insightson connecons...editorial)! over%the%nextfew%days%people%from%all%across%the%...
TRANSCRIPT
Editorial !Over the next few days people from all across the world will be converging on Orlando for IBM Connect 2014. The five-‐day conference is an informaDon-‐packed, session-‐jammed, energy-‐demanding deep dive into IBM's current and future work with IBM ConnecDons (and its other collaboraDon and social business products), along with case studies from leading organizaDons puMng ConnecDons to good use. Conference aNendees have opportuniDes to meet IBM execuDves, ask quesDons of the product managers, and network with like-‐minded peers. If you will be aNending IBM Connect 2014, have a great Dme. !My Session at IBM Connect 2014 I will be aNending IBM Connect for the third year running, and for the first Dme will be speaking. My session is a collaboraDve effort with Knowledge Accelerators and has a focus on user adopDon. My part of the joint session will focus on the user adopDon challenge with new collaboraDon tools and report on how organizaDons using IBM ConnecDons are approaching user adopDon. In the second part of the session, Fred Doyle from Knowledge Accelerators will be addressing the
User AdopDon Toolkit for IBM ConnecDons that he and his colleagues have been developing. Our session is on Wednesday, January 29, from 3.30pm to 5.00pm in Peacock 2, one of the room at the SWAN. It would be great to meet you there. !Finally, while we are talking about IBM Connect, if you need some more copies of Doing Business with IBM Connec2ons (2013), it will be in the Connect bookstore in limited quanDDes at a reduced rate. !January 2014 Edi:on This second issue of Insights on Connec2ons has:
• A case study of how Evonik Industries has approached its use of IBM ConnecDons.
• A review of three add-‐on products for extending the capabiliDes of ConnecDons.
• An invitaDon to parDcipate in my current research on governance for ConnecDons. !
Keep up the good work! And I hope to meet you at IBM Connect next week. !Michael Sampson is a Collabora2on Strategist. He advises organiza2ons around the world on making collabora2on work, with focus areas of culture, governance, and adop2on. Michael is the author of six books on collabora2on, including Doing Business with IBM Connec2ons. Contact Michael at [email protected].
!Insights on Connec:ons (January 2014)
Insights on Connec:ons
�1
INSIGHTS O
N CO
NNECTIO
NS
MICHAEL SAMPSON
Contents Editorial 1 Evonik Industries and IBM ConnecDons 2 Extending IBM ConnecDons 4 Governance for IBM ConnecDons 6 Success with IBM ConnecDons 6
Evonik Industries: Increasing Employee Adhesion with IBM Connec:ons !Evonik Industries is a global specialty chemicals company, employing 33,000 people in 100 countries, with 24 of those countries hosDng producDon sites (including Germany, the United States, China, and South America). Specialty chemicals from Evonik include the super absorbents used in baby diapers, agents for de-‐icing runways, and a strengthening agent used in the creaDon of a new generaDon of ice hockey sDcks. !As a business, Evonik has grown through a series of mergers and acquisiDons and has followed a decentralized organizaDonal structure. In the past couple of years there has been a growing convicDon that a new way of working is required across Evonik, driven by major trends such as globalizaDon, new digital-‐savvy employees, and the conDnued growth and expansion of Evonik’s business. The old ways of working together through phone calls, face-‐to-‐face meeDngs, and email are no longer sufficient to drive new levels of effecDveness and efficiency. As a consequence, Evonik has been developing a company-‐wide employee network to foster cross-‐unit and cross-‐region knowledge exchange and collaboraDon. The new network is based on IBM ConnecDons. !Evonik’s work with IBM ConnecDons dates back to September 2011 with a kick-‐off phase to get ready for a closed pilot during the first half of 2012. The closed pilot with a limited set of people allowed for careful exploraDon of the opportuniDes presented by ConnecDons, and at the end of the closed pilot the decision was made to keep going
for another 15 months in order to prepare the company for ConnecDons. In September 2013, two years afer its iniDal work with ConnecDons had begun, Evonik embarked on a company-‐wide rollout of IBM ConnecDons. !Uncovering Innova:on with an Idea:on Jam !One of the success stories with IBM ConnecDons happened during the second phase of the pilot. Evonik ran an ideaDon jam using IBM ConnecDons
with a central quesDon of what Evonik could do in the future to help reduce noise in ciDes. Selected experts from across Evonik were invited to parDcipate in the jam, which was held over five days. Many of these experts gave acDve parDcipaDon in the jam, along with other Evonik employees who were able to join if they wanted to. The jam was supported by 13 moderators, who helped with structuring the ideas, sDmulaDng discussion, and ulDmately steering the jam to a Dmely conclusion. !Numerous tradiDonal and various out-‐of-‐the-‐ordinary ideas were proposed during the jam, and the three best ideas
were formally recognized at Evonik’s annual Christmas Colloquium. And more importantly, plans are being developed to take the ideas from the jam and create new products or new lines of business around the best of them. At the conclusion of the jam, just under 90% of parDcipants voted for holding another ideaDon jam in the new year. !Lessons Learned at Evonik !The team responsible for ConnecDons at Evonik have noted numerous lessons during the pilot phases of the iniDaDve.
!Insights on Connec:ons (January 2014)
�2
INSIGH
TS ON CONNEC
TIONS
Lessons include:
• Expect and Prepare for Resistance. IBM ConnecDons introduces significant changes to how people work together and who has the right to publish content. These changes challenge long term working habits and threaten established experDse, and are therefore uncomfortable for many people. Resistance is to be expected.
• Involve People at an Early Stage. Taking an early and ofen approach to involving the employees and managers who will use IBM ConnecDons in their work is essenDal to success. In Germany this means including the Workers Council as a representaDve group. The Council has significant power with respect to introducing new communicaDon channels, such as IBM ConnecDons.
• Encourage Management to Join. The acDons and acDviDes of managers and execuDves in a system like IBM ConnecDons set an important context that draws in employees. Rather than trying to urge employees to use the plajorm, focus on winning the involvement of management.
• Create Success Stories. Being able to point to specific situaDons where IBM ConnecDons has been used successfully creates a pull for parDcipaDon from other people. Being able to see the business impact of IBM ConnecDons enables employees to view the system as much more than an IT iniDaDve. The ideaDon jam on miDgaDng noise in ciDes,
for example, is a success story that was wriNen up and published in elements43, Evonik’s Quarterly Science NewsleNer, a great way of sharing the success.
• Experiment to Discover Opportuni:es. While IBM ConnecDons is only a set of tools to enable communicaDon between people, the potenDal for applying those tools within a firm like Evonik is wide-‐ranging. Most of these opportuniDes cannot be legislated in advance and must bubble up through actual pracDce. The experimentaDon mindset allows for learning and discovery. !
Against the backdrop of its early work with IBM ConnecDons, combined with the lessons and principles the team learned during the pilot and iniDal go-‐live phases, Evonik’s enterprise social network is becoming part of the day-‐to-‐day business. While the eventual impact on the culture of Evonik cannot be known with certainty in advance, the firm believes the ulDmate outcome will deliver the next level of effecDveness and efficiency required to sustain and grow the Evonik business in the global marketplace.
!Insights on Connec:ons (January 2014)
�3
INSIGHTS O
N CO
NNECTIO
NS
Your Approach What is happening with IBM ConnecDons at your organizaDon? What lessons have you learnt through your early acDviDes? Please send your comments and experiences to [email protected]
Extending IBM Connec:ons with Third-‐Party Products !One sign of health for a sofware product like IBM ConnecDons is the ecosystem that has formed around it. In the ConnecDons ecosystem are a number of ISVs (independent sofware vendors) that have created add-‐on products for ConnecDons. Let’s look at three such products. !ISW Kudos Boards for IBM Connec:ons !ISW Development, the team behind the Kudos Badges gamificaDon engine for IBM ConnecDons, has just announced a new product: Kudos Boards. The new offering transforms AcDviDes in IBM ConnecDons into a visual drag-‐and-‐drop Kanban
Board interface for new ways of working with tasks and entries. In the screenshot a standard AcDvity has been rendered in a visual layout, which can ofen increase people’s comprehension of the status of an AcDvity (see Figure 1). !Here are my iniDal thoughts about Kudos Boards:
• A visual layout of a project provides an insight into current status and next acDons that a flat or hierarchical list is usually unable to do. Even the way people have piles of paper or reading on their desks is reflecDve of such a visual-‐based way to manage current work, and in various occupaDons
Kanban Board style interfaces are used for geMng work. I have seen my coffee barista do this whenever a new order is received, and it is a common way of managing work flow in cafés and some restaurants.
• Being able to go back-‐and-‐forth between the list view of an AcDvity and the new Boards view is excellent. Some people will naturally prefer one over the other, and with Boards, they will now have a choice to do something beyond looking at the list.
• OrganizaDons that purchase and deploy Kudos Boards will need to do some rapid experimentaDon and learning about the best way to lay out the secDons within AcDviDes. By secDon is one of the ways you can visualize the structure of an AcDvity, so making it work for a board-‐style visual layout
will take some trial-‐and-‐error. For example, if the secDons in your AcDvity align with the three or four phases in an AcDvity, a Board style view will align perfectly. !
Kudos Boards was only announced in mid-‐January and will be displayed publicly for the first Dme on the Vendor Show Floor at IBM Connect 2014. If you will be at IBM Connect and your people make use of AcDviDes, make sure you visit the ISW booth for a deep dive. And if you can’t make IBM Connect, reach out to ISW to learn more. See www.kudosbadges.com for more informaDon. !
Insights on Connec:ons (January 2014)
�4
INSIGH
TS ON CONNEC
TIONS
Figure 1 Kudos Boards enables users to work with Ac2vi2es in a visual Kanban Board layout.
Lialis File Jockey for IBM Connec:ons !Any discussion of the rise of social business is usually accompanied with the three other big IT trends: mobile, cloud, and big data. On the mobile side, people are making increasing use of touch-‐based devices such as the Apple iPad and are ofen choosing to leave behind their laptop for short duraDon trips away from the office. IBM offers an app for accessing IBM ConnecDons from an iPad, but it is not the only approach on the market. And it is not necessarily the best approach for all organizaDons and employees. !An ISV in the Netherlands, Lialis B.V., provides an alternaDve approach through File Jockey, a server-‐based soluDon that gives mobile device users the opDon of accessing files in ConnecDons through other iPad apps. Two examples are:
• GoodReader. A highly-‐recommended iPad app for reading and annotaDng PDFs. With the addiDon of the File Jockey soluDon, users are able to access PDF documents stored in IBM ConnecDons. PDFs can be browsed in real-‐Dme or synchronized locally for offline access. If the user has appropriate rights, they can annotate a PDF in GoodReader and upload their changes to IBM ConnecDons.
• Notability. A note-‐taking app for sketching ideas, recording voice notes, annotaDng PDFs, and more. Using File Jockey, users can open documents from IBM ConnecDons, update them using Notability, and then put the revised version back in ConnecDons. !
The Apple iPad is only one of the devices supported by File Jockey. Other devices are:
• Android. For users with Android devices, the FolderSync app can be used to interact with files stored in IBM ConnecDons.
• Apple Mac. Mac users can make use of the Forklif app from Binarynights to access files in ConnecDons. This is helpful for both frequent and infrequent users; for the first group, it provides a streamlined way of working with files in IBM ConnecDons. For the second group, it provides an alternaDve to using a browser.
•Microso[ Windows. Lialis recommends the use of the Bitkinex applicaDon for Microsof Windows, given its full fidelity support of File Jockey. Other applicaDons lack some fidelity.
There is a developer’s kit available for embedding File Jockey capabiliDes, which would mean that an organizaDon could build their own app that accessed and presented documents out of IBM ConnecDons to staff without making it evident that the documents were actually in ConnecDons. In certain situaDons and with parDcular groups of users, the fact that the file is stored in ConnecDons is more important than leMng the user know what is happening in the background. !While File Jockey can be used to give access to IBM ConnecDons from an iPad and other mobile devices, it can be used to help with other tasks too, such as migraDng documents out of a Lotus Notes database into a ConnecDons community library. !File Jockey is available as a server offering and as a cloud service. It works against IBM ConnecDons and also IBM’s SmartCloud ConnecDons service, among other document repositories. To learn more, see www.file-‐jockey.com. !Epacta OrgChart for IBM Connec:ons !Epacta Systemy is an IBM Premier Business Partner based in Poland. It has developed a number of add-‐ons for IBM ConnecDons, including:
• Orgchart. Provides a visual representaDon of an individual’s locaDon in the orgchart. It is displayed when perusing their Profile in IBM ConnecDons (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Visualizing the organiza2onal structure in IBM Connec2ons, using Epacta Orgchart.
• Knowlimpics. A tool for experDse idenDficaDon, using gamificaDon approaches to idenDfy and rank experts. The areas of experDse awarded to an individual are displayed in their Profile in ConnecDons. !
Epacta is a full-‐service IBM partner offering sofware development, consulDng services, workshops and training. See www.epacta.com.pl. !
Insights on Connec:ons (January 2014)
�5
INSIGHTS O
N CO
NNECTIO
NS
Governance for IBM Connec:ons: Your Approach? !In my governance book, Collabora2on Roadmap (2011), I lay out a strategic approach for handling the business and human factors of collaboraDon technology in organizaDons. While the whole book is wriNen within a governance frame of reference, the specific chapter on governance in the book talks about the need for governance, proposes a structure for governing the use of collaboraDon technology, outlines a decision process for key governance themes, and then explores a set of governance themes that need to be addressed by each organizaDon. The book is a good complementary resource to Doing Business with IBM Connec2ons (2013); you can order it online at michaelsampson.net/collaboraDonroadmap/. !What the book does not have is data on how organizaDons using IBM ConnecDons today are approaching the quesDons of governance as laid out in the book. That is perfectly acceptable at one level since the book is product-‐agnosDc and vendor-‐independent, but with more organizaDons exploring and embracing IBM ConnecDons in their day-‐to-‐day work processes, the Dme is right to look more closely at governance within organizaDons using IBM ConnecDons. The intent in doing so is to reveal current approaches to governance, share best pracDces, and highlight addiDonal areas that need to be brought into alignment so as to drive mature use of IBM ConnecDons in the market. !You are invited to parDcipate in this research project through an interview. Here is how it works:
•The interview is phone-‐based, or in-‐person if you will be at IBM Connect 2014.
•The interview is 30-‐60 minutes in duraDon.
•The discussion is confidenDal, and your organizaDon will not be named in the research. At this Dme I am looking for a broad understanding of current approaches.
•The target interviewee is the person or group in your organizaDon with responsibility for making IBM ConnecDons work at a strategy or business level. !
To schedule your interview, please contact Michael via the web site at michaelsampson.net/contact/.
Success with IBM Connec:ons !To help you successfully navigate the business and human aspects of achieving value from IBM ConnecDons, we offer three core resources. !Doing Business with IBM Connec:ons (2013) Michael’s book, Doing Business with IBM Connec2ons, is a 400-‐page exploraDon of the many ways people can make use of the power of IBM ConnecDons in their day-‐to-‐day work. The book examines how ConnecDons can be used to support ten core collaboraDon scenarios, including document co-‐authoring, managing meeDngs, and running projects. !Order your copy now, available exclusively from michaelsampson.net/doingbusinesswithconnecDons/. !In-‐House Workshop Bring together 15-‐25 of your people for a two-‐day in-‐house working session to plan your business and human strategy for IBM ConnecDons. The two-‐day workshop is presented and facilitated by Michael Sampson and builds on the frameworks and strategies presented in Michael’s recent books. !View the workshop agenda atmichaelsampson.net/doingbusinesswithconnecDons-‐workshop/. !Professional Services Engage with Michael for a longer-‐term project to help with maximizing the business and human value of IBM ConnecDons in your organizaDon. !Please contact Michael via the web site at michaelsampson.net/contact/.
!Insights on Connec:ons (January 2014)
About Insights on Connec:ons Insights on ConnecDons is a publicaDon of The Michael Sampson Company Limited for people interested in maximizing the business and human value of IBM ConnecDons in their organizaDon. It builds on the theory, scenarios, and approaches presented in Doing Business with IBM Connec2ons (2013), authored by Michael Sampson. For more on the book, see michaelsampson.net/doingbusinesswithconnecDons/ !Get the latest ediDon of Insights on ConnecDons from michaelsampson.net/connecDons-‐insights/
6
INSIGH
TS ON CONNEC
TIONS