A few brave souls joined us for the first session of the day and I thank them for their attendance, attention, and participation (both in person and on twitter…)

The presentation was theoretical in orientation. And highly metaphorical. My part of the presentation (I will let Thomas write about his own perspectives on his blog) provided an entry point into thinking about urban planning through New York’s Greenwich Village, the battle between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs in the 1950′s and 1960′s, and the book that resulted from that battle; The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It was in this book that Jacobs took aim at the high modernist, “rational,” technocratic central planners of her time, who wished to engineer away the mess and slums of cities with their urban renewal efforts and concrete reveries.

In that book, Jacobs argues that thriving cities thrive because of their complexity, disorder and messiness not because of their pristine order and engineered efficiency. And while modernist architecture and large-scale centrally planned civic efforts fell mostly out of favour in the 1970′s and onwards (unless you’re in northern China in cities like Ordos today), my argument is that their principles and spirit found a happy home in a less material yet no less psychologically crushing environment; information technology.

Information technology and the systems of records that we’ve been building inside of organizations ever since the 1970’s have been bastions of modernist architectural design thought. The automation and digitization of the workforce and its corresponding mechanical metaphors, images, and language run rampant inside our institutions even to this day. They are embedded in our systems and therefore our thinking.

But this is changing. Slowly but surely, the mess and complexity is starting to be understood and not feared. It’s a slow road and has many long years ahead as people leave behind their metaphorical “organization as machine” thinking. But I do believe it is happening.

Others believe it’s happening too. Dave Gray of Dachis Group has written extensively about this with his Connected Company efforts. It was his blog post in February 2011 that prompted me to get off my ass and finally put some of my thoughts down into a small burst of 3 blog posts on the subject. And that, plus some ongoing emails and conversations with Thomas turned into the presentation today.

So what’s Dave’s preferred metaphor for the organization, if not the machine? Well, it’s a complex system. And what better complex system to choose than a city.

My question is simple: if we are going to think about our organizations as cities, what can we learn from people who “design” cities for a living? Those “designers” are called planners and their profession is planning. Who are they? What do they do? How do they plan?

As I’ve found out through my readings and conversations, planning has a rich history – a 200 year old history dating back to the Enlightenment. Based on the definitions of planning and the types of problems that planners try to solve (often “wicked problems” in nature and form), I believe we have a great deal to learn from them.

Fundamentally, planning can be defined as a forward looking activity, one that takes what we know and turns it into action in a rational manner. And for most planners, their work is in the public domain; civic government, public sector activities – different aspects of society or public life where their knowledge, decisions, actions, and rationality play out. For social business professionals, our domain is the organization. While that sounds neat and tidy, the lines are blurring there and enterprise social software is playing a role. Customer feedback, internal collaboration and communication, not to mention the involvement of partners in the decision making processes mean that social business’s landscape is varied and increasingly expanding.

My pitch, while not elevator quality by a long shot, is as follows:

Knowledge (be it scientific, technical, and other forms) and its connection to the future through action, decision making, and the processes and practices whereby
we arrive at what we consider to be “rational” for our new fangled social businesses is at the core of the value proposition of the systems of engagement, of enterprise social software.

And if the Enterprise 2.0 conference attendees thought they were there to buy software, they were perhaps only half right. The value of that software, it’s purpose, is the reconfiguration of social relations, the way people work, and the way people create value and meaning inside organizations.

And the practice of social transformation is planning.

The audience of our talk were all planners. They just didn’t know it yet.

Due to this unawareness, I believe that the lack of planning theory in the Enterprise social software field represents a huge intellectual blindspot. One that I hope to contribute to shining a light on some more in the future.

The thoughts that I wished to share with the conference were appreciative in nature – that is, they were primarily used in order to, in planning historian John Friedman’s words, “construct a satisfying image of the world, pursued primarily for the world view it opens up.” If Gareth Morgan was to re-write Images of the Organization, or at least update it today, I hope he’d include a chapter on “Organization as City” (as an aside, I know I could do without the chapter “Organization as Game” which is another blog post in the making…).

After Thomas provided his ideas that had been informed by his background reading and schooling in planning and public policy thought, I wrapped up with a few references to some ideas that really resonate with me:

The differences of space and place, well articulated by Paul Dourish in his 2001 book on the philosophical aspects of software Where the Action Is, is one which borrows quite obviously from planning and architecture. Space is geometric in nature, place is experiential and social. So how do we great great places in our software? This is still a key question in UX that needs work to be done.

Networks vs. hierarchies – Christopher Alexander and his 1965 essay The City is Not a Tree is worth re-reading. As of course, is Alexander’s Pattern Language.

Dave Snowden‘s concept of safe-fail vs. fail-safe and the lightweight, low-cost urban traffic and street-scape interventions of people like Janet Sadik-Khan in New York is another one that I think we can learn from in our complex social software systems.

And finally, wherever we are thinking about the future, utopian visions aren’t far behind. We fall in love with our models and visions of the city from the air, when really we should be designing from the street level. Mind the Platonic Fold! How do we ensure that we don’t get too enamoured with our models and static representations of clearly dynamic, evolving, and changing social systems?

How this translates back into social software, its design, and our processes for integrating it with our day to day lives inside of organizations – that’s a work in progress. I’m a firm believer in the value of theory, not just for theory’s sake. I believe that through better understanding these concepts, we can have an impact on our technologies and our thinking.

(the E2conf braintrust enjoying some amazing Malaysian food – thanks Sameer, Suzie, and Megan for making it happen)

For now, it’s food for thought, a provocation, one that will get conversation flowing. I’m looking forward to many more conversations and conferences that lie ahead on this topic.

Meet in front of the Sheraton Boston at 7am Thursday for our last of three guided runs. Coach Stacie has a great new run picked out and we’ll offer post-run Cliff Bars and drinks (are we the only vendor not providing cocktails?). You can also pickup a printed map of our running routes at the ThoughtFarmer booth on the Expo Floor.

The social business brain trust meets in front of Sheraton for first run

Sights of Boston on first two runs

The ThoughFarmer runs have been a big hit. Well, to be honest, a small hit. We’ve had great groups of runners and there’s nothing like starting a fresh day with a run through Boston’s historic streets and along the beautiful Charles River.

Our first run on Tuesday looped around the gorgeous Charles River and provided views of Boston’s fabled Back Bay neighborhood from across the river in Cambridge.

Team #e2conf running through Boston's Back Bay, still smiling

On our second run this morning we explored the Boston Common, now a beautiful park but originally Boston’s first cow pasture.

Committed runners gather early in the morning on day 2

Classic dilemma: Endorphins vs. guilt

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from these runs, it’s that the Enterprise 2.0 Conference is really just an excuse for innovative geeks from around the world to meet up and party. We’ve had a great group for our daily runs, but have about 200 guilty buddies at the conference who wish they could run but have stayed up late enjoying sponsor after-parties and Boston’s awesome bar scene (who can blame them?).

If you need to make up for bad behavior, join our last run tomorrow (Thursday) morning. Get that endorphin kick to start your last day at the E2.0 conference and enjoy Boston’s sights while talking social business (perhaps while huffing & puffing).

Stop by the ThoughtFarmer booth for maps of the running routes

ThoughtFarmer's running guide: Stacie Justice

Come join us for any or all of 3 morning runs we’ve organized at the 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston! Start the day fresh with a natural boost of endorphins and some old-fashioned socializing, no entry ticket required.

We’ve hired our Boston-based pal Stacie Justice to map out and lead a few relaxed runs through Boston’s historic and beautiful neighborhoods. Coach Stacie will meet us in front of the Sheraton Boston and guide us at a pleasant 9 min/mile pace around Boston’s crooked streets, famous parks and stunning waterways.

Join the group and walk (run) the talk of work-life balance while you’re away from home for business!

Dates, start time & meet-up location

Dates: Tues, Jun 21; Wed, Jun 22; Thurs, June 23

Start times: Meet at 7:00am, start at 7:10am

Where to meet: In front of the Sheraton Boston Hotel main entrance, look for coach Stacie in a ThoughtFarmer t-shirt.

Route handouts: Coach Stacie will have printed route maps (1.6 Mb PDF) available, including for folks who prefer to run solo.

Meet coach Stacie

Don’t be intimidated by our Boston-based running coach, Stacie Justice. While she ran all-state cross country for four years in high school and ran Division 1 cross country at Oral Roberts University, she runs mostly for fun now.

Stacie ran the Chicago and San Francisco marathons and is currently training for a 3:40 time to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She’s run several half marathons, with a 1:38 PR in the Hyannis Half Marathon, and has recently run in two 200-mile relay races in New England.

Stacie grew up on a farm in Kansas and moved to the Boston area after finishing college. She “started running in 6th grade and never stopped.” While she loves living in and running through Boston, she misses plenty of things in Kansas, especially her horse.

Look for coach Stacie outside the Sheraton Boston Hotel in a ThoughtFarmer t-shirt the mornings of June 22, 23, 24.

Route maps & run stats

Download the PDF handout with all three routes, or see interactive Google Maps of the individual routes below.

Route #1: 3.66 miles around Charles River (map & details)

Route #2: 3.84 miles through the Back Bay (map & details)

Route #3: 5.5 miles to Boston Harbor and back (map & details)

Opt in with Plancast!

Opt in on Plancast, or just show up! If you have questions or suggestions, talk to us on Twitter @ThoughtFarmer or email hello@thoughtfarmer.com.

In my last blog post on connected companies, complex systems, and social intranets, I wrote a little bit about the appropriateness of mechanical metaphors and models in complex times. While I never used the term explicitly the competing metaphor to the mechanical, which Ephraim picked up on in his comments, is the organic.

This dualism of the mechanical and the organic is not new in western philosophical thought. In fact, it’s about 500 years old, tracing its roots back to Francis Bacon in the 1600′s. And as recently as 120 years ago, Emile Durkheim helped establish modern sociology using these concepts as central parts of his ideas and theories on the ties that bind people together.

Continuing the tradition of the dualism set forth by Bacon, Durkheim, and others, we fast-forward to the 20th century and the 1960′s work of Tom Burns and George Stalker which had much impact in the field of organization theory, with their study of innovation, management, and structure of Scottish electronics firms. In their writing on mechanistic and organismic structures, they outlined the differences between the two types and solidified the concept in the minds of future generations of organizational theorists and business scholars. [Updated: for a critique / deconstruction of Burns and Stalker's M/O binary, read David Boje's 1999 essay "Five Centuries of Mechanistic-Organic Debate" - Apr 18/11 GR]

Burns and Stalker claimed “a mechanistic management system is appropriate to stable conditions” whereas an “organismic form is appropriate to changing conditions, which give rise constantly to fresh problems and unforeseen requirements for action which cannot be broken down or distributed automatically arising from the functional roles defined with a hierarchic structure.”

The properties of both types of firms are described by Burns and Stalker below:

Mechanistic Systems:

1. the specialized differentiation of functional tasks into which the problems and tasks facing the concern are broken down.;
2. the abstract nature of each individual task, which is pursued with techniques and purposes more or less distinct from those of the concern as a whole; i.e., the functionaries tend to pursue the technical improvement of means, rather than the accomplishment of the ends of the concern.;
3. the reconciliation, for each level in the hierarchy, of these distinct performances by the immediate superiors, who are also, in turn, responsible for seeing that each is relevant in his own special part of the main task.
4. The precise definition of rights and obligations and technical methods attached to each functional role;
5. the translation of rights, and obligations, and methods into the responsibilities of a functional position;
6. hierarchic structure of control, authority and communication;
7. a reinforcement of hierarchic structure by the location of knowledge of actualities exclusively at the top of the hierarchy, where the final reconciliation of distinct tasks and assessment of relevant is made;
8. a tendency for vertical interaction between members of the concern, i.e., between superior and subordinate;
9. a tendency for operations and working behavior to be governed by the instructions and decisions issued by superiors;
10. insistence on loyalty to the concern and obedience to superiors as a condition of membership;
11. a greater importance and prestige attaching to internal (local) than to general (cosmopolitan) knowledge, experience, and skill.”

Organic Systems:

1. the contributive nature of special knowledge and experience to the common task of the concern;
2. the realistic nature of the individual task, which is seen as set by the total situation of the concern;
3. the adjustment and continual re-definition of individual tasks through interaction with others;
4. the shedding of responsibility as a limited field of rights, obligations and methods. (Problems may not be posted upwards, downwards or sideways as being someone else’s responsibility)’;
5. the spread of commitment to the concern beyond any technical definition;
6. a network structure of control, authority, and communication. The sanctions which apply to the individual’s conduct in his working role derive more from presumed community of interest with the rest of the working organization in the survival and growth of the firm, and less from a contractual relationship between himself and a non-personal corporation, represented for him by an immediate superior;
7. omniscience no longer imputed to the head of the concern; knowledge about the technical or commercial nature of the here and now task may be located anywhere in the network; this location becoming the ad hoc center of control, authority and communication.
8. a lateral rather than a vertical direction of communication through the organization, communication between people of different rank, also, resembling consultation rather than command:
9. a content of communication which consists of information and advice rather than instructions and decisions;
10. commitment to the concern’s tasks and to the ‘technological ethos’ of material progress and expansion is more highly valued than loyalty and obedience;
11. importance and prestige attach to affiliations and expertise valid in the industrial and technical and commercial milieu external to the firm.”

Source: Burns and Stalker, Organizational Theory (D.S. Pugh), Penguin, 1990

This description, again written nearly 50 years before systems of engagement became a real possibility inside modern organizations, describes the traits and characteristics that many social business pundits describe in near-utopian terms. Network structures vs. hierarchy, knowledge at the top vs. knowledge everywhere, lateral communication vs. vertical (silo’d) communication, fuzzy definition of roles vs. highly prescriptive job descriptions: the language of the organic organizational model as described by Burns and Stalker reads like an Enterprise 2.0 sales brochure.

So why should we privilege one model over another? Why is it that we think organic models are “better” somehow? Why has this model (to some) become an imperative?

That argument lies at the heart of their article, that ties structure to performance. A commonly observed sentiment is that businesses today face increasingly complex markets, situations, problems, and the model that is best suited for this type of environment is the organic, not the mechanistic. This idea is related to the foundation of Contingency Theory (also developed in the 1960′s), that “there is no one best way of organizing / leading and that an organizational / leadership style that is effective in some situations may not be successful in others.” Organic is more applicable / effective in the complex.

Do organic organizations outperform mechanistic organizations in complex environments? It bears asking the question after all, even if the idea of an organic organization simply feels like the right thing to do in complex situations.

I managed to find this 2006 article by Sine, Mitsuhashi, and Kirsch that revisited the work of Burns and Stalker to attempt to answer that very question, by looking at the performance and organizational models of emerging Internet firms in the late 1990′s (instead of the mature firms often studied and indeed part of the original Burns & Stalker research). And not to spoil it for those of you interested in reading this article, but the conclusion they draw is that a mixture of both mechanical and organic, well-defined and designed in some areas and more undefined, ambiguous, and fluid in others, results in overall better performance.

So while conceptually in “opposition” to each other, the mechanistic vs. organic is really a continuum, with many shades of gray in between, and rarely does one firm entirely exhibit the archetypal characterization at either end of the spectrum. This should be common-sensical to anyone involved in running a business. Some areas are mechanical. Other areas are organic. These can co-exist and should continue to co-exist in order to keep the firm alive and thriving.

Instead of spending time debating one model over another as some kind of debate about universal organizational forms, I think I’ll side with the contingency theory types, who boldly answer, “Well, it depends…” And that means focusing on how to recognize the problem domain you currently face (simple, complicated, complex, chaotic), effectively utilize these two metaphors and their corresponding organizational design characteristics, and ask how technology can then support your organization’s individual and collective decision making efforts.

It’s been a few days since the end of Enterprise 2.0 Santa Clara and there’s been a few blog posts that have chosen to tackle wrap up the conference or tackle some of problems around the definitions of social business, enterprise 2.0 or whatever this market for software like ours actually entails.

While we’ve been at it for the past 5 years with ThoughtFarmer and my ear is far more attuned to the debate than most of our clients and potential clients, I’m not too fussed about it. I probably side closer to Larry’s perspective. Instead of talking about the signifier, let’s talk about the signified. The thing itself. And how it works.

I did leave the conference with some nagging concerns about the industry and how the conference represents those in the industry. In particular, how the conference communicates to potential buyers of software and people like my clients, instead of how industry insiders quibble with each other on new buzzwords and posture against competitors in keynote infomercials.

Maybe I’m just too close to having organized and put on an event and I’m caught up in the halo effect that goes along with that, but I wound up with a list of things that left me unsatisfied. I have a big list, which I’m somewhat surprised about, but I’ll save my rants about how panel discussions should be done to maximize audience value, the constant invocation of (absent in the room) Millennials and generalizations about how non-workplace sociality is setting the norm for workplace sociality, or imperatives and determinism of any flavour….

Instead, I’ll focus on my biggest beef of the entire conference.

Sloppy use of the word collaboration. Still.

Collaboration. What does it mean?

I get the sense that if you’re a potential buyer looking to understand enterprise 2.0, social business, and social software for the enterprise, that you’d have left the Enterprise 2.0 conference with the idea that you know you should be collaborating, but you’re probably not sure how to do it or what it entails. And just like teenagers and sex, you get the sense that everyone else is doing it, but not you. And even if you are doing it, everyone else is doing it a lot better, more frequently, and having a lot more fun than you are.

So let’s cut to the chase. How we define collaboration as a problem defines how solutions and designs work to address that problem. And not by mistake, problems and solutions are at the core of collaboration.

Here’s a definition I’m fond of from Barbara Grey and her book Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems

Collaboration is a process through which people who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible.

Lovely. Catch all of that:

• people
• process
• problems
• differences
• search for solutions
• results beyond any individual

Whole is greater than the sum of its parts and all that. It’s a great starting point.

But for Enterprise 2.0′s purposes, we need to dig deeper into collaboration. If you’ve spoken to me about this topic over the past 2 years, you’ll know I’m fond of referencing three collaboration patterns that acknowledge the different types of working arrangements and problem solving activities that social software can afford. These three patterns were first written about by Shawn Callahan, Mark Schenk, and Nancy White from Anecdote, an Australian intranet and KM consulting firm.

In their whitepaper, “Building a Collaborative Workplace” published in April 2008, Anecdote describes three levels of collaboration: team collaboration, community collaboration, and network collaboration.

Go and read the full article yourself, but here’s the definitions of each mode:

Team Collaboration
The members of the group are known, there are clear task interdependencies, expected reciprocity, and explicit time-lines and goals.

To achieve the goal, members must fulfill their interdependent tasks within the stated time.

Team collaboration often suggests that, while there is explicit leadership, the participants cooperate on an equal footing and will receive equal recognition.

An example is a six-member team working together to develop a new marketing strategy in a month, with a defined set of resources.

Team collaborations can also occur with external partners, but there is always a clear mandate and defined roles.

Community Collaboration
There is a shared domain or area of interest, but the goal is more often focused on learning rather than on task.

People share and build knowledge rather than complete projects.

Members may go to their communities to help solve their problems by asking questions and getting advice, then taking that advice back home to implement in their teams.

Membership may be bounded and explicit, but time periods are often open or ongoing.

Membership is often on equal footing, but more experienced practitioners may have more status or power in the community.

Reciprocity is within the group, but not always one to one (“I did this for you, now you do this for me”).

Network Collaboration
Steps beyond the relationship-centric nature of team and community collaboration.

It is collaboration that starts with individual action and self-interest, which then accrues to the network as individuals contribute or seek something from the network.

Membership and time-lines are open and unbounded.

There are no explicit roles. Members most likely do not know all the other members. Power is distributed.

This form of collaboration is driven by the advent of social media (tools that help us connect and interact online), ubiquitous internet connectivity and the ability to connect with diverse individuals across distance and time.

It is a response to the overwhelming volume of information we are creating. It’s impossible for an individual to cope on their own. So networks become mechanisms for knowledge and information capture, filtering and creation.

————————————————————————–

Great stuff. And with that model, we can look internally at collaboration amongst ourselves and our coworkers on projects, in communities, and via networks, as well as look externally when we collaborate with our customers or suppliers in each of those three domains.

So when next time someone says they have the need to collaborate more, ask them “what do you mean when you use that word?” And when you as a product vendor claim to offer a collaborative solution or your system affords collaboration, define what you mean by that.

• Do you have a community space feature where your customers and staff can exchange ideas about future directions for your product? (BTW, is that what people are talking about as SocialCRM? Is that what people were trying to talk about at E2Conf in all of those sessions?)
• Do you offer project and document management tools for geographically distributed team members within you organization to work together on a project?
• Are you harnessing individual behaviours in the system, aggregating and analyzing them and displaying them back to your users to suggest what other content or people they might be interested?

Either way, let’s adopt some more rigor around the use of the word collaboration. It’s a really basic thing but it’s lowering the level of discourse and discussion that could be had because we’re using the same word to talk about a lot of different things. It’s not doing any of us (vendors) or our customers any favours.

On another note, I’m part-time at KM World 2010 in Washington DC this week in between working for a great new client here in DC. Given the topics and personalities assembled, this seems to be a lot more relevant to a potential customer or even educated vendor as to what we’re really trying to do with these technologies. Having never been to KM World before, I’ll be keen on knowing if that’s the case of if its just good marketing…

If you’re around and would like to chat, send me a note via Twitter – I’m @gordonr.

photo: Bevin Hernandez keynotes at Enterprise 2.0 – credit: Alex Dunne

In a two-part blog post, we’ll take a look at the history of their social intranet our.outreach and then share some of the usage data gathered across the last 18 months on the intranet. We’ll start with how Penn State made the business case and their famous launch and then look at activity on the intranet and what trends have happened over 18 months of organizational change.

Making the Business Case for a New Intranet
Every year Penn State University Outreach hosted the Day of Connection. Staff from across the 1800 person department at Penn State would come together in a day-long conference to listen to keynote speakers, share stories and experiences, and connect with co-workers from the various program areas under the Outreach umbrella: Continuing Education, World Campus/Online Education, Youth Programs, Cooperative Extension, and Penn State Public Broadcasting. The Day of Connection was designed to educate, inspire, and connect Outreach staff, offering a unique opportunity to forge links across a wide-ranging and geographically distributed organization.

It was a special event for participants, many of whom had never met each other before or only heard about each others’ work through meetings, newsletters, emails, and traditional means of communication. But while the Day of Connection left employees feeling energized and engaged, it was limited in its reach: approximately 400 people could participate and it was only one day of the year. And it was costly: travel, facility, and coordination costs were significant to organize the one day event.

Following the January 2008 Day of Connection, Outreach’s Vice President Dr. Craig Weidemann tasked a group of Outreach HR and Internal Communications employees to review the format and goals for the next Day of Connection. The team analyzed results from a 2006 internal communications survey and the follow-up survey for the 2007 Day of Connection. They also reviewed the direct and indirect costs over the past 5 years for the Day of Connection.

One of the key findings from the 2006 survey result showed that employees wanted to use technology to enhance their productivity at work. At the same time, the existing intranet scored low in their evaluation of communication channel effectiveness. On a 4 point scale from 1 = Poor to 4 = Good, here’s how their internal communications efforts stacked up:

• one-on-one meetings with immediate supervisors: 3.21
• all-staff meetings: 2.71
• newsletters: 2.66
• email listserv announcements: 2.53
• intranet: 1.99

My Outreach: the Penn State Outreach intranet prior to January 2009

The team returned to the VP with a proposal to move Day of Connection online via a renewed intranet, aimed at reducing costs and increasing reach and access.

By moving online, Outreach would be able to invite all staff to participate instead of selected Day of Connection participants and experience the benefits of allow employees to connect the other 364 days of the year. Effects would be lasting, coordination costs would be reduced, and other communications initiatives would benefit.

The intranet launch positively addresses many of the challenges of a traditional Day:

From internal document on our.outreach: “A Serendipitous Collision!” – January 28, 2009

Intranet Return on Investment: 365 days of connection

The renewed intranet was sold on the return on investment of turning Day of Connection into an online event. All funds previously allocated to the annual Day would be turned into a many-to-many, collaborative intranet environment where knowledge sharing and connection would become a regular occurrence in Outreach, not just a one day event.
The project got the go-ahead, a new employee was hired to project manage the effort, and the team set out to create the new Outreach intranet.

Defining the Intranet’s Goals

The team crafted goals that were designed to address the previous shortcomings with the Day of Connection as well as take into account the findings of the previous communications research.

“The intranet will engage employees to connect across Outreach with peers, management, and leadership, encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing. These connections will provide greater service to our learners, our communities, and each other. It will:

From internal document on our.outreach: “A Serendipitous Collision!” – January 28, 2009

Launch of our.outreach

The launch event on January 28, 2009 was the culmination of 7 intense weeks of work by Outreach, including the Christmas holiday break. The our.outreach team launched a multi-pronged marketing campaign throughout the organization, including postcards, posters, technology training sessions, welcome packages, videos, and day-of launch party celebrations. For more details on the remarkable launch campaign, please read Best Enterprise 2.0 Launch Ever? Penn State’s ThoughtFarmer Roll-Out on the ThoughtFarmer blog.

Penn State Outreach’s re-launched intranet, powered by ThoughtFarmer

After the party

As remarkable as the launch of our.outreach was in its scale, scope, and inventiveness, the true success of the intranet could not be measured in one day. January 28, 2009 was the beginning of a new way of communicating, collaborating, and learning at Penn State, one which had never been attempted before. But the real results would be uptake in usage, new connections formed, knowledge sharing, and changed behaviours amongst staff.

In our next article, we’ll look at 18 months of activity on the intranet since the January 2009 launch and share some of the usage statistics that Penn State has gathered, detailing their adoption efforts.

This is the latest of our Intranet Case Studies.

This segment of the technology industry attracts sharp minds who are intrigued by the same difficult problem: How can technology make workplace collaboration more effective? The answers require experts not just in technology, but in ethnography, human factors and psychology too.

Last night our VP Gordon Ross discussed the writings of Richard Sennett with Michael Idinopulos, a deep thinker from SocialText with whom I’ve engaged in lively online debate. We also talked about some of our common problems as vendors, such as figuring out the best way to explain comprehensive software suites in terms that the target customer appreciates. Are we enterprise collaboration, chaos management, Facebook for the enterprise or social intranet software? Is “social” even a good word to use?

Michael, Deb Schultz and Gord in deep discussion

Shortly before that, we were guests at an event hosted by Aaron Fulkerson and Isaac Garcia, CEOs of MindTouch and Central Desktop, respectively. Aaron introduced Darren to the noted Open Source developer Miguel de Icaza, creator of Gnome (Miguel is famous in geek circles). Aaron showed me his MindTouch tattoo (don’t worry, it’s on his calf), and we talked openly about a large bid that we’re competing against each other on. Isaac shared his advice on server farms as we move towards a hosted version of ThoughtFarmer.

I attended the Jive “New Way” briefing on Monday and enjoyed the free chocolates . Jive puts on a flashy show, and their new executives are seasoned presenters. I have to say, though, that there are too many men in suits at Jive for my liking. It was comforting to see their soon-to-be-very-wealthy co-founder and CTO, Matt Tucker, doing network configuration on the Macs at their booth. He’s still a geek.

Percentage of execs in suits apparently peaks around $100M in revenue

Lawrence Liu, now of Cisco and formerly of Telligent and before that, Microsoft, told me that all these software packages are overbuilt and 5 to 10 years ahead of where the customer base is at. We discussed ThoughtFarmer’s forthcoming SharePoint 2010 Connector, and he said there’s a lot of money to be made riding Microsoft’s coattails — if you don’t mind being their lackey.

Gord, Darren and Chris at the ThoughtFarmer booth. Photo by Jordan from Traction Software -- another friendly competitor. Thanks Jordan!

Rather than avoid or resent my competitors in this space, I like to embrace them. They’re great people with great ideas that I can learn from. And as Isaac said last night to the guests at his event, “This is a huge market. There’s going to be a lot of winners.”

Imagine this scenario, which plays out millions of times a day: A colleague emails you a Word doc. You double-click the attachment. It downloads and opens in Word. You make some changes and click “Save”. The “Save as…” dialog pops up, you choose a smart location for it, give it a filename, then save it. Next, you open your email program again, hit “Reply” on your colleague’s email, select “Attach file”, locate your file, and hit okay. Finally, you send it back.

Ugh.

Detaching, editing, saving, re-attaching and sending is a nightmare. And it’s a nightmare that almost all of us are forced to deal with daily.

At ThoughtFarmer, we’ve come up with a brilliant solution for this problem that we call round-trip file editing. It’s a knowledge worker’s dream, and we’re unveiling it next week at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.

Here’s how that same Word doc works with round-trip file editing: You go to a ThoughtFarmer page that contains the Word doc. You click “Edit”. It automatically downloads and opens in Word. You edit, and every time you hit “Save”, the file is automatically uploaded back to ThoughtFarmer, ready for your colleague.

Unlike SharePoint, which only does round-trip editing on Windows using Internet Explorer for certain types of files, ThoughtFarmer does round-trip editing with any browser, on Windows or Mac, and with any type of file — Office, PhotoShop, AutoCad, you name it. It works through the firewall — if your browser can see your intranet, you can do round-trip editing. You can even work on the file offline and it will automatically sync up when you reconnect.

All this is made possible via our new Desktop Connector:

The ThoughtFarmer Desktop Connector lets you open files from your ThoughtFarmer intranet and edit them directly in their native application. No detaching, no emailing around, no re-uploading.

For anyone who’s suffered through downloading and re-uploading of files while trying to collaborate with a colleague: we’ve been there, we’ve felt the pain, and now we’ve done something about it.

If you’re in Boston next week, come visit us at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference for a demo.