CollaborativEye

Not another book on the power of social networking. Pleeeaaase. But I went ahead and bought a copy of Groundswell anyways. I would characterize this as an "evidence and endorsement" book for social and collaborative technologies, rather than a visionary or revolutionary book. But that can be a good thing. Li and Bernoff base the book on case studies, practical advice, and even ROI CALCULATIONS. These calculations alone (actually the methodology behind the calculations) make this a highly recommended book. Yes you can determine ROI numbers for social networking applications!

The POST (People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology) planning process described in the book is a very usable, and smart approach. Among the various insights that derive from this , I believe two stand out:

1) Solve your customers' problem, not yours.  How many times have you been in a planning session where the situation analysis focused on the challenges and strategic objectives of the company? Of course the customer needs are incorporated LATER into the process. Be honest -- you've probably led a few of these sessions yourself.  Li and Bernoff challenge us to start with the customer -- what would they get out of a community, for example? How can a blog help your customers or prospects? This advice is wise, obvious, and usually ignored. Added benefit: it can also be applied to business decisions far beyond social technologies.

2) Start small, build successes one at a time. This is not about technology. It is about culture change. It is about re-visioning your relationships with customers. It is about getting buy-in from all levels of an organization. These things take time. Li and Bernoff describe several cases where companies built successful social-based strategies over a period of years, usually starting with something that was very focused, and didn't require corporate-wide endorsement. This advice may seem overly simplistic, but it is easy to fall into the "got to hit a home run, NOW" trap, especially if you feel pressure to catch up with everybody else.

Near the end of the book, Li and Bernoff touch on the issue of short-term, reactionary behavior verses long-term strategies. Some (not the authors) may view the hyper-responsive, close-in contact with individuals that social networking enables, as at odds with long term planning. Some believe, erroneously in my opinion, that with social technologies, products and services will just design themselves. Yes there is a place for customer involvement in the design and development process, and yes many companies have isolated this process from the customer. But there is still a need for product road maps, requirements gathering and synthesis, forecasting, and other long-term planning exercises. Truly connecting to the "groundswell" will enable you to react quickly, and to feel your customers' pain and understand their goals and desires -- things that have always been necessary to run a successful, long-term business.

Is there bottom-line business value to adopting Web 2.0 technologies inside the enterprise? Can it actually change business by increasing profitability or innovation? These were questions posed by ZDNet Editor in Chief Dan Farber to Ross Mayfield, CEO of SocialText; Matthew Glotzbach, product management director of Google Enterprise; and Satish Dharmaraj, CEO of Zimbra, at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. (Watch the video.)  Although there were a few quantifiable benefits mentioned in passing, such as reduced email clutter and reduced information search costs, the discussion gravitated to cultural change. In a nutshell, the adoption of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration 2.0, etc. comes  down  to a cultural change towards information sharing, transparency, and silo-busting. Not many would argue against these things, but they are hard to quantify for those who demand hard numbers.

Ross Mayfield discussed the concept of "emergence" as allowing the "collective intelligence" to structure unstructured information. This was contrasted with command-and-control methods that look to place a structure on information and make it fit. The premise is that social networking (with related technologies such as tagging, wikis, etc) is a more efficient and accurate way to structure information. I believe this is true, particularly in rapidly changing industries, but again, how do you quantify this? I fear that those who demand hard ROI numbers for Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise will be left behind, closing their businesses even as they continue to ask for numbers.

Incidentally, "collective intelligence" raises the spectre of "Web 3.0". See Nova Spivack's Web 3.0 post which explains that "3.0" is the natural progression of Web 2.0, along with Semantic Web, data mining, and artificial intelligence technologies. The good news is that a lot of really smart people are working on helping us make sense out of all the information in and around us.

Welcome to the inaugural posting of CollaborativEye! In some sense, collaboration is nothing new to business. In fact you could argue that we are only now beginning to return to the level of collaboration that existed in business BEFORE the era of specialization, professional management, computers, and the internet. Our cubicles and modern office structures have isolated us. And although none of us can live without email, nobody pretends that it has actually improved collaboration in the workplace (just recall the last run-away email train you've participated in!) But there is a new sense of urgency to incorporate collaboration into the workplace. Technologies are evolving rapidly, books are being written, bloggers are blogging. For lack of a better word, we'll call it Collaboration 2.0 (I know, I know -- give me a better name).

Is there true business value in collaboration or is it just hype?  In other words, what is the ROI of Collaboration? Here are some points to consider, refute, support, or ignore:

1. In the short term, I don't believe all ROI answers can even be calculated in financial terms. There just isn't enough information.
2. However, in the long term, I believe financial ROI for any activity can be calculated. But by then it is usually too late to provide actionable information.
3. Sometimes ROI is a binary scenario: 1 = your business thrives, 0 = your business dies
4. Some concepts are too big for a simple ROI calculation : for example, what is the ROI of motivated, on fire employees?
5. I believe that one of the primary sources of ROI for collaboration is tied to INNOVATION. Read Wikinomics by Tapscott and Williams. Lot's of examples of how collaboration has spawned innovation in the form of new invention, new products, new markets, etc.