Social Media, Web 2.0 & Org 2.0

How to Design Social Business Systems For Engaged, Social Organizations

June 23, 2011

Organizations are social — they always have been. But, organizations have rarely been designed intentionally to help us flourish as social beings while we work together. Neither our analog systems nor our digital systems have been designed to help us bring more of our social selves to our work together. But, it’s not that hard [...]

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5 Ways That Systems of Engagement Bring Out Our Full Social Selves

June 22, 2011

Technology has a way of sucking the humanity right out of us. Consider how we describe, design and deploy ‘enterprise 2.0′ and work system technologies in our organizations: – When we talk about technology systems, we talk about machines, platforms, inputs and outputs.  We forget about values, emotion, flourishing, meaning and purpose. – When we [...]

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Social Intranet Design and Organizational Identity: Design for functionality and character

June 15, 2011

In a social organization, the design of digital social tools like intranets should reflect the organizational features that define the organization. These design features, no matter how subtle, can ‘auto-communicate’ and make salient the characteristics that matter most, and help organizations stay authentic. Especially in the digital workplace, our digital tools create an important shared [...]

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7 Ways That Social Business Advice is Wrong for Your Organization

June 9, 2011

“Social Business” is coming to your organization, whether you’re ready or not. Social business tools, also known as enterprise social media or systems of engagement, are increasingly being advocated by vendors and consultants as tools that help any organization do its work better. But, while the influx of social tools could really benefit your organization, [...]

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A Surprising Reason Why Website Logins Matter

June 6, 2011

Why do we really need to log in to websites we use all the time? Why do those logins really matter, to us personally? Logins matter for three reasons– two that are predictable, and one that’s rather surprising. 1. Website logins improve the targeting of the site itself, in ways that benefit the organization. Logins [...]

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Does Your Social Media Policy Create a Platform for Racism?

May 17, 2011

I bet you don’t think it does. I bet you think that your social media policy, and your ‘create a blog for our business using other people’s user-generated content’- approach, is impervious to racism masked as business advice, as research findings, or as interesting content. I bet that’s exactly what PsychologyToday.com thought, too. They’ve got [...]

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Are Your Social Business Systems Designed for Extraction or Contribution?

May 12, 2011

The move of social business systems into work organizations exacerbates a tension that’s built into every idea-intensive workplace. Idea-intensive workplaces ask employees to contribute not just the work of their bodies, but also the work of their minds and their hearts. These workplaces set up a tension between asking people to give of themselves as [...]

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7 Reasons To ReThink Social Scoring Inside Social Organizations– before it’s too late

April 25, 2011

“Manager A’s results with the department’s implementation of Program X were outstanding, but her internal Klout score is only a 43. Given her low influence score, it looks like she’s not as good a leader as Manager B. I know that Manager B has been with us only two years, and hasn’t yet finished Program [...]

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Social Organizations and IT Leadership: Resources

April 14, 2011

For students at my class on “Social Organizations, Systems of Engagement and the IT Leadership Challenge”, here are the resources for the charts and some key ideas. I also added links to some interesting posts that can flesh out some of the ideas we discussed in class. As always, you can email me with additional questions or [...]

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