Teblog

Euan Semple's "Manager's Guide to the Social Web"

My holiday reading included Euan Semple's, Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do: A Manager's Guide to the Social Web. It inspired me to write a review which I'll also submit to Amazon.

Here goes:

A simple question mark, for me, symbolises the difference between the old way and the new way of managing and working.

The old way is about command and control and hierarchies while the new is about personal responsibility and networks. The old way was predicated on authority (whether deserved or not) and the new way on inspiration.

The question mark I mentioned represents the difference between being closed (do it my way) and open (how do you think we should do this?).

Given a choice, who would you prefer to work for - someone who bosses you or someone who inspires you?

These, and numerous other thoughts, are what Euan Semple's "Guide to the Social Web" triggered. I reckon that if a book shifts your thinking in a significant way, then it's worthwhile. That makes Semple's book extremely worthwhile. It's a book about management thinking much more than a book about the tools available, although they can't be totally avoided. And it's rooted in practicalities, although you may find yourself resisting some of them. I'd say, "keep an open mind until you've read the whole book."

I'm someone who's been actively involved in social web stuff since just before I first met Euan in early 1985 and I've held several management jobs as well as being a writer and a columnist. (Yes, that's partly a disclosure - I interviewed Euan for a magazine article about his experience of introducing social networking tools to BBC employees and we've stayed in touch ever since. I also mention it to show that I have lived through the old way and the new way and have a certain perspective.) 

I've always, right until I read this book, been a bit wary of Euan's evangelistic tendencies. But he's drawn his conclusions from the university of hard knocks and tends, when conversation time is short, to be long on conclusions and short on explanations. But this excellent book changes all that. It is a book of profound depth which reveals his innermost thoughts on each of his conclusions and practical suggestions while staying humble enough to acknowledge that other ways may suit certain organisations.

He's convinced, though, that successful organisations will all adopt social tools to a greater or lesser degree. This book is a way to accelerate management's insight and understanding of what the social web means and the potential it holds for transforming the workplace. It is not a black and white book that says, "do this, or you're doomed". Semple knows that companies have their own systems and their own ways of doing things and, indeed, that social web tools can be complementary rather than replacements.

It is a business book, aimed at business managers. And it's written in a way that each short chapter is designed to stand alone and can be read on the train, in the bath or wherever else takes your fancy. This inevitably causes some minor repetition, which you notice if you read it straight through (as I did). And, one chapter left me slightly puzzled about something, but this was the topic of the very next chapter. So I was only puzzled for a few minutes.

Have I got any complaints about the book? Well one; I really don't like the white type on a grey background which is used to introduce each chapter. Anything bigger? Hmmm. I wondered why he didn't mention 'search' very much. Then I realised that he's much more in favour of asking questions and getting recommendations than wading through search results of variable quality.

 

The book is 296 pages, it's published by John Wiley & Sons.

ISBN-10: 1119950554. ISBN-13: 978-1119950554.

I am alive, unlike my poor namesake

My phone has been ringing off the hook (well, it would be if it had a hook). And I see my blog has suddenly become very popular.

This is because an unfortunate man called David Tebbutt and his wife Judith were attacked by bandits  in Kenya last night. The man was killed and the wife abducted.

It's been interesting to have conversations with a media that needed considerable persuasion that I was not the person who was killed. (I think they wanted to run my picture with the story.)

And I apologise for any erstwhile colleagues who got caught up in this. It's touching that they reached out to check if I was okay. Thanks folks,

Now, let's just think of the poor man who was killed, his wife who was abducted and the family whose lives must now be in utter turmoil.

Homo Imitans. People do what we do, not what we say

The human body has two circulatory systems, the veinous and the lymphatic. They are connected, but largely independent.

Leandro Herrero's latest book, Homo Imitans, reminded me that the body corporate also contains two circulatory systems, the hierarchy and the networks. And, while each plays an important role, the networks - rather like the lymphatic system of the body - have incredible power which is underestimated, if not ignored, in most organisations.

This is a mistake, says Dr Herrero, describing the two systems as 'World I' and 'World II'. His book is mostly about World II, with the occasional nod to the enabling and encouraging role of World I in enlightened organisations.

His fundamental thesis (building on his earlier Viral Change book, which I reviewed here) is that people are more inclined to change their behaviour by copying peers that they respect than commands from on high. And, since behaviour is the only thing that counts when it comes to real change inside organisations, this is where (change) management should be focusing its energies. Dr Herrero gives due credit to authors of social networking books which cover a lot of similar ground, but his talent is in directing his thoughts and guidance slap bang into the heart of organisations that want to change but don't know how. It is also, very occasionally, a 'sell' for his Viral Change^TM practice, should you not want to go it alone.

Influence travels through networks completely independently of the company hierarchy and, in many cases, without the hierarchy even being aware of what's going on. In an organisational example, we saw it when Greg Dyke left the BBC after the stink around the 'sexing up' of the Iraq dossier - the crowds of staff, some in tears, seemed to appear out of nowhere but they were actually galvanised by the internal network.

In a non-corporate example, the recent rioting and looting in England came about largely through social networking and many people caught up in it were simply copying others who appeared to be 'getting away with it'. (The book contains a very useful 40-page annex which describes in detail many examples of social contagion with references to Dr Herrero's source material. It's called The Human Condition: a guide for the perplexed.)

All of which brings us back to the title of the book (Homo Imitans, if you've forgotten). We see what others do and we copy them. If others who respect or like us, see us doing something in a new way that makes sense to them, they copy us. If just three people copy what 'someone like them' is doing, then it's clear that such a social infection will quickly reach epidemic proportions.

The trick espoused by Dr Herrero is to find those key people in organsiations, wherever they are, and persuade them that a new way of behaving is good for them. (Obviously, it has to be good for the organisation, otherwise there's no point in doing it.) Much has been written about finding such 'champions' but less has been written about focusing on their behaviour.

Words alone are not enough. Dr Herrero likes to collect "Don't do that" posters which usually have little effect but can actually encourage whatever it is they're trying to stop. ("ABUSE OF STAFF WILL NOT BE TOLERATED", etc.) People will respond much more readily to what others do than to what they say.

The book is rich in structure and entertaining in style. It hammers home its messages and suggests new practices from a variety of perspectives. Each chapter reinforces what went before but, maybe because I've spent the the last 35 years as an enthusiast of behavioural psychology and the last seven deep in social networking, I felt I'd well and truly got the message before the end. Nevertheless, I notice I've still made margin notes right up to the last page.

I particularly like his encouraging penultimate paragraph:

"Viral Change^TM ... doesn't depend on behavioural sciences, network theory, social sciences, storytelling and leadership studies. Or even us as consultants!"

Leandro Herrero provides a wealth of persuasive examples and evidence which will help you make the case for socially-driven behavioural change in your own organisation.

Recommended.

Here on Earth

I finished reading Tim Flannery's Here on Earth a couple of days ago.

It lays out a fascinating history of our planet, the flora and fauna and their effects on it (including mankind, of course) and what we need to do to ensure our own species survives. We're the only ones with the intelligence and understanding to change our ways.

His recipe for global cooperation - a shared 'mneme' which acknowledges the harm we're doing and how to reverse it - is plausible in the abstract. But the book contains all the seeds (no pun intended) of why this is a tall order.

As a provocation, the book is excellent. If you're of a defeatist mind-set, you could end up very depressed by it. Especially if you have children and grandchildren. On the other hand, if you have a grain of imagination, it could start you thinking very seriously about how we get from an unacceptable 'here' to a desirable 'there'.

It will mean change, and that's the threat to religions, nations, different strata in society, business, politics, and so on. All have to find ways to put our common interest ahead of their own.

The book is very readable for the most part - at its best when describing our world and its mechanisms and, understandably, at its weakest when suggesting a way forward.

But, unlike the alarmist books which simply annoy, it gets you thinking. And, for that reason alone, I think it's worth a read.

Is Sweden the top blogging nation?

An interesting post by Racepoint's Molly Galler revealed some statistics about the world's top blogging nations. It put America at number one with 29.22% of the world's bloggers. The UK came second with 6.75%.

Her post contained other demographic information, but I couldn't help wondering how the figures worked out in relation to population size. According to my calculations, Sweden is the number one country by blog penetration. The UK is third and America sixth.

Here's my recalculation, in case any mathematicians among you want to check my methods. It takes the country and its percentage of global bloggers from the figures in Galler's post (supplied by Sysomos). The next column shows country population (from Wikipedia).

The next column is slightly cheeky because it's based on the total population of the 15 nations in the Sysomos report. It shows the population of each country as a percentage of that total. If blogging penetration were related to population size, it's what percentage you might expect.
 
The last figure, shows by how many times each country exceeded these expectations. Here are the recalculated top six:



Congratulations Sweden. Commiserations USA.

The business value of collaboration software

Originally published in CIO Online Feb 2009

At Lotus/IBM's recent Lotusphere the words 'business value' were repeatedly uttered by keynote presenters, but none really had time to expand, beyond talking in terms of 'efficiency'. CIO online went in search of answers that could help our readers in their assessment of collaboration initiatives.

The first and most obvious thing relates to culture. Not every organisation actually welcomes collaboration. It really does result in a flattening of hierarchies, the breaching of the silo walls and the by-passing of those who add no value. If you've been in the game long enough to remember the advent of email, you'll remember the fears of those middle managers who suddenly found themselves 'disintermediated'. So nothing really new, except that the kind of collaboration that is becoming increasingly popular has the potential to tie anyone directly to more or less anyone, regardless of internal or external boundaries.

Fortunately for the CIO, some systems are more manageable than others and, with the organisation's blessing, an approved collaboration system provides a measure of control without inhibiting the participants' legitimate actions. The alternative, to let anyone use whatever public systems take their fancy, is a recipe for inefficiency at best and trouble at worst. One thing that won't work is an outright ban. People who need to reach out will use this stuff anyway.

Many business folk fail to see the commercial benefits. Especially if they are used to seeing their kids using social software to superpoke their friends or share party pix. They might associate such software with frivolity and are afraid that their staff will use it just to waste time. In fact, within a business environment where full names and profiles are used, all posts are technically traceable and such abuse is fairly unlikely.

As the name implies, the whole point of social software is to help people find each other quickly and in a fashion most suited to the task at hand, while respecting the availability wishes of the participants. It's a wheel-oiling process on a grand scale. But what are the bottom line benefits?

Enter stage left, Luis Suarez, who’s part of a team which provides guidance to a 600-strong volunteer social software evangelist community within IBM. This work is additional to their day jobs. While it's easy to explain and enthuse about the elements - profiles, communities, wikis, blogs, bookmarks, activities, instant messaging, and so on - it's quite another to remember to build the business case.

IBM reckons it saves £12.9M in improved search productivity and reduced travel per year. And this figure is probably growing. To get this in context, here are some usage statistics for IBM's social software activities from October last year: 515,000 profiles are accessed 6.4 million times a week; 1,800 online communities contain over a million messages and have 147,000 members; over 25,000 wikis are used by over 320,000 readers; 260,000 blog posts have been made and these have over 30,000 tags; 580,000 bookmarks have been stored by 20,000 users - these have over 1.4M tags; 50,000 activities (think of them as projects) have 425,000 entries and 80,000 users; and over four million instant messages are exchanged daily. That represents one heck of a lot of shared knowledge. IBM is something of a special case. Its sheer size pretty much guarantees that whatever resources staffers want, people or information, they'll be able to find it when they want it. But a company doesn't have to be that big to get similar advantages.

Suarez sat down with me to hammer through some of the main value-related benefits. Here are just six of them:

1) Find: people, places, information - quickly by using profiles, and other people's tags and bookmarks as accelerants.

2) Validate: people especially. What have they posted? What do others make of them? You could arrive at a shortlist for a project team much more quickly and at greatly reduced cost than before.

3) Direct dialogue: with customers (and suppliers), internal and external. This eliminates filtering and politics and leads to more rapid understanding. It could mean fixing things that have gone wrong or identifying new product and service opportunities.

4) Capture information: from people as they're working or reviewing online material. This could prove especially valuable if faced with staff churn or retirements.

5) Connections: spread internal innovation widely and rapidly - bad ideas don't get traction but good ones do.

6) Communities: increase staff morale and retention through a sense of belonging and recognition.

Every one of those has a business value. It may not be easy to calculate, and the effort may not be worth it. But it does require the organisation to have an open, collaborative and trusting culture. Without that, it can never work. But with it, social software can transform the way we collaborate and share information.

Eco-efficiency: a global online gathering (Jam)

Well, IBM's Global Eco-Efficiency Jam has been going for 15 hours now. It aims to avoid science, politics and beliefs and focus on pragmatism and practical actions individuals and organisations can take now and in the near future to innovate, clean up their acts and gain commercial advantage.

It will last for another 36 hours. So get over there if you are interested in contributing to and learning from the discussion. If you just want to stir things up, don't bother.

As you might expect, a lot of the themes are not new, but it's probably the first opportunity for participating organisations to gather together and share what they know and to debate and bring new perspectives to bear on the subject matter. When strangers meet and people of different disciplines come together with a common purpose, new knowledge and insights tend to be created.

At the very least, the jam provides a pool of the collective expressed knowledge of the participants. This is available to all who register. You can do it immediately if your organisation appears on the drop-down list or request an invitation by sending an email to ecojam@us.ibm.com with "RSVP"  in the subject line. Joel Makower, a highly respected green business expert, kicked off the event by interviewing a Yale professor, a researcher from the Economist Intelligence Unit and an IBM Fellow in a webinar. Details here and the webinar recording is here if you'd like an orientation and, maybe, inspiration.

You can search Twitter for #ecojam or #globalecojam. To be frank, you won't find many tweets but they may lead to blogs and other resources related to the event. And Greenmonk's Tom Raftery is the official blogger.

At the time of writing 1480 individuals had logged in and 861 posts had been made. The top ten most active discussions range from 62 comments down to 19, which  means you can join the jam and get up to speed on your favourite topics very quickly by navigation or by search. You can create watchlists of topics or authors and you can kick off your own new discussions. (And, yes, you'll need to agree to some common sense rules.)

See you there maybe?

Is the eco-wind blowing your way?

It wasn't so long ago that all 'green' activity went under the heading of 'idealism'. Nothing wrong with that, but the so-called developed world is not big on that sort of thing. It doesn't put money in shareholders' pockets, satisfy fashion urges or keep children 'happy' at Christmas. (The quotes are because I remember our family's happiest festive times were when we were poorest.)

Now, with Copenhagen looming and the Carbon Reduction Commitment legislation just around the corner, large organisations especially are beginning to realise that a regulatory steamroller is heading their way and they will need to do something about it, quite regardless of their anthropogenic climate change beliefs, or otherwise.

In terms of business operations (as opposed to political lobbying or scientific research), it's probably best that organisations focus on what they can do which will deliver genuine benefits while minimising their impact on the environment. Generally speaking, benefits boil down to cost savings and increased revenues, although public bodies are likely to focus more on the former than the latter.

The tough bit is measurement. Like accounting and auditing, this is necessary to understand progress and to be able to report convincingly, both internally and externally. All the time the global warming, climate change and greenhouse gas discussions have been going on, it's all seemed a bit abstract to day to day life. Now that we're facing the prospect of being nailed by governments, councils, customers and investors, the need to act has crystallised. What a fantastic opportunity for the IT world. If nothing else, it's very good at collecting and processing information in very high volumes and that's exactly what organisations need as they contemplate their own sustainability, in all senses of the word. (We shouldn't be so dazzled by the CO2 story that we forget about raw material use, water, waste and other forms of pollution.)

Some software companies - Access and Microsoft Dynamics spring to mind, although I'm sure there are others - got into carbon accounting before their clients were fully aware that this was going to become important. Hats off to them, and others like them, who knew what had to be done and just got on with it. They will, hopefully, reap the rewards of their early efforts.

As ever, the pioneers aren't usually the ones that walk away with the big prizes. While journalists and bloggers have been complaining about the apparent lack of action, the big guys were getting on with the job. They were watching what's going on out there, putting their own houses in order while preparing new products and services for market. Now they're emerging from the woodwork.

For example, CA managed to secure the name ecoSoftware for its SaaS-based measurement and reporting system aimed at medium to large businesses. It looks into every nook and cranny of a business in order to assess and report on its environmental health. It takes the whole sustainability perspective, rather than concentrating on carbon or energy alone, for example. It takes its feeds from just about anywhere - hand entered meter readings, electronic feeds and inputs from other recording systems. It integrates with other software, especially the major ERP systems. Users can drill in and out of detail, and filter the information in a variety of ways - by business process, by GHG Protocol Scopes, per shipping unit, by floor area, and so on. The end result is action plans based on genuine insights and, of course, the ability to measure progress.

Another company, 1E, is probably best known for its NightWatchman system which minimises the power use of the desktop computing estate. It has recently announced a system for measuring data centre energy use and identifying how much useful work each server is doing. It can change the power profile of each device according to the work it is (or is not) doing. The system reports what's been going on in charts and tables and users can drill into any unusual patterns. It will integrate natively with hardware vendors' own tools or scripts can be created for exceptions or new developments. Crudely stated, the point of the exercise is to maximise the business value delivered with the least use of equipment and energy.

These examples serve to show which way the wind is blowing. Organisations will find that the IT industry will be key to helping them get a grip on their environmental obligations and costs. It is a case of a win all round but, as is frequently the case, no one will win bigger than the IT industry itself. 

Frighten the kids, or encourage the grown-ups?

Have you seen the Act On CO2 'bedtime stories' advertisement that our dear government has spent £6M on? Although it's a cartoon, the words are real enough. Fundamentally, it tells children that they're victims of grown-ups' actions and, if the grown-ups change their ways, they may (note: only 'may') be saved. According to the advertisement, over forty percent of the emissions of CO2 are caused by 'ordinary things' that grown-ups do, like warming homes and driving cars.

The Advertising Standards Authority has received hundreds of complaints which it plans to investigate. Good luck to it. According to a BBC report, "An ASA spokeswoman said the watchdog would be investigating whether the claims about climate change could be substantiated and whether the ad complied with taste and decency rules."

The ASA hasn't a hope in hell of validating the climate change science. It should concentrate instead on the taste and decency angle. When Sky News wrote about the ASA complaints, it received masses of contradictory comments (I ploughed through 94 of them). Goodness knows who Lisa is, but she made a good point when she said, "Upsetting children can never be right ... Why worry them so young when they can't do anything right now?!" Quite.

What is clear (if you didn't know already) is that climate change has become a religious debate and, if the Sky News commenters are representative of the population at large, the non-believers greatly outweigh the believers. And the powers-that-be are at their wits' end to turn us into believers.

The stupid thing is that the more rabid they become, the more they will turn off even the most reasonable citizen. Somehow the debate needs to become less accusatory and more inclusive. It might want to take into account that not everyone is the same or driven by the same values.

The latest EcoPinion Survey Report from strategic marketing agency EcoAlign parsed the attitudes of 1250 USA citizens and, in the process, identified five different categories of consumer. In terms of motivation to use new technologies and participate in new energy programs, they were: Cost-Conscious Saver (41%), Value Buyer (20%), Environmentalist/Green Consumer (19%), Traditional Consumer (10%) and Tech Enthusiast (10%).

The same messaging can't work with such a disparate set of people. Judging from that list, only 19 percent look as if they might fit in the 'believer' category in the USA. In Europe it may be different, but you can bet that the different categories exist. And it's therefore clear that a single message is going to fall on largely deaf ears, unless it happens to focus on the needs of the Cost-Conscious Saver.

And maybe this is a clue to the answer. Forget global warming, climate change, CO2 or any of that 'big-brotherish' terminology. Talk about simple financial and environmental sustainability through energy and fuel savings, through the avoidance of waste and other pollution and through the minimisation of raw materials.

In this way, instead of negative, frightening stories from those in power, the environmental tale can become a  positive one put out by everyone who is making an effort to improve our collective lot.

On environmental matters, who's at fault?

Compressed digital video works by having occasional reference frames which are updated by changes. It seems to make sense to publish a reference frame on environmental matters from time to time. So here's my first stab. Comments, as ever, are welcome.

Animals go about their business and leave no rubbish. Whatever they do leave becomes nourishment for something else - microbes, plants or other animals. Humans, on the other hand, have become adept at adapting nature's resources to things that are somewhat less naturally recyclable, either because of their semi-permanent nature (plastics for example) or because they are mixed and, therefore, un-recyclable (silicon chips, mixed fibre clothing and so on).

We also pollute the land, the seas and the air, not to mention inland lakes and rivers. I use the generalised 'we' even though some cultures and individuals live more in harmony with nature than others.

Not only this, but we deplete material resources at an unsustainable rate in order to satisfy the perceived 'needs' of an ever-growing population. Oil, coal and gas are the obvious examples - millions of years to lay down, exhausted in a couple of hundred. Known sources of many metals we take for granted (silver, gold, zinc, tin, lead, copper and uranium etc) are all likely to become exhausted in the next thirty years or so. If the glaciers keep melting, then the hope is that new deposits will be discovered. Which will buy a delay, but the end result will be the same. A rising population and widening consumerism will see to that.

In case you were wondering, natural gas, iron, aluminium then coal will last longest. But that will change as we seek alternatives to materials that are being exhausted.

I sometimes watch television advertisements and they drive me nuts. The worst offenders try to get you into a new habit by inventing a problem you never knew existed and then offer you a 'cure' for the condition. Anti-ageing creams and health drinks, for me, are the worst offenders. It amazes me that anyone falls for it. I cringe in anticipation of the "because you're worth it" and "take care" payoff lines. But then I think, "What am I doing sitting in front of a television that cost God-knows-what in material resources and gobbles electricity?" The answer is the same for everyone else who has a television: it's a low-cost source of information, education and entertainment.

Cars are a low cost, comfortable and convenient way of getting from A to B. It's little wonder we're addicted to them. Incandescent bulbs (RIP) were a great way of lighting the home. We haven't got a decent replacement yet, although a 12 volt lighting circuit of LEDs might prove a good idea.

It seems clear that, if the human race is to survive and thrive, it needs to change its ways. It needs to become more in harmony with nature and to put a proper value on the raw materials that remain. And, indeed, to exploit them while we have them in order to build whatever infrastructure we need for the future.

Mostly, what I see is companies jumping on the green or cleantech bandwagons in order to make and sell new stuff which is going to make the world better after these new things have been bought. And, frankly, I'm not sure companies have a great deal of choice unless they are hit by legislation, loss of markets or shareholder revolt. Yet, paradoxically, these same companies are made up of individuals who probably do care about the future of their families. (I'm not even going to try and square that particular circle.) 

And governments, which require the taxes from companies in order to balance the nation's books (ha!), are hardly likely to welcome too much shrinkage of the economy. They could replace taxes with 'fines' but that's probably not an election-winning strategy. They have much to lose were they to put 'growth' into long-term reverse. Encouragement of the right things and the removal of red tape would seem the right way to go.

And consumers, the people who are persuaded to part with their cash for all sorts of nonsense, are not going to be in a hurry to consume less although they might be persuaded to consume more of the right kind of things and less of the wrong. Providing their pockets don't suffer. Or, at least, not suffer too visibly. The recent car scrappage scheme is a good example - with the lure of a £2000 bribe - a lot of old vehicles went into the recycling loop and a lot of new cars were sold at more or less full price: a win for the showrooms, the recyclers, the manufacturers and the UK vehicle maintenance infrastructure. For the consumer, the lure of getting many times the market value of an old car somewhat eclipsed the repayment schedule and the embedded environmental harm in the new cars. I fell for it, eventually, and consoled myself that I'd bought a fuel-sipping recyclable car from a greenish car maker.

We, in the so-called developed world, are all trapped by our desires for a comfortable life whether we're politicians, business people or consumers. We find it difficult to imagine or face up to the scale of change that's needed in order to give future generations a chance. Professor David MacKay (see my Inside Track) has become the government's advisor on energy. His brutal bottom line is that we (in the UK) need to cut our fossil fuel consumption by 90 percent. Can you imagine that? I'm not sure if he's been hired in order to genuinely advise or as a way of gagging him. Time will tell.

But, if we're to achieve that, we need to invest in alternatives energy sources sharpish and his book Sustainable Energy - without the hot air is eminently readable, online (free) or offline (£20 in paperback). Perhaps he could start a 'without the hot air' series, taking a largely impartial look at raw materials and pollution.

The more clearly the facts are laid in front of us, the more wisely we can make our individual choices. In the end though, we will make a single choice: exploit what's left as if there were no tomorrow (our present course) or find ways of living sustainably. The alternative, a sort of in-between approach, will merely delay our tenure on this planet.