Humanising the enterprise through ambient social knowledge Lee Bryant « ETECH » March 2006
Introduction • headshift is a social software consulting and development group who apply emerging tools and ideas to the real-world needs of organisations: consulting & engagement prototyping and experimentation development and integration
❶ ❸ ❺ ❻ ❷ ❹ ❼ What am I talking about today? Enterprise software is dying Information / attention overload New social tools and behaviours How do we make decisions? The answer to information overload? Ambient social knowledge sharing How do we get there from here?
❶ Didn't you get the memo?
❶ Enterprise software is dying....
The lost world of IT dinosaurs • The enterprise is a lost world full of large, lumbering dinosaurs who evolved during the 1990's and survive by subjugating humans within legacy systems that are too big and expensive to kill.
Meanwhile, in the outside world.... • Outside the enterprise (where people don't all use crippled IE6 browsers), the dotcom bust swept away a generation of software predators and people began making tools for themselves.
Humans are taking over again • People found that if their systems all connected up they could share stuff; they started building their own online environments using free, simple tools they could control
Selling fear : enterprise = expensive • But somehow, inside the enterprise, managers continue to buy arguments about process, workflow, security and control that software vendors use to keep them in the stone age.
❷ Information & attention overload
Pavlov’s dogs • Management by e-mail demands sequential processing at the expense of peripheral vision, which damages individual decision making • Information overload is worse for concentration than smoking dope • Who controls your inbox?
The wrong sort of information overload • Too much ‘push’, too little ‘pull’ • Lack of control exacerbates the problem • Bad noise to signal ratio
The fallacy of codification & storage • Companies store millions of documents but have little idea which are important. People can rarely find what they need. • Contrary to the KM orthodoxy, you cannot codify knowledge - it turns into bits when stored in databases
❸ The emergence of social software
Simple rules • Simple actions repeated at scale within a social network produce emergent network effects • Easy interfaces and a low ‘cognitive footprint’ reduce barriers to participation • Operate locally, aggregate globally
New tools
New tools • Budgets are shifting to social tools such as blogs, wikis, social tagging, lightweight group tools, etc. • IT departments are realising they need to loosen the reins and make it easier for people to get on with their jobs
New tools
New behaviours • A new relationship with information: feeds, flows, syndication, subscription, social tagging, blogging and wiki co-production • Continuous partial attention • Variable interaction modes, depth, time relations
New behaviours
New behaviours
❹ How do we process information?
❹ How do we make decisions?
❹ ... and how do we innovate?
Pattern matching & the 'best first fit’ • “The only humans who analyse all the data and then make a rational choice are autistic, but economists insist this is the way we all work.” Dave SNOWDEN
Peripheral vision and “intuition” • The brain takes in more than we know, but it filters and simplifies using archetypes and patterns • That is why we can read newspapers quickly • One problem with existing systems is an insufficient diversity of inputs to stimulate intuitive decision making
How do we innovate • Innovation requires a problem/idea, a solution and a project promoter, but they may not be in the same place. • R&D is forward-facing and therefore not served by enterprise storage or classification • These days, the best innovation often comes from passionate users or extra-firewall partnerships
❺ The answer to information overload?
❺ more information ...
❺ ... but consumed differently
A new relationship with information • Build a better radar, use social tools and trust people to make decisions • More peripheral, contextual information flows • Less dependency on email and task assignment • Better findability, not storage • Classification = calcification
A new relationship with people • We are hard-wired for socialisation but enterprise tools are based on 1950's management thinking • Complexity thinking is more useful here than C20th Fordism • Let people negotiate language and meaning, create their own relationships and support each other • Let them weave a rich, social web of links
❻ Ambient knowledge sharing:
❻ Some basic requirements
Social fabric for knowledge sharing • The power of weak ties applied to working relationships - a social fabric for knowledge sharing, collaborative filtering and connected conversations.
Small pieces • Break things down into small pieces • Everything needs a URI and a feed • Social bookmarking, tagging and selection • Simple group spaces to share within a trusted context
Loosely re-joined • Improve findability with user-driven metadata and organisation • Bring old content to life with layers of usage & context metadata • Support re-mixing and mashups
A system of feeds and flows • People create their own information flows • Aggregate, personal, subject feeds, saved searches and alerts • Subscribe to people, places, groups, subjects... or ‘blogjects’
An information-rich environment • Remote controlled shared displays • Ambient devices? • Smart walls and whiteboards • Architecture and office design
A sharing culture • Openness as an aspirational value • An ecological approach to knowledge - not knowledge management • Self-directed support and peer-to-peer assistance • Within framework of objectives, let people find their own way
❼ How do we get there from here?
Building on what you’ve got • Use the ‘heavy lifting’ and storage of legacy systems, not the GUI • Give people smarter, social tools to discover, store, share and create • Bring out feeds from legacy systems; create mediating services • Wrap it in a simple, social interface that creates network effects
Some simple steps TOOLS • Keep existing software, but bypass the GUI; build your own social interface, services and glue • Easy group forming: shared spaces to discuss, share, explore CONTENT • Free up existing content -> everything needs a URI & feed • Social tagging of existing data to improve findability • Bring in managed external feeds and services to provide context and contact with the outside world CULTURE • Social network stimulation: expose social network maps and data -> shake things up from time to time • Encourage tagging, blogging and simple sharing activities • Drive adoption with occasional focused real-time events such as offline meetups and online ‘jamming’ events
Thank you for watching • contact me: lee@headshift.com • read about us : www.headshift.com • references & longer version : www.headshift.com/moments
Flickr CC photo credits - with thanks to... http://www.flickr.com/photos/donabelandewen/92377164/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennifrog/67135660/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/88326495@N00/108903118/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/fluzo/52870555/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/markrjones/47761183/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/thumbling/92500412/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianboulos/36957265/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgt_spanky/35811144/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/teagrrl/8673694/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/loufi/3321223/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/awfulshot/88496670/ Other images by Lee Bryant and Dan Dixon
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