunity to thank the people who helped me get here. That…is enough return for me.
UPDATE: We’re Back…
Tags:BearingPoint·peace out·thanks·wiki
I had arrived in Jordan the night before. Best my circadian rhythms could tell, it was about 0100 and I seemed to have been cheated a few hours in transit. Jet lag is a funny thing. Kinda the cheap strip club of consciousness. You know it isn’t real, but man…the scenery is deceptively attractive, hours are rounding errors, and for the love of God, why is the sun up? Either way I was determined to hit the gym and hopefully help force the hand of the unrelenting “workday”.
The gym at the Intercontinental in Amman is respectable as far as hotel gyms go. Not usually crowded, it can be a respite to the weary/bleary/eerie traveler on their way through the middle east. I was all three the fateful morning I discovered a mildly cultish experience I have since bought into in a mildly obsessive fashion. Check that. Majorly cultish experience in an obsessively obsessive fashion.
I was huffing and puffing my way through a set of pullups when an ominous, somewhat bearded man of significant magnitude approached from the far side of the gym. He was clearly (hiding being) American but with a smile and an overly firm handshake he said to me…
“How long you been doing CrossFit?”
Racing through my memory bank, cluttered by the trans-Atlantic-business-class-all-you-can-convince-that-nice-woman-who-works-for-United-wine-fest of last night’s flight, I stuttered something that hopefully would garner an iota of respect.
“Yeah…it’s cool. I just uhh…started but am not really…umm…sure yet.” (cue man shrug and realization of complete idiocy).
He stares at me quizzically. Perhaps wondering whether English is my first language and after what might have been against his better judgment, smiles again and says, “Keep it up. It will change your life.”
We exchange another (awkward on my part) handshake and he moves on to what I assume is a day consisting of a flight directly into the IZ. However, I was intrigued by this thing he referred to as “CrossFit”. Was I doing that? Should I be doing that? Why am I not doing that now? Do I need to grow a beard? After completing the balance of my paltry workout, I immediately set to googlin’ and came across a phenomenon that in fact, has changed my life. And maybe, just maybe, might provide a corollary to helping spread the goodness that is Enterprise 2.0.
In short, CrossFit is an open source “strength and conditioning fitness methodology”. There is a website/blog where daily workouts are posted and in turn, the participants post their results. The key differences between this and other programs that may sound similar is that these workouts are blow-an-o-ring difficult, usually require little equipment, and encourage competition through public reporting of performance or achievement. As a result of this, the community that has developed around CrossFit is extremely loyal, passionate, and somewhat insubordinate with respect to the “old way” of exercising. “Forging Elite Fitness” is more a badge of honor than a slogan, and gyms catering to xfitters have sprung up across the world. In my experience, the approach produces superior results yet is often shunned by the traditional fitness complex, starving for consumer dollars. It can be argued that CrossFit is the land of zealots. Yes, we are in excellent shape. Yes, we are training not to suck at life. Yes, we have a supportive community and almost limitless, free resources. Yes, organizations like the Marine Corps, law enforcement, and emergency services have adopted the approach. Yes, all indications seem to point to the fact that CrossFit might be the best way to get your widening derriere off the couch and into those hipster jeans. The results form a somewhat bulletproof business case.
Yet…we are the minority. We are overshadowed by Zumba classes and Bowflex. We are surrounded by Old Country Buffets and other food borne assaults on the human condition. Critics have painted us as cultish, a fad, and lacking rigorous certification standards. Despite what I have seen as overwhelming success in my own life as well as those around me, CrossFit is still not yet mainstream. In some instances, traditional gyms have banned its practice altogether.
In preparing for my participation in the “Reality Check” session at the E2 Conference this year, it occurred to me that this is not a dissimilar situation from the state of transparency within the enterprise.
In my current (past?) company, the use of our Enterprise Wiki to peel back the layers of otherwise tacit knowledge bears the same characteristics of the situation surrounding CrossFit. We are a somewhat cultish group of contributors who passionately believe in this way of working. We have wholesale adopted the practice of creating content in the clear, seek and use input from across the organization, and raise an indignant grimace to the “old way” of collaborating. Our approach requires little client side equipment, a puny corporate investment, and focuses on driving value from the crowd by changing yourself first. Yes, we are writing more informed deliverables. Yes, we have a supportive community and almost limitless free resources. Yes, organizations like IBM, Cisco, and the DC City Government have adopted the approach. Yes, all indications seem to point to the fact that Enterprise 2.0 might be the best way to get your darkening corporate knowledge base out of Exchange (or whatever) and into the light of utility. The results form a somewhat bulletproof business case.
Yet…we are the minority. We are overshadowed by large corporate investments in permission-granted, file-driven technologies. We are surrounded by the easy and familiar technology mega buffet of so called collaboration suites. Sure, there might be grilled chicken in a steam tray somewhere, but in comparison to the volume pumping through the mac and cheese hopper, the healthy options look a bit lonely. Criticism is not as vocal, but passively manifested in lack of participation or continuation of traditionally opaque practices. Depite what I have seen as overwhelming success in my own life as well as those around me, Enterprise 2.0 is still not yet mainstream.
More respectable and knowledgeable bloggers than I have pointed out too many times to cite, that this may have something to do with fear. While I agree fear is a part of it, perhaps transparency, the core of Enterprise 2.0, is avoided for the same reason we choose a leisurely twirl on the elliptical machine over a fight gone bad.
Simply put – transparency is hard. Transparency might hurt while you are doing it. Transparency might actually injure you if not practiced with common sense and an objective view of your capabilities. Transparency requires you to think about work in a different way, not a different place. Sure, you can check the transparency box by standing up a corporate-apedia, viewing it a couple times, and maybe adding a link or two. But immediately sending a status report as an attachment thereafter is like doing a single pushup before riding a desk all day. Might make you feel good about yourself, but the marginal gains are lost in the grand scheme of things. Much like CrossFit, I believe transparency can only improve both an individual and an organization. With time, it becomes easier. With time, you begin to better understand your capabilities. With time, the community helps to gauge your performance and ultimately drives a greater, leaderless good. With time, you can forge your own brand of elite organizational fitness.
Tags:adoption·crossfit·reality·transparency·wod
My company sponsored a recent InfoWeek survey (results) and conference on Best Practices for Government 2.0. Jay and I had not only the good fortune to attend, but the good sense to remain silent while cheeky_geeky and Dan Mintz presented some interesting material to the crowd of mostly government workers. Tracy Haugen kicked off the session and amidst the twittering, it sort of dawned on me that I had no real concept of the relationship between Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, and Government 2.0. I mean…I think I understand what each of them mean, but the incessant jargon-dropping in the conversation had me unsure whether steps were being made forward or backward. Thus I thought I would try and draw a couple pictures to maybe better understand.
Best I can tell, the difference or relationship or commonalities or whatever between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 kind of look like this:
From the point of view of an enterprise, the E2 stuff typically engages people inside some sort of organizational boundary. Like our internal Confluence implementation. The Web 2.0 stuff, while using the same technologies typically engages people outside an organizational boundary. The Web 2.0 stuff can (and probably should) engage people inside an organization, but it is not necessarily as deep or pervasive as the E2 stuff. An example of this might be something like my company’s corporate blog. We author, but the majority of the readers and commenters are supposedly outside the firewall. Also, there can be some crossover between the two. Twitter might be an example of that, but the jury is still out for me. Yeah I know…this is a gross oversimplification and “stuff” isn’t the most technical of terms, but (hopefully) you get the point.
But in listening to round table discussion on Government 2.0, it sounded like this was the concept.
There was seemingly a mixing of “stuff” engaging both sides of an organizational boundary at once. Maybe this is less confusing to some, but to me I think it tended to get people bogged down in technologies and approaches, rather than community engagement. For example, a particular audience member was turned off by the entire 2.0 concept, merely because she thought every taxpayer in the world would see her mistake if she ever incorrectly edited a wiki. While this is a valid concern, it sort of depends on where that wiki is, what it is used for, and who it is engaging. To have a potential convert write off an entire concept because of this minor misunderstanding is unfortunate, and might possibly be avoided by drawing some corrollary Web/Enterprise 2.0 lines for the public sector.
Who knows though….Maybe I am trying to put too much structure around something that is inherently unstructured and emergent. What do you think?
Tags:enterprise 2.0·government 2.0·structure
