21st Century Organization

Attending Enterprise 2.0 Open Boston: Hope to see you there

The array of intriguing sessions at Enterprise 2.0 Boston June 9-12 has Victoria Axelrod and I packing our bags. We plan to start with "An Evening in the Cloud" and participate in the Enterprise 2.0 Open Session hosted by Ross Mayfield and Socialtext, Tuesday at 12.30pm. (Thanks Steve Ardire for the pointer.) Our proposed session topic is Open net∞WORKing Organizations - Co-generating Business Value and we look forward to the opportunity to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Looking for Enterprise Platforms Promoting "Social Networking"

Inspired by writing an Inside Knowledge article about our Facebook Groups Investigation with co-conveners Bill Anderson and Victoria Axelrod, at Enteprise 2.0 Boston I will be investigating companies adding social networking tools to their platforms.  Already I see Trampoline and IBM/Lotus Atlas will be present with serious ambitions to people network organizations.  Simon Oxley noted SocialText has a new release to reveal participant connections. After watching ConnectBeam's demo at FASTForward 2007 I'm interested to see how their product has evolved. 

Suggestions about other vendors adding user networking to check out are appreciated. It'll be interesting to watch how the flurry of interest in "social networking" tools for the enterprise unfolds especially in an enviroment where IT publications are focused on "The Problems with Social Networks".

Enterprise 2.0 Boston V Hanover

Intriguing to me about Enterprise 2.0 Boston is the international audience it's attracting if my small sample is indicative. I'm hoping amidst the crowd to reconnect with Mark Masterson and Robert Hommburg whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Enterprise 2.0 Hanover. I have to wonder how the Boston conference will compare given the high standard convener Björn Negelmann and host Simon Wardley set at CEBIT.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

A week of "Net Work". DHL partners with UPS & Matt Moore visits Manhattan

"Net Work" is the title of Patti Anklam's "Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World". I've been actually reading Patti's book this week, not just using as a reference, to review for Inside Knowledge Magazine. (I admit to being a biased reviewer having been a privileged member of Patti's Gennova Emergent Learning Network from which the book sprung.)

A value of Patti's book is the number of real world networks examined.  Examples from “Gennova” that seeded the book, to the Boston healthcare community and the Young President’s Organization, Fast Company Magazine’s “Company of Friends”,  Women’s World Banking, Procter and Gamble’s “Connect and Develop” and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Knowledge Lab are all used to demonstrate network dynamics and the variety of purposes networks can serve.

With how organizations operate as networks on my mind I couldn't help but notice the page 13 Financial Times Thursday (May 29) headlined "DHL pays up to deliver with rival". DHL and UPS are intersecting their networks. DHL is paying UPS "$1bn annually to fly customers packages between North American cities" and "shut down 30 per cent of DHL's US infrastructure... as part of of a restructuring plan that will cost $2bn.." The FT reports for UPS the arrangement "will help ensure its fleet of aircraft remain full even if more customers opt for cheaper shipping options than overnight delivery."

Ending the week writing about "Net Work" I realize it started that way too, in a rich conversation with Sydney visitor Matt Moore. Thanks Matt for fitting me into your travels and the chance to explore our shared interests, especially around organizational network analysis and measuring value created through connectedness.  Good wishes for the rest of your journey.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Socialprise

  Apparently, the latest buzzword is yes – “socialprise.” That is social, as in we are humans and we interact to get work done. Seems intuitive, but it is not the first thing that comes to mind when social is used in business.

That may be a moot point as the technology to map workplace interactions and relationships is “now becoming part of standard enterprise computing systems” according to a NY Times piece MySpace Mind-Set Finally Shows Up at the Office – the ultimate mashup. Socialprise was coined by Insideview

But I think we need to make a careful distinction between “social networking” and “social network or organizational network analysis” (SNA/ONA) especially for business. Social networking platforms for business like VisiblePath (now part of Hoover’s) used by sales groups and law firms is useful in mining who knows who, what work was done with what client as people move through their normal trajectories. Insideview’s twist is to marry up search data or intelligence with social data. It certainly enhances the potential for connections if one looks around the existing network.

Social network analysis or organizational network analysis, the easier term for business leaders to accept, can be used very strategically to ferret out connections that might not naturally occur, or if they did would take years to emerge, particularly in networks outside of the organization. Call it the Outsideview.

This is not network analysis for business as usual. Instead think of mapping the intellectual property landscape to find the key contributors in a narrow field – the needle in the haystack. Boston Consulting Group did an intellectual property map for The Myelin Repair Foundation, reported in Mapping the Crowd a Business Week story. The challenge for MRF was to identify the few research scientists with the greatest number of relevant patents in order to accelerate research. The result was a network visualization allowing managers to see both opportunities and key centers or nodes of research they might not have found for years.

Touch Graph software was most likely used by BCG as they openly acknowledge creating solutions for clients – Interpublic Group -advertising, Newforth – M&A, and the British Natural History Museum – biological networks.

As social networking tools become a standard feature of enterprise computing systems for day to day business, they will lose their competitive advantage like all other tools. However to understand why a particular product or service may not have launched as well as expected, or to capitalize on macro network opportunities for technical and science initiatives, a standard platform may not be the optimal approach. Unique ONA applications will still have their place in the socialprise.

~Victoria G. Axelrod

Thinking about Open Network Business Models: Your Insights Invited

Victoria Axelrod (my 21stCenturyOrganization blogging colleague) and I are on deadline for Effective Executive, an India based business magazine published by ICFAI University Press. Working title of our piece is:

Open Net-Working Organizations - Co-generating Knowledge and Innovation

Our article explores themes we've blogged about here over the past 2 years, research for two recent Inside Knowledge Magazine articles ("Broadcasting Innovation: Organising to Connect Intelligence" and "Prediction Markets: Co-creating the Organisation", my Enterprise 2.0 Summit Hanover presentation, and our forthcoming Social Capital: Glue for Sustainability Workshop, May 5 in Las Vegas, following the Community 2.0 Conference. (As Victoria previously wrote please use code SPKRM2005 for a friends 20% discount if you can join us.)

We like to practice what we advocate so as our article is about open, networked, working we're sharing our article outline here and inviting fresh perspectives and contributions of interesting sources.  Our article focus reflects we are contributing to a special Effecutive Executive Knowledge Management edition.

Overview

"In a March 2007 "Long Live KM" online discussion through the AOK Group, Robert Buckman (described by Infoworld as "KM's father figure") wrote:

"Jerry, thank you for the kind words, but I never did try and manage knowledge. What I really tried to manage and nurture was a culture that would encourage and expand the flow of knowledge. It was because economic value could only be obtained in our environment when knowledge moved across the organization in response to a need."
~ Bob Buckman, March 6, 2007 AOK Yahoo Group Post

Two decades since Buckman's pioneering work to encourage and expand knowledge flow and innovation, taking a network view of organizations and using the tools of Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) facilitates creating open, collaborative organizational cultures. More importantly, an intentional open net-working approach aids understanding how "social capital value" is created in organizations through dynamic interactions and relationships between all of an organization's participants and stakeholders. Examples from our research and experience of organizations using new open network models to promote knowledge sharing, innovation and value creation are included.

While we will revisit open working models investigated in our Inside Knowledge articles:

• Qualcomm's Venture Fest using prediction markets
• The Bordeaux Energy Colloquium, a Think Tank Network,
• Executive to Executive Marketing Networks as implemented at Avaya
• Procter and Gamble's "Connect and Develop" and innovation marketplaces like Innocentive

we're also exploring approaches including:

• Boston Consulting Group's use of mapping tools to understand networks around patents and identify high potential talent. (Did they really just use Touchgraph as Manuel Lima suggests commenting on the Business Week article?)
• IBM's use of open network initiatives including sharing research with partners and clients. (Thanks to John Maloney for this paper find.)
• The innnovative and business critical collaborative knowledge sharing initiatives presented at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit, Hanover.

In writing about open network approaches we're alert to investigating when such models appear not to work effectively. Hence we're striving to understand what caused Boeing's decentralized 787 supply chain to become a critical factor in the company's high profile and costly aircraft delivery delays.

Yesterday discovering Robin Teigland's presentation on Slideshare, (displayed as a "Related Slideshow" to my Hanover presentation), I was reminded of the potential value that can be created through openness in knowledge sharing. This is especially so when you intentionally start by "looking around" as John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid encouraged in "The Social Life of Information", 2000.

Hence this blog post sharing our article themes and ideas. Any and all reactions to our focus and examples, insights into Boeing's supply chain issues, and or fresh insights and interesting open net-working business models are welcomed and appreciated.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

CIOs as Change Predictors

"CIOs who predicted the return of key innovation are the ones who can link up assets in their ecosystem, create efficiencies and are able to provide more value to customers."

In an interview with futurist James Canton, "prediction" was the favored stance for CIOs yet he claims only 35 to 45 percent of organizations have transformed their current business processes.  Trying to adapt the present while morphing into the future requires a forward thinking culture.

Prediction has always been the elusive brass ring.  No longer.  As change and complexity increase those who have mastery over predictive or emergent collaborative models will be in the forefront. 

It has become apparent that predictive tools and approaches provide multiple perspectives on data patterns that single approaches often miss. However articles on IT are still focusing on the 'hidden potential of IT" and CIOs.

Enterprise 2.0 has thrown us into a technology driven change warp. Any organization not understanding the dynamics of systemic or "echosystemic" thinking is living in the past. All of the organizational roles are equally as important to making a 21st century business successful but some have the benefit of marketplace drivers like technology to boost their roles to the forefront.

Still not convinced - one of the must read magazines for the IT inclined, The Industry Standard announced its rebirth as a suite of "prediction markets" -

IS features news and analysis that covers emerging technologies and companies, venture funding, acquisitions, site launches, and other developments in the internet space. Additionally, The Standard aggregates community knowledge in a quantified fashion, thereby ranking both the knowledge of the individual community members themselves, as well as the value of the information the community provides as a whole. This system is built as a prediction market, intersected with a reputation-based social network.

They clearly get it - participation is the new mindset and a prediction market is the means to tap participation.  In our recently published  article  for Inside  Knowledge on prediction markets  we interviewed some of the best software providers and summarized what we have found to be the key factors for success. If you would like a copy of the article let us know as the full piece is subscription only from Inside Knowledge.

Technology not withstanding, organizations need to value predictive information, aggregated from their whole network, to validate strategies and goals.

CIO, C suite executive or as we have found anyone in the organization can drive innovation if they understand the value of prediction to the bottom line.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Enterprise 2.0 Summit Hannover Report & References

Thanks to Bjoern Negellman, Kongress Media, (organizer) and Simon Wardley (event facilitator), I was a privileged presenter, in the inaugural European Enterprise 2.0 Summit convened as part of CEBIT, March 4 in Hannover.   (Given COMDEX no longer operates in the United States, experiencing the CEBIT scale and vendor commitment was eye opening.)

Blog reports from Emanuele Quintarelli, François Nonnenmacher, Martin Koser and Robbert Homburg tell the event story that began with Simon Wardley reminding us how technology forces drive change, followed by Dion Hinchcliffe's keynote and Euan Semple's BBC lessons. Scenes from the event are captured on Flickr.

For me the event nuggets came in descriptions of serious business wiki applications by:

• Kenneth Lavrsen, Motorola A/S, wiki-ing quality standards documentation
• Wieland Stützel, Fraport AG (Frankfurt Airport), cross organizational knowledge sharing
• Diego Gianetti, BTicino S.p.a. (an Italian producer of communication, distribution and energy control systems) describing "Sul Campo" a sales force community of practice
• Cedric Blum, Société Française de Radiotéléphone Service Client (a French mobile carrier) explaining how using a wiki helps customer service solve customer problems and get more from IT

For those who stayed late into the day here are the books mentioned in my session introduction:

• Yochai Benkler, Wealth of Networks
• Rob Cross & Andrew Parker, Hidden Power of Social Networks
• Ron Burt, Structural Holes
• Lowell Bryan & Claudia Joyce, Mobilizing Minds
• Dan Tapscott, Wikinomics

Also referenced were:

• Patti Anklam, Net Work author
• Valdis Krebs, pioneering ONA practitioner
• InnoCentive and Harvard researcher Karim Lakhani et al's investigation of factors in problem resolution
• Procter & Gamble's Connect & Develop program

My presentation builds on a co-authored article "Learning through Participation and Connecting Intelligence". and two Inside Knowledge Magazine articles, Broadcasting innovation: organising to connect intelligence and Prediction Markets: Co-creating an organization's future (to be published).

    

     The Valdis Krebs admonition cited:

"You do understand Metcalfe's law does not work for social networks, right?“

came in response to reading our "Connecting Intelligence" article and Valdis's concern we had not made this point clear enough.  Metcalfe has openly asked us all to better understand the power of his law applied to social networks here . Colleagues and I have just completed an investigation of Facebook Groups in Business that points to the complexity of social network growth as Metcalfe discusses.

Thank you to everyone involved with Kongress Media's Enterprise 2.0 Summit for the rich conversations that I look forward to continuing, especially with Simon Wardley regarding his newly minted term:

"STRUCTURACTION"

Slides from my presentation are posted to Slideshare here.

   ~ Jenny Ambrozek

2008 And Both. Davos. Collaboration Innovation. Competing on Analytics

The face-to-face media buzz event that was Davos 2008 is ended, but the exchanges live on in the resources available at http://www.davosconversation.org/. These provide an opportunity to pay closer attention to this year's theme, "Collaboration Innovation".

The Financial Times February 5 Review section headlined:

"INCOVENIENT TRUTHS: HOW MARKET TURMOIL AND A ROGUE TRADER ROCKED DAVOS."

captured a theme heard in much media coverage of this year's event: that real world concerns overtook the intended focus on "Collaboration Innovation".

Given the seriousness of financial market news events co-inciding with Davos, the distraction is understandable. However, I'd propose that allowing today's events to draw organizations' attention away from "collaboration innovation" happens everyday in enterprises large and small.  And among the many reasons is a significant inability to measure how value is created through "collaboration innovation".

Clearly the five CEO's participating in the Davos Collaboration Innovation session experience the benefits, and also understand the challenges. However, in the hour video of their session I heard no specific mention of how success is measured.  There was talk of successful partnerships and new product creation but beyond that?

My interest in measuring how value is created through collaboration dates from the Online Communities in Business 2004 study Joe Cothrel and I co-authored.  Our respondents told us:

"Participation in online communities, networks, and teams is growing (82%)"

but

"Most organizations can’t measure return on investment (72%)"

I thought about this finding recently reading Bill Johnston's community ROI post. It describes a range of indicators from an April 2007 ForumOne report most notably that:

"Only 22% of respondents had clear ROI Models"

The Online Communities in Business 2004 findings about lack of ROI measures was a driver for me in co-convening the Facebook Groups in Business peer-to-peer research experiment. Colleagues and 10 volunteer Facebook Group owners are tracking activity to explore if, and how, business value is created. Our initiative is work in progress but it's quickly become clear if you are seeking networking measurement nirvana, Facebook doesn't deliver.

Noticeably absent listening to Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport duelling January 11 (at the FAST Forward Blog) about the impact of Enterprise 2.0 tools in organizations were numbers to support either case. Given Tom Davenport's latest book is "Competing on Analytics" might we not expect more?

Please understand. I am not at all suggesting business value is not created through interaction, as McKinsey argues, and collaboration. Quite the opposite. Rather, if you accept common wisdom that businesses operate on what they can measure, doesn't it seem reasonable that lack of measurement tools handicaps "collaboration innovation"?

No doubt the emergence of more quantifiable collaboration platforms ranging from idea marketplaces like InnoCentive and prediction markets (as reported in the recent Google research paper), is making the power of "collaboration innovation" more visible. From attending the recent NY Mashup Summit there appears promise in emerging mashup platforms to dynamically improve data collection, and analysis. Still, given the power to collaborate and innovate that global connectedness allows, isn't it time to pay closer attention to developing and using measures for the value created?

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Sustainable Globalization - A 2008 Resolution

Sustainable Globalization is not an oxymoron.  In the last few days of finishing a book chapter on globalization it occurred to me that I have spent close to two years thinking, writing and consulting about the antiseptic "silicon" world while the "carbon" world has been grinding along half way around the planet, namely China. 

The New York Times ran a photo journal series on China - Choking on Growth which causes flashbacks to the US and other developed nations "industrial revolution".  China is not alone as other developing nations, India and Mexico, are keeping pace. We in the US complain about off-shoring, however what many do not realize is that by sending our manufacturing  elsewhere we have also off-shored our environmental issues.   But the chickens are coming home to roost.  We only inhabit one planet. 

"Corporate social integration" as Michael Porter reinvents the term corporate social responsibility has the unique capability to resolve the "tension between business and society."  Imagine leap frogging the 20th century industrial wastes in China by understanding that "business and society are interdependent."

Oddly enough our silicon advances have the capacity to bridge the gap by enabling rapid information sharing and collaboration.  China or any developing country does not need to repeat the unsustainable history of advanced countries.  There are limits to egregious consumption. 

Kimberly Simaha, one of our colleagues in sustainable energy is looking for cases to demonstrate the possibilities.  We link you to her video as an energy boost of its own!

Let me also introduce you to SeaChange founded by husband and wife team - Roger Payne and Lisa Harrow who use natures beauty and immutable laws to bring us to our senses about the state of our biosphere.

man is not the overseer of life but an integral part of life’s complex web, and that our survival requires that we attend not just to our own wellbeing, but also to the wellbeing of the entire web of life.

As Payne points out every religion begins with the notion that man has dominion over the earth - possibly to destroy or save it - but not if we acknowledge that we are only part of an ecosystem.

Hard facts and data appeal to some i.e. carbon foot prints and percent of land, water and fish loss, or global warming. Others are moved by finance  - the worth of all of our natural assets, and some by poetry and song.  Payne and Harrow bring both science and poetry together in an outstanding performance.

In the following weeks we and our writing colleagues will be speaking on various topics from our Sustainability Fieldbook -When it All Comes Together to be published by Geenleaf and AMACOM in the fall of this year.  You can join us on the journey in the Sustainable Enterprise Facebook Group where your participation is valued and we will keep you posted as events unfold. 

Look forward to hearing about your models of "sustainable globalization" from your companies in 2008.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

The Networked CEO

"...the Internet is an immensely powerful tool for multiplying human accomplishment—a goal that is central to the work of every manager and the design of every management system". Gary Hamel

Gary Hamel, in his recent  Moving Management Online Part One for Harvard Business Review Online admits that with all the social tools we have for collaboration, the democratizing effects of the internet and the complex demands of a globally connected economy management is still operating with much the same 20th century models - for NOW.

We have been advocating more relevant approaches for sometime yet collaborative models, which are not new have had glacial adoption.  Part of the slow uptake of these approaches is stalled by current management experts who have a vested interest in maintaining what is familiar.

Example: CEO Evolution 3.0 a recent New York Times article describes the 21st century CEO as one who "makes people feel part of a team" and "delegates", among other management 101s. Really! Feeling part of a team and acting are two different animals. The title is great but nothing new here.

Moving Management Online, on the other hand gets to the point quickly about the essence of management, especially in context of today's highly complex, uncertain and networked business environment.   

Figure 1: The Essence of Management - Hamel

At present it seems most organizations are very good at the aggregating side of the equation and less good at amplifying - just look at any talent management program or succession plan.  Generally, they are all about humans as assets and resources, inter -changeable  commodities.  Amplifying human capabilities takes deep understanding of behavior.

Enter a second dilemma for our waning management models which Hamel portrays as the "market-versus-hierarchy trade-offs".

Big bureaucracies can accomplish what markets alone can not.  Networks form the bridge between the two.

Figure 2: Markets, Hierarchies, and Networks - Hamel

<>

The social web, for those organizations courageous enough to embrace its enormous potential through networks, melds the best of both worlds.  Look at Innocentive, the  open marketplace created by Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical giant, to create new products. Or Avaya's Customer Councils supporting executive to executive relationships to generate partnered solutions.

"Power to Convene" is the Avaya story. Mark Bonchek, CEO of the Truman Company coined this term which is the chapter title in The Firm as a Collaborative Community. For a 21st century CEO or senior leader the "power to convene" is job one. In particular, recognizing the power to convene those who have both a stake in the challenge and the knowledge to contribute, be they internal or external to an organization.

Sean Maloney, EVP and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Intel understands the power to convene. Starting in 2002, Maloney began an arduous task of bringing together the industry players to lay the basis for WiMAX, what will soon eclipse WiFi. The Road to WiMax story in   Business Week is a good primer for how to operate as a networked CEO.

Each of the key players he convened over five years, including Intel, has a unique business stake in seeing Wimax come to fruition.

"Intel was looking for something that would prompt consumers to buy new computers running its chips. Sprint needed an edge to set it apart from larger rivals Verizon (VZ ) and AT&T (T ). Mobile handset maker Nokia (NOK ) wanted to expand into providing communications services. And Samsung Group wanted to get into the networking equipment business. The interests of these four companies resulted in a pooling of patents and money to create the WiMAX phenomenon."[our italics for emphasis]

Leaders looking to find innovative management models need to look beyond the well lit cases, the old wine in new bottles, toward up and comers like Maloney.

Lowell Bryan, Mobilizing Minds author with Claudia Joyce (which my colleague Jenny Ambrozek reviewed) and Gary Hamel, The Future of Management were interviewed by McKinsey Quarterly to provide insight on innovative management. 

From their perspectives, tapping the collective intelligence of highly talented creative individuals is where value/competitive advantage will be created in the future.  Social technologies have already provided enormous "profit per employee" gains for the most successful companies.  However, innovative management is not yet in the DNA of most companies.  Strategy is still a top down process, and as Hamel points out " the top can hold the organizations capacity to change hostage to their own personal willingness to adapt and change."

From our own experience in working with organizations around innovation and growth, knowledge may be distributed but power distribution is not and it is reinforced through enormous disparities in compensation.  Neither Hamel or Bryan take on the issues of wealth redistribution which needs to occur if we are to adopt their metrics of performance - return on capital (ROC) or profit per employee (PPE).  Compensation and reward are two of the last sacred cows of the 20th century which need to be addressed if we are to achieve innovative management and adoption of peer to peer networks.

Hamel plans a Moving Management Online Part 2 where he may address more of the challenges toward moving to innovative models.  In the meantime some lessons learned:

• Start with a business driver - Avaya needed to provide custom solutions when traditional products and services would not meet customer demands. Intel needed to create a new market.
• Co-create - Include customers, users, stakeholders, people with knowledge and diverse views to generate solutions.
• Use the periphery - reach to the edges of your known network to find new opportunities.
• Distribute innovation - as organizations continue to flatten, lateral, bottom-up, top- down, internal and external networks need to be tapped - Innocentive.
• Reward and compensate innovation.
• Use the "power to convene" - executive to executive networks can shape an industry's future - Avaya and Intel.

21st century leaders need to keep adapting and adopting a network approach if they are to move their organizations forward - old management models will not carry them to the future.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

2 Decades from GMR to iPOD & Shared Nobel Prize

In a swirling world it seemed today's Financial Times story "Nobel physics prize shared by men who made iPod possible" deserved a moment's attention.

Consider the timeline.

Late 1980's working independently 2 physicists, Albert Fert, France and Peter Grunberg, Germany, observed the phenomenom known as " giant magnetoresistance" or GMR:

"a discovery in nanotechnology that has led to the miniaturisation of hard disks in laptop computers and music players."

1997- first commercial read-out using GMR allowing:

"hard disk sensors to read and write much more data, allowing for bigger memory, cheaper and more reliable computers."

2001- iPod launched.

"Without GMR it would not be possible to store more than one song on an Apple iPod."

2007- April- 100 million iPods sold

2007- October- Nobel physics prize shared by GMR discoverers.

Interesting side notes to the story:

i. Role of research team led by Stuart Parkin at IBM's Almaden Research Center, California in turning GMR into a a practical device.

ii. Researchers now gone beyond GMR to TMR (tunnelling magnetoresistance) that is being "introduced to the latest generation of read-out heads.

2 decades. A new industry. Hats off to extraordinary minds.

~ Jenny Ambrozek