We’re all part of multiple networks. Even more: relationships change, so our membership of networks changes over time. If you start mapping, visualizing and analyzing these formal and informal networks in organizations, you can do all kinds of interesting things. Thing such as:

• asking questions to your network – to reveal the experts,
• recommendations from your network – “you might also be interested in…”
• find shortest path to colleagues – How are we connected?
• identify relevant people for an innovation project,
• find patterns in the network to identify experts, connectors, influencers,
• and even: who to contact for a 360 degree appraisal round of a colleague.

But if you start mapping, visualizing and analyzing networks, all kinds of privacy issues arise. We had a good discussion on that, but no uniform solution. Transparancy seems key: knowing (and being able to control) what information about your network is in the system seems crucial.

And then, how do you prove the business case of social network analysis? If you start from a real, specific, measurable problem, you have a good chance of explaining the ROI. Otherwise, you might have to collect success stories, and sometimes use KPIs around communication & knowledge flow.

Further readings on http://www.crossanalytics.com/cna, where Rob Cross publishes interesting information on this topic.

Cross-posted on blog.tailorable.com.

In an effort to compress all that information, I would like to share the key messages that stood out for me:

• Output requested by customers is changing, more focus on creativity and personal production. This requires
  1. small, decentralized units with decision-making power,
  2. leaders that have open, constant, dynamic, honest communication,
  3. Listen to your customers and employees, don’t just broadcast (Richard Collin and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz)

 

• in a business context, do not use the ‘s-word’ (social)
• look for existing (formal or informal) communities to launch enterprise 2.0 initiatives. They actually need it the most (Luis Suarez, IBM)
• now we need to create conditions for evolutionary improvements. Design for changes by the users themselves (Lee Bryant)
• empower people to share and they will, because people like to help others (Luis Suarez, IBM)
• make sure Enterprise2.0 does not make the same mistakes as Knowledge Management: domination by tool vendors and consultants focussing on storing information, loosing the human aspect

Cross-posted on blog.tailorable.com.

Mijn belangrijkste conclusies: stap niet in sociale media omdat u het gevoel heeft dat het “moet”; kijk of het past bij uw doelen en doelgroep en bepaal dan uw strategie. Leer te luisteren en weet dat de oude manier van bedrijfscommunicatie (zenden, corporate nieuwsbrieven, 1-richtingsverkeer) niet meer werkt. Meng u in de conversatie. En als u besluit sociale media in te zetten, zorg dan dat het gebruik een onderdeel is van de normale werkprocessen, niet iets dat mensen erbij moeten doen. In de trajecten die wij bij klanten doen zie je vaak dat dat laatste de sleutel tot succes is.

Meer weten? Vragen of commentaar naar aanleiding van deze presentatie? Neem contact met me op!
De slides kunt u vinden op slideshare:

(cross-posted op blog.tailorable.com)

The things (amongst others) you should not do:

- Don’t tweet yourself but let someone in your team handle it
- Use Twitter as fancy RSS feed
- Be a broadcaster (not following anyone)

An example of this at this moment is @jobcohen… Although I think that Job is a great asset for the PvdA and for the country, I am wondering if he would be better off without Twitter?… What do you think?…

See http://kamertweets.nl for more Dutch political tweeps…

By the way: I do not want to step into the field of which political party is doing better. I am not sure what to vote yet and do not see this as pro or con for this party. I just want to illustrate the use of Twitter.

The potential however is huge, especially when you are professionalizing your drawing skills. If you are confident in your drawing, a recording of a drawing with the Livescribe pen can easily be re-used to publish. Low-fi, but strong for giving insight and sharing knowledge.

A short howto:

1. Draw and record in the Livescribe journal (make sure to record sound, otherwise it will not be possible to playback the drawing session)
2. Upload the drawing to Livescribe Desktop and use a screen record tool or service (I used screenr.com) to make a screenrecord of the playback. Make sure not to record sound if you do not want to.
3. Convert the mp4 file to wmv or avi if needed (I used convertfiles.com)
4. Use a simple movie editing suite (I used MovieMaker) to speed up the playback (I did 4x) and to tweak the brightness to lose some grey lines. You could add some music as well.
5. Done. See me result below.

Any additional thoughts / applications? Would be great to automate the steps described above, but once you know how to do it, it is an easy and quick process.

For teams to work together effectively, a series of boundary conditions have to be met. Based on our own experience and combining a few existing models, we have in Future Workspaces come up with a model for team effectiveness. We use this model to analyze how well a team works together and to advize where process improvements or innovative technologies can help a team to be more effective.

Central in the model is individual readiness: the individuals in the team have to be willing and able to work together. Between the different individuals there have to be positive relationships. Other key aspects are having clear goals, clear roles & responsibilities, a common way of working, organisational embedding and strong leadership. Click on the image above to see a more detailed description of these aspects.

We are currently validating checklists for each of these individual aspects – such checklists can be used to gain a deeper understanding of the situation or to compare the situation before and after an intervention.

I am curious to hear which models you use around team effectiveness!

(cross-posted on blog.tailorable.com)

Ok, we all go through some kind of learning curve before grasping the potential of Twitter. It’s like buying new pencils: after the excitement of the beauty of the pencils is gone, you still have to determine what to draw. The same goes for twitter, as tool in the new information age.

You start with saying “on my way to work”, “heavy traffic”, “coffee is cold”. Then you start asking questions “anyone knows a good restaurant here?”, “what phone should I buy?”. You find out that nobody is answering, because nobody is following. You read @guykawasaki’s powertips and start follow a bunch of (sometimes self declared) twitter guru’s. You become addicted, because a lot is happening, you retweet now and then and people start following you. You are in.

It becomes some sort of part of your normal information space.

But then, interesting things happen. You start conversations, meet other people via twitter, ask questions and get answers, cross link people. You become Social.

And?… You also find out that there is a downside.

From nature, I have a habit of wanting to help people. So if people in my timeline ask a question, I tend to give an answer. Sometimes I put effort in getting this answer to them, by searching info or thinking about it. What I see is that allmost nobody thanks me for it. Not that I am in desperate need of compliments, or something, but I just wonder if they get too much answers, do not read mine, find the answer wrong or just don’t think they should answer.

What is your experience?