I’ve very pleased to be speaking at the Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston this year. I attended last year and came away with mixed feelings. There weren’t enough ’stories from the front line’ for my liking. This year I hope it proves to be different and already I can see some interesting stories being added to the line-up. There’s talk I might also be involved in a panel discussion led by the great Andrew McAfee, should be fun. If you want to find out more about the conference head on over to their website at: http://www.enterprise2conf.com/

I don’t monitor the web for enterprise2.0 discussion as much I should do (one of the perks of having our internal blog is that if anything remotely interesting does emerge it gets posted there pretty quick, that and working closely with Scott Gavin, who is just phenomenal at sniffing out the decent stories and posts and passing them on - well, all adds up to me being pretty lazy, at least when it comes to web-based content).  Anyhow, to get to my point.  when I have read up I sense there is a lot of anxiety in the e2 scene - “Where are the enterprise2.0 success stories?”  How much longer must we file e2 under the ’shows potential” category?

Here are a few reasons why I think stories and stats haven’t been more forthcoming:

Those involved quite simply don’t have the time.  As it’s now been well established, most of these efforts are grassroots led and for those involved either (i) they have a ‘day job’ as well as trying to influence their orgs or teams to go down this path or (ii) where it is their job it’s an immense task - typically an entire portfolio being pursued by a skeleton staff - enterprise2.0 encompasses a lot, it covers a broad range of tools, approaches, traditional IT implementation stuff, communication, evangelizing, educating, classic change management challenges …. - and because of its origins typically there aren’t big teams behind it.  Doesn’t leave a lot of time for even thinking about compiling reports and stats, at least not for external consumption.

Success stories are important for spreading the word internally though, so that’s a good reason to try and capture something.  I’ve only recently started to do this, and for now I am just concentrating on the smallish personal stories.  In a way I think one of the ways of measuring success of any given part of enterprise 2.0 will be to roll-up all of the stories involving individuals; “My work was made easier today because I found this piece of information/person”, “I was able to share this piece of information much more quickly because of …” or “I received a lot less email now because of ….” - in a way this new emerging branch of IT is about individuals, much more so than the typical top-down organizational level view of traditional enterprise IT, so this is an important aspect to remember.  These kinds of stories are effective when trying to appeal to new users - gives them something tangible to relate to.

I think another reason is that in this media-driven age we’re impatient, everything has to be ‘instant’. Fact is, just like everything else, this stuff takes time to implement.  I don’t mean the technical implementation, that’s the easy bit.  I mean getting it into the DNA of the org.  This is cultural change stuff.  Admittedly some orgs may already have a culture that suits (some don’t and won’t ever, be interesting to see how many of those are around in the next 10 years because this whole e2 thing is a segue of sorts, or a least of a hint of the future, in how orgs and their workforces will collaborate in the future, the whole everybody is a freelancer type deal). 

I’m only now starting to see how this needs to play out to be successful.  We’re not there yet, not by a long way, but I’ve had some interesting meetings lately and heard some exciting announcements - for example groups and departments starting to write use of these approaches and tools into their plans and strategies.  I was lucky enough to be in a Gartner briefing earlier in the year and they were right on the money when they said “You’re going to need to embed this in your work processes to succeed.”  That’s exactly what you need to start doing, and thankfully we are.  As Suw Charman said to us recently, “The biggest challenge is jumping the chasm between keen early adopter types and the general population.”  Thankfully we appear to be on our way on that front and so that means a year from now hopefully I’ll have finally pulled together some big impressive stats and figures and graphs and stuff!

Oh yeah, you’re probably wondering what the Steve Martin pic is doing at the top of this article.  Well (this is how my mind works!) it relates back to the impatience theme I touched upon earlier.  The pic is of the cover of Steve Martin’s recent book - the story of his stand-up years.  It’s a great read by the way, whether you’re a fan of his comedy or not (I’m a huge fan, in recent years I forgot just how good he was in his younger days, not that I was old enough to experience his act first time round!).  Anyhow, most of the book focuses on his career before he got famous.  17 years of learning his crafy.  17 years of playing in crappy joints for very little money.  It made me wonder, in our age of TV popstar shows and convenience, will generations coming along now be prepared to put in that kind of graft?  We have become a culture that expects results over night.  Scrary.  What kind of society have we become?!

Or at least two learnings that have made the world of difference in my application of Sharepoint collaboration spaces.

Tip #1 - keep pages as simple as possible. A default Sharepoint page is a pretty busy place - with the temptation to add in even more Web Parts. My advice. Strip back to the bare essentials and only introduce new widgets onscreen if absolutely essential.

Plenty of best practice for web design is available on the web - investing the time to make Sharepoint mimic some of these best practices is worth it. For instance think about how users will navigate around your Sharepoint site. Sharepoint navigation can be a little flakey, simply because onscreen menus and navigation bars change according to the nature of the page you are currently viewing. So add in manual links to aid navigation, either through inclusion of ‘Links’ webparts (perhaps renamed to something more meaningful, e.g. Navigation) or using my next Sharepoint revelation, the use of the ‘Content Editor Web Part’.

Stumbling across the Content Editor Web Part has completely transformed my use of Sharepoint. It’s a simple little control allowing you to either add Rich Text or HTML to be rendered onscreen. It’s provided me with that little bit of flexibility in what I display onscreen. I’ve tried and become frustrated by native Sharepoint web parts - even in pursuits as simple as displaying an image on screen. Now I have a little bit of power. I can quickly create HTML snippets, for instance I’ve used it to display clickable banner ‘ad’ images to aid navigation around my Sharepoint sites.

I’m starting to find value in my use of Sharepoint. Areas that require some work on the part of Microsoft include some simple things: use better descriptive or more obvious labels against Web Part fields. For instance it took me a while to realize the field named ‘Chrome’ referred to whether I wanted to include a border or title around a web part. Where did that come from?

For those who’ve adopted RSS within their enterprise here is an excellent post:

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2008/01/01/new-years-resolution-keeping-head-above-water-with-rss-feeds/

I had started to construct something similar as a tip sheet for internal use but tbh this does the job. The response from some people when confronted with RSS for the first time has been “But this looks like even more email for me to cope with!!”. It is possible to get beyond that thought quite quickly, once you explain the control the individual has over what they subscribe to, and then because it’s neatly contained within specific RSS subscription channels, the ability to prioritise what they read and how frequently.

Of course anybody who has discovered RSS knows it can get messy very quickly – so many tempting feeds out there! That’s where this list of tips comes in – simple house-keeping to ensure your RSS subscriptions don’t overwhelm you!

Robert Schoble asking this question over on his blog got me thinking about one of the reasons why I first starting exploring use of web2.0 in the enterprise - the gulf in usability and end-user satisfaction between what is available on the web and what’s typically served up in the enterprise workplace.  I figured that in order to get more users over the ‘hump’ of online collaboration and knowledge sharing we better make damned sure the software they used was simple, quick and painless to use, and more than that encouraged them to do more.  I go to conferences and hear business users talking about use of enterprise software as a necessary evil” - doesn’t suggest to me that users will use the software for anything more than has been mandated in their roles and responsibilities, i.e. the minimum they need to.

I’ve worked on designing and delivering enterprise software for over 10 years.  Typically enterprise software designers put the needs of the corporation first (the functionality).   Unfortunately the needs of the end-user (typically represented by the user interface, the piece they interact with) come a poor second.  One of the reasons for this is that good UI design skills are in short supply in the enterprise sector, very few software developers are good at UI - the two require very different skills but mainly UI design isn’t of a high priority. Another reason might be that those vendors who are big enough to perhaps employ dedicated UI professionals maybe have their minds on other matters, such as ensuring as much functionality is available and on display to justify license or upgrade costs - this isn’t always to the benefit of the poor end users.  And as many of the comments on Robert’s post pointed out, typically the people who make the decision on what enterprise software gets purchased aren’t typically those who will be using it.  They judge it on a functional level, or how well it integrates with what’s already available.  How many times has the usability of software been a factor of equal footing?

I saw a screenshot recently where somebody had switched on every single Microsoft Word toolbar.  The obvious thought was “Boy, how many of us actually use more than 10% of what’s on display there?”  Feature-bloat is a problem.  Web2.0 has made a virtue of avoiding it.  Providing minimum functionality but ultimate flexibility.  This is perhaps summed up best by the 37signals approach to designing software, represented in such popular products as basecamp - which strips down the business of project manager to the most basic fundamental - a bunch of very simple to-do lists.  No frills.  No ‘gold-plating’.  It’s so easy and quick to use.  Approach it with caution.  Once you’ve used it going back to traditional enterprise software task list software is fatal - they all seem sooo slow and clumsy as to be almost unusable. 

But despite being very simple typical web2.0 software also allows a lot of flexibility.  The user has complete freedom how they make use of the functionality that’s available to them.  That’s a scary concept in the enterprise.  I heard at Gartner recently their view that the trend in recent years has been to build the trust into the software - not the user.  Made perfect sense to me - and another reason why enterprise software has become a little unwieldy - it has a large focus on ensuring you only stick to working within pre-defined tight constraints. 

As those of us on the enterprise2.0 front-line have found, the solution isn’t as simple as plonking web2.0 software into the enterprise.  It is getting better though.  Not just in the case of purpose-built enterprise2.0 software provided by the likes of ConnectBeam and NewsGator.  More traditional enterprise software vendors ARE taking note of what’s been happening and are reacting.  Trust me.  I’ve even consulted some of them on the matter.  The influence of web2.0 will start to be felt more widely within the enterprise and if done properly the end user will be the beneficiary.

I\’ve just been going through a massive tidy up of my personal email inbox, ready for a switch to gmail.  Throughout the year I sent myself emails to remind me of what I\’d been up to.  It\’s been an amazing year.  

In January I managed to wrange an invite onto the agenda for the European Networking Group conference on website and online collaboration.  I had to pretty much beg to be included and at the time I was one of very few who\’d done anything with enterprise2.0.  That was first public speaking \’gig\’ and although I was very rough round the edges (I pretty much adlibbed both the sessions I was asked to present) I got some excellent feedback and notices.  I was so grateful to have been asked to speak, little did I know that at the end of the year I would be turning down invitations to speak in exotic places around the world.  How things have changed.

A month later my buddy Scott Gavin and I were invited to speak at a local branch meeting of the British Computing Society.  Scott created \’Meet Charlie\’ for this session, during his lunch hour.  The minute Scott showed it to me I knew he was on to something big.  Plenty had been written about enterprise2.0 but until Charlie came along nobody had shown in a simple and easy to underway way exactly what it would look like in reality.  Seems funny now that the first time Scott presented it, to 40 folk, the immediate response was quite muted.  In fact they were blown away by it, they just needed to process it.  We went over time due to the volume of questions and discussion and got invited back a second time to follow up.  In between things really started to take off.  Charlie is fast approaching 100,000 hits in SlideShare.  Scott deserves all the success generated by Charlie.  Scott is one of the most solid IT professionals I\’ve ever worked with - if anything is in Scott\’s hands you don\’t worry about it, you know it will get done, properly and on time.  He has a rare additional talent (in IT circles) in having creative abilities.  I\’ve been in so many meetings where Scott has thought through the application of enterprise2.0 within a specific scenario and been able to communicate it in a way so that people just get it, they understand why it is a good thing to do.  He\’s such a talent.

After that things really took off, both in my work in my company and external activities.  I did a lot of travel during the latter part of 2007.  In fact I was travelling every other week for most of the time.  Some of this was for external speaking - the highlight for me being our joint appearance at the Office2.0 conference in San Fransciso.  Great city.  Great conference.  I was privilleged to be asked to attend and present.  Ironically our follow-up BSC talk was the week after visiting San Francisco.  We had great pleasure in opening our talk by saying \”You\’ll never guess what\’s happened to us since the last time we spoke…\”

Internally things went brilliantly as well.  I got the official post to pursue this stuff for real and I also got a special award for innovation for the work I already did (unofficially) in 2006 and the early part of 2007.  It was mad.  Jetting off all over the place and not being completely sure what time zone I was supposed to be in and then next minute taking my wife along to a very posh ceremony to pick up an award.

So here\’s to 2008.  Can\’t wait to get started again.

I never asked permission from my employers before starting this blog.  When I first started it enterprise2.0 wasn\’t anything to do with my day job and didn\’t exist in any form within my company.  Therefore there was no conflict and I didn\’t see it as a big deal.

Now obviously that has all changed and it is my day job and I have to give much more thought as to what I post here.  tbh I\’m so busy with the day job I don\’t even have time to keep my internal (company) blog as up to date as I would like.  I have even less time to post to this blog.  I tend to have splurges, like now, where I have some quality time to think and post.

When I got named in the enterprise2.0 post I seriously thought about stopping this blog, but then I remembered why I started it in the first place, which was really to learn as much as I could about this relatively new means of communication (at least in enterprise terms), and where better to do it, than on the World Wide Web where I have lots of flexibility as regards technologies I can experience and lots more scope to make connections.  I think that still holds true even though we\’ve moved on inside the enterprise, and the technologies to support blogging are now much more widely available.

I never hid the fact I maintain this blog from folk I work with.  It features in the profile page about me in our corporate wiki and I can see there are quite a few folk from my company who subscribe to it. 

I\’m of the opinion that whether I like it or not, I never stop being an employee, even though I\’m blogging this in my leisure time.   So I tread a thin line every time I post here.

I do want to expose a little of what we\’re doing and experimenting with and experiencing in our use of enterprise2.0 technologies.  I\’ve learnt so much from what others have posted elsewhere I figure I owe it to the wider community because through me my company has gained from what they\’ve shared.

My pals over at iDev turned me on to Notepad++ during the Summer.  Until now I\’ve always used Dreamweaver for any work that required hacking HTML, PHP, ColdFusion or XML.  I now use Notepad++ all the time.  It\’s an excellent piece of software.  Simple to use and because it\’s opensource you can download and use it for free.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Lao Tzu

On the whole we would appear to end the year as we begun it.  Enterprise2.0 still largely under the ‘shows potential’ category, not huge amounts of evidence of too many companies having done much with it (yet).  In my mind 2007 has largely been about ‘pre-sales’ but don’t let that fool you nothing has changed.  We delivered our pitch.  Lots of people are (very) interested.  Lots of opportunities have been presented.  Seeds have been sown.  2008 is about delivery.

‘You gotta be able to go out there and do it for yourself. No one’s gonna give it to you.”  Joe Strummer 

By far the most success in enterprise2.0 has been seen in companies where the grass-roots have just done it for themselves.  Only gets you so far though.  Need to join forces with the higher-ups and IT, get their support and endorsement and meet ‘in the middle’.  My buddy Scott Gavin has an amazing network of enterprise2.0 practitioners – those on the ground who live and breath this stuff.  That’s a powerful community of practice.  We need to hook up far more than we have done.  The enterprise2.0 conferences in 2007 didn’t surface enough of us, the practitioners.  We don’t have to wait for organized conferences to hook up though.

“Don’t let them tell us it doesn’t work.”  Bob Geldof

Development of fit for purpose enterprise2.0 technologies was the biggest gain in 2007.  We now have access to the types of tools we only dreamt of before.  The trick now is how we lower the barrier to participation.  How do we get these tools to work together, and with legacy enterprise applications.  We have the potential to deliver a ‘social networking operating system’ for the enterprise.  But the big lesson with all of this is change management is absolutely critical.  But what’s new.  Most people don’t like change.  How do we convince them not to hit that email send button and go someplace else?

Sharepoint 2007 dominated discussions (everywhere), perhaps unnecessarily.  It’s a good all-round tool.  It’s enterprise2.0 bits were not its core offering, so get over it.  They were good for smaller team collaboration.  Not able (yet) to compete with the dedicated tools.  They’ll get better.  If you can afford to wait, great.  If not go look at the dedicated tools (most of which now offer varying degrees of integration with Sharepoint anyhow, so you can have your cake and eat it).

2008 is a going to be big and I’m looking forward to it.  Thanks to those of you who’ve taken the time to read and comment on my blog.  I’ve enjoyed meeting some of you at the various events I’ve attended this year.  enterprise2.0 is THE area of IT to be involved with at the moment and I feel privileged that I am a part of what’s going on.  For those who are taking them – have great holidays.

I attended a conference presentation on text mining last week. The speaker told us how text mining had been sold as “the answer to all your problems”, a silver bullet solution. The reality is it works well in some places but not in all of the scenarios the vendors would have us believe. He described his job as having a large focus on managing expectations. To ensure the experience and development of text mining solutions aren’t tainted or pulled due to fallout from where it has been applied and has failed.

Made me think about enterprise2.0 and how we too need to ensure it isn’t over-hyped too much (kind of difficult I know, the medium the tools lend themselves so perfectly to hyping it up!). I make it a point of saying something along the lines of “enterprise2.0 = huge potential, presents lots of opportunities, not easy to get off the ground, won’t work every where, will be applied in different variations and styles in different scenarious”.

There are big challenges in getting enterprise2.0 off the ground. It takes some effort on the part of the users - you can’t escape that fact. Either a change in behaviour (use a different tool), or to capture information/content they might not normally have captured or in a way others can benefit from it. For sure there are various tweaks we can make to the technology to ‘lower the barrier’ to participation but fundamentally groups, teams and individuals have to commit to using it - technology can’t do it all.