Nudging Along the Future of Work & Social Business

29 Tuesday Oct 2013

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customer experience, future of work, social business

Originally on Storify by Rawn Shah, Tue, Oct 29 2013 11:48:48

Recently, some of the thought-leaders had a bit of fresh discussion about the evolving direction of social collaboration, and the future of work itself. This discussion looked beyond the motivations of individuals, and at what is leading to this change in social business (enterprise social networks, E2.0, etc.) One debate was on the driving force or source of authority that ‘allows’ social collaboration to occur in the organization. The other is that we don’t have a consistent understanding of what social business is now, presumably at this point of its evolution. Both were looking at ways to help nudge an envisioned future of work.

[Disclosure: Most of the folks here are friends of mine as well as peer thought leaders in Social Business. Chris Heuer is also my business partner.]

It began with a tweet by Daizo Ito (President of Panasonic India) on a Forbes post of mine from a few months ago, Social Business Thought Leaders Beginning Anew.
Daizo Ito @DaizoIto

Great piece by @rawn on hw social media thought leaders are making a move to achieve something greater. t.co/QxKdH1O4ux

Mon, Oct 28 2013 04:51:36
Susan Beebe @susanbeebe

Agreed >> RT @DaizoIto: Great piece @rawn on how social media thought leaders are making a move to something greater: t.co/DFGXYTquPM

Mon, Oct 28 2013 15:10:56
With some resharing by others, several folks chimed in on the social channels that that liked that particular piece, adding some information on their own changes.
Sebastian Thielke

Awesome post Rawn.

Mon, Oct 28 2013 11:14:29
Richard Binhammer

Good one. Ill comment in a post sometime 🙂

Mon, Oct 28 2013 12:31:13
Jeff Nolan

yes that is a good one… and worth pointing out that the ultimate source of tracking people moves, Jeremiah Owyang, has moved himself on to something bigger!

Mon, Oct 28 2013 10:15:20
Bill Johnston

aannnnnddd damn near the entire Dell SMac Team 🙂

Mon, Oct 28 2013 14:24:10
The Total Perspective Vortex: “You are Here”

But the bigger speculation was a look at the current degree of maturity of social business, now nearing its first decade, kicked off by Frank Eliason (SVP Social Media, Citibank), followed by a response from Emanuele Quintarelli (Digital Transformation Lead, Ernst & Young) on the source driving the change.
Frank Eliason

Great piece Rawn! I wonder who will be next to make a move. I think there are a lot of aspects. We are now hitting a stage where some say the ideas are maturing, but the reality is most companies are not even close to achieving what is possible. But as you know it does not come down to the tools but instead the underlying culture. I often talk about social service but the reality is companies must fix the overall Customer experience. For internal collaboration it is not about implementing the next version of whatever software, it is truly having a collaborative work environment. I expect these changes will happen over the next few years and I look forward to help lead that, but the companies doing it must be ready for it. It will be fun for us who have recognized this for a long time.

Mon, Oct 28 2013 14:56:02
Emanuele Quintarelli

Interesting point Frank. To me the central question is where will the change come from? From inside the organization, from the market pressure, from consultancies and which kind of consulting companies. I believe none of the actors involved are actually ready to make the leap. I’m afraid lots of patience and hard work will be required..

Mon, Oct 28 2013 14:59:44
Frank Eliason

Emanuele we are at the stage where patience and hard work are key. I think many companies were provided poor advice over the past few years and are going frustrated by the poor results. The challenge is they have not always listened to those who truly know but instead focused on the ease they were sold. I do think consultants (the right ones) will be important but I also think the discussion must happen at the right levels. It is not a CMO conversation. It is the CEO but also the lowest level employees too. Then it must converge onto the remaining parts of the org. Unfortunately for some companies this will take too long and others will pass them by

Mon, Oct 28 2013 15:11:43
Maria Ogneva

I am seeing the same as many commenters on this thread: I think everyone “gets it” conceptually, but actually making a meaningful change is quite different. Too much attention has been paid to technology and not enough to underlying change management. You can’t just tell people to go collaborate — shocking, I know! 🙂 I also think that people aren’t really making a connection between “external social” and “internal social” and how it’s part of the same kind of organization they need to become. And also.. social business or whatever you want to call it is still a silo, so definitely CEO level leadership is key as Frank Eliason mentioned — but it’s not enough. I think where most things get stuck actually is middle management. Social business efforts can fizzle there, no matter how visionary the CEO is. Also.. culture takes a long time to change, so when people don’t see results right away, they throw out the baby with the bathwater. Time to end this comment…

Mon, Oct 28 2013 16:37:36
As Mr. Eliason and Ms. Maria Ogneva (Director of Community, Salesforce.com) indicate, many organizations comprehend the gestalt–a structure, configuration, or pattern so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts. This is supported by the large list of clients from large and small software vendors alike (IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Jive, Lithium Technologies, Moxie Software, etc.)

But as the definition implies, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There is a whole lot to those parts, however. They comprise entire functions (marketing, customer service, product development, etc.) and aspects of business (customer relationships, employee engagement, strategy and growth, etc.) The scale of it is what makes this so compelling for thought leaders, but also so challenging to enterprise leaders. It is a just a whole lot to know and juggle in mind on par with the Total Perspective Vortex of Douglas Adams’ novels–to stare at it may let you comprehend the depth of it all, but also drive you mad from grasping the complexity.

What or Where is ‘Here’ in the timeline of maturity?

The discussion then switched to what I describe as ‘what is the story now’? Where is ‘here’ in the Total Perspective Vortex? Chris Heuer (CEO of Alynd) and Mr. Quintarelli exchanged views on the matter:
Chris Heuer

Based on our meme challenges, our language disconnect with the c-suite and the lack of buyers I wrote about this in the Social Business is Dead post. Now we are convening the tribes of #socbiz #e20 #responsiveorg #workrev and other Work Hackers http://workhackers.org/2013/10/23/defining-the-future-of-work-at-the-work-hackers-summit/ … to discuss and create the future of work together! SB is Dead located here – http://www.briansolis.com/2013/10/social-business-is-dead-long-live-whats-next/ …

Mon, Oct 28 2013 15:53:44
Emanuele Quintarelli

Chris, I’m sorry but I’m not buying it. The issue with Social Business or whatever we want to call it is not about names and monikers. The issue is with value and change: a value most senior executives simply don’t see and a required change that simply is not justified. You can call it however you want but the future of work is about a totally different kind of organization and a dramatically different kind of role for its constituents. Are we able to demonstrate the why? If yes, names are not that important. Otherwise, any name will be pretty useless. Names is about marketing. Change is about motivation to change. Change is about value.

Mon, Oct 28 2013 16:12:37
Chris Heuer

Language is about connecting concepts and people. If you haven’t, please read the article. Too dismiss it as marketing gimmickry is to miss my point entirely. There are many challenges, most of which come from the inherent complexity of the subject and the complacency of executives with the status quo.

Mon, Oct 28 2013 16:26:28
Frank Eliason

Here is a link to Chris’ post http://www.briansolis.com/2013/10/social-business-is-dead-long-live-whats-next/ …. It can add to the conversation here

Mon, Oct 28 2013 16:36:40
Emanuele Quintarelli

I’ve read the article of course and I’m specifically referring to http://www.briansolis.com/2013/10/social-business-is-dead-long-live-whats-next/ …. If I’m understanding your point, you remark that “it’s just time for us to find a phrase that is more attractive to corporate leadership” and that “The problem is that the deeper meaning and richer context is being lost on executives who still think the word “social” indicates a frivolous time-wasting pursuit”. On the contrary my impression is that executives will start looking into Social Business only when they get the why, in their terms of course. Words can be confusing but it is not other words that will make it clearer to me. At least not enough to remove inertia from the C-suite. I agree that “Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is not to get caught up in the words.” The next step to me is not another movement but showing the hard value that what we have been doing in the last few years, unfortunately, has not delivered. To me the future of the organization is especially about doing and changing organizations a step at a time.

Mon, Oct 28 2013 16:45:09
Chris Heuer

Emanuele. You can’t have it both ways. You say we need to explain the why “in their terms” and then say “it is not other words that will make it clearer”. That’s a pretty simple contradiction in what you are stating. I don’t think we disagree much if at all on principle here, which is why your “words” are confusing me 🙂

Mon, Oct 28 2013 16:50:42
Emanuele Quintarelli

No contradiction. It seems you consider words the solution. I consider actions and results the solution.

Mon, Oct 28 2013 16:52:16
Maria Ogneva

Oh I just noticed the rest of the article — missed the interview between Rawn and Emanuele. My gut reaction: I have to say, I do not agree at all that business transformation is the territory of big consultants — but of course I can see why you’d say that because you work for a big consultancy. 🙂 I work with all kinds of consulting partners, and I definitely don’t agree. I think the points of industry specialization — as well as seeing trends across industries at a 10k view — are valid points. But I don’t think this expertise only exists in large consultancies. Also, small and medium companies need social transformation — it’s just the way they go about it may be different.

Mon, Oct 28 2013 19:47:57
Managed Evolution takes Many, Many Small Nudges

As I see it:

(1) The topic has matured and changed since inception a few years back. (I’m intentionally being vague on when it started precisely.)

(2) The gestalt of social business is vague and misunderstood. Some see the near-term possibilities and achievable gains, but ignore the full potential because that requires hard decisions and larger changes.

(3) There is a need for what changes can occur on a practical level that is pragmatic to the situation of each organization

(4) “Short-term” varies but on a business operations-view it is 1 year or less. On a business work evolution viewpoint, it is a few years

(5) I’d argue “long-term” means a decade or more, encompassing the possibility of the complete forward future of how you run your business.

(6) We need actionable practical change in the Business-operations-Short-term timespace, but driving towards the Work-evolution-Short-term as well.

(7) Making the practical change however still needs an understanding of the Long-term view both in concept, and in terms of the broad strategic/evolutionary goals for one’s specific organization.

As the header says, evolution is many, many steps that seem small and achievable in the short-term, but develops the organism (the organization) into a new thing. This above isn’t evolution in the classic sense but guided or managed. We don’t simply set in motion and let things happen, but nudge things along. It takes many, many small nudges.

The big debate we seem to have is what shape of actions and the reasons why we make these nudges…

[To be continued. I propose one approach of my own.]

Pictures from Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Paris

22 Sunday Sep 2013

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Two pictures from my session in March 2013. The 2014 #e20s Summit is now in plan Feb 11-14.

Welcome to the 72-Hour Work Week

13 Friday Sep 2013

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Are US Americans really working less hours than those in emerging nations S. Korea, Singapore, India? The hours indicated by The Conference Board as shown in Niall Ferguson’s book Civilization, indicate the US is falling far below the typical 40-hr week or 2000 hrs a year. Some segment however are working closer to 3600 hrs a year. According to this HBR article:
“What does bother EMPs [executives, managers, professionals] is when companies use 24-7 connectedness to compensate for organizational inefficiencies and when it significantly undermines their personal lives, productivity, creativity, and ability to think strategically. The complaints we heard most often (from at least three-quarters and as high as 96% of respondents) centered on useless meetings and emails, inadequate technology, disorganized or incompetent C-suites, and unclear decision-making authority.”
“The message is clear: EMPs don’t necessarily mind being connected to work for more than eight hours a day. But they are upset when it happens because leaders don’t respect their time or their official work day is wasted, so they have to make up the time working from their laptops or smartphones at home.”

#Workhackers Meetups in Brussels, Paris and Cologne in September

07 Saturday Sep 2013

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e20, e20s, travel, workhackers

I’m heading out this month to take the #Workhackers discussion on the road. This time it is to Brussels, Paris, and Cologne. I’ll be participating in person but there is also a Google+ Hangout planned if you’d like to join in.

First up, I will be participating in the 2nd Global Solutions Summit organized by The Tapscott Group held in Brussels with participants from companies, academic researchers, NGOs and of course the European Commission. The work focuses around the concept of multi-stakeholder networks as approaches to addressing the wold’s challenges as explained by Don Tapscott in his recent talks. Led by Mr. Tapscott and his co-author on Macrowikinomics, Anthony D Williams, it should be a good working group session.

On September 18, there is also an #e20s Enterprise 2.0 and #Workhackers Meetup in Brussels that is open to all enthusiasts of social business. We will discuss the on-ongoing challenges that we practitioners face to accelerating how we collaborate and how we structure our work. Join us for a get together with practitioners from Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Tucson.

On September 19, we’ll take it over to Paris and also the Web live: #e20s Meetup Paris: “The work is broken -let’s hack it!” – Discussion with Rawn Shah. We will meet at a location over by the Bibliotheque Nationale and also try to set up a Google+ Hangout so others can join from around the world. My recent post on Forbes with the same title sparked a good deal of interest worldwide. It was a challenge trying to keep up with the many discussions and shares across the social web that was appearing. Clearly I hit a common pain point and people identify with the need to become self-empowered #workhackers. We will join up to discuss our ideas for hacking work.

Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2013, Paris
(L-to-R: Anna Van Wassanaer, Rawn, Lee Bryant, Harald Schirmer)

Both meetups are organized by the team at Kongress Media which puts on the annual Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Paris every February or March. I’ve spoken at two of the annual events and they are the place where business thinkers and practitioners gather each year. It is not a trade show for vendors but an actual thought leadership event where top thinkers in social business have gathered each year.

On September 25-26th, I will be in Cologne, Germany for the IOM Summit with a focus on technology, organizations and management. The event is mostly in German, but there are a few English-language panels as well. They do have a good line up of noted speakers:

Anna Van Wassenaer-Golla of Social Business design firm Favela Fabric
Andrew Wright of the Worldwide Internet Challenge,
Oscar Berg of Avega Group AB and blogger of The Content Economy,
my friend and former teammate, Luis Suarez of the global IBM CIO team.

At the last Enterprise2.0 Summit in Paris, I opened the session for Ms. Van Wassenaer-Golla , together on a panel with Lee Bryant (then of Dachis Group, now PostShift) and Harald Schirmer of Continental AG (see the picture). Mr. Berg is a great blogger and business thinker based in Sweden. We also participated on a panel on analytics at Social Business Forum Milan 2012. Mr Luis “living-in-a-world-without-email” Suarez (#lawwe) and I worked together for years in IBM on enterprise transformation. He has been a featured speaker numerous times, and has been interviewed by the NY Times, and many other publications for his expertise as a #workhacker.

All in all, it should be a productive trip, and a little fun–I have not been to Brussels before.

Dinner at SXSW V2V

19 Monday Aug 2013

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It was a great dinner and conversations with Marshall Kirkpatrick (CEO LittleBird), Blake Robinson (Dir, Annalect), Margaret Francis (VP, Salesforce), Ray Wang (CEO Constellation Research)

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At the Social Business Standards Workshop

11 Sunday Aug 2013

Talking to Vassil Mladov (Gartner) and Eric Meeks (Univ Calif San Francisco) at the Social Business Standards workshop by the W3C and the OpenSocial Foundation, Aug 7-8, San Francisco.

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So Long, Thanks for All the Fish, and … Welcome

01 Monday Jul 2013

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ibm, welcome

Before I welcome you to the new site, I must say
Goodbye! Au Revoir! Adios! বিদায়!さようなら! Selamat Tinggal!

At the end of June 2013, I voluntarily left my role at IBM as strategist, program manager, internal consultant, mentor, and collaboration conspirator, after 13 years with this global family. This has given me the chance to explore new options as well as formally rekindle my role as an advisor to other organizations.

I would like to thank all the folks I’ve worked with over the years at IBM. It is still a great place for experience, global perspectives and the on-goings and needed perspectives of a truly global, not just multinational, corporation. While my job had always been in IBM Software group, I have worked with great people in almost every business unit on a meaningful level at some point or another. It has afforded me interesting opportunities over the years. There are simply too many to name, and many with whom I will continue to stay connected.

I received first hand experience along with questions and conundrums that often emerge with early experimentation and advising other organizations that others often do not encounter until some years of maturity. I’d advise the company to stay the course for transforming itself into a social business and to hold onto its remaining experts directly working on these challenges first hand.

There have been many such moves of thought leaders in Social Business across the industry in the past year, particularly between companies or becoming independent leaders of their own:

Susan Scrupski lead for the Social Business Adoption Council at Dachis left to form a new group, Change Agents Worldwide
Sameer Patel joined SAP and is now Global Vice President and GM of Enterprise Social and Collaboration Software.
Dave Gray moved on from his SVP Strategy role at Dachis Group to focus on his speaking, and book
Peter Kim left his Managing Director role at agency R/GA to rejoin Dachis Group as Chief Solutions Architect
Kat Mandelstein left her Director of Marketing role at IBM to join Ant’s Eye View later acquired by PwC Consulting.
Chris Carfi left Ant’s Eye View to join startup Swipp as VP of Platform Products.
Jackie Huba left Ant’s Eye View to pursue success with her new book, Monster Loyalty.
Richard Rasthy moved from the enterprise life at Schneider Electric to join technology-consulting firm, Infosys.
Claire Flanagan moved from her Director position at CSC to join software vendor Jive as Director of Business Value Strategy
Simon Scullion has moved from his Collaboration Lifeguard role at CSC to form Social Edge Consulting in Spain.
Greg Lowe has moved from Yammer to join social and compliance software vendor Actiance as a Social Business expert
Maria Ogneva moved from her role at Yammer, about a year after their acquisition by Microsoft, to join Salesforce.
Emanuele Quintarelli moved from Italian consultancy, Open Knowledge to lead the Digital Transformation practice over at Ernst & Young
Jamie Punishill left his role as Global Head of Content & Digital Distribution at Thomson Reuters, and is “looking for the next big thing”.
Chris Heuer left Deloitte Consulting to formally re-launch consulting network, Adhocnium
Eugene Lee left as CEO of SocialText and now serves on a number of boards
Michael Idinopulos moved from GM of SocialText to become CMO at PeopleLinx
Mike Gotta returned to his roots at Gartner as Research VP
Jamie Pappas joined Akamai Technologies as Director of Corporate Communications & Social Marketing
Mitch Lieberman formerly VP Marketing of Sword Ciboodle joined DRI as Managing Partner
Trisha Liu moved from her Enterprise Community Manager role at HP to join software vendor, FactorLab
Gautam Ghosh has joined Philips as GM of HR Strategy & Projects in India
David Meiselman moved from his Director of Digital/Web Strategy to VP of Digital Marketing at Actifio
Liz Philips has moved from her role as Social Media Manager for TaylorMade-adidas Golf to join Qualcomm
Ranjun Chauhan left his role in Corporate Social Intelligence Strategy at IBM to join HootSuite
Luis Suarez from my former team for enterprise adoption has made a move inside IBM to join the CIO organization.

There are certainly many more names I did not include here. Please feel free to point out other moves recently. These some of the brightest folks in the industry and I’m glad to have met them all and wish them luck. Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter keeps an active record of people on the move in the industry, if you are further interested.

Where am I heading?

I will continue my blogging on Forbes, hopefully with more regularity. I will look closer at many organizations and vendors involved in Social Business focused on my key interests: work ethos, collective collaboration, leadership values, process transformation, enterprise adoption, and social analytics.

I will also continue to speak at leading industry events in the US and externally. My new blog & web site www.rawnshah.com will provide a unifying narrative to the work and interests I focus on, and soon, the services that I offer.

I will be making appearances at various events that should appear on the calendar for the site. If you would like to discuss the social business industry, work factors and the evolving nature of business, please feel free to contact me.

I will soon be committing to a new stealth mode startup with other noteworthy industry experts to solve a crucial but long-persistent challenge that still exists while working at and managing an organization. My first startup, RTD Systems & Networking, was back in the early and mid-1990s, when the Web was young. It gave me the experience to later help with the success of magazines like JavaWorld and LinuxWorld, and launched my writing career.

As a former editor/journalist friend once blessed upon me:

He’s one of those lucky few who can see what’s possible to accomplish with emerging technologies AND can figure out ways to make them happen … I’ve learned that when Rawn starts raving about something new, I need to pay attention to it.

So, I hope a new startup will create more serendipity to greater things. For July, a pleasant vacation in Florida, Barcelona and Italy awaits. As Forrest Gump said, “That’s about all I got to say bout that” (for now).

My Top Six Topics

21 Friday Jun 2013

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Over the years, I have focused on a number of different topics from the technical to business management as a science. My recent work has been in six key areas:

These are all inter-related in a complex fashion but to say it simply:

Work Ethos is what gives us meaning and purpose in the work we do. Collective Collaboration and shared passion accelerates this ethos. Leadership values develop from collaboration and ethos and drive how the overall enterprise is performing. This is often envisioned in how we run our processes and how all workers adopt these practices. Finally analytics gives the full view of the effect and impact of these changes across all those involved.

6 Tech Gadgets Every Blogger Dad Needs On The Go

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

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blogging, gadgets

I’ve been to enough conferences over the past 20 years as a writer/blogger to know what you carry with you can make or break a timely story. There have been numerous events when I ran into someone really interesting, and needed to capture the conversation in the moment. So for Father’s day, I offer my suggestions on the tools I use and tips I’ve learned over the years to make the best of such moments.

Today, practically anyone can become a news source as a blogger. It makes the meeting more memorable, saves the conversation to be re-shared with others if allowed, and can have a side benefit of adding to your social reputation. To that end, here are my suggestions for Father’s day: a short list of useful gadgets and items to help that well traveled business dad to get that story.

Here’s the short list of the carry-no-bag solution I prefer

Read More on Forbes…