Enterprise 2.0 – Page 12

8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0

In my Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report I put Iterate and Refine at the center of the Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework.

One of the most critical elements of this principle is the ability to establish and run effective pilot programs.

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 on Pilots, which describes 8 guiding principles for pilot programs.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR PILOTS

While there are no hard and fast rules for establishing successful pilots, eight guiding principles that should be kept in mind are:

“It is reasonably cheap and easy to get a pilot up and running to evaluate how successful a new Technology will be. Fail fast, fail cheap. Set things up as pilots and pick up the lessons.”

CIO, large property developer

1. Select fertile ground.

Pilots often establish the tone for how broader initiatives are received across the organization. Stories – both positive and negative – about the success of pilots often filter out very widely. A successful pilot can easily take a life of its own as others hear about the benefits and actively want to apply them in their own work. Failures can often be referred to across the organization as reasons why related initiatives will not succeed. While you can never expect all pilots to be successful, maximize chances of success by selecting the most promising projects and the best team, and make it easy for them to identify value.

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Predictions for enterprise social software and social network analysis

By Ross Dawson

Gartner has released five interesting predictions for social software. Here are the predictions along with a few of my thoughts.

By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

This is a transition that we’ve seen for a very long time, and looks finally ready to come to fruition. Coming from a financial markets background, I’d seen from as far back as the late 1990s that email as a primary medium was resulting in communication breakdown. I’ve long believed that shifting communication out of email was one of the main ways that social media would be valuable, as for example expressed in my 2005 white paper How Collaborative Technologies are Transforming Financial Services.

This prediction will play out very differently across organizations. Many companies will remain bound in email. Others, particularly those that are project-centric and effectively implement social software, could well see a substantially more than 20% of communication shift out of email. The development and evolution of new tools such as Google Wave will see email not quite die, but rapidly erode in the most innovative organizations.

By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration.

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Sky Business: The implications of social media for business and why Australia leads in social media usage

By Ross Dawson

Last week I was interviewed on Sky Business about recent data showing that Australia leads globally in use of social media, and the implications of such high levels of social media usage for business.

Here is the full interview, with major points noted below.

It is surprising to see Australia at the top of the global charts in social media usage, given that just a few years ago it was significantly behind in uptake – this has been a dramatic acceleration in usage.
It is a fascinating question why social media usage surged in Australia (see here for more detailed thoughts on the topic). Contributing factors include the sudden improvement in mobile data costs when the iPhone 3G was launched in July 2008, and the shift to more a conversational style of social media that suited the culture and dispersion of Australians.

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Who is most influential in Enterprise 2.0?

By Ross Dawson

Over the holidays Mark Fidelman launched his 2010 Enterprise 2.0 All-Star Blogger Roster. Mark says:

Now that the holiday hangover has worn off and the bills are coming due, I want to turn your attention to the individuals that are most influencing the Enterprise 2.0 space. Those of you that are early adopters or just starting to research Enterprise 2.0 can short cut the search for quality information by following and reading from these all-stars.

The list of 22 people includes Andrew McAfee, who coined the term Enterprise 2.0 and has recently launched his book by the same name, sits at the top of the tree, with five termed “Most Influential” (where Mark has kindly placed me, presumably partly due to the success of my book Implementing Enterprise 2.0), five “Highly Influential”, ten “Influential”, with as a special extra Dennis Howlett, who believes that Enterprise 2.0 is ‘a crock’, as “Enterprise 2.0 Referee”.

Click on the image to see Mark’s post including a larger version of the image and the data used to assess the influence of the all-stars.

Empresa 2.0: Sistema de Implementación – Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework in Spanish

By Ross Dawson

We have had a fantastic global uptake of the translations of our Social Media Strategy Framework into 12 languages.

As such, we intend to translate a lot more of the content created by Advanced Human Technologies and Future Exploration Network, starting with our Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework, which plays a central role in my book Implementing Enterprise 2.0.

Here is the framework in Spanish.

Click on the image to download the pdf

Please share this with any Spanish speakers who would be interested.

Also be sure to let me know if you can suggest any improvements to the translation.

Six ways technology is transforming small business

By Ross Dawson

This article was written to frame The Insight Exchange’s SME Technology Summit in Sydney on December 1 – while many of the references are to Australia the issues apply globally.

Small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) are taking a larger share of the business pie, and increasingly driving economic growth. This is one of the most important trends in business today, and one that will shape the next decade of business, work and society.

This powerful trend is driven largely by technology and connectivity, creating a world in which smaller, more nimble, better connected companies can outsmart their monolithic larger brethren, competing globally and tapping opportunities as they arise.

At the same time, using technology well in business is proving to be one of the most prominent drivers of success. Almost every aspect of business is becoming driven by technology. This is obviously the case with services businesses ranging from graphic design to even house moving. However this is relevant to every kind of organisation.

Gardening and worm farm retailers Wiggly Wigglers in UK, Caminito Argentinean Restaurant in the US, Brasserie Bread in Australia , Martell Home Builders in Canada and many thousands of others around the world are examples of companies selling highly tangible, everyday products that have built outstanding success through the use of online social media.

There are six key ways in which technology is changing the very nature of how smaller companies operate today.

1. Findability

Customers look for and find businesses in very different ways than just a few years ago. Search engines, recommendations from friends on social networks, and online services exchanges are now how most companies are found. Marketing has completely changed.

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Sky Business Tech Report: Interview on social media, online outsourcing, and how small companies are using technology to leapfrog big business

By Ross Dawson

I was interviewed this morning on Sky Business Tech Report. Some of the things we discussed in the interview are:

* How social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many others change how companies engage with customers, become more efficient, and being competitive.

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Free webinar on Implementing Enterprise 2.0 (and win a copy of the book!)

By Ross Dawson

My book Implementing Enterprise 2.0 has been selling at a very healthy and consistent pace since its launch earlier this year. The front page of the book’s website features links to reviews of the book, including some very useful ones from ReadWriteWeb, CMSWire, and Inside Knowledge.

I thought it would be good to share some of the book’s insights in a different format, so I have teamed up with Newsgator – who have been key proponents of the book – to do a free webinar on Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Practical Steps to Creating Business Value. The webinar will be held on November 18 at 2pm US ET.

We will draw six complimentary copies of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 for webinar attendees.

Sign up for the webinar here.

Below is the webinar overview. Hope to connect with you then!

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Practical insights and advice on Everyday Enterprise 2.0

By Ross Dawson

Newsgator’s Director of Enterprise 2.0 Consulting Christy Schoon has launched a new blog Everyday Enterprise 2.0 at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Christy says “I’m going to write in plain English about everyday Enterprise 2.0 from my own on-the-ground perspective working with living, breathing social computing champions at Fortune 500 companies.”

One reason I love the blog is Christy’s four standard recommendations to businesspeople on where to start with Enterprise 2.0 (particularly the first one :-) ):

1) read Ross Dawson’s sensible, plainspoken book “Implementing Enterprise 2.0“

2) read the Nielsen Norman Group’s report “Enterprise 2.0: Social Software on Intranets“; and

3) if your company has at least 10,000 employees, join the 2.0 Adoption Council

4. Get professional help.

However I also like the rich content tone. It’s very refreshing to see a post titledPimp My Site that happens to be a detailed discussion about the practical issues involved in Enterprise 2.0 adoption but begins:

My second blog post and I’ve already used the word Pimp. My Mom would be so proud.

8 Guiding Principles for Pilot Programs: A Key for Enterprise 2.0

Who is most influential in Enterprise 2.0?

Six ways technology is transforming small business

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