The Social Business imperative – a time of radical corporate change
Rooven Pakkiri, Head of Social Business at Collaboration Matters has recently had a paper published by the well-respected UKSG organisation. It is entitled ‘The social business imperative – a time of radical corporate change’ and is featured in their ‘Insights: the UKSG journal’ publication for July.
Here’s the excerpt:
‘Social business’ is about the inspired use of collaboration technology platforms inside the company firewall to solve business problems. It has often misleadingly been described as Facebook or LinkedIn for the company, but it has a much more profound objective than social networking sites. It represents a technology-led paradigm shift that will reshape the culture and processes of organizations within five years. This article explores the very heart of social business: the emancipation, distribution and consolidation of knowledge – which aligns neatly with the traditional roles of publishers and libraries to date. It looks at the background, in terms of economic theory: increasing the value of ‘labour’ over ‘capital’, and the promise of social business: to make better use of the knowledge embedded around the organization, looking at examples from the real world and assessing the cultural implications, such as valuing patterns over process or influence over hierarchy. In conclusion, the article presents a final vision for social business: loyalty and gamification, the future of work and the end of the traditional workplace.
Covering topics such as ‘Background economics: the evolving dynamic between labour and capital‘, ‘The promise of social business: optimization of knowledge‘ and ‘Understanding the value of pattern over process‘, Rooven presents an overview of what Social Business is and how Collaboration Matters takes it to our customers. This isn’t about technology for technology’s sake, instead as an enabler for a paradigm shift ‘that will reshape the culture and processes of organizations within five years’.
The Social Business imperative
Rooven Pakkiri, Head of Social Business at Collaboration Matters has recently had a paper published by the well-respected UKSG organisation. It is entitled ‘The social business imperative – a time of radical corporate change’ and is featured in their ‘Insights: the UKSG journal’ publication for July.
Here’s the excerpt:
Covering topics such as ‘Background economics: the evolving dynamic between labour and capital‘, ‘The promise of social business: optimization of knowledge‘ and ‘Understanding the value of pattern over process‘, Rooven presents an overview of what Social Business is and how Collaboration Matters takes it to our customers. This isn’t about technology for technology’s sake, instead as an enabler for a paradigm shift ‘that will reshape the culture and processes of organizations within five years’.
The rise of the Community Manager and the Collaboration Garden: an IBM Social Business Briefing
For our third IBM Social Business Briefing (aka Wicked Wednesdays) on 25th April at Royal Exchange in London, we felt the time was right to move the discourse from thought leadership and education to a more practical footing.
Of course, we still leveraged the superb network of independent thought leaders who we are lucky to have at our events BUT at this latest event we changed / evolved the format.
On this occasion I framed the discussion on the emerging role of the Community Manager (seen by some as the ‘rock star of the Enterprise’) and then actually used a collaboration platform to discuss, collaborate and innovate around the chosen topic.
The objective or rather the output of the debate was not simply to gain a better understanding of this subject (the fastest growing job role in Social Business) but also to create a job description for the role of Community Manager which could then be downloaded and iterated by users.
To help us achieve this we introduced attendees to the Collaboration Garden – a place where the Wicked Wednesday discussion and collaboration goes on in and around the physical events.
Once inside the Garden, users could not only record their opinions and raise questions but they could also examine (through the software) the potential responsibilities and attendant tools on hand to assist a Community Manager with user adoption – e.g. gamification and social media feeds.
The overall sentiment was that this was our best Wicked Wednesday to date and pointed the way forward for future events. Weaving the use of the collaboration platform into the discussion from the start had a number of important effects:
- It forced us all ‘to drink our own champagne’
- Individuals contributed to the Garden on-premise and remotely (including from Spain and Ireland)
- It highlighted how much was lost when we simply spoke and did not record
- Live collaboration in the platform allowed for multi-threaded conversations which themselves were profoundly different to normal conversation
- Those who were not familiar with a social collaboration platform experienced it in a way that was far more refreshing and natural then the traditional demo mode
Wicked Wednesdays are all about sharing and collaborating with those who attend the latest trends, twists and turns in the Social Business journey. We take risks at this event; we have to in order to keep things fresh and real. So it was particularly gratifying to hear that the new format was warmly welcomed by those involved.
We are planning our next Wicked Wednesday/Social Business Briefing to take place in June and in keeping with our need to innovate we are experimenting with moving the venue from the Royal Exchange to a comfortable, friendly, coffee shop in the city which should be fun.
For more information, feel free to contact us directly.
The Collaboration Garden
There are pioneers, visionaries and thought leaders inside companies, who can see where their respective organisations will need to get to in terms of collaboration over the next 3 years
The Collaboration Garden is where you can join focused communities and engage with people facing similar challenges such as – Adoption strategy, Collaborative Decision Making, and Talent Management.
Stay ahead of the curve and learn how to leverage Social Business to deliver a more connected, innovative and engaged workforce.
There are 3 things the Collaborative garden offers you in terms of managing the change that Social Business dictates:
- Follow thought leaders and their discussions on specific areas of Social Business
- Put a question into the Community that relates to a specific problem you are trying to solve e.g. patchy user adoption
- Stay up to date on breaking or emerging trends e.g. the infographic CV
Access to the Collaborative Garden is by invite only. Please contact us for more information.
Adoption
Today user adoption continues to be the bête noir of Social Business platform deployments. Although highly frustrating to business leaders who can see the benefits of collaborative culture and technology, this is perfectly understandable. There is a mixture of generations in the organisation today many of whom are not comfortable with the new technology, there is a heavy loyalty and dependency on email as the prime mode of communication, and there is a fear factor based on the transparency of Social Business platforms.
However all of this will pass and in time Social Business will be the norm as email is today. That is fine for companies who are prepared to take on the serious risk of late adoption, for everyone else they need to conquer the user adoption challenge right here, right now.
For these companies we are ready to help. There are of a number of tools and techniques to hand to assist from – gamification to community management and we can work with you to get the mix right.
But above all else, we have found that the best and lasting way to get over the user adoption hurdle is to spend time with our clients identifying a business problem or challenge that will lend itself to collaboration. The criteria for suitability is manifold and this is what we will share with you in our engagement, but suffice to say it has to be a problem (or challenge) that has the potential to involve people who are not co-located and are not necessarily in the same department.
Once we have settled on the first business problem to help user adoption and prove the model, we set about creating a community and pre-populating it so that when the invited employees log on they are already in a place that looks familiar and friendly.
We track community usage and involvement by individuals and measure that against agreed milestones. Where users are falling short of agreed targets (this rarely happens if you have identified the right problem to collaborate on people to get involved) we review both the targets and look to assist the specific individuals with fast fix additional 30 min training sessions. Once users get a feel of success and see how incredibly efficient this way of working is (no more email trails and endless attachments!) the community takes on a momentum of its own and we work with the client to look at the next logical community to create.
Want to impress your client??
Biscuits ‘key’ to clinching business deals
About four out of five UK businesses believe the type of biscuit they serve to potential clients could clinch the deal or make it crumble, a survey says.The outcome of a meeting could be influenced by the range and quality of biscuits, according to 1,000 business professionals quizzed by Holiday Inn.
The chocolate digestive was deemed to make the best impression followed by shortbread and Hob Nobs.
Lawyers were most impressed by good boardroom biccies, the survey added.
Dunking Do-Nots
Jammie Dodgers and Bourbons were also among the biscuit types thought to help sweet-talk customers.However crumbly biscuits are a big no-no in the meeting environment, the questionnaire found, with 30% frowning on a regular digestive in the work environment.
And when it comes to helping yourself to biscuits from a communal plate, the most acceptable number to take is two, the research concluded.
However more than half of respondents looked down on dunking biscuits in tea or coffee during a meeting.
A survey released last year, which quizzed 7,000 people, suggested that the custard cream is the nation’s favourite biscuit.