Rogier Noort - Page 9 of 40 - welcome to the 21st century

Enterprise 2.0 Summit; more than just a conference! – #e20s

In 2014 it will be the third time the Summit is held in Paris, and it’s the foremost European gathering of experts & practitioners on new forms of communication & collaboration. However, it has been in existence since 2008. Giving its organisers plenty of experience and reputation. Which, in turn, provides us with an excellent event with great speakers and cases.

Meetups and Talks

It’s also more than just a conference. The sharing of knowledge starts way before the actual conference.

Meetups are organised in various cities across Europe, Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt and Zurich. The aim is to exchange information and discuss the upcoming conference. Various topics are covered, like the format of talks, or which case studies should make an appearance.
And besides talking, it’s a good chance to reacquaint contacts and meet new ones.

The Expert Talks are a different matter, these are carefully organised by Kongress Media, with a fixed topic and 4 to 6 experts. The discussions are interesting, to say the least. If you want to catch up with the talks, visit Kongress media’s YouTube channel.., there’s a ton of stuff there.

#e20s

Next to the pre-conference events and the conference itself, there is the hashtag #e20s. By now it’s a year round tag which signifies so much more than just the conference. It is used throughout the year in many tweets about social business, enterprise 2.0 and many other related topics.
Of course, the closer we get to the actual conference, the more the tag will appear on the Interwebs.

The Conference

You might have noticed that, lately, I talk/write a lot about the Summit. This is because I was asked to be a supporter, an ambassador of the conference. I was honoured to be asked, so, of course, I said yes.
Besides that, I attended the conference early this year, in Paris, and enjoyed it tremendously. The collective knowledge present during those 2 days was breathtaking. The people were truly social and the presentations enlightening.

So yes, I can say I’m a fan.

Well.., the 2014 edition promises to be no less of a thrill.

Getting Social Enterprise Ready!

Late Adopters

By now, for a large part, we may assume that the necessity for social business is more or less apparent. People are starting to get it. But, a truly successful change can only be had when everybody participates. Only then can you claim the title of “Social Business”.
In very broad strokes; The first 20% is relatively easy, the next 60% will come around given time. However, the last 20% is where the true challenge lies. The 2014 edition of the Summit shall focus on the late adopters in the field.

Because so many projects get stuck in the middle, the conference aims to provide hands-on and how-to information to get unstuck, and get things moving again.

Mind you, this is not just useful for social business conversions, but can also help with many larger projects where change is at the core.

Finally, the business impact will pass the revue. After all.., we can’t make any significant change without real and measurable business results.

Master Classes

The conference is, in actuality, a three day event. On the 10th Februari Kongress Media presents no less than three Master Classes.

These will be lead by, well, masters within the field and the subjects, as they are announced at the moment are:

Putting the Business back into Social with Bertrand Duperrin
Defining the Internal Engagement & Community Management by Rachel Happe
Social Business Leadership – Concepts and Practices by Dion Hinchcliffe

The keywords for the other two days, of the conference proper, are; Enabling, Engagement and Adoption

And yes.., also for this year.., there will be Lego.

Let me know if you’ll be attending too (in the comments or via Twitter), I already know some of you will.

And, let’s meet up.

Bridging Talent and Business

At IBM Connect, in the Netherlands, I had the change to listen to a presentation by IBM’s Laurent Boes. He should have gotten more time, but that’s just my opinion. His topic; Smarter Workforce. One slide, or more a summary, just made so much sense that I want to share it with you.

HR, front and centre

If we accept that unleashing your workforce is pivotal to the success of a Social Business, than we have to accept that HR plays a big part in this. This, however, is not about recruiting, but about assessing what we have (top employees) and how we can have their performance rub off on other employees.

And yes, arguments can be made whether HR is still a valid department.

AMC Theaters

A short example. As a case Laurent uses AMC Theaters and their interpretation of the information below. AMC found that the most valuable employee, the human who contributed the most to the net profit of the company, was the popcorn seller. By identifying and acknowledging this, they were able to train other popcorn sellers and new popcorn sellers and raise their revenue by 1.2% per customer.

Just imagine what effect that has on profit when added up over their 378 venues. Here’s a hint: millions.

The list, or workflow, then:

What job role has the biggest impact on the business

Depending on the size of your company, this might be quite a task. Of course, there are some roles easily eliminated, but you really should consider all.
It just might happen the mail intern does such a marvellous job that the impact on the company is confounding.

Be thorough in finding this role.

Why are great people great

When you’ve found the role, there’ll be people who do it better than others. This is not to discredit anybody, it’s just that some are more highly motivated than others, and thus, better at their job. Find out what makes them tick, what, exactly, differentiates them from the other.

Make some effort to get to the bottom of this.

Recruit, train and develop to that standard

Once you’ve established, or quantified, the standard, you can replicate it. Really, you can. For starters, you can adjust the hiring criteria to match the standard. Then, with the correct training, your new recruits will fit in better to the standard you’ve established.

The current employees can be trained and their assessments should, over time, reflect the new standard.

From liking to leading

The most successful employees within a company do more than just like their job. In a natural way, they tend to lead by example, simply because they do the job as well as possible.

That’s where you want to end up.

Innovate, transform, create

The consequence of this all is that employees are trained into a certain mindset. This mindset was unobtainable before it was quantified. This helps with changing the mindset and the philosophy of the whole company.

Over time, the newly hired, together with your champions, will act as trojan mice and will “infect” those employees who are difficult to change.

Time

As with everything, this process takes time. Especially when the goal is to change the whole company. But, with smaller steps, the return can be greater. Focussing on the 20% that make the biggest difference in the company, may provide the biggest yield.

The other 80% will come around.., in time.

Open Business, there’s light at the end of the tunnel

In the grant scheme of things we are merely pawns.

Most of us try to change the world, only a handful actually do. However, when it comes to social business, or rather society, things are slightly different. Here, numbers count. The more people involved with, lets call it “the movement”, the more chance it has of succeeding. Sounds logical, don’t it?

One of things I wrote about earlier, and I hope is inevitable, is the convergence of two different “movements” with the same name. There is a third, with a slightly different name, but with a very complimentary set of standards.

Open Business

Last week someone mentioned Open Business, I just had to check that out.

The definition according to Wikipedia:

Open business is an approach to enterprise that draws on ideas from openness movements like free software, open source, open content and open tools and standards.

So, yes, there is a difference between Social Business and Open Business, mainly the openness. Hence the term.

I do agree we have a long way to go, for any form of social or open business to establish itself firmly in our society.
Open business makes it a bit less abstract, meaning it might help us in clearing the air a bit around the enigma that is Social Business.

Social Business

Open business is NOT social business. It’s no the same thing. At most, it can be seen as part of the whole.
The way I see, it is neatly placed between the two existing definitions of social business.

The ideal situation would be combining the three into one, a very progressive way of doing business. Although not entirely unobtainable, it seems more routed in a Star Trekian philosophy than in the real world.

Below are the main ideas of concept of Open Business. You be the judge on how ‘real’ this is.

Open learning/sharing — a fundamental tenet is open collaboration at all levels in all locations
Open participation — open invitation to join the organization (similar to SourceForge, Blender community, where individual/team input within the community framework [for special services, consulting, training, adaptions, courses, camps, symposiums, books] can help to build individual income)
Individual rights — each person is supported and encouraged to identify and optimise their personal development, i.e. technical, personal, spiritual, etc.
Community focus — productivity activities are seen as part of a range of normal human activities e.g. family life, community life, religious commitments, etc.
Institution free — the organization is not based on any existing institution – state, religious or otherwise. Members can hold whatever views or affiliations they like.
Open knowledge — the free exchange of knowledge by making use -as much as possible- of open standards, open source and open content principles.
Open member details — including open access to the contact details of all other members in a convenient form (i.e. once the range and depth of those details have been approved for release by that particular member)
Open financials—all accounting information including the compensation of others

Some of these ideas are in tune with social business, others not so much. And some are outright difficult to achieve.

Awerness

In communicating these ideas, these values, combined with The Ten Tenets of Social Business, there is potential for some great implementations. Especially for fledging companies.

If any entrepreneur is starting a new company, it would be relatively easy to base its philosophy on these ideas. Anybody who wants to work for or with the company must abide to this philosophy.
Building it up like that gives you the very best chance of succeeding.

Changing an existing company takes more effort and time (but is not impossible).

Available Information

The good thing about all this is that all the information you need to change your business and have a positive effect on society is right available to you. The almighty and all knowing Internet provides enough reasons to become a social business.., or even an open business.

The choice is always up to you, whatever part you play within a company, anybody can start this. Having the support and involvement of top management makes everything a lot easier, but not having it, doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

However, help can be found. There are more and more professionals turning their attention towards social business. People with different backgrounds, like HR or Change Management, but with a common interest and a joint passion. The first step to a successful change is understanding Why this is important. It’s the first step on your journey towards the future.