This session on social software was run by Ross Mayfield, CEO of SocialText. As a fan of Ross' blog, I was looking forward to this presentation and he did not disappoint.
If the notes are a little disjointed, I apologize as it was more of a conversation than a presentation (which is a good thing). Not all of these notes are from Ross, some are from participants, but they are all lumped together.
Social software – software that creates group interaction
Web 2.0 is made of people. There is a critical mass of
people on the internet
now to make things happen
There is a significant trend of people who feel comfortable sharing identities and be more
transparent.
Enterprise
2.0 – Free-form social software applied to business. This requires that the
structure is not determined ahead of time.
The overarching sentiment here is that you need to share
control in order to reap value.
One of the obstacles for enterprise wikis is attribution. Attribution is
incredibly important, people want their voice to be heard.
We need to create things recognizing that they will be
imperfect and allowing them to be improved upon by others. Need to be willing
to give up some control.
When launching social software, don’t try to build in
structure too early. Let the community dictate the direction.
Mayfield will build a prototype for about 90 days. This not only
builds content, but also builds a community of people willing to defend
technology.
One of the roles of hosting a community is directing
attention.
Taking advantage of the bits and pieces of information (Digg)
is collective intelligence. What is going on in Wikipedia is collaborative intelligence.
Clay Shirky said “Process is embedded response to prior stupidity”
Employees don’t spend most of time with business processes,
they spend time with exceptions to processes.
All of the policies are already in place regulating employee
behavior, so there is no need for significant additional regulation.
In past three years, we have not had one instance of an
employee doing something nefarious on a Wiki.
Organizations should focus on training and practices, and not so much on the
technology.
A great idea for developing a blogging policy is to use a
wiki to let the employee raise the issues
Social media structure should mirror architecture in that
they should begin with an open friendly area and then break-off into more
specific, private areas. However, you should try to hold off on private areas as much as possible.
One of the challenges in an enterprise is to bring in the
people using open source solutions, one solution is to work with them and make them champions of the product.
The very act of using social media, is sharing information.
You get information by proxy in that you count on others you trust and value
providing you with that information.
Two ways to instill practice in the wiki
- Have the hierarchy designate a facilitator to organize
and structure stuff
- Have a robust training or practice where everyone feels
empowered and capable of editing on their own
An IBM employee mentioned that as part of his performance evaluation, his manager looks at the number of
people that he comes into contact with via his blog.
The incentive for someone in an enterprise to participate in
internal tagging is first for the user itself, and next the ability to interact with other experts.
Technorati Tags: ctc2006, Collaborative+technologies+conference, ctcBoston, collaboration, Ross+Mayfield, SocialText
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