Enterprise 2.0: What It Is, How You Will Fail, and Where To Go From There

Brian “Bex” HuffChief Software Architect

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Agenda

Intro• Who am I?

Try to define Enterprise 2.0• Too many buzzwords to keep straight…

The “cold hammer of reality”:• Your first large Enterprise 2.0 initiative is likely to fail.

The ray of hope:• Why failure isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.• You need to fail a few times before you see value in E 2.0

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Why Do We Even Need A Definition?

Isn’t Enterprise 2.0 just riding the coattails of Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 about engaging your audience• The “crowd”, the “cloud”…

If so, shouldn’t the crowd decide a definition?• Aren’t “experts” the opposite of Web 2.0?

True, but people need guidance• Things to looks for.• Problems to avoid.• What works, what doesn’t.

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Enterprise 2.0: What is it?

Does Enterprise 2.0 even exist?• If its just Web 2.0, why have another word?• Big changes are occurring in the enterprise beyond just Web 2.0.• Old definitions fail at capturing what makes Enterprise 2.0 useful.

My attempt to re-define it:

Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0) is an emerging social and technical movement towards helping your business practices evolve. At its heart, its goals are to empower the right kind of change by connecting decision makers to information, to services and to people.

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Early Problems with E2.0

The definition is vague, and people need hard evidence• What works? What doesn’t? What does this mean for me?

Success stories are helpful, but use them carefully!• Sometimes success is cultural, sometimes it’s technical.• Most success is department specific.• Irony: Enterprise-wide Enterprise 2.0 is still rare.

E 2.0 is about business culture as well as new technology.• A good culture yields success even with “bad” technology.• A bad culture yields failure even with “good” technology.

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Early Problems with E2.0, Part 2

Good E 2.0 guidance must include culture and technology• Need the right technology for the existing culture.• Don’t force good technology on the wrong culture.• Focus on technology that changes culture.• Focus on culture that changes culture.

If people focus on the wrong things, they will fail.• Which might not be a bad thing…• But perhaps some guidance would be nice…

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Enterprise 2.0: How You’ll Fail

1. By focusing on information, instead of knowledge.

2. By focusing on services, instead of applications.

3. By focusing on people, instead of social capital.

4. By focusing on change, instead of evolution.

5. By focusing on success, instead of failure.

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Failure tactic #1:Focus on Information, not Knowledge

The goal is not access to information!• Need the right information, at the right time, to the right people, in the right

format, and the right context!

Information is mere data,• Knowledge is useful information.

Are data silos really that bad?• Keeping away useless information has benefits.• Perhaps we should educate and empower silo keepers instead?

The legend of King Ammon…• Never share what you know; teach what you know.

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Failure tactic #1:Focus on Information, not Knowledge, Part 2

How do you help people contribute “knowledge”?

Make contribution and re-use easy.• Use in-context tools as much as possible to simplify contribution.

Make it a competition.• Warning: cash incentives backfire. Public ranking are better.

Help them understand “information overload”• Give them tools to spot it, and stop it.

Help them see the value in the system• If they don’t see any value, then you probably did something wrong.

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Failure tactic #1:Focus on Information, not Knowledge, Part 3

How do you help people find “knowledge?”

Search, metadata, data mining have limits• Stored content is “static,” difficult to analyze.

Instead, use metrics for “dynamic” knowledge• Who saw what, when, and why?• Track popularity, feedback, downloads, ratings, and tags.• Metadata tags and identity management give context.

You don’t need to know what an item is, you only need to know what people find useful!

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Failure Tactic #2:Focus on Services, Not Applications

Next-generation enterprise architectures are critical• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA / SOAP)• Complex Event Processing (CEP)• Identity Management (IdM)• Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA / ReST)

These ensure flexible enterprise applications• Re-use services to make a flexible enterprise.

But: never forget why you want services in the first place!• Its about the application, not the architecture.

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Failure Tactic #2:Focus on Services, Not Applications, Part 2

The technology itself is secondary.• What maters is what you accomplish with it.

Need a culture of creating re-usable services.• Requires proof that services help developers build better applications.• Need track record of easy creation, auditing, and maintenance.

The goal? Empower incremental change.• Safe and rapid adjustment to business practices.• Could be done with IdM and SOA.• Could also be done with 100% manual processes.

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Failure Tactic #3:Focus on People, Not Social Capital

Social capital:• Pointlessly fancy word for the “preference to do business with friends.”• Getting things done requires less cash capital with “friends”

• Faster sales, more effective marketing, smoother processes

Rule #1 of business networking:• All things being equal, people prefer doing business with those they know

and like.

Rule #2 of business networking:• All things NOT being equal, people STILL prefer doing business with those

they know and like.

Should map social capital before deploying a social app.• Include everybody: employees, partners, and even customers.

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Failure Tactic #3:Focus on People, Not Social Capital, Part 2

What is your organization’s social structure?• Your org chart of reporting relationships? No.

• What about managers who don’t really manage anything?

• Add map of well-connected decision makers? No.• What about the incentives that influence behavior?

• Add map of the rules, rewards, and accountability? No.• What about unwritten rules and peer pressure?

It is the map of everything that directs, controls, and influences the flow of energy and activity in your organization!

Collecting all this info is a nearly impossible task.• Social software can guide you, but will never achieve the ideal.

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Failure Tactic #3:Focus on People, Not Social Capital, Part 3

Structural Hole Theory:• A “hole” exists when two people are not directly connected.• If you “fill” this hole, you have control over information and power.

• Who gets to know what? Who gets to do what?

Its not how many people you know… Its how many kinds of people you know!• Connection analysis makes “influencers” and “bottlenecks” obvious.• Data mine email archives for connections?

But: forced connections do not establish capital• People need genuine common passions to establish capital.• All you need is somebody in dept. A to like somebody in dept. B• Enterprise “speed dating”

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Failure Tactic #3:Focus on People, Not Social Capital, Part 4

Is there an easier way to tell if you have social capital?• Yes! Take a secret company wide poll:

Are people in my organization generally trustworthy?

Trust is usually a factor of feeling connected.• Feel connected? Help everyone!• Don’t feel connected? Fend for yourself!

Yes answers beneath 60% spell danger.• Overall, or per department.• Exceptions: in meritocracies trust isn’t required, but always helps.

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Failure Tactic #4:Focus on Change, Not Evolution

Changing along with new trends is easy.

Evolution is change that survives and thrives!• The goal is new business practices that make you more competitive.• If you are changing but not evolving, you will soon become extinct.

Small, incremental changes usually survive• Improve efficiency, improve sales, improve customer services

However, need big changes to compete tomorrow.• Need new products, new markets, and new initiatives.• These take time to get right:

• Big leap, followed by lots of little tuning.

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Failure Tactic #4:Focus on Change, Not Evolution

Don’t let big changes destroy who you are.• Big changes always take time, what will you sell right now?• Tradition helps you survive today.• Change helps you survive tomorrow.

Incremental change must live alongside big change• Allow slow change, and fast change.• Need the proper architecture and culture to facilitate this.

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Failure Tactic #5:Focus on Success, Not Failure

Too often “success” equals “what makes the boss happy.”• Good for you, good for the boss, not always good for the company.• Survival requires risk; risk sometimes means “failure.”• Focus on value, not arbitrary success/failure metrics.

Ability to accurately measure risk is always good.• Must take risks that others have not.• First time you do something, odds are you’ll suck!• No such thing as failed experiment, just a failure to learn.

Learn from your failures, and keep trying• The only way to survive is to learn faster than the competition.• In a 2.0 world, learning is less reading, and more experiment.• Thus, you need to fail faster in order to survive.

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Conclusions

Always remember the social and technical aspects of E 2.0.

Most business culture is not ready for Enterprise 2.0.• Departments with good cultures will love it.• Others may need a gradual cultural shift first.• Ensure technology can guide needed cultural change.

• Don’t “shame” people into adoption.

What kind of culture is best?• A culture of entrepreneurialism!• The process doesn’t own me; I can change the process!• When I teach what I know, my influence grows!• Creating something bigger than myself is fun and rewarding!

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Conclusions, part 2

Your first large Enterprise 2.0 initiative will probably fail.• What failed, the technology or the culture?• Which departments found value?• Why didn’t other departments find value?• Was the culture not properly trained or incented?

• For many people, an inefficient process is job security.

Be prepared for failure; learn fast, tune frequently, reward risk.• Only those fearless about failure will eventually find value.• Have metrics for culture and technology.• Have a large “bag of tricks” to adjust it when failure is imminent.

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My Company: http://bezzotech.com

My Blog: http://bexhuff.com

My Self: bex@bezzotech.com

Questions?