In years past, by day two, the ice breaker "so, do you see a theme this year?" would pop up. I wasn't asked once at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference last week. I'm hoping it's a signal to the idea that we're moving past the need for low value sound bites, though I look at Twitter and lose that hopeful thought right quick. Despite the apparent lack of need for such ice breakers, I did note a theme. I'll get to that. 

On my flight home I sat next to a thirty year tech veteran who grilled me as best he could on the value of the work I was doing. Not sure he was open to seeing a bottom line impact as much as he was interested finding a way to prove that I was foolish for not coming to his conclusions. He spent a telling amount of time grading me on my ".60 words" and attempting to diminish my contribution to the debate by verbally patting me on the head and asserting I'd "held my own" in the discussion. The debate was the 101 stuff by the way. Sharing what you're doing has no value, everyone can see, security is so much more important than work, yadda, yadda. Don't let me give the wrong impression, there were many smiles and this was an extremely personable debate. I smiled a bit at the universe's sense of humor in ending my conference this way. 

What it all boiled down to for me is this. It's great to want to change the world to be a better place, for work to be less frustrating, limiting, focused on spending cycles and budget on inane processes. It's great to want more productivity, fewer mistakes, and an innovative, self-healing environment. We've simply got to spend more cycles practicing the pragmatism we preach. That 101 process we've all discovered for selling the business case? That's the process we use to change minds and build adoption. The idea that changing the minds of humans who have no desire to change should be a strong focus is a poor investment and yields even poorer ROI. Remember, don't feed the trolls. Change is about creating an environment of irrefutable value where the majority join in to collect their own perceived gains. In our case, one where business value, more clearly, a positive impact to the bottom line, organizational or personal, is demonstrated. Your ability to achieve such at an enterprise level, right off the bat, is slim. Your chance of doing that by consciously supporting a growing network through an organizationally self aware plan, real-time analysis and iteration, and through creating a network of supportive advocates by offering real value to their bottom line is how it happens.... I know, I know, that's a mouthful. It's tough to force fit authenticity into a org chart or a quarterly numbers sheet. The process is still navigable if we can put down our baggage and get to navigating towards something specific.. mind you, that also means specifically leaving room for the unplanned and the unspecific, where the really good innovative stuff comes from.  

Heightened pragmatism, even around the more assumedly estrogen laden topics of community management, HR, learning, etc, is bobbing up with direct paths to business value and impact to the bottom line. Who knew... estrogen has brains too (yep, it's snark, you're soaking in it). That pragmatism is an element of this work I've clung to for sanity over the years. Finding solid, actionable information on the merger of systems, humans, and process is as simple as collecting water with a tennis racket. Thankfully, many of the few people who deeply get the full scope of the effort are reliably present at #e2conf. 

Some observations to underscore my point of an improved sense of pragmatism: 

• We swam in solid *use case stories. Refreshingly, both successful and unsuccessful. TEVA, Harvard, NASA, Vanguard, Merc, Eli Lily, EA, ArcSight, YUM, etc... all with business driven, culturally thoughtful strategies. All with an eye on iteration and room for innovation. 
• We heard from more sr. middle managers than I ever remember. The use case presenters were primarily not the senior sponsors or senior project managers who don't frankly use the systems for in-the-flow work. They were intimately aware of the challenges and the gains, and were open to share their tricks more than their sound bites. 
• Even the so called "soft" topics included a theme of pragmatic business process. I was absolutely wowed with the Rachel Happe's presentation Online Communities - A Strategic Imperative. Rachel brings unparalleled clarity to the value of professional community management. It was down right satisfying to see her skillfully distill the story into an hour. I often think we'd be moving much faster if the folks who were claiming ownership of these tools/initiatives had to demonstrate a) proficient use of the tools to meet a specific business need b) acted as community manager for one year. The strategy a community manager uses is the same as the strategy needed to support the whole of a healthy social initiative. I see that little tidbit as an ah-ha few have reached yet. Full disclosure, Rachel is a good friend and I am a member of the Community Roundtable, not to mention a heavily biased community manager. 

This year was also my first attending as a vendor. A big shift after many years as a practitioner. It meant that I needed to spend more time away from sessions than I'm used to. I missed the ability to attend and fully engage in the workshops, but thankfully, twitter kept me hip to what was going on in other sessions. Having too much work to do is a wonderful problem to have. I was thrilled to connect with many of my colleagues I rarely get to see in person. Moxie had a great showing and I'm proud to be part of the team there. It was exciting to see our clients sharing their need-to-hear stories. TEVA's supply chain story is unique and so strongly aligned to this sense of heightened pragmatism I'm talking about. 

All in all I wouldn't miss #e2conf for the world. Despite my snarky posts. :) The beauty of #e2conf is the opportunity for us to get past our social tool prosthetics and engage face-to-face where we can separate the wheat from the chaff. I loved the new space, the abundant power and the reliable wifi, though after becoming accustomed to the tighter quarters at the WBW, I did ask Steve Wylie for a Segway to get around. I didn't feel like I could run back to my room without missing something. I loved the variety of tracks and the clear response to feedback. The fact that there's a people and culture track comes directly from feedback, that community management is a foregone conclusion, that we're now talking about CRM in a meaningful way, that we've enjoyed the presence of psychologists and HR specialists as well as an increase in use case stories. All from feedback. I still believe that if you are engaged in the work of bringing social software to your organization there is no better opportunity to learn about the full scope of the story. If you're doing social or thinking about it, you need to be here. 

Phew.. that was a long one. Thanks to Oliver Marks for including me in the People & Culture track with Apprio's Steve Elmore and Saba's Ingrid Stabb. Steve's got some thoughts on the session on his blog.  Thanks to Steve Wylie & the crew at UBM for all the hard work. Don't forget the Santa Clara call for papers is already open.  It's a great chance to share your success, as well as your failures.. lord knows we learn more from those. Also, a final plug for the Community BackChannel. We had an amazing launch meet up at #e2conf. We're a vetted, but open community of those who want to engage others around the practice of leveraging social tools and community building methodologies for business. All are welcome to this no-sales zone where you need only declare your purpose for joining and want to bring/get value from the experience. 

That's it. See you all in Santa Clara. 

* I use the term use case stories intentionally as a case study doesn't hold much validity for me when those who deliver are assessing their own work. Studies should be performed by someone outside the process being evaluated. Nitpicking I know. But I've seen way too many "successes" touted as such with great omissions of challenging data.

** Big ups to @jimworth for his tireless curation. I wouldn't have links without him. http://jimworth.pbworks.com/w/page/41561709/Enterprise-20-Boston-Social-Web-Coverage-June-20-2011 All presentations (attendee credentials required) and related #e2conf information here. 

*** Image Credit Enterprise 2.0 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/e2conf/5857616440/sizes/m/in/photostream/ 

By now you may have heard of the Community BackChannel. Launched just a few weeks ago, the #cmtybc is private community of community, collaboration and social business practitioners, analysts, consultants, vendors, and media. While vetted to gauge interest and real desire to contribute to the community, the #cmtybc is absolutely free and open to folks from all walks of the E2.0/social business spectrum. 

The #cmtybc calls The BrainYard home through a generous donation of space from the folks at UBM. The #cmtybc is not however owned or guided by UBM or its affiliates in anyway. We're just super grateful for the support and the space! 

We've been sharing resources, talking about our individual case studies, swapping ideas for incentives and building new relationships with Community Managers we've not been able to connect with beyond Twitter. We're a small and growing group who are passionate in our belief that community stewardship is a vital component of success across our social business networks. If this sounds like your thing take a look at the public site and consider joining us. 

A number of us will be headed to the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston from June 20 - 23. What would a f2f opportunity like this be without a meet up? Social is as social does after all.

So here's the ask. Join us! Come find out what we're all about, have a drink, maybe a nosh, and most certainly some good conversation with social business community advocates from across the spectrum. 

Be sure to sign up. Space is limited and we'd love to see you there.
http://cmtybcboston2011.eventbrite.com/

I've heard some interesting perspectives about community building this week. And more than once the "it's all about... " popped up. It just about always makes my shoulders creep up around my ears.

It's not all or nothing. It's not emergence or business goals, open or closed, Kumbaya or command and control. Change happens when balance shifts. We're not moving from one side of the meter to another. We're learning to balance what's now out of balance. Those engaged and conscious around why things need to change, and what improvement looks like will have a better chance of achieving their goals. They also recognize the business value of emergence and skillfully create not only spaces for it, but an environment where it is encouraged and rewarded in a meaningful and authentic way.

It's easy to run with dogma or tool and tout it as the "it's all about the..." of the day. At the core of our efforts is a change to business, to work, to the improvement of products, the client experience and relationship, the productivity, satisfaction and well being of our colleagues. All with an end game of better outcomes for all involved. That could be increased revenue, more customers, lower attrition, more frequent innovation, more meaningful collaboration, etc, etc. 

Get specific about what you're after as an organization and balance that with room for, and support of emergence. It should reflect across your social tools as well as in your hallways.

#e2conf is just a couple of weeks away. I'm here to offer some sizzling predictions and probing questions for the conference to come.

I see in our future:

• a wild launch of marketing zazz and thinly veiled insults regarding who and who does not, in fact, get 'it'. whatever 'it' may be
• a stinging blog post about how wrong we all are, how vendors are barking up the wrong tree, how consultants and analysts are missing the boat, how this daffy work we're doing has already been done under another moniker. we'll all rubberneck, RT, and talk about it for days
• a sustained cry that the vendor voice is too loud, that we're all reconsidering whether we'll come to the next conference
• a boutique consultancy/vendor/analyst will change the name of a common viewpoint, resource, service, product pronounce it a brand new epiphany, one that will clearly change the world in a way it couldn't with another name. we will all believe it
• a stunned crop of first timers who aren't used to seeing people hug at conferences will be stunned
• people first! now lets talk about seats and integration. you know, just to get it out of the way
• some sassy late night tweeting that may disappear from the stream by morning. be sure to get them while they're hot hot hot
• a flow of snarky conference blog posts... some may in fact appear before the conference... you may in fact be reading one this very moment 

And finally, I'm dying to know: 

• who will be the first vendor/analyst/consultant(s) to take the heat from the Statler & Waldorf that is Twitter?
• who's demo will fail spectacularly? 
• which party will be the most off the hookest? 
• will the wifi work? 
• will there be enough power for all of @elsua's gear? 
• will I sleep at all that week?
• why can't I write a blog post that isn't a list? 

Despite my tone, I'm stoked. E2 is my best chance to get more than 140's depth, catch up face to face with folks who're steeped in this work, and find out what I don't know. 

I hope to see you there.  

*for those who may not know my sense of humor, this is indeed humor. roll with it. 

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carnac.jpg

I saw a post from RWW over the holiday weekend. It irked me in the way uninformed infographics and Fox News irk me. Promoting a salacious little sliver of a larger story in an already highly confused environment does little to help anyone. It tends to promote a bunch of rubbernecking that keep us distracted from real issues. I do get that these polls are usually more about increasing page views than scientific research. In the end, it does offer illustration to a long neglected point. 

The post came in response to a marketing gimmick Huddle is touting. The story we get? Huddle is guaranteeing adoption! Should all vendors do that? 
The story we don't get? Adoption is defined as well as many enterprises are defining it. Here's what the Huddle site has to offer in defining adoption: 

http://www.huddle.com/this-is-huddle/adoption-guarantee/

Let me change the language a little bit to clarify. An active user is one who has "performed at least one auditable action" over the course of the 90 day period. I'm guessing that means it's an action you can find record of in the db. Not sure what that set looks like in Huddle's reporting. It could be logged in, perhaps a page view, updated a profile, performed a search..... 

Once. One time. That means a user has adopted. Does that sound like meaningful adoption to you? Worth the money? With numbers like that we've all adopted Google Wave, Path, and other screaming tool successes. Right? What do you think user sentiment is for a site visited once in 90 days? 

The reality is that it's time we woke up around our responsibilities in successful adoption. We are doing more than buying IT, deploying it, and posting a mission accomplished banner in the office. Adoption, meaningful impact-yielding adoption, demands true engagement, a cycle of member feedback that is acted upon, relevance, and trust in our relationship to the tools as well as those engaged in the network. None of which happens in 90 days, and certainly not in an environment where adoption is consciously defined as one log in = success. 

We're smarter than this folks. Know what you're solving. Listen to your members. Fix an actual work problem. Engage your employees in a meaningful, authentic way. Define adoption up front, as you should the terms collaboration and engagement. Know what these terms mean to your organization. Steer clear of gimmicks. As much as we all may want one, there is no magic pill. We're being challenged to steward a change to a better work experience. The deft weilding of thoughtful tools to facilitate that can speed things up dramatically. The opposite, well, you know the rest. 

OK. Soapbox, dismount. How about a poll where we see how enterprises are defining adoption? Does anyone have links to real research there?

 
•    I know what everyone needs to know
•    My email isn’t my knowledge management system
•    If I need you, I can find you
•    If you need me, you can find me
•    If we need one another we can gather and act rapidly, when and how it works for us
•    If I’m new, I know what to do
•    If I’m an expert, I can share and promote my work/capability/offering/event/idea...
•    If I need talent, or content, I can find it quickly with context and evidence
•    If I need answers they are discoverable when I need them
•    My work is the stuff I’m great at, the stuff that drives me and adds value. Not a maze of frustrating tools & limiting processes

With the posturing and pontificaiting that goes on around social, its important to remember one thing. For the enterprise user, the one who gets to choose whether to adopt or not, this is what “it’s all about”.

It’s work. Make it better.

image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coldcut/3644583208

2010 has been quite a year for all of us focused on this whatever-you-call-it-esque (E2/socbiz) shift to a more collaborative and open enterprise. The leaps are higher, and the steps forward are those of pretty tall folk. I finally got to see the McKinsey survey coverage yesterday, and what I see there is amazing. I remember sitting in the front row in Boston in 2007 listening to Andy McAfee implore the audience to collect a cache of case studies. We desperately needed more than a handful of success stories to point to. Though it’s easy to miss in our revolving door bubble of debate, we’re making steady progress. As the potential of collaboration becomes the new black, it’s hard to find an organization that isn’t at least looking to better understand their options. It feels like we’ve finally put aside the evolution/revolution and ROI debates and are focusing on the realities of defining our collaborative worlds. A simple scan of the vendor horizon shows relevant leaps in ubiquity, usability and rapid customization in this year alone. Hearing the McKinsey story point to definitive revenue increases shores up my optimistic perception. We’ve come a long way. 

This year specifically I’ve seen our internal work mature and be firmly woven into the fabric of our organization. It’s been challenging for all of us. Growth usually is. We, like many other organizations who’ve joined us in the past couple of years, are doing the hardest part of the work in self-analysis, integration and action toward the promise of collaboration. I’m not at liberty to publish public detail about Hello, but I can say that its evolution has, and continues to be, amazing to observe. In all of my snark on Twitter, never for a moment think that I don’t know how very lucky I am.

Outside of my work I’m fortunate to be connected to many of the best and brightest in our space. I’ve enjoyed the support and cheerleading of some fantastically smart folks. They are willing to entertain my ideas and my folly equally. Every time I talk with them… with you, I learn something. Every time. I’m so very grateful for that.

I offer a hearty Happy Holidays to all of you.

Now please, take a break already will ya?

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22244945@N00/3278869535/#/