Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

Thanks to Jeremy at Social Computing Magazine, the Enterprise 2.0 Uncoalition got a boost this morning.

On the Enterprise 2.0 Conference show floor, Scott from Attensa is blogging about a New Summer of Love. He states:

“Beneath the promise of Enterprise 2.0 apps things are missing.

Some of the obvious missing pieces are:

• The ability to securely and seamlessly move attachments from publishing platforms through feeds to desktop, web and mobile feed readers
• Consistent tagging across collaborative publishing and feed serving and reading platforms to make folksonomies and searching viable across tools
• Dealing with identity and security across apps - to many passwords…so little time.
• The ability to easily create custom feeds from blog and wiki apps that get the right information to the right people with no information overload or underload.”

From my perspective there are four key points to remember when creating applications for Enterprise 2.0 adoption:

• Environment: managed, secure solutions built for network environments
• Attention: accessibility and priority from wherever, whenever
• Productivity: ease-of-use, from synching to sharing
• Integration: with existing Enterprise applications

As we join the Enterprise 2.0 love fest - whether you join the Enterprise 2.0 Uncoalition or not (who wouldn’t want to?) - adoption and success will be measured in people’s use of- and satisfaction with- the results.

That’s a future to love.

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34 years ago a vision of 2022 emerged, culminating with the cry: “Soylent Green is people!”

Today, I’m proposing my own vision of 2022: “Business is people!”

As in 1973, when we contemplate the future, it’s simple: people.

The difference? We believe firmly in sustainability, a secure environment and global collaboration - for we have seen the results of mismanaging our resources.

This week the future of technology is unfolding at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston. And there’s a movement starting there that hearkens back to the same late 60’s and early 70’s that birthed Soylent Green and the “summer of love” (talk about a great catalyst of collaboration and change):

It’s the Enterprise 2.0 Uncoalition - and it is forming in real time on the floor of the conference. I am anxiously awaiting floor reports, but here’s what I know about the Uncoalition:

Participants believe in moving RSS beyond simply sharing news feeds - allowing people to send documents and files (e.g. spreadsheets, presentations, graphics) through feeds to people in a secure manner. Opt-in to your corporate PR feed and get the latest financial results presentation delivered to you as it is posted…

Participants believe in adding productivity to RSS feed reading - allowing an employee to post directly to their blog or wiki from their feed reader - whether it be from Outlook, their Blackberry or enterprise IM service. Post your product’s press coverage from your Blackberry to the people on your team’s wiki.

I am looking forward to the Uncoalition logo popping up all over the web. Watch for it on an enterprise 2.0 site near you.

Power to the people…

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This week at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, the “who’s who” of digerati and web 2.0 companies like Attensa, Jive Software and Foldera are gathering to discuss how their tools and cultures “mesh to increase innovation, productivity and agility” in the enterprise.

Consider the following questions: Are IT managers and their business partners ready to collaborate to support their users? Are Enterprise 2.0 tool vendors ready to collaborate to support the enterprise?

If so, how well?

Even the simplest mashup notions demand structure, methodology and collaboration – and (most often) structure that cannot be cobbled together after the fact.

I know “standards” is a very Web 1.0 (therefore scary) word. Have you noticed I haven’t used that word in the above assertions?

So, what makes a great Enterprise 2.0 suite?

Structure, methodology and openness to collaborations - built from the ground up - are what will define success in this new Enterprise 2.0 tools marketplace.

And, I believe IT managers will (and should) demand that of their suppliers. Rightfully so, as their users are at the mercy of their decisions.

Take enterprise RSS, for example. Today, Attensa’s enterprise RSS platform serves news and information to the right people at the right place at the right time.

• Device independence is built in.
• Smart synchronization is built in.
• Common user interface is built in.
• And a bunch of other things - like posting news to blogs and wikis from your reader, like sending an email - are built in.

But the world is more than black text, blue links on a white background. In the enterprise, we should be sharing more than today’s news or interesting links. We should be able to share PowerPoint presentations, Excel files, PDFs of competitive products, even (gasp!) video feeds with our teammates.

The ultimate Enterprise 2.0 mashup may just be born this week. Not in the conference, but in the exhibit hall. I look forward to reporting on it here.

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Like strengthening your body or training for a race, your readiness for Enterprise 2.0 applications and strategies is often a case of proper alignment.

Alignment - where the philosophical rubber meets the practical road in the following areas:

• Tools
• Methods
• Management framework
• Philosophy

Enterprise 2.0 applications cause concern because of the alignment required to successfully implement them. Leaders must ask difficult questions that have cross-departmental ramifications:

• Tools: how do Enterprise 2.0 applications align with our existing tools? e.g. Would a wiki replace, supplant, or coexist with other team tools?
• Methods: are we open to the implications of using social networking tools? i.e. Are our employees ready for collaboration (often with people they’ve never met) throughout the organization? Do they have the communication skills necessary to get their ideas across to others who may not speak their native languages?
• Management framework: do we (as managers) have the confidence to empower our employees with such tools and methodology? e.g. Are we able to craft a message and immediately let our employees create content around it - without the traditional command and control structure? How much are we willing to let go?
• Philosophy: does our business support the convergence of ideas and actions driven by a new way of communicating? e.g. What if someone in accounting comes up with a new product feature? Will they gain access and support of the product management team to consider implementation? Will they gain the support of their own organization to spend time working with product management?

These are not easy questions to answer. But they are some of the most important questions leaders can ask themselves as they attempt to get ready for a new way of doing business.

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In an interesting post today at Slow Leadership, author Carmine Coyote describes four laws of information flow:

• First Law: Upward flows will contain only good news
• Second Law: Downward flows will be limited unless they are negative
• Third Law: Sideways flows will depend on trust and liking
• Fourth Law: Bad news travels farther and faster than good

In describing these tenets as based in human nature (we only share with those we like, we always want to be seen in the best light, we never want to be “the bearer of bad news,” etc.), it makes sense that:

“If you want to get good information, make yourself liked and trusted, whether you’re in a boss or a subordinate relationship with the person who has the data.”

And that:

“…there is a continual skewing of data towards the negative, especially over the short term. If a new initiative is launched, the quickest feedback will be the most extreme, whether positive or (especially) negative. That sometimes leads to organizations and people making bad judgments. Ideas are dropped on the basis of quick feedback that suggests problems. The good news takes its time to filter through and by then it’s too late.”

Slow leadership, then, is giving information time to develop, bubble and get to you in its entirety.

But that seems (pardon me) slow. In today’s competitive, information-rich and time-starved economy, I believe there is a better way. And sometime I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but I’m subscribing to the basic law of training:

• Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.

Tenets for Enterprise 2.0 Communication Leadership

• First Law: Empower your employees.
• Give them the communication tools that will:
• Give them a voice (like blogs, wiki, collaboration and email tools)
• Track conversations productively (and “just in time”) by subscribing to them (via RSS)
• Set boundaries (legal and ethical as well as brand…) so everyone knows what’s out of bounds to talk about. (Trust me… Your PR group isn’t the only group who needs to know communication boundaries any more.)
• Second Law: Tell the truth.
• Employees can smell inauthenticity and untoward behavior a mile away. Don’t expect them to let inaccuracies (no matter how small) stand. It compromises their integrity and yours. And remember Coyote’s Fourth Law, above.
• Third Law: Expect communications.
• Employees should be required to communicate with you / your customers / your partners / and each other in written form, captured in a knowledgebase. This goes especially for large organizations.
• Fourth Law: Be responsive.
• This is not to say you cut off projects or people at the first negative flow of information. Reach out whenever something bubbles up and do something like:
• Ask for help - in a communicative organization, someone’s likely to have encountered a similar issue, and can recommend options.
• Set the record straight - rumors are often more rampant when ignored.
• Admit mistakes - if something bad happens, deal with it. Again, issues come and go quickly in today’s information rich economy.

I’m a big proponent of quickly capturing, assessing and addressing issues as they arise.

Where does slow come in? Every decision, every word, every communication you build for a lifetime contributes to your communication leadership resume.

Over time, you’ll know information will flow up, down, sideways and absolutely hit the fan once in awhile.

How you deal with it will define you, and perhaps even set you apart as a wonderful example of human nature - evolved.

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