My presentation for BA World Symposium in Sydney in July

M

I heard a story recently about a boss who was afraid to use a wiki, even inside the walls, because it didn’t fall under the strict editorial control processes normally required for their conventional paper documents or even the organisation’s intranet. Specifically, this fear came from the Freedom of Information Act.

This made me recall similar feelings of fear about FOI from an organisation who no longer recorded the audio from meetings because of fear that the tapes could be requested under FOI.

It’s always good to go to the source material when these issues and fear arise in order to determine exactly what the law says is able to be released when an FOI request comes knocking:

“Electronic documents

3.57 An agency may provide an applicant with electronic documents in response to an FOI request.

3.58 Security and privacy issues relating to information stored as metadata held within Microsoft Office documents have been identified. Usually an agency will not intend to provide access to a document with information that has been designated as ‘hidden’ (eg personal details of authors, revision history, review comments) or information that allows collaboration on writing and editing the document. Therefore, it is preferable that all Microsoft Office documents are converted into PDF format, or have their metadata cleansed using an agency approved process, prior to being sent outside the agency network.” [1]

I’m not a lawyer, but this statement suggests that only the final document and not its versions created under collaborative environments can be considered under FOI. In environments where information is constantly being updated, like in wikis, only the current version minus its discussion could therefore be requested under FOI. Moreover, an FOI request, as I understand it from the Attorney-General’s Department paper on FOI Fundamental Principles and Procedures, only pertains to either the public interest (e.g. how public money has been spent) or details about a specific person or entity (like a business) requested by that person (or business).

In further exploring this issue, I came across Mahony versus the City of Melville — a judgement on denial of an FOI request.

“Following the receipt of my preliminary view, the complainant queried whether draft versions of Document 9(b) or other documents considered by the ORC had been disclosed. However, in my opinion, only draft versions of Document 9(b), rather than other documents considered by the ORC, come within the scope of the complainant’s access application which was for performance review reports relating to the CEO’s position and the report prepared by the independent consultant “together with all notes, records of meetings and other documents prepared in relation to that report during the period of the consultancy” ” [2]

The outcome suggests that, in Mahony’s case, draft documents can be requested under FOI. So, regardless of whether a document has gone through the strict editorial control processes and was approved of a senior public servant, all the drafts could be accessed under FOI.

Interestingly, in reporting on FOI, the Commonwealth Ombudsman observed:

“The investigation also identified a more pervasive malaise in the administration of FOI: a growing culture of indifference or resentment towards the disclosure of information, ailing standards of training and development and a profound lack of understanding of or commitment to the ethos and purpose of the legislation. It appeared that, although the FOI Act had wrought some change in the culture of public administration, its goals had been imperfectly achieved. Many of the early FOI practitioners were advocates of open government, but had, over time, been replaced by staff who had grown up in a very different environment, with FOI just one of a number of competing demands on agency time and resources.”

“[Today] staff with FOI decision-making delegations were at an appropriate level but did not
always have to demonstrate that they had the requisite skills and an understanding of
the FOI Act, prior to being appointed a delegate” [3]

It’s always good to turn fear of FOI and unwanted behaviour in document creation into an assessment of risk and consider what mitigation strategies you might put in place to limit its occurrence or reduce its impact if it does happen. Obviously, editorial control in this case won’t stop someone requesting the drafts. Fortunately, though, the Public Service Code of Conduct is the foundation of mitigation for risky behaviour in the public sector and, essentially, requires that all public servants behave like adults and treat people with respect and equality. If they behave like adults then there’s nothing to fear, even if what they write (e.g. in a wiki or a blog) doesn’t go through a strictly controlled editorial process. If they don’t behave like adults then perhaps you shouldn’t have hired them in the first place?

If you’re a lawyer or law-junkie (and I know there are some of you out there who read my blog), I’d love to hear your opinion and learned thoughts on this one.

M

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1. Attorney-General’s Department, 2005. Freedom of Information Act 1982: Fundamental Principles and Procedures. Online at: http://www.pmc.gov.au/foi/docs/FOI_principles_procedures.pdf

2. Office of the Information Commissioner (W.A.), 2005. Graham David Mahony v. City of Melville. Decision and reasons for decision. Online at: http://www.foi.wa.gov.au/PDF_Decs/d0042005.pdf

3. Commonwealth Ombudsman, 2006. Scrutinising government administration of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 in Australian Government Agencies. Online at: http://www.ombudsman.gov.au/…_March2006.pdf

I was browsing through Donna Spencer’s blog posts when I came across a post- Oz-IA 08 discussion on whether the IA community in Australia was a clique.

After reading through these comments I can see how some might think that the IA community is a clique. There are definitely a few notable IA personalities in Australia who seem to all get around together, both for business as well as pleasure. They have their own particular loves of food and drink as well as their in-jokes and geek-speak. To some outsiders or fringe dwellers such a strong bond between these people might at first seem intimidating and exclusive.

I do know, though, how important community is to IAs — spreading what they know, openly sharing with others, and listening to how others think, and constantly searching for ways in which they can improve the IA domain through reaching out to others who are not IAs. I recall how Eric Reiss said in his presentation at last year’s IA Summit that, as IAs, we would be foolish to assume that we know everything there is to know about information architecture. I also love how the talented Diana Mounter reflects on this in her theme for the Local Government Web Network conferences — “We Believe in Community”.

In October this year, Oz-IA will open its arms up to embrace Australia’s IA practitioners and ALL those who are interested in the organisation of information by people for people. Whether BA, Librarian, Records Manager, User Experience Engineer, Developer, Web Manager or Project Manager this is definitely a great community event.

I hope to see you there

M

People typically think that social media is only used by young Australians. Finding hard statistics on Australian demographics though isn’t easy, particularly when you don’t have $750USD to fork out for the latest Forrester research paper. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), though, is a handy resource if you’re willing to put in the time and know how to analyse and interpret the statistics.

With an ex-ABS employee on hand, we went through some of the recent survey data on Household Use of Information Technology and Population by Age and Sex, Australian States and Territories, Forrester’s Social Technographics ratios, and started some serious Excel work.

Here’s what we found:

As a proportion of their age demographic more 15-17 year olds use the internet  than any other group. This includes access from computers, mobile devices, set-top boxes connected to either analogue or digital television and games machines. You’ll note, though, that more 35-44 year olds use the internet than any other age group.

It’s when you then start to break down into the 18+ group (ABS and Forrester define ‘adult’ as 18+) that things get interesting.

• In 07/08 there were 16.4m Australian adults [1]
• 11.2m Australian adults used the internet 07/08
• 8.5m Australian adults used social media on at least a monthly basis in 07/08

When examining the ABS statistics in light of Forrester’s Social Technographic roles in 07/08 we see that some 43% of all Australians read blogs, watch online video, listen to podcasts, read forums, and read reviews/ratings. A high proportion, 18% (higher than our US counterparts Forrester reports), even create this content.

Even about 1 in 3 of Australians maintain their social networking profile — probably on Facebook given Hitwise rates it as the most popular website Australians visit recording 4.03% of all website traffic.

Australians are not ‘engaged’ in social media? … I think not.

M

Note: Special thanks to Steve Noble who answered a few questions for me regarding the Forrester data

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1. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2008) Population by Age and Sex, Australian States and Territories ABS Cat No. 3201.0, June.

I’ve blogged before about the taxonomy of social media — a simply means by which you can classify the activities or roles of people’s social media activities produced by Forrester. In previous posts, though, there’s been some questioning over exactly whether Australians are ‘engaged’ with some suggestions that a simple poll will confirm the old 1/9/90% ratios that Nielsen reported back in 2006 based on research in the 90s.

Source: Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, October 9, 2006

More recent research by Forrester, though, confirms earlier findings regarding the social media activities, including some new Australian statistics from their Nov 2008 Australian Adult Social Technographics® Report.

Source: Forrester, 2008

Specifically, Forrester reports that Australian consumers are blocking marketing messages and turning to each other for advice. Importantly, their research finds that:

• Three quarters of Australian online adults now use social technologies at least monthly
• One-quarter create their own content
• Australians are more likely to be content creators than their US counterparts
• Men are slightly more likely to use social technologies than women, but when it comes to joining social networks, the difference is negligible
• Creating content or joining social networks falls away dramatically as participants get older
• 46% of online adults in the Older Boomers and Seniors demographic, though, continue to consume some form of social media at least monthly, whether it’s watching other peoples’ videos, reading other peoples’ blogs, or looking at other people’s photos

With such a fundamental shift in how Australians use media, marketers, government, and private organisations must rethink their communications and engagement strategies. For example, to engage online women in Australia Forrester suggests, interactive marketers should focus on content and connections. As a small, developed market that makes heavy use of social technologies, Australia is the perfect launchpad for global brands adopting social marketing tactics.

Evangelists and marketers will be surprised “if they assume that social technologies are uncommon in Australia, they’ll be surprised to find they’re now mainstream. In fact, only 24% of online adults in Australia do not regularly use social technologies in some way”, reports Steven Noble of Forrester.

So, are Australians engaged? I think the statistics speak for themselves.

M

Ive been presenting to the a number of senior executives and committees this week on Web 2.0 and its use in government — ie: Government 2.0. Here’s the PowerPoint presentation which you can also download from SlideShare.

If you can’t wait for the videos to load, here they are:

What is Web 2.0?

How can government leverage Web 2.0?

With a reported 4 in 5 Australians using Web 2.0 websites at least monthly, and an estimated 69% of Canberra’s polulation engaging participating (in some form or other) in online community activities like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Ning and YouTube, it’s no wonder that the ACT Chief Minister’s Department, after launching its Citizen Centred Governance Paper last year, is now looking toward implementing Web 2.0 tools for citizen engagement to better deliver communications in a more responsive, relevant and open way. 

M

This is a preview of a video that will be part of my Government 2.0 presentation to the senior executives of the ACT Chief Minister’s Department in Canberra, Australia, a little later next week.

Keep an eye out here for the SlideShare version of my presentation.

M

I had the privlege of presenting with my colleague Maria Horrigan at the RIRDC Conference on the new world of Web 2.0.

It was a lot of fun and the audience had lots of questions — almost overwhelmingly so. But being the only man in a room of 40 women who can complain!

M

Intuitive interfaces don’t happen by accident. When gathering requirements from people about what they want from a website it takes an understanding of not only users say they want, but insights into online behaviour, motivation, cognition, memory, and use of appropriate language, to make it truly effective.

The user experience design is made all the more complex with people’s current expectations of amazing the interactivity that services like the giants like Google Apps, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Amazon and Wikipedia offers.

How can we create interfaces in today’s environment that are not only attractive and functional, but also intuitive — working in the way people want and expect?

Information Architects ensure certain basics are covered in their designs:

1. Context - Who is going to use the interface, how and where
2. Human requirements – Memory, human behaviour and language
3. Solution design – Incorporating collaborative design into the process to ensure people have input into the final solution
4. Validation – Ensuring the solution actually works, for example through developing prototypes, before it is built

Taking account of these steps are what ensures you end up with an amazing designs — and it’s what IAs do best

For more amazing presentations at WebDu visit www.webdu.com.au

M

When it comes to Agile approaches, sharing lessons learned and applying new knowledge and information within iterations, to the next iteration cycle, and to the next project, is a way of life. I’ve not found, however, why doing this within Agile works better than traditional project approaches like Warterfall. The answer came to me while examining research on how information passes into social and professional networks by Sinan Aral, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Marshall Van Alstyne [1] for a post on The AppGap.

Silos tend to have homogeneous networks. We see this with anecdotes like Kevin Bacon and his 6-degrees of separation with other Holywood actors. As such, given any actor, you’re only 6-steps away from someone else and therefore only 6-steps away from (new) information. But this uniformity or homogeneity  means that when information exists outside the network it can be difficult, if not impossible to access.

Applied to organisations whose business lines are heavily siloed, their networks become homogenous and, as a result, new information is very difficult to access. While new information is accessible through formalised process, it tends to be slow moving because, in relation to the waterfall project management process for example, only official, formalised, signed-off, complete, and comprehensive documentation tends to be communicated between silos.

In order for new information to be incorporated into silos, and work practices changed and improved, it has to pass along official communication lines.

Ultimately, I think this is why lessons learned are often so difficult to incorporate into waterfall projects — it can’t be easily applied because change has to transverse silos typically controlled by the organisations bureaucracy. An important issue to note is that even if new information is introduced into one silo there is no method for the information to also be introduced into other silos.

So is an Agile approach any better? I’ll explore this question in the next post.

M

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1. Aral, S., Brynjolfsson, E. Marshall Van Alstyne, E. M., 2006. Network Structure & Information Advantage: Structural Determinants of Access to Novel Information. Workshop on Information Systems Economics.

When I first went to university I would go to the IT building and head upstairs to the Mac lab. In those early days I preferred Macs over PCs. As the years past, though, business needs meant I turned to Windows.

Strangely enough I’ve now come full circle and bought an Apple dual quad core Mac Pro. It’s a beautifully crafted machine of a build quality I’ve not seen in a desktop in the 15 years or so that I’ve been building my own computers.

Of course now I need some decent software to go on it. The problem is, with most of my recent experience being with Windows, I just don’t know what are the best and most useful apps and software to install.

So, I’m turning to the Wisdom of Crowds. Do you use a Mac? What do you find are the most useful apps? What software can’t you do without?

Let me know

M

I was recently thinking about the ways in which some enterprise 2.0 and social media evangelists proclaim that because many people have just installed a wiki or a blog, and suddenly got traction with building relationships, collaboration and interaction, that all you need is to “just do it” and throw in some web 2.0 technology in order to have success.

I was thinking about this at 3am one morning and it made me think of scissors … yes, scissors.

I could give scissors to someone as a gift and know that they’ll use it for cutting things because, everyone needs a good pair of scissors at some time or other. But people need different sorts of scissors for different things. A good pair of shears is just invaluable in the kitchen — I don’t ever think I could do without my Mundial shears! I also have a big pair of dress making scissors — you know the ones with stainless steel blades and big black handles (I think I ‘inherited’ them from my mother). They’re great for cutting fabric without the blades quickly going blunt. I also use these to cut my dog’s fur when it gets long, but I’d rather have another pair just for that task. I also once gave a pair of round-nosed scissors to my nephew, who loves to draw and cut out paper, but I know he’ll never be able to use it for cardboard — it’s just too thick to cut!

In the end, there are lots of different types of scissors. You can buy generic ones and know they might do many jobs, but they won’t do all cuttings jobs. You could try and use them for anything but you might end up breaking them. Essentially, the only way to know what sorts of scissors to buy for yourself, or someone else, is to know what scissors they already have, and what scissors they might use for specific circumstances defined by need.

There are also lots of different types of social media you can choose from for use within the enterprise for collaboration or outside for communication and interaction with stakeholders. Most of these are as easy to start using as picking up a pair of scissors from Walmart or Target. And like scissors, these social media tools are now both easy to use and sophisticated enough to support real social behaviour, it’s more than likely that they will be successful in some way or other. But when you install a wiki or a blog how do you know whether it will be successful? Just because someone else’s technology implementation went well, do you know whether it will work for you? Sure, everyone in an organisation needs to share information, collaborate and communicate at some time. People need these tools just as much as they need a phone, a pen, and a pair of scissors. But, at the end of the day, how will you know the factors that contributed to their success so you can repeat the success at a later time? How will you know whether they have given you any actual return on your investment?

Last time I went into King of Knives to talk about scissors I got asked the following questions. Strangely enough, I think they’re also a good guide for thinking about social media:

• Who is it for? Do you know the who will use it, their wants and needs?
• What will they use it for: What on earth will they actually use it for? If they have had ones in the past, what did they have? Did it work properly? Will past user’ experience benefit this time around or hamper your efforts?
• Will they know how to do maintenance on it? Scissors need sharpening from time to time. I had to learn how to use a sharpening stone to get the best out of my kitchen shears. Social media tools also need attention — you can’t just build it and expect it to be largely self-maintaining. You need to know how to use these tools to know how to effectively establish and maintain online relationships and build trust.
• Will they need training or is it fairly intuitive? Knowing how to make best use of the tools you have means you get the best return on investment. Training is good, but remember that it won’t change people’s behaviour. Even though you might give people the skills and capability it doesn’t mean that people will use the things you give them.

I know it’s a pretty strange metaphor, but it works. Cut away with your scissors, they might work or they might not, but the only way to know whether or not you’ve spent resources in the right place, and can repeat any success (or avoid future failure), is to do planning and ask these question before you make your choice of shears or scissors.

M

Intranets are strange things. The term was coined by Stephen Lawton in 1995 who observed that people were making small websites internally to facilitate the sharing of information.

In a few short years we had such high hopes for our intranets:

Source: Melcrum Intranet Survey (2001)

But within three years we’d spend over $10 USD billion for what amounted to little more than an electronic filing cabinet. In essence, we had killed intranets because we had forgotten that these are all people issues, not technology problems.

Today, though, with Web 2.0 technology and the tools we call social media, people can now interact in online environments pretty much in the same way they in the real world.

This presents an amazing opportunity for organisations — returning to sharing knowledge and information being about people talking to people, rather than it being about sticking it away in a document repository.

The key to success of future intranets, therefore, is to adopt a more social approach to collaboration through supporting sharing and personal identity, having simple processes for creation and updating information, responsive, personal and relevant conversations.

M

Donna Spencer recently put together her top ten tips for presentations and presenters. This made me reflect on aspects of what I do in my preparation, presenting, and what I like to see in presentations myself.

Preparation

In preparing, I draw my thoughts and ideas on the shower wall with some simple bath crayons. It helps to sort out the logic of my slides and key phrases I’ll talk to when presenting them.

Each morning, when I get into the shower, I try and talk through the presentation from memory. When I come up with new ideas I then just write them on the shower wall. Normally, I can get about 1/2 way through the talk in the few days leading up to the presentation without the need for prompting. If I can get that far I know I know my material.

Themes

I find that using a theme can help with the visual flow of things and lend consistency to a presentation. Using all Simpsons or Farside cartoons, for example, can lend both humour and the overall style.

Practice in front of loved ones

I always try to present my slides to a friend or loved one. They always tell me if the presentation doesn’t ‘feel’ right, or doesn’t quite flow as it should. In particular, they often note when my presentation isn’t circular, coming full circle back to the original premise so that the presentation feels complete. Even if I leave this til the night before, that still means I’ve got time to tweak bits here and there to get it just right. This also ensures that the timing is right.

The night before

When away from home, I like to sit in a hot bath in my hotel room and do a final run through the slides. I find this really relaxing, particularly before a big conference, and it’s become something of a tradition with me.

Delivery

Of great importance to me is to tell a story, to make it personal, to relate my experience, and to give everyone something to take home that they can put into practice themselves. Hopefully, I will have entertained them as well. A “geek” joke never seems to go astray, and a well-placed, well-edited, relevant video clip can help to articulate something that is difficult to explain, but due to pop-culture, seems to speak for itself.

In the audience — what I like to see

I love it when someone delivers a presentation that makes me think, shows me a new way of doing something, and makes it very apparent that they’re speaking from experience. It irks me, though, when I know someone is delivering a presentation and I know they have no actual experience — it’s like telling someone to do something when you’ve not done it yourself. It just feels … dishonest somehow.

What I don’t like to do

After seeing some really poor shared presentations in my life I just won’t do them. I find that the different styles of presenters on the stage at the same time just distracting. As a viewer, I would rather feel that the presenter is engaging with me, and not the co-presenter. This is not to say, though, that I’m not part of the brains behind someone else’s presentations. I actually contribute quite a lot of thinking to colleagues’ and friends’ prezos and am immensely proud when they pull it off themselves in the delivery. But I would rather them deliver and own the presentation than have me distract people and the two of us deliver potentially mixed messages at the podium.

I’m not perfect. Help me improve

In looking at Donna’s list I know I self-talk a little, I often I don’t know my material as well as I would like to, and sometimes don’t leave enough time for lots questions. But I do love constructive criticism. If you think certain parts didn’t work, or bits were a bit slow, then I’d love to hear from you. This makes me a better presenter and means people will get more out of my presentations.

Presenters that I admire

And lastly, who would I like to be when I grow up?

• Mark Pesce: I first saw him present this year at Web Directions South, Sydney. While our styles are very different I learned so much just by watching him on the stage.
• Karl Kruszelnicki’s: …. his head is just sooooo big!

M

Last Thursday afternoon, I presented to the Web Standards Group on a topic dear to my heart — government 2.0. It comes off the back of a number of projects I’ve now worked with in government where web 2.0 tools have been used, the first being about two years ago when I suggested the use of a wiki as a way of sharing knowledge with external stakeholders.

In my new government project, I’m designing our strategy to leverage a range of social media, from blogs to delicious. This hopes to engage people leading up to the launch of a new website through a project blog, and draw on the way Google loves conversations to lead them to it.

Of course, the project doesn’t stop there. We’re only just getting through our planning and user research stages. I’m hoping that early next year I’ll be able to show you more of what we’re done, particularly in how we’re intending on tackling the sensitive issue of actually engaging in conversation with the public in a responsive, real, and relevant way.

M

I’ve been preparing material for my Web Standards Group presentation this coming Thursday on Government 2.0 and I figured I’d throw in something that shows both the benefits and the risks of using blogs and the value of good planning.

For Dr Horrible, his blog is a way of communicating with the League of Evil about how horrible he is so that they might let him join their group. He forgets, however, that as a public communications channel superheros like Captain Hammer and the police could read, and listen in, and then know what he was planning to do with his freeze ray.

The lessons for anyone moving into blogging and social media for the first time is simple, as I’ll explore in my presentation. Like with exploring any new media planning, assessing risks, and then mitigating them is an important first step.

What: Web Standards Group
Where: National Library of Australia [map]
When: Thursday, 27 November 2008
Time: 2.30pm til 5pm

Hope to see you there

M

You might have noticed that I’ve been doing a fair bit of thinking since Stuart French posted his initial depiction of the patterns in the data in his research on wiki adoption in small to medium enterprises.

I like his depiction of culture as a factor that spans both the personal and the organisational. To me, the importance draws back to people’s social needs depicted by Maslow as well as the group-think behaviour exhibited by organisations at the whole as well as their smaller constituent parts including their silos, business divisions and teams.

While it is true that culture, as the organisational environment, is contributed toward by individual’s behaviour — that is, they create the culture — the combination of the actions of the many results in something that is greater than the input itself often called “group-think“. This results in a need to examine separately the motivations, attitudes, thinking and behaviour of the individual as well as how the group affects those factors, and what results from each as a whole.

And yes, there’s likely to be some “argey-bargey” chicken-and-egg issues about what motivator or action comes first, but rather than go into what would normally require a degree in psychology and a masters in knowledge management to fully and completely articulate, I figured that I’d take the advice of Matt Moore and just try to keep it as simple as possible.

So, here’s my latest attempt at reconciling some of these factors.

As with all meta models, you could drill down into each piece of the honeycomb and look at its constituent parts, but … well … maybe I’ll take James Breeze’s advice and write a book about it instead.

Using Stuart’s terms, a top-down strategy results in mandated interaction, whereas a bottom-up strategy results in spontaneous interaction. The more activity that occurs between the two-sides of objectives and influences the greater the impact on the culture and collaboration factors.

I figured that collaboration was likely to be the central concern for an organisation in introducing social computing tools into the enterprise, out of which would come sharing of knowledge within silos and across them. I decided that “esteem” was probably the most important to (many) individuals given it’s “whats-in-it-for-me” factor. Here, French and Raven’s referent power and expert power explicitly reinforces individuals collaboration behaviour.

Of course, I’m just thinking out loud. Maybe there’ll be more thoughts to come.

M

Pixel8ted sent this Twitter through today. It’s the US election results by average IQ.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

M

I recently posted an article on Enterprise 2.0 on The AppGap about an adoption model extending the work of Stuart French on adoption of wikis in small and medium enterprises. It explains some of the rationale as to why, in some organisations, the “build it and they will come” attitude is successful — the suggestion being that both the organisational and personal culture is ready to receive the change. In those organisations where it is not successful, the inference is that there are a number of factors, from either or both the organisation or the personal, that can work against adoption.

… of course, I then woke up the next morning with ideas on how to further improve the model …

Stuart’s model is great for its simplicity and to begin to ask the question of what factors contribute to successful adoption within an enterprise context. But I’d like to understanding it in the wider context, and in particular, how it relates to knowledge management and personal information management.

As always, as a continued discussion and evolution of these ideas, both Stuart and I would love your feedback.

M

Stuart French recently wrote an insightful post on culture and the enterprise, summarising a number of articles that examine whether or not Web 2.0 tools can change an organisation that embraces hierarchy, position power and process over flat, collaborative structures.

In my presentations to Web Directions Government, Oz-IA 2008 and ACTKM08, I discussed some of these issues at length, particularly in relation to the introduction of social computing tools and what factors lead to changes in thinking and then action.

When we make decisions about adoption of social computing tools, we balance up our own individual needs (as described by Maslow for example) with our social needs as articulated by our identification with various groups and what they expect of us.

Let’s take me as an example. Behavioural change from contemplation through to action means balancing numerous factors — me as “me”, me as an Aussie, me as a member of the wider geek community, and me as an employee of the company I work for.

All of these groups have their own expectations of me as a member. At different times, they have a greater or lesser influence on my behaviour. Their expectations of me also depend on the environment I’m in and how physically close a member of one of those groups is to me, as well as that person’s influence over me based on legitimate, expert, referent, information, reward, and/or coercive power [1].

For me, culture, therefore, is the description of the behavioural and cognitive norms we see emerging from the group dynamic, whether at the organisational or national level, that emerge as the group’s identity. The sheer force of numbers within the group adhering to those behavioural norms reinforce the status quo. Culture is, of course, therefore a bell curve of behaviour within a group. Statistically aberrant behaviour is certainly exhibited by some members, and even tolerated, but if it results in the group identity being challenged by this, then members are motivated to act in such a way as to bring others into line and normalise that behaviour.

There is, therefore, an eternal struggle within the group and its individuals for normalisation. There is also a struggle between groups to ensure that each maintains its distinct identity — an “us” versus “them” attitude. The truth of the matter, though, is that there is an immense amount of interaction, rather than isolation, between individuals within distinct groups that results, over time, in groups merging and breaking apart. The trick is to change the groups ‘norms’ to ensure successful change at the group level. Given all of the factors at play (and I’ve only described a few) this is no small task. While the right tools can help, they have to fit with the group norms in order to be effective.

All of these factors, cultural and individual, should be taken into consideration when looking to implement technology within a group like a workforce. If you understand the culture of the group you’re targeting, and ensure that you’re targeting the right group, and know that their behaviour is aligned closely to the tools you’re set to introduce then success is likely to be greater. If it runs counter to the way they work or the way the group works, then they are more likely to fail. And, lastly, if you know enough about the psychology of culture, when things are not aligned, you can create a change strategy that will be able to introduce technology successfully in just about any organisation.

M
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[1] French, J.R.P., & Raven, B. (1959). ‘The bases of social power,’ in D. Cartwright (ed.) Studies in Social Power. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

I was reading a blog post by Dion Hinchcliffe that he wrote a year ago, suggesting that web 2.0 software could be a catalyst for change for hierarchically-based organisations. It’s a post in response to Tom Davenport’s skepticism of Enterprise 2.0’s ability to wreak significant cultural and hierarchical change inside organisations.

Dion’s perspective is that because social computing tools “are highly democratic and egalatarian; anyone can deploy these tools, anyone can quickly learn to use and benefit from them, and they can be used to communicate and collaborate openly with anyone else inside (and often outside) the organization, are inherently viral, they literally tear down the barriers that would normally impede their forward movement and adoption inside the organization”.

Andrew McAffee is of the same opinion. He believes they will empower employees, decentralise decisions, free up knowledge, and generally make for better places to work.

Tom suggests, though, that “the absence of participative technologies in the past is not the only reason that organizations and expertise are hierarchical. Enterprise 2.0 software and the Internet won’t make organizational hierarchy and politics go away. They won’t make the ideas of the front-line worker in corporations as influential as those of the CEO. Most of the barriers that prevent knowledge from flowing freely in organizations – power differentials, lack of trust, missing incentives, unsupportive cultures, and the general busyness of employees today – won’t be addressed or substantially changed by technology alone.”

The research into use of tools like wikis [1], for example, supports Tom’s thoughts. It suggests that these tools do not change culture. Instead, culture is reflected in their adoption and how they are used:

• Strong heirarchies tend not to create information, but do correct spelling. They reinforce position power and therefore editorial and production-line communications and information
• Risk-adverse cultures have low contribution behaviour and rely on rules, processes and authority for contribution
• Strong egalitarian cultures, with low heirarchy, do exhibit strong creation behaviour
• Strong values in supporting of individual needs reflect strong creation, add and clarify information behaviour
• Strong supporting of groups and team-based work results in strong add and clarify information behaviour

It is these factors that will assist in us understanding why social computing tools work well in some organisations, but not in others. The idea that making great tools that supports people’s social needs to communicate and collaborate is a good step in introducing software that better aligns with their needs and the way they work, but it is not a catalyst for change – it’s only people who change people’s behaviour.

So if you built it, will they come? The answer is, unfortunately, a little complex. Logic would suggest that if you introduce any sort of technology without understanding whether it aligns to the needs of the corporate culture and those individuals in it then success is simply not assured. Putting the user first in these instances by adopting a user-centred design approach, therefore, is more likely to assure the success of introducing social computing tools into an organisation.

The question, then, should be “If you understand what users want, and then build it in such a way as it aligns with their needs and those of the organisation, will they come?” The answer, of course, is yes!

M

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11.  Pfeil, U., Zaphiris, P., and Ang, C. S. (2006). Cultural differences in collaborative authoring of Wikipedia. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12 (1), Article 5.

Stephen Collins has just tweeted his 12,000th tweet on Twitter – its a demonstration of the power of this social computing tool as a way of communicating with others that we’ve not seen since the days of the village square where everyone knew everyone else, what they were up to, and embraced the friendship and social cohesion it brought.

In his recent blog post, “Adventures in connectedness – Twitter“, Stephen questions the value of twittering as an internal business tool and suggests the risk is too great. He instead suggests locking your tweets in a cage and using Laconica or Yammer which provide equivalent value. But what are the risks? What are the mitigation strategies? What is the ROI in using Yammer over Twitter? He doesn’t suggest any. And I’m a bit surprised by his timidness in this regard.

Having recently undertaken a few threat/risk assessments, I’d like to suggest a more objective approach for assessing risk of adoption of social computing tools, including things like Twitter. Essentially, when assessing a risk, it’s part of an overall equation that examines:

1. an individual threat or issue: write the description of the risk
2. the likelihood of the risk: rate it from 1 (unlikely) to 3 (highly likely)
3. the resultant damage is the issue occurs: rate it from 1 (low damage) to 3 (high damage)

When you’ve written down all of the issues, multiply the likelihood with the damage. Those issues with high scores need stronger mitigation treatments than those with low scores. A mitigation strategy for an issue rated as a risk of 9 might be simply not to do it at all, while an issue with a score of 1 might simply have a mitigation strategy of monitoring to see if the issue rises in likelihood.

Risks and Mitigation

Here are some examples of risks and mitigation strategies that you might consider when putting a threat/risk assessment together.

Constant monitoring of risks is required with regular assessment points to determine if the likelihood of an issue should be downgraded (if its not occurring) or upgraded (when there are a few observations of the issue).

Assessing Risks in the Context of Benefits

The last part to the equation is balancing the calculated risk with the perceived benefits. You wouldn’t be considering any using something like Twitter unless you could see that your organisation would somehow benefit from using these tools.

One organisation I am working with, for example, has a BA Practice. Largely, they are isolated and essentially years behind current industry and best practice as a result. We’ve discussed using Twitter as a tool for not only establishing greater social cohesion with their internal Practice, but also as a way of better integration with those groups, experts and thought leaders outside the organisation, and encouraging knowledge sharing with other like-Practices.

The benefit to the Practice of using Twitter (and therefore the ROI to the organisation) are:

• greater opportunities for sharing knowledge thereby improving the capabilities of practitioners
• increasing capability for innovation, and
• increases in capability to generate IP as a result

Weigh the benefits with the risks is the important part. If the benefit is great and the risk is small then obviously adoption of the tool is a no brainer.

Putting it all together – a strategy

Documenting your decisions is the last step in implementing or choosing not to. It should clearly articulate all of the above items — issues, likelihood and damage — in light of the benefits as well as the roles involved with continued assessment and who is responsible for the mitigation actions.

Conclusions

Because tools like Twitter are really only new it’s hard for some people to get past the fear and doubt about their worth. It’s important in situations like these to move past personal opinion when making decisions and get down into addressing what the threats actually are, how they can be mitigated, and whether the benefits outweigh the risks. If you take this approach I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you can achieve inside the walls.

M

Stilgherrian, also known to some as the Rove of the Streaming Web, sent a twitter today asking what makes people follow others on Twitter.

What is Twitter? Some call it microblogging. Some say it’s text messaging for the web. To me, it’s a way of keeping in touch with the people who matter to me – both friends and colleagues. With the continual stream of messages from the hundred or so people I follow it’s like hearing what a neighbour is up to by listening over the fence, and if I have a question, popping my head over the fence to ask them.

One day I had a problem with finding some good evidence for using Personas, so twittered and asked for help from those who follow me. Within 10 minutes I had a great response from someone. 10 minutes later I had yet another response. When I talk of Twitter to organisations, particularly those who close the walls to staff who want to use social computing tools, I re-tell this story and note that Twitter gives you 24/7 access to your trusted network of within your community of practice … that’s a pretty powerful tool if you ask me.

I’ve blogged before and made conference presentations about how decisions are made regarding adoption and interaction in social computing environments. Stilgherrian’s question, though, prompted me to wonder what actually makes someone follow someone else. What makes an individual decide to take the step to add someone to their Twitter neighbourhood and listen over the fence?

Here’s the factors that I hypothesise that contribute to making a decision to ‘follow’ someone on Twitter:

• Friends intersection: How many friends do we have in common in Twitter? The friend of my friend is my friend!
• Tweets that establish identity: What do you tweet about? What does it say about you, who you are, what you do in your day-to-day life?
• Profile, identity and other community intersections: When I go to your profile, can I identify with who you are? Does it link to a blog that has things I’m interested in? Are we both on Flickr? Are we both Vampires on Facebook? Are there even real-life intersections that we have?
• Consistency and trust: Are the messages you write about consistent within Twitter and across the other channels you communicate through?
• Relevance: Is what you tweet about of relevance to me?
• Perceived benefit of future interactions: What’s in it for me? What will I get out of this relationship? Often in Twitter, simple, personal messages increase the casual intimacy between people.
• Completing the circle: Often my Twitter-friends are talking to others that I don’t know. Following them means I complete the picture of the conversation and add a potential friend.

Of course, some of these factors mean more to some people than others. On top of this, the factors in the ‘follow equation’ vary in importance over time. If, for example, Stilgherrian started to tweet spam all day, then I would likely stop following him because what he has to say is no longer relevant.

There are likely to be more factors we consciously or otherwise take into consideration when making the decision to follow someone in social computing environments. Which ones are relevant to you?

M

ps – if you’d like to follow me on Twitter, just visit www.twitter.com/magia3e

Over this past week I’ve been helping a federal government agency here in Canberra to work out how to engage citizens in the new, Web 2.0, social computing way. It’s been a lot of fun and draws on disciplines you wouldn’t have normally thought of when engaging a web-type consultant (like me), but I felt I needed to teach them some new tricks so they could enter this new world.

1. Psychology of behavioural change

When the government wants to inform the community it normally creates incredibly accurate information and then publishes it, in print and online — the online version mostly a reflection of the print media brochure. Instead, we’ve drawn on theories like the Transtheoretical Model of Behavioural Change. When you want to not only inform decision making behaviour but ensure that it leads to long-term behavioural change, this model is the one to inform how you create your communications strategy. Importantly, it says you need to reinforce the behaviour to ensure that people know what they’re doing is the right thing. This model also reminds us that it takes a long time to make a decision about something.

2. Sociology of online environments

Forrester first indicated that there’s more to consumption of online material than just being a passive spectator. There are many roles that need fulfilling when you want to interact with people online. People like to:

i Create

ii Criticise

iii Collect

iv Join

They also like to just spectate and then there are some who are inactive and are not interested at all. The secret to a successful website for online engagement is to how which interactions you want to encourage and then support them with Web 2.0-style widgets within the page that connects them to other people.

3. Psychology of trust

Importantly, if you’re going to deliver a message, you want to ensure that people believe it. Edelman’s researchover the last five years shows that people trust people like themselves. But how do you build trust in online environments when there’s no physical cues to help? It comes first with identity — the human face behind the interaction.

4. Psychology of group-dynamics

People behave according to the unwritten rules of the group — their norms. Creating thought leaders and allowing them to set the norms will encourage people who are like-minded, who identify with the group and its values, to join. If anyone steps out of line with the group norms, e.g. flames someone or comments inappropriately, the group will reinforce its own rules on that person in order to stop the unwanted behaviour. In essence, norms help the group self-regulate.

5. Psychology of communication

Language is an important identifier of who you are. If you want to draw certain people into a group, whether online or otherwise, you need to know what language, words, phrases, and even jargon, will attract them and what language will repel them. Use these words, rather than those of your organisation, to create the navigation labels and content classification scheme for the website.

6. Cognitive psychology

In his presentation to ACTKM08, Dave Snowden suggested that the found the most useful source of intelligence during the Iraq War was the field commanders blogs. Modern theories of memory suggest this is because we store and retrieve information in our brains in chunks and then let our brains sort out relationships between those memories. The stronger the associative strength between items the better and easier the recall. The lessons is to ensure that when giving people information to empower them to make decisions that short snippets of information in context is the most efficient way for them to store and then retrieve information. If you’re wanting to arm people with information to make decisions then this is the most efficient means of doing it — not by giving them a manual.

7. Knowledge management and storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful way of relating a personal experience that people can identify with and learn from. Knowledge management is full of techniques to draw upon that can help thought leaders in emerging virtual communities to pass on what they know, and how they know it, in order to educate and facilitate behavioural change in others.

If you’re creating new online environments, don’t just turn to wikis and blogs and the cool graphic designer who’ll come up with a funky name. There’s more to building successful online communities as a way of engaging stakeholders than meets the eye.

M

A few friends at Web Directions South 2008 in Sydney were Twittering about a possible Macbook Touch appearing at this year’s Macworld 2008. Unfortunately, all we got out of Macworld was little more than just aluminium Macbooks. No Apple Tablet. No Macbook Touch.

“It hasn’t made a lot of sense to us”, said Jobs when asked about the rumours surrounding a possible Macbook Touch. “We’re seeing some vendors using touch screens, but it’s typically on the desktop form factor not on a notebook”.

Maybe I’ll consider one when it comes out, if it comes out. Right now I’m more than happy with my new Toshiba r400 that replaced the old (stolen) Toshiba r400 tablet pc.

M

A little over a year ago I wrote a blog post on KM 2.0. In it I wrote:

“… has KM evolved to KM 2.0? No, not at all. KM is still about people and sharing knowledge. It’s always been about ensuring a supporting environment in which this can be best achieved. It’s never been about the technology because good KM can exist without it!”

Well, I’m about to change my mind, but not in the way you might first think.

I’ve been listenning to David Weinberger’s talks on “Everything is Miscelaneous” for a while now and have even shared it inside my own organisation in my role as practice lead for Web and Information Management. I particularly like the one he gave to the National Library of Congress way back in 2004 where he talks of the way in which our attitudes toward knowledge as a society has changed. And this got me thinking.

For about 2000 years we’ve treated knowledge as the province of experts, those who in Aristotle’s mind could help us define what something was and what it was not. What we then did with that knowledge was store it in the most accessible place we could — libraries like those in Alexandria and Ephesus. Unfortunately, this movement started our modern scientific philosophy of valuing fact, logic and reason over the personal and subjective as one was equated to the processes that produced and refined knowledge while the other was not.

Today, the process of validating knowledge is about peer review, but in terms described as modern Taylorism by the likes of Jon Husband, Dave Snowden and Dave Pollard, it means knowledge becomes the product of a careful, measured process in the same way we manufacture cars or cans of fruit.

Only 10 years ago, if John Citizen wanted to share his knowledge with the world, he would have to write a book or publish a journal article. Then, reviewers, editors and established experts, would vet the work and based on their positions of power, and accepted logic of the time, refute or accept what he had to say BEFORE it saw the light of day. And if it didn’t appear in trusted, knowledge repositories like Encyclopedia Britannica, no one would believe it to be the truth.

Fortunately, the web has changed our ways of producing knowledge by giving us social computing tools that reduce the barrier for participation in sharing knowledge so that anyone with a computer (or a mobile phone) can make a contribution. It means that John Citizen can contribute what he knows — even his personal and subjective experiences — to the world in a way that hasn’t been possible for the last two thousand years.

For me, this suggests that knowledge management is changing because the way the world views knowledge and creates it is changing. People are more trusting of John Citizen’s personal views on his blog than they are of CEOs and their company. If John writes an article on his experiences with a washing machine on a community forum because people can more easily identify with John and his ‘human voice’ they will trust him. If John is a friend of your friend Sue then you’re more likely to trust John and what he says.

That’s why at the upcoming ACTKM08 conference I’m about to go out on a limb and say I’ve changed my mind about KM 2.0. Sure, KM is about storytelling, I think we’re in the midst of a global paradigm shift because of web 2.0 and social computing about what constitutes knowledge, the processes we undertake to produce it, and value we place on mythos versus logos …and I think it’s about to change the discipline of knowledge management.

Hope to see you there

M

Update: This presentation now has audio!

Last weekend I deliverred my presentation ‘Psych your mind’ at Oz-IA, Australia’s premiere conference on information architecture. The subject was the psychology of social computing adoption and how to put together a strategy that ties an understanding of how people think and behave when it comes to fulfilling their social needs online, information architecture, and technology.

You can download the slides from my Slideshare page.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous about the presentation as I seemed to have made a good impresion last year and so wanted to be sure that I didn’t dissapoint. Fortunately, the response was very positive. Someone in the lunch break said that it was a great way to open the conference (even though I actually presented second) while James Breeze of Objective Digital suggesting that I should write a book on the subject.

I’ve yet to work though the audio so I can slidecast this presentation like I did with my ‘The Intranet Is Dead‘ presentation for the LG Web Network confeence a few months ago, but it will come soon for all of you who couldn’t make Oz-IA this year. For those of you who did see the presentation I’d encourage you to give me some feedback so that I can improve on the material.

M

While the OS battle continues between Microsoft and Apple, it’s being suggested that Chrome, Google’s new browser, will take people a step closer no longer needing an operating system — at least as we know it today.

“I believe that is really Google’s intent,” said Sridhar Vembu, the chief executive of Zoho, a California-based softwaremaker.

It’s true that Chrome currently requires Microsoft’s operating system to work, but the browser’s code base and Google’s other online applications — including mail, document editors, spreadsheets and photo editing software — demonstrate that the age where practically everything you need will be stored online and not on your computer is just around the corner.

This is called “cloud computing” and it’s the way that many people like myself are already working. And there are big savings to be had for organisations if they move this way. It costs around $2000 for licences, computer maintenance, staffing, and the like, to have one person use Outlook an organisation’s standard operating environment, including the growing storage costs over a few years. Google’s Apps Premier subscriptions cost $50 USD per user per year with a 99.9% uptime service level agreement [1].

Taking advantage of the savings to be had in cloud-computing, 40,000 of the Arizona State University’s 65,000 students have switched to Google accounts. While previously, the university offered inbox quotas of 50 MB per student, Gmail offers 2 GB of storage. As a result of the move, the university has already been able to transition two of its four full-time engineers who had managed the 4 terabyte (TB) NetApp storage system to other more important functions. The savings offered by the switch to Gmail are $350,000 per year alone in storage, maintenance and personnel costs [2].

How much does maintaining your infrastructure cost? How much do you personally spend on software? Maybe you need to consider the move to cloud computing?

M

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[1] Ribeiro, J (2008) Google extends Apps Premier credit for Gmail outages. 28 August, 01:45 PM. Online at: <http://www.itworld.com/…/premier-credit-gmail-outages>, accessed on 7 Sept 2008

[2] Pariseau, B (2007) College slashes storage costs with Google Gmail. 01 March. Online at: <http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/…/245576,00.html>, accessed on 7 Sept 2008

I was playing with the Topic Map Kid site a few days ago and wanted to use the HTTP Header information to write the site’s root. Unfortunately, after a bit of googling it seemed that no one could help with a javascript solution to access the header information. To cut strings, Javascript doesn’t have the same handy left() right() functions that ASP Classic has either.

So, the only option available to me was to slice and dice the window.location.href which I thought I would share with you all.

 function Left(str, n){
  if (n <= 0)
      return “”;
  else if (n > String(str).length)
      return str;
  else
      return String(str).substring(0,n);
 }

 function Right(str, n){
     if (n <= 0)
        return “”;
     else if (n > String(str).length)
        return str;
     else {
        var iLen = String(str).length;
        return String(str).substring(iLen, iLen – n);
     }
 }

 //find the current url of the site incl page
 var ajax_url = window.location.href;
 
 //cut out the http:// part … which equals 7 characters
 var ajax_url_len = ajax_url.length – 7;
 
 //now strip out the http:// part
 ajax_url = Right(ajax_url, ajax_url_len)
 
 // identify the first / which will be the .com/page.html part
 var where_is_slash=ajax_url.indexOf(’/');

 // now cut out the /path.html .. etc .. part so we’ve just left with the site’s URL
 ajax_url = Left(ajax_url,where_is_slash);

Storyboards have been on my mind lately, having delivered an internal presentation on user-centred design based on my presentation to business analysts at BA World Symposium a few months ago. You can imagine my delight, therefore, when Google released their beta of Chrome and, along with it, a storyboard of why it’s a good browser.

Reflecting on Google’s storyboards a colleague of mine commented:

“That’s quite impressive – you can really see what you were saying during your presentation that it helps to ‘humanize’ the design process (or certainly makes you as a user feel as though Google are making an effort to do so)”

Storyboards are often used in the movie-making business to sort out errors in logic in the plot, where perhaps some characters are superfluous, where things are running just too slowly, and even camera angles. You’ll see this in the extras for movies like Finding Nemo, the Lord of the Rings, and the Matrix. They’re also a good tool for IAs and BAs to work out business processes from a user’s perspective, detailing their thoughts, behaviour, and their experience.

When you’re wanting to communicate a user’s experience, rather than jumping right into Visio and starting to map processes, pick up some paper and a pencil and create a storyboard instead. Then see what the difference is when you take it to users to show them how this system will help them do their work.

M