Herewith the transcription of the Window Wiki, and a few semi-verbatim notes from the closing discussion, which I'm posting here whilst we sort out a wiki for a more collaborative version.
Emotional feedback
- can technology transfer emotions? intangibles?
- how important is emotional feedback?
- enterprise: HR feedback 'all the time'; personal: emotional feedback.
The influence of context on groups & individuals
- personality and culture
- strong personality required to champion
- human face to business
- group vs. individual
- oral vs. written
- personas
- credibility vs. press release speak
- blogging - beautiful naivety
- williness to be vulnerable
- authenticity and trust - how do you establish?
- storytelling
- blogging components: competance, personality, culture
- 'people have a need to speak in an authentic voice
- use casts (?) as stories - personas
Value and productivity
- workflow tools visible/invisible
- can we prove the value?
- does size of company affect success?
- will managers obsess over how blogging affects productivity (time spent)?
Groupthink
- Can blogs in business produce groupthink? how authentic is the blog's voice?
- how to avoid groupthink?
- blogging: cms, culture
Risk and loathing in the corporate blogosphere
- will the bosses read the blogs?
- risk, vulnerable
- future corp: confident, trusting
- legal implications of written (in public) words
- fear
- degree of openness: competition, trust, legal
- open vs. closed culture
- some businesses prefer to hide from the truths blogs would expose
- openness and transparency
- what is appropriate to say in the public space of the organisation?
Ethos
- public sector vs. private sector
- big company vs. small vs. distributed
Audience and expectations
- readership controls you
- control your readership?
- every blogger needs an audience
Micro/macro-benefits and potential outcomes
- external : internal blogs :: marketing : knowledge management
- external blogs = incoming link farm = revenue farm?
- internal blogs: HR, KM, internal marketing and branding; external blogs: marketing, news page
- visibility within the business
- improved networking
- what do businesses want to achieve with a blog?
- product development driven by marketing -> not necessarily best product but most fitting - blog that
- create contact between upper management and the company
- need a real world use for it
- visibility within the business
- bad blogging (marketing, plain, dull) - destructive!
- useful/not useful
Gradients vs. Boundaries
- are there situations where blogging is not a good idea
- knowledge work spans organisation boundaries. internal blogs?
- fuzzy firewall: grades of access
- organisations have no clear boundaries but in IT they have: the firewall
Filtering, aggregation and metadata
- using social network as natural aggregator
- intelligent filtering
- filtering: (??), collaboration
- how do we filter information?
- metainfo more important than 'real' info
- content vs. format
Futurespeak
- conversations embedded in broadcast
- delivery of information is a commodity
- are we the dinosaurs?
- blogger tag: 'you're it!'
- ignorance management
- centre of ignorance
Conclusions
We are well aware of the fears of the outcomes: if we put these tools into the hands of the people that are part of our organisations what will happen? This is inevitable considering that organisations are used to the broadcast model, but this is like giving everyone a radio station suddenly and what will happen? People are used to control. These tools allow conversations to be embedded in the broadcast, people can speak back which is threatening. Corporate portals are really young, and the perception of control is being stomped on, marketing depts are controlling - only certain people are allowed to shape the message. Saying contra-messages to one person at a time is ok, but blogging gives a voice to address many people at a time. Imaging the response if you emailed everyone in the organisation and you are a 'nobody'? Goes back to personality and authenticity. Emotional feedback is an important area.
How do you introduce social tools to corporates?
Why do we want to? Blogs challenge command and control environment. Management don't want to have their authority questioned. Software is an inhibitor. What strategy? Evangelical bloggers encouraging people? Depends on culture. Organisational change process with workshops etc.? Trojan horse, and corporates will resist. Business won't resist something that makes you work better, but need to persuade people that it *will* make you work better. Must be able to show people doing it successfully. Age and techno-literacy things. Senior managers don't engage well, but those who do have greater kudos. Build it and they'll come. Finding people who are senior enough and who have money and aren't worried about getting it wrong. About technology, once you get a group of people that want's to try it out, because not everyone is an early adopter to make sure that the technology is appropriate, when you roll out to wider group. Technology problem is that it has to fit in with existing tech, e.g. if company is in a .net environment then perl/php environments are not appropriate; want people to do stuff that's useful not struggle with IT. Need tools that fit people's existing paradigm. Use their language. Understand their motivations.


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