CMSWire review of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 – A Practical Guide

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CMSWire has just published a nice review of my Implementing Enterprise 2.0 Report.

Here is an excerpt from the review:

Ross Dawson has written a report on Enterprise 2.0 that should be a valuable tool for any organization implementing or thinking about implementing Web 2.0 tools in their enterprise.

Called Implementing Enterprise 2.0: A practical guide to creating business value inside organizations with web technologies, Dawson take a close look at the implications and considerations of incorporating web 2.0 tools like wikis, blogs, social networks, bookmarks and microblogging and RSS in the enterprise.

At roughly 190 pages, it doesn’t take long to read this report and earmark some sound advice for your E2.0 strategy. The book includes chapters on developing an Enterprise 2.0 strategy, governance and policies, how different tools can create business value and practical and organizational implications. A number of sidebars provide real-world case studies and advice from those who have made the leap to Enterprise 2.0.

It concludes with a list of potential vendor solutions for the various web 2.0 technologies mentioned above.

The report provides a number of frameworks and checklists that can help you determine how best to go about implementing Enterprise 2.0 solutions in your organization.

The front page of our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 website now includes excerpts and links to reviews of the report – always handy before deciding to buy it! :-)

Dialogue with Dave Snowden at KM Australia on success in a world of infinite information

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Knowledge and complexity guru Dave Snowden (@snowded) recently tweeted me to ask if I would like to have an on-stage conversation with him to close the KM Australia conference. Apparently the session as originally planned didn’t pan out, so I’m the last-minute back-up plan.

In a brief Twitter exchange we decided on a discussion topic of :

“How to build organisations that succeed in a world of infinite information”.

I think the idea is we’ll walk on stage and have a conversation. I think it’s fair to say that Dave is forthright in his opinions, so it should be fun. :-)

It will be quite a while since I’ve been to a knowledge management conference.

A list of business applications for blogging in the enterprise

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We’re getting a great response to our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report. We’ll get up a discussion space on the site soon.

In the meantime I’d thought I’d share a brief excerpt from the book, in chapter 10 on Blogs in the enterprise. You can download four other chapters from the website, including our Social networking in the enterprise chapter.

Selected applications of blogs in the enterprise

INTERNAL BLOGS

Executive communication

Blogs are increasingly used as a tool for CEOs and other senior executives to communicate within the organization. This provides a more informal communication mechanism that is a valuable complement to existing channels.

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Uncovering high-value applications of organizational network analysis

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New Scientist has published an interesting article titled Email patterns can predict impending doom, which reviews findings by researchers at Florida Institute of Technology. They, as many researchers, used the email logs from Enron, which have been made available for analysis by federal investigators.

The key finding from the research was that the number of active email cliques, in which groups exchanged emails between each other but not outside, went from 100 to 800 a month before the collapse of the company. This appeared to reflect decreasing trust across the broader organization and increasing stress. This indicates that very strong indicators of organizational health can be gleaned from network analysis.

Network analysis by Advanced Human Technologies of top executives in global corporation

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Driving innovation in large professional service firms: Six high-return initiatives

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Over the last years I have spent significant time assisting professional services firms to drive innovation. This year I am finding that the economic climate is intensifying the focus on these issues rather than pushing them to the background.

The pressures that commoditize services are intensifying, local and global competition is increasing, and clients are seeking value in different forms than they have in the past. Another critical driver is the war for talent. Young, talented professionals show little interest in continuing to plough the furrow of long-established processes, however wax enthusiastic about creating new approaches to their work.

However there are many barriers to innovation in large professional firms, including billing imperatives, strong functional specialization, and often highly risk-averse cultures. Much of the management literature on innovation focuses on product development and design, and is not always relevant to a professional services environment.

I’ve written before about innovation in professional services, including the White Paper I wrote for SAP on Service Delivery Innovation and in Chapter 9 of Living Networks.

Here are some reflections on where I see the greatest potential for value-creation in the space.

DOMAINS FOR INNOVATION

There are several key domains for innovation for professional firms:

Services and products. In a rapidly changing business environment, providing the services that are most relevant to clients’ needs can provide real competitive advantage. The issue is not just in quickly generating new offerings, but also in packaging these so they can be readily communicated to clients by front-line professionals.

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Video of TEDx on Future of the Enterprise in San Francisco

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We finally have video of my presentation on Future of the Enterprise at the TEDx event in San Francisco on May 5. The video is a nice production, very kindly done by Denis Mars to pull in the slides and Flash that supported my presentation.

Read more about the TEDxAdvance event, organized by Advance San Francisco. The best description is Andrew Mager’s excellent review of the evening.

The TEDx presentation format is strictly 20 minutes, so my presentation fits into two 9 minute YouTube videos below. Feel free to start at Part 2 if you want a sampler of the content – the story pretty much hangs together from there too.

In the presentation I discuss:

* Origins of organizations, from pre-agricultural through pyramid building, the guild, and modern companies

* Enterprise vs. Corporation. The critical distinction that means the “enterprise” will be more important than the “corporation” moving forward

* My personal work journey, through distributed computing, financial markets, Japan, information broking and NLP formed my thinking on organizations

* Knowledge and relationships are the only resources that matter in today’s economy

* Living networks of people, organizations and industry emerge

* Organizations are media entities – the flow of information defines its functioning

* Three driving forces today: Connectivity, Expectations and Commoditization

* Enterprise 2.0 is about creating the next phase of organizations – it is done by creating parameters for experimentation

* In the Heuristic Age structured trial and error is the only viable path to responsiveness

* Five questions: I end with five key questions we must answer to create the future of the enterprise:

What structures will emerge for allocating capital to enterprise?

What models will best turn participation into value creation?

How do we best tap the global talent economy in a virtual world?

What role will reputation play?

How will we make work meaningful?

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Video interviews with J.B. Holston of Newsgator and Stowe Boyd before Enterprise 2.0 Conference

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There is some great content on the Enterprise 2.0 Conference blog, including video interviews with J.B. Holston, CEO of Newsgator and Stowe Boyd. These give a flavor of some of the great content we can expect at Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston on June 22-25.

I’m due to have a call with J.B. Holston soon in which I will be very interested to hear his views on what I call the ‘RSS Enterprise’. He has some great insights in this video, including on the current pace of uptake of Enterprise 2.0 technologies, and the legal issues relating to privacy in different countries. A summary of some of the points he makes in the interview is available here.

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Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston coming soon!

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While our annual Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum is the biggest Enterprise 2.0 event in Australasia and Asia, the global landmark event for Enterprise 2.0 is definitely the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, coming up on June 22-25. As I am a blogger partner of the conference, you can get a 30% discount by registering through the button on the right of this post.

Notable keynote speakers at the conference include Andrew McAfee of HBS and Matthew Fraser, co-author of Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom, as well as a host of senior executives from companies that are implementing Enterprise 2.0.

The White Paper produced for the event has some interesting statistics from a very recent survey, as below. The other key statistic, not surprising but certainly gratifying to vendors, is that 65% of respondents expect spending on Enterprise 2.0 by corporates to increase in 2009 compared to last year.

E2conf_challenges.jpg

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Visualization: RSS in the Enterprise

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Here continuing our series of visual representations of social media tools inside organizations, taken from our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report.

The diagram below was used in the chapter on RSS in the enterprise, to illustrate how RSS can support effective information flows in the organization.

Go to the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 downloads page for several free chapters.

More Enterprise 2.0 visualizations coming soon.

RSS_diagram.jpg

Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Free Chapter 7 – Governance

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Continuing our series of free chapters from Implementing Enterprise 2.0, here is Chapter 7 on Governance. For full details on the report and all the sample chapters go to the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 website.

e2impl_framework_500w.jpg

Within the Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework above, governance is an absolutely critical and central issue, as I have written about many times before. I have included the chapter on governance because it is so central both to implementing Enterprise 2.0, and to generating business value in a fast-paced environment. Change entails risk and opportunity – governance provides a structure to enable this.

Chapter 4 on Key Risks and Benefits , also available as a free download, examines the risks and benefits that must be considered in the governance process.

The Governance chapter contains:

* Conceptual illustration of social networks in the enterprise (see as a standalone image)

* The importance of the governance

* Six steps in a typical governance process

* Worksheet on stakeholder interests

* Professional service firm case study

You can also just download the pdf of Chapter 7.

Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Chapter 7 – Governance Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Chapter 7 – Governance Ross Dawson Chapter 2 of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 (www.ImplementingEnterprise2.com) on Governance