Didn't We Already Solve That Problem?
In the very funny movie, "Groundhog Day," Bill Murray's character is forced to relive the same day over and over again—constantly repeating the same dialog, actions and events.
More and more companies are finding themselves in a similar "endless cycle" these days.
Employees who quit or retire with specialized expertise and knowledge take it with them. As a result, companies are forced to spend time and money training their remaining employees to re-solve the exact same problems over and over.
The solution, however, isn't to simply extract the knowledge from current employees and bottle it up on a server somewhere. That approach to knowledge management has failed, according to Don Tapscott, an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. In an interview with McKinsey Quarterly, he said "We had this view that knowledge is a finite asset ... [that] you manage it by containerizing it."
But that's not true. As Don put it, "Knowledge is an infinite resource. You don't achieve it through containerization; you achieve it through collaboration."
Social platforms such as tibbr offer the collaborative tools necessary for effective knowledge management. These robust platforms allow knowledge sharing, ideation and project collaboration to happen across systems and applications.
They tell the real story of what's going on inside a company better than Monday morning staff meetings or briefing books prepared the previous week. Social platforms reveal what's in the minds of the employees who are on the front lines every day. Just as Twitter and Facebook allow political campaigns to take the pulse of the public minute by minute, private enterprise social networks can help to make sure that you are taking the pulse of your business in real time, all the time.
But social technologies need to integrate with the way employees actually work. Let's check into enterprise reality to show you what I mean:
Donna with ACME Corp. is entering initial orders for a new million-dollar deal for backhoes needed in Kansas City in 90 days. The order then takes on a life of its own. The manufacturing work order is approved by another manager and then entered into a legacy ERP system. A global supply chain process follows, weaving from China to Long Beach to Kansas City. Meanwhile, in order for Donna to answer a simple status update question from the sales rep, she has to log into an order-processing system, a legacy ERP and a delivery-tracking portal. Finally, she gets back on her new "enterprise social network" to answer the question. That's life in the real world!
Savvy enterprise software vendors have begun to respond by adding a social layer on an existing application or rebadging existing software. Whether it's content management, CRM, ERP or HR software, everyone has a social channel to sell—it's the flavor of the moment. But as a result, the enterprise buyer is faced with a bewildering array of choices. Do I buy a social channel for every application I use? It's like buying a TV for each TV channel I watch. How many TVs and how many channels?
For the enterprise social revolution to succeed you need three things:
Follow everything: Facebook has taught us that the easiest way to consume information is from the ubiquitous "wall," which has become the 21st-century version of a dashboard. All sources of information at work—content, data, people, business process, outcomes and exceptions—need to be able to declare their status and share intelligence to the right people in the network in real time.
Support everything: The social network needs to be integrated with every system and available on any device that employees use. Our fictitious Donna shouldn't have to log in to multiple systems and then respond to a question on a separate social network. The social aspect should already be integrated with these systems, so Donna receives the information she needs and can answer the sales rep from the same place.
At the same time, while many of us wait with bated breath for the next big mobile device. in the real world, an employee's old computer and three-year-old Blackberry still matter. The ability to access information from any legacy business system and network, irrespective of the browser or the device, is essential to the success of enterprise social.
Control some things: The enterprise has secrets it wants, and needs, to keep. Moving beyond passwords and authentication, enterprise social technologies must preserve and seamlessly support existing layers of privacy, retention and auditing policies that may be required for legal compliance and risk management.
The staggering impact of social networks in employees' personal lives foreshadows the change we'll undoubtedly be seeing very soon in the enterprise. Facebook has ensured that in enterprise social, spring is in full bloom in corporate boardrooms as well as on shiny billboards in Silicon Valley. However, for the revolution to succeed, we need to respond to enterprise reality: the way Donna works in Peoria.