Efficient or Effective? An E2.0/Socbiz Dilemma

All efficiencies are not made equal.
Image: Roadsidepictures

I love going to conferences.  The best part of any conference is when you get to meet, talk and interact with the people at the conference.  These interactions and the conversations are informal and awesome. When I get a chance I love to talk about Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0), Social Business (socbiz) and/or Enterprise Collaboration (EntCollab).  Inevitably, the conversation turns to talking about how to make employees more efficient or productive. 

More often than not, these conversations start with someone asking how I believe employees could be more efficient while using E2.0 or Social business tools.  Unfortunately, for the person I am talking to, I don't think about efficiency as much as I think about effectiveness and I am not shy about sharing my opinion.  Let me explain.  First lets start off with looking at the definitions of each word.  Both word's origin is late Middle English based out of Latin with the base of each word coming from the same root, effect.  The oxford dictionary defines each term as:

Efficient : achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense
Effective : successful in producing a desired or intended result

While using E2.0 or Socbiz tools could provide efficiences by reducing wasted effort by employees, it is not always guaranteed, especially not during an initial rollout or implementation.  But employees will become more effective by engaging in SocBiz or E2.0.  While some companies that implement E2.0 or Socbiz tools do so without a goal or without knowing what they expect to happen, the most effective companies do have goals and do know the desired effect that these tools will have on their employees. What those intended results and desired effects are will vary greatly from company to company. 

Each company must determine these goals on their own. Based on my experiences, I have seen companies define their goals as simply as ensuring that employees share information more openly and that a change in culture is enabled by the use of these tools.  Other companies define the goals for E2.0 or Social Business as a way to enable the employees to find information quicker and faster than they did before. Others have defined success by having employees use these tools as part of their business process, improving the success of the business unit.  And lastly, others have defined them as a way to gain efficiencies.  Yes improving effectiveness can be defined by improving efficiencies.

Efficiency indicates that people are able to trim the fat out of the processes they do today, making their business units more productive.  Effectiveness is obtaining the result you set out to do. While every company that implements E2.0, or Socbiz tools is trying to gain business value. I am not actually saying that companies that implement these tools  won't be able to minimize the wasted effort.  That is probably going to happen, but if companies take the time to look deeper at how they are becoming more effective by using these tools, they will much more successful with their E2.0 and Soc Business implementations   

Perceived Value

Image: from Tim Scullin blog

The other day I was in Disney with my family.  It was great fun, we did almost all of our favorite rides, Haunted Mansion, Thunder Mountain, Pirate's of the Carribean.   Unfortunately we missed out on going on Splash Mountain as it barely got to 60 degrees and we were not brave enough to risk getting wet and being cold.

What I found so interesting as we walked around the park is how quickly some of the lines grew (of course spring break has that effect).  The thing that was so interesting was that they were not the rides that I would have chosen - which was great for us. That got me to asking the question, why do some rides have longer lines faster than other lines.  I believe that one of the reasons is that every person places their own value on each ride.  Some people valued the rides like Winnie the Pooh, while others valued Haunted Mansion, some liked Dumbo while others valued Thunder Mountain.  Each person places their own value on each ride and decides which ones they want to ride first, which rides they are most willing to wait in a long line for, and which rides they just won't ride that day.

This got me to thinking about how employees adopt different technologies, tools and techniques based on the value they perceive they will provide.  For example, I can apply this to the work that I am doing related to driving adoption of activity streams (btw, this is just one example of a large variety of technologies).  As I talk with employees about how they might use an activity stream, some say that it seems just like email and they wonder (aloud sometimes) what value the activity stream provides beyond email.   Some employees never see any value in using an activity stream.  Some know that moving away from email is valuable in some situations, but don't know if the activity stream is the best method.  Some believe a RSS feed aggregator or other technologies are better. Others, thankfully, understand the value right away, but when they start to use the new tool, they find that no one else is using it, which diminishes the value for this individual.

So how do you get people to use the new technology, the new tool, or technique?   There are many ways, and you need to use them all.  Going back to Disney, they use many different methods to entice you to ride their rides (and even to come to Disney World). One of their methods is to nudge people to ride the next ride.  Enterprise can use similar techniques to attract employees to use the new "stuff".

When a nudge is provided, typically the goal is to increase the value that the employees sees in the new tool, or technique or technology.  Or said a different way, the employee's perceived value of the tool needs to increase.  Disney World uses many techniques to nudge people to ride each of their rides.  Most Disney World rides use great visual effects on the outside of the ride.   For example, as you walk into the Haunted Mansion, the people are in character, giving you the "eye" and the line leading into the ride has grave stones with funny things written on them and book shelves that have books that move in and out.   They attract you to the ride using over the top decorations such as the carriage with a ghost horse.

Following the Disney World example, enterprises need to use techniques to get employee to change and use the new "stuff".  To drive this the employee perceived value of that tool, technique or technology must increase. If that does not happen, they won't ever use the new "stuff".  Unfortunately, as you have probably guessed, this is the most difficult part of driving adoption of technology, but it is also the most rewarding.

Serving, its that simple

Flickr photo by Ed Yourdon

Recently, I have been trying to determine when I am most successful in what I do - being a dad, a husband, changing things at work, implementing tools successful, etc.  I have seen several patterns, but didn't really put anything together until I was listening to a podcast from Entreleadership on sale (the one that +Chris LoCurto interviews +Lisa McLeod).  There is a piece in the middle of the interview where Lisa talks about why a specific drug rep is so successful.  Very powerful.  


So what is the pattern that I saw in myself but realized only after listening to this specific podcast episode?  It is all about serving, and knowing who you are serving and the purpose of your serving.  


My belief is that if you don't understand that you are serving and the purpose of that serving, than you are only moving around in an aimless direction and not really satisfying what is most important (in your life, for your company, for your family, etc.)

Who is correct?

Image by : Eric Ziegler

I recently read two very interesting blog posts.  They are interesting because they were both posted on the same day, and from what I can tell, they both were posted within hours of each other.  The are interesting because they take the opposite side to the debate.    And no, I am not talking about the U.S. Presidential race.   So what am I talking about?

Jacob Morgan and Steve Dale both had posts about collaboration on October 25th.  Jacob's post, Can You Create a Collaborative Organization Without Technology?, discusses the topic of how collaboration would not be possible without technology.  Steve's post, Social Collaboration: it’s the people not the technology, stupid! discusses the topic of how collaboration is about the people and not the tool.

Jacob states, "Is it possible to change behaviors or to build a collaborative organization without technology?  Think about that for a moment before you answer."  Steve states, "But regardless of what labels we give to the technology, the one constant feature is the people, i.e. the staff, the workers, the users."   At first glance, especially when looking at the titles and reading those quotes, you would think that if Jacob and Steve ended up in a back alley, a fight would break out.  Both appear to be on the opposite side of the debate.  So if they are on the opposite sides of the debate, which side is correct?

At this point of the blog, I want to make it clear that I believe both are correct. In addition, if you were to ask either of them, I think they would agree with each other, at least to some extent.  Why do I say that?  If technology was not available, collaboration would be possible, but the amount of collaboration would be less.  Technology enables collaboration.  But, technology does not make people collaborate.  As Steve says, build it and they will come mentality will fail.   I AGREE!   But, as Jacob states,  it is very important to enable the behavior or cultural change needed for employees to collaborate better in an enterprise.  Especially within larger organizations.

So what do you think?  Which is comes first, the culture change or the technology?  The good ole, chicken and egg question.

IT is not about the tools

Image by: Eric Ziegler

I love Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0).  I love the thought of helping people share their knowledge and collaborating better than they have in the past.

Just over two weeks ago, I presented at KM World (with one of my colleagues from work).  As I started out my presentation, I said, "I feel like I am in the minority.  There are just not many IT people at this conference.". I saw many heads nodding in agreement.  After seeing this, I went on to say, "I believe you will find our presentation refreshing and the message you will hear is not the typical IT message."  I believe that we did meet that statement, based on the great questions we received and the great conversations we had after the presentation.

Which gets me to the point of this blog post.  During the presentation, I offered that my company used a specific tool.  Even though I did offer it during the presentation, during the question and answer period, someone still asked which tool we used.  I regret my answer in both situations.  The reason I even offered which tool we use is because in every presentation leading up to ours, I heard people ask again and again, "what tool do you use for Knowledge Management or Collaboration?"

So what was wrong with me stating which tool we use?   Two reasons.  1) our presentation was not about the tools, it was about how we have nurtured collaboration and sharing, and 2) because I didn't give a caveat to my statement.  I should have added onto the end of my statement, "While the tool we use is XYZ, the tools is irrelevant.  The most important thing is what we are trying to accomplish. The goal is for people to share and collaborate."  

So I just want to reiterate what I was trying to get across at the beginning of the presentation.  IT people can think about the people, the culture, and the process.  IT people don't have to just focus on the tools.

Beyond Gaming the Badging System

Image by: Rocket Ship 

When I think of badging and achievements in social media apps, I view them as a way to get people to stay engaged.  Getting someone engaged has many benefits for those apps that are out in the internet, but in almost all cases the badging is there to help drive revenue.   I view badging in a similar manner.  Badging is a way to keep employees engaged in a platform or system that has been implemented.   But the bottom line is not to drive direct revenue out of the employee but rather to keep employees engaged to drive some sort of business value.

Recently I had debate about how badging in the enterprise can work in the most effective manner.  The discussion centered around two types of badges.  For this post, I am going to refer to each type of badge as 1) direct badge and 2) indirect badge.  In direct badging, the badge is awarded based on a direct action taken by the person. For example,  a teacher gives a student extra credit for doing extra work or completing an assignment early.   In indirect badging the person is rewarded with a badge based on the action of a second person. For example, a teacher provides extra credit to a student because he received "kudos" from others in the school on the work she did, or how she acted in a specfic situation.

The debate centered around which was more important.  As I reflect back on the conversation, I realize now that both are very powerful for two very different reasons.  Direct badging provides that direct reward for an action - aka. immediate satisfaction.  This is a great way of getting people to stay engaged on your platform.  It keeps people coming back for the next badge and trying to get to the next level.  But when direct badging is not done well, the badges can be easily gamed.  Having a badge "gamed" is not good.  How many times have you been part of a project where metrics are gathered.  As part of the project, the team starts gathering metrics and set some goals based on these metrics.  After a while you find that the goal is being gamed and someone is cheating to make sure they always win.  

For example, suppose that there is a system at work that has a wide range of workflows/tasks that need to be completed each day. Some of the tasks available every day are easy and others are rather hard to complete. Now suppose that you set a goal that indicated that you would be "successful" if you completed 20 tasks.  As it doesn't matter which task you do first, what do you think would happen? If you wanted to game the system, you would come into work early and try to meet the success criteria by doing the 20 easiest tasks.  How is this type of activity helping the company or the individual?  And if there are people gaming the system, are they creating any quality content or providing value at all?

So what happens if you do not provide a reward based on the persons direct action but rather reward the person based on the value that they provide?   Wouldn't that be much better for the company and help stretch that person into doing a better job.  This is where indirect badging can provide additional value over the direct badging solution seen very often in systems.  Indirect bading provides people a badge because someone found value in what they had to say.

For example, Jill writes 15 blog posts. We give her a badge for writing the blog. But do we know that the blog posts provided any value?  What happens if Jill is not really providing any value, but  rather just blogging a couple of haikus or other non-business value added blog posts. How does badging provide any business value?   It doesn't. but if we were to provide a badge to Jill when 20 people visited her blog post or 5 people liked her blog post, or 10 people commented on her blog posts, I hypothesis that by giving Jill a badge when people believe that the content is worthy of reading, liking, or commenting that you drive a different type of engagement.  Jill will be much more interested in writing blog posts that provide value to others in the company.  

While this reward based on an indirect action is better, it still is not perfect.  Jill might have friends and ask them to visit her blog posts, like her blog posts, and comment on her blog posts.  That is always possible. But if you have a blog post that gets 1000 unique user views, I would venture to guess that Jill was providing value and not gaming the system.  In addition, you could combine several indirect metrics for a new badge.  For example, 15 unique views, 5 likes, and 2 comments gets you the Value Added Level 1 badge.

Badging is not as simple as capturing the metric directly, but rather should be done with thought and analyzed to think how someone might decide to game the system.  Combining both direct badging and indirect badging will help drive engagement beyond just engagement created by direct badging.  

Have you seen badging done poorly?  What have you learned from the bad badging and how have you changed things to make it better?

Riding the Wave

Image by: Eric Ziegler

Since a recent vacation to Virginia Beach, I have come to realize the similarities between the fun I had with my family and the approach I take in my current job.  While at the beach, I am not someone that just sits on the beach and soaks up the rays, but rather I go down to the water and hang in the water for hours on end, playing with the kids, body surfing and riding my body board. Over the years, as the kids have gotten older, they have shown more and more interest in riding the waves, just as dad does.  This year was a banner year (and I expect them to continue to enjoy riding the waves). The were more interested in riding the waves and trying to figure out which wave was best to ride.  

I encourage them a great deal - helping them in different ways so that they can really enjoy riding the waves rather than just getting frustrated. With my kids, I took the opportunity to teach them the tricks of the trade on how to catch a wave, teaching them how to body surf and body board.  I taught them how to pick the best wave to ride, which included teaching them how to tell if a wave approaching was good or not and then teaching them how to determine where the wave is going to break. 

As with anyone learning for the first time, they were not successful the first time (or the second or the third ...).  Every day as we played in the water, they were learning and getting better and better at figuring out how to "ride the wave".  And when they couldn't get it after several tries on their own, instead of having them get frustrated, I helped out by giving them a helpful push to get up to speed, or a loud shout "NOW!"

My job implementing Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0) solutions and enterprise collaboration parallels my interactions with my kids.  What I find is that employees don't know how to "read the waves".   They are often interested in collaborating and using the E2.0 tools, but they don't know how, when, or which wave to jump on.   Not all E2.0 tools are meant for all business areas, just as every wave is not meant to be ridden.  That is why having someone consulting with different business areas are so important.  The businesses need to know how to start and when to start.  They need to have someone be patient with them, repeating what they are taught and providing that helpful push in the correct direction. Some businesses might be able to figure it out on their own, but the initial interactions is key. Teaching early and often will ensure they are successful.

It is important to remember that everyone is on a different learning curve.   For example, my son, the youngest, is able to understand what I say about the wave, and knows when to start swimming or paddling to catch the wave, but he is not strong enough, and requires that helping hand "push" to actually catch the wave.  Some businesses need that extra hand push to get started.   They require someone to say, "now" and then the extra push to make it real. But as they grow and learn and get stronger, they will be able to do it on their own.   And that is what my team is there for.  To provide them a helping hand, lending our expertise in helping to navigate which wave to ride.

Circles, lists and searches - Methods for using Google+ and Twitter

Image: Eric Ziegler

As a change of pace away from search engine optimization (I still have several posts on SEO), I thought I would jump into how I use Google+ and how it relates to how I use Twitter (yes I use Twitter and yes I do find that I gravitate to the better conversations in Google+ more than I use Twitter).  

I use both Google+ and Twitter in a very similar way.  For each tool, I follow many different people, and in fact I follow more people of Google+ then I have ever followed on Twitter.  But when you start to follow too many people on either tool, your main stream becomes a water fall, a fast moving stream or even a river.   There is no way you can keep up with the stream and digest it all.  To be honest, it makes my head spin sometimes.  So instead, I create circles / lists that I use to follow the main people that I am interested in following.   This is where I get great information from people I know and trust are going to provide great information.   Some circles/lists are based on topics, such as E2.0/Socbiz.  Other are just groups of witty people that have great things to say.  But the key is, both Twitter and Google+ provide the same type of mechanism to help you monitor the stream while maintaining you sanity.  

The other mechanisms I use on both tools is the search capabilities.  While the basic concepts on how I use search are slightly different, the end result is very similar and equally useful.   For Twitter I follow tags that are of interest to me - again E2.0/socbiz are my main tags.  for Google+, I use a boolean search string for topics of interest (e.g   e20 OR socbiz OR "enterprise 2.0" OR "social business" OR "E2.0").   I save both lists (in Google, your saved lists are under the explore icon on the left).  While I get a lot of great information that I don't see in my lists or circles, the other great thing about searches is that you find new people to follow.  I will typically add the new person to a secondary topic list / circle to monitor to see if the person provides good content and not too much spam (spam to good content ratio has to "feel" just right).  

What other tips or tricks do you use to gain value out of for Twitter or Google+?

Search in the Enterprise and HR Systems

Image: Eric Ziegler

Three weeks ago I started a series of blog posts about search engines in the enterprise.  My premise was that the search engines in the enterprise are not as good as the search engines in the internet.  I do have to say though, that this is most likely not completely the fault of the vendors that provide such tools, but more about the difference on how people create content for consumption on the internet vs. the enterprise.  This was the premise of my first post.  In the next set of posts, I started to propose that there are ways around the behaviors of employees for people on the internet and the search engines used in the enterprise could adapt to improve the search experience.  In my second post, I discussed how using the context of the employee can provide enterprise search engines a boost in providing improved search results. In my last blog post, I started to provide more details on what I mean by employee context by discussing connections of employees (e.g. following each other). I provided several ways connections can improve search results.  

In this blog post, I plan on discussing another part of how employee context can improve search results.  The Human Capital Management (HCM) profile is my focus for this blog post.  Companies have a wealth of profile information on each employee.  This profile information comes from the Human Resource or Human Capital Management (HCM) systems.  HCM systems contain data that captures who each employee works for and who each employee works with.  These systems also know what each employee's job title, where they are located (building, country, etc.) along with having the employees entire job history.   

HCM Connections : As discussed in my previous blog post, connections provide information that can improve search results. HCM systems provide many different types of connections.  The first connection is between employee and boss.  The second connection is the connection between peers on a team or within a department.   While the employee might not be following their boss or the people they work with, they still have connections with these people.  Bosses, employees and their peers all work together on projects, documents or presentations.   Using similar reasoning as the Directly Following example in my previous blog post, search results can be improved by these HR releated connections. The content created by a manager or by a peer should get bump in relevance because of the relationship between that employee and the person doing the search.

Location : Another piece of information that often comes from the HCM systems is the location of the person.  When I talk about location I mean, the country and city the person works.  I also mean where the office the person sits in, assuming they don't work from home.  If they work from home, this information is typically captured also.  Each of these locations can be used to improve the search results.  For example, if the employee is located in Belgium, and searches benefits information, search results should be returned in context, and not return a link to the Japanese benefits content.    Or if the person searches for what is being served for lunch today, the lunch menu for the company cafeteria that is closest to his building (if it is not actually in his building) should be the top result returned.  Again, search results in context.

While I highlight only two types of data from the HCM system, there is the potential for a log of other information that could be used to improve the search results for the employee.  Of course there are concerns that need to be addressed.  If there is personal information about the employee, there are privacy or security concerns.  But if careful planning occurs and the correct legal and security teams are consulted, the data from the HCM system can dramatically improve search results for each employee.

What other types of HCM data could be used to improve search engines in the enterprise?  What other types of connections can make search engines better?

Enterprise Search Failure - Connections

Image: Eric Ziegler

How often do you hear someone say, "why doesn't our enterprise search work as well as Google search? Bing?" or "Why can't I find the content I want  to find." or "I can't believe our search engine sucks." or "Our enterprise has a very small fraction of the content that Google searches and I still can't find the content I am looking for." or "FIX IT!".

In my previous blog posts, I started a series of  posts about internal enterprise search and how it is not as good as internet search.  In my first post, I provided an overview of how internal social interactions can improve internal search engine results.  In my second post, I discussed how using the context of the employee can provide enterprise search engines a boost in providing improved search results.  As a definition for what I meant by employee context I proposed that employee context is made up of a wide variety of types of information, including HR system information, social profile information, social connections and social interactions.   In this blog post, I plan to discuss how the power of social connections can be used to improve search results within the enterprise.  

When I mention connections, I am referring to the idea that one employee "follows" another employee.  This following is similar to those external social networking sites such as facebook, twitter and google+.   But how can these connections between employees be used to improve search results?  Below are several illustrations of how connections can improve search results for each employee.  For each of the examples below, I am using the following base example to illustrate my point:  

Joe, an employee, follows five other employees and has 15 employees following him (Joe).  In addition, the five employees Joe is following, follow a combined 20 more people (some with multiple people following the same person).   Each of these connections (both direct and indirect) can play a key role in improving Joe's search results.  

Directly following:  Joe is directly following five other employees.  Content created, modified or interacted with (comments, likes, tagging, bookmarking, etc.) by these people has a higher importance to Joe then other employees.  Think about it, Joe is following these people for a reason.  So why is the content these people create, modify and interact with not given higher relevance when providing search results to Joe?

Directly being followed: Similar reasoning can be used for the content created by the 15 people following Joe, but it goes in reverse.   Joe does not realize that the 15 people are creating good content.   Joe is not following any of these people, but they are following Joe because he creates content that is related to ideas each of them are interested in.  Because of this, the content these people create has a higher chance of being valuable to Joe, he just doesn't know it.  But there is a caveat to this, Joe is not following these people, either because he has knowingly not followed these people or he has not discovered these people.   Because of this, the content created by these 15 employees should not receive as much of a relevance boost as content created by the direct followers.  

Indirectly Following: Again, similar reasoning can be used for the indirect followers.  Joe is following 5 people who are following a total of 20 people that Joe is not following.  Since Joe trusts and follows those 5 people, there is some merit and a higher chance that the content created by the 20 indirect employees will be of higher relevance and importance to Joe.  Because of this, the content created by these 20 employees should get a relevance boost in the search results. But just as the 15 employees that follow Joe, there is a caveat.   Joe is not following these people, either because he has knowingly not followed these people or he has not discovered these people.   Because of this the content created by these 20 employees should not receive as much of a relevance boost as content created by the direct followers.

With these improved relevance boosts for people direclty following, directing being followed and indirectly following, Joe searches on the term Java and receives results with an improved relevance boost for the 5 employees he is following, the 15 employees that are following him and the 20 indirect employees. In addition, the content from the 5 direct employees has the largest relevance boost, with the 15 employees following Joe and the 20 indirect employees he is following improving the relevance but not with as much of a boost in relevance.  

With these search engine algorithm improvements, the search results have just gotten tremendously improved, making searching for content a better experience for Joe and every other employee.  In future blog posts, I plan on continuing to discuss topics of how to improve internal enterprise search engine results. Future topics include reviewing how HR systems, employee profiles and social interactions can be used to improve search results.  So check back periodically to hear my thoughts on how enterprise search can be much better than it is today.