Published November 9, 2011
During the 2011 Social Business Virtual Conference by AIIM, I had prepared a session on Governance within Facebook. Thank you to Jesse Wilkins, AIIM Director for Systems of Engagement for his support, as well as the many AIIM staff in the background
I want to repeat some of the points made during my presentation and I want to start the whole thing with a quote:
“@HannsKK common sense approach to FB Governance #sbcon11 by @ECMEmpress”
I retweeted the sentiment with the addition – “Common sense is HARD !”
As I started reading through the Privacy rules and Terms & Conditions of Facebook, I noticed that there are lots and lots of potential pitfalls for companies that want to get active on Facebook. Two examples of where things have gone wrong:
A number of employees identifiable as from a particular company, join a group against a controversial building project. Although in no way representing the company or reflecting on how the company looks at the project, the impression is that at least part of the workforce is against the project. As I noted in a previous blogpost – perception may end up being reality in the public eye.
Another case, this one is hypothetical. An employee clicks on a like or Recommend button on a website, this gets posted back to his Facebook profile… where he happens to also be the admin for the brand or company Fan page… and he publishes the story as the Company, thereby voicing approval.
For the second one, I do not have a link, but I am sure it has happened, and if the case is suitably embarrassing, it will find its way onto one of the many Facebook Update Fail pages, thereby further spreading the news.
Facebook, which really is meant as an example, but which is currently without comparison within social networking, has brought risk so much closer to the individual user. There are potentially hundreds of millions of readers, not just friends and family, but also competitors, managers, HR people, your granddad or grandma and your next employer, all there to read about it. Sharing a post, or liking a post, pulls it exponentially into a very large circle. Look at LinkedIn and the statistics it gives you. 800 contacts gives you tens of thousands 2nd degree contacts, and millions of third degree contacts, friends of friends or friends, so not that far away, certainly less than the 6 we are all said to be removed from each other.
But back to Governance and Facebook.
The first thing is to realise that Facebook is not like all the other channels. Its reach, diversity and penetration is much further and deeper than anything we have ever seen before. No other Social network has as many members.
Facebook is not like LinkedIn or Xing, both networks meant for business networking. It holds everything from the ridiculous to the mundane, from the trivial,to regular nuggets of real knowledge and liberally sprinkled with requests for cows, spanners, guns, money and support while expanding your virtual gaming empire.
Facebook is not exactly known for its great privacy controls. Yes, they are there, but many people are neither familiar with them, nor do they keep up with the regular changes as FB adapts to the desires of both users, developers and in some cases additional pressures from lawmakers and competitors.
All of these factors contribute to the need for a much more detailed, a wider, or potentially more problematic governance setting. The first question you have to ask yourself, is whether you will want to be on Facebook yourself as an organization or not. If the answer is no, fine, then do not expect your employees to make the same decision. Deal with that fact that a lot of them will be on there and give them some guidance about what to do there.
Things to think about are:
- Commenting
- Liking
- Joining Groups
- Starting Fan Pages
- Using Apps
Give guidance on each one of those. But also thinking about a wider implications of a presence on FB. Things to think about in this context are:
- What values do I want to transport as an organization on Facebook
- What policies and procedures do I put in place
- What processes are needed for publishing, commenting, Joining, etc.
- Who has responsibility and what new roles are needed
- How do I train people, when and on what
All of this of course combined with a communication policy that keeps the process transparent and understandable.
It is not a trivial exercise, but part of a larger corporate governance structure and it needs to tie in with that. I will be trying to go into more detail in the next post, but of course, if you have any questions, just contact me on…. Facebook, or Twitter. I am usually there. 
Published May 9, 2011(This post was originally published on the AIIM Blogger Community here)
Well, for the last 6 months I have been cloistered away, well actually it has been a lot longer, trying to get the AIIM Social Business Buyers Guide together. After initial decisions about who should be in the list and who should not be for this time, the long search / research started. Now I have worked for vendors in the past and have some idea about some of the strange emails they get.
But something still baffles me and this is one for the customer. Vendors if you want to be taken seriously in a business world, behave like business, not like a bunch of developers who do not want to sell anything.
Some lessons learned, which would turn me off completely if I were a customer;
Make it clear what you are offering / selling. Some products look cool, but if your website does not make it clear what you are actually offering.
Make contact details easily findable ! – I live in Germany, and all German websites need to have an “Impressum”, which lists full address and contact details of the person or organisation responsible for the content.
Have someone monitor the accounts! – Great, you have given an Email account, now let someone answer it !
Answer the question: As part of the survey to be included, I send out a questionnaire, where it was clear or not is beside the point. Answer the question you were asked… do NOT copy & paste a piece from your won website. I’d rather you send me the link then.
Stop trying to sell me something: It is amazing. Some vendors will schedule a product demo with a sales person,. This is fine.. but then do not try to keep sell me the product.
Do not offer me a job- Although flattering to some extend, once I have identified myself as an analyst writing a buyers guide, offering me a commission-based job on representing your product is just bad form. Don’t !
Keep your promises – If you promise to send me something, or make a recording of a conference-call and promise to make it available to me afterwards so I do not have to take a lot of notes, then make sure I get it!
All of these would turn off any potential customer trying to find out whom to shortlist!
But there was also a lot of good information delivered by the vendors. Some showed me their roadmaps for upcoming changes and expansions. It is good to see how many vendors are moving into more professional delivery mechanism, business models and professional service organizations as well as a worldwide channel network. We have come a long way from simple collaboration capabilities early this century and the Web 2.0 wave that made Andrew McAfee to call it Enterprise 2.0 in 2006. So as much as I had to struggle to get some information, the information that I did get made me hopeful for great things to come in this market space.
Watch this space for more information as well as some excerpts here in the near future… and if you are a vendor who thinks that they might have missed a trick when talking to me, please feel free to contact me. It is never too late to improve on a mediocre first impression! 
Published March 2, 2010
Image via Wikipedia
Ich habe mich im Internet Mal wieder nach neuen Blogs umgeschaut und bin dabei über Stefan Pfeiffer auf den folgenden Post gekommen: “Gibt es einen Markt für Enterprise 2.0?”
Ja, brauchen wir, war meiner Meinung nach die einfache und deutliche Antwort. Aber dann habe ich Mal scharf darüber nachgedacht. Was ist eigentlich Enterprise 2.0…vor allem in der Abgrenzung zu Web 2.0, Social Media, Social Networking und den ganzen anderen Begriffen, die im Moment so rumfliegen.
Offensichtlich braucht de Markt das, so zumindest die vielen Kollegen die als Social Media Experten durch die Gegend reisen und die vielen ehemaligen Enterprise Content Management Abteilungen und Produkten die plötzlich Enterprise 2.0 heißen. Andrew McAfees Buch mit dem Titel Enterprise 2.0 ist in den Bestsellerlisten ganz oben. Der Markt braucht also Enterprise 2.0.
Wie sieht es aus mit dem Kunden? Dem Kunden in Deutschland? Twittert(zwitschert) er, baut er eine Facebook Fanpage auf und geistern die Mitarbeiter durch Google Buzz, Google Wave, etc. um dort Kunden auf zu tun? Die Antwort ist ein deutliches ‘jein’. Mann zwitschert aus Spass und vielleicht noch aus Marketing Kalkül und aus persönlichen Gründen. Eine Fanpage wird erstellt bei Marken, damit es kein anderer zuerst macht. Alles schön und gut, aber nur ein weiterer Kanal in den Markt.
Viel interessanter ist was man mit den neuen Tools innerhalb eines Unternehmens erreichen kann. Wo ist der Mehrwert bei der Wissenserfassung und Verteilung. Wie bekomme ich die Informationen zum richtigen Zeitpunkt zur richtigen Person?
Bei dieser Frage sind natürlich sehr viele Faktoren zu berücksichtigen. Viel zu viele für einen kurzen Blogpost, aber die Antwort, so vielschichtig sie auch ist, ist fast nie eindeutig. Es führen mehrere Wege nach Rom, aber nicht alle ! Was mir bei vielen, die über die neuen Enterprise 2.0 Technologien sprechen fehlt ist das Verständnis für die dahinter liegenden geschäftlichen Bedürfnisse, das Verständnis für die Firmenkultur und die Möglichkeiten die bereits vorhanden sind. Nicht neu um jeden Preis und Web 2.0 um jeden Preis, sondern intelligentes analysieren der Bedürfnisse und zwar ganzheitlich, nicht auf der Mikroebene sind notwendig… und da haben dann auch die vielen Enterprise 2.0 / Social Media Collaboration tools ihren ersten Einsatz… bei dem Erarbeiten der Bedürfnisse. Erst dann haben wir den Kunden wirklich erkannt und die richtigen Fragen gestellt und können wir mit Sicherheit sagen – Ja-es gibt einen Markt für Enterprise 2.0.
Published August 24, 2009The time is getting closer for Gartner PCC Summit. Held on the 16th and 17th of September in London it will once more bring together some of leading experts and practitioners in today’s industry to discuss a wide variety of subjects. They will be joined by customers with real stories to tell
And this year there is a special challenge. The economic crisis has made it clear that every project and every implementation needs to show clear returns in a quicker time then before. At the same time trends like Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Cloud computing, Saas and the new workplace give the individual worker more freedom, more control over how they create content and which channel to chose to collaborate and distribute this content. Notable user organizations and Gartner analysts will give their view on it and yours truly has a spot on the 16th of September on Enterprise 2.0.
The title isn’t Connect to Success for nothing, so get on your bike! There are still 23 days left for registrations, so visit the site and register now… they even provide a Justification Kit if you need help getting your hands on those all important travel allowances !
Posted in Current Affairs, ECM, Enterprise2.0, Market Intelligence, Technologies, Travel | 
Leave a commentPublished August 3, 2009
Image via Wikipedia
Some time I ago I noticed a blog post on SharePoint being like Lego, lots of bits and pieces that need assembly and can be put together in many different ways. I twittered about it and got a lot of reactions from it. Some where in agreement, others pointed out to some significant holes in that theory… and I started thinking about it a bit more.
I was an avid fan of Lego when I was a kid, and so are my kids these days, although the Lego that I played with looks nothing like what you can buy today. In my days it was multi-coloured blocks in a variety of sizes, but still the majority was exactly that… bricks. The slopes, windows, doors, flat pieces, wheels and various other things came from ready-to-build boxed products. My biggest concern back then were cheap imitations, they did not quite fit, were a little bigger or smaller, and of inferior quality. Also, with a load of square bricks and rectangular bricks you couldn’t build everything, sometimes pieces were just missing. You made do however, it was good enough.
These days, walking around the local toyshop, looking at the Lego I noticed it is hard to buy just bricks. Everything is prepackaged, you get your magician boy set, your space adventure set, various historical periods sets that include a dragon and various other creatures… and then I spotted my first figure with none of the telltale studs you need for assembly. It was a 2-piece dragon, clicked together in only one way and that was it. wings rotate but are permanently attached, the idea of creativity and assembly and play gone. No more imagination needed – just follow the instructions and you get exactly what you see on the outside of the box.
What has that got to do with ECM in general and SharePoint in particular?
Lets start with one set of the vendors: They provide bricks, large number of bricks, everyone can have a brick each at a low price, it is usable, clickable and extendable easily and in different ways… we call it Basic Content Services.
The other group provides sets: Ready made or already assembled, some studs available, some surfaces very smooth. It is maybe not for everyone, but if you like playing with dragons, it sure looks a lot better than one made of 200 square bricks – we could call them Content Enabled Vertical Application or CEVAs.
For each one of them some assembly is required, the studs providing the necessary interfaces, according to various standards, APIs and SDKs.
Now on to SharePoint, where does that fit into it? Some bits are preassembled, some just a jumble of bricks. An advantage for SharePoint is that most table tops that people build on are already equipped with lots of Lego studs onto which SharePoint would seem to fit very nicely. A house, a wall is easily build and serves its purpose. But what about that Deathstar spaceship or Hogwarts School of Magic? It can be done, but there are other toolsets that might be a closer match.
So what set of Lego should I buy? For me it always comes down to the same things:
- Think before you act
- Design before you build
- Know what your goal is
- Make sure you use bricks that conform to the standards
- don’t glue things together, you might need to change something in the future and getting those bricks apart again is impossible.
or in ECM speak : interoperability, flexibility, standards and change management
One of the best methodologies out there is MIKE2, which guides you through this process with clear plans along the way. That way we get a result that we can play with! Because business today are not looking for a 2 year building process with Lego bricks, they are looking for a final result that they can use !
Well, those are my toughts anyway. What do you think? Am I right, wrong, partially right ? Did I miss some big Lego developments? Or is anyone selling a pile of those plain old bricks in good nick, please let me know ! Post on Twitter using the hashtag #ecmlego and I will find you!
by Hanns
Image (c) Lego
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Published July 3, 2009For the last several years, more and more people have started to talk about Enterprise 2.0 and look at these tools as a viable alternative. Although our own research has shown that understanding and lack of viable case studies has hindered progress, the technology has not stood still.
Today,
many of the features and functionalities that we know and end-users
have come to expect from their external and web-based applications have
moved into the extended enterprise. Social Networks, Blogs and Wikis
are both accepted and used in large and small organizations to improve
information sharing, collaboration and communication. The technology
strategy is probably to easiest to deal with and often gives the least
amount of challenges. Users however have a certain motivation for using
these tools outside of their workplace, but inside the workplace this
is a different issue.
An
implementation needs to deal with more than just new procedures, it
needs to be transported across and be integrated with the beliefs and
values of employees as they put all of their information, data and
knowledge into the new tools. The main aspects here are:
-
Structure
- Process
- Current Practises
- Team Strategy
- Communication
- Innovation
- Leadership
- Strategy
- Industry
- Technology
Each
one of these need to be evaluated! How are they influenced by culture
and how do they influence culture. Also, is this a hindrance or a boon
to Enterprise 2.0 Ways of Working?
The
best way to do this is a spider-web chart onto which each one of these
factors is captured and then filled out by employees, management and
senior management. This can then help to identify shortcomings and
whole, both in reality as well as perception.
Each
one of these factors needs evaluation and an acceptance of the
conclusions to go forward in order to improve. Best practice and
experience however tells us that this is not always easy or even
achievable. But not looking into these factors and not accepting the
conclusions of the analysis is a sure-fire way of not achieving the
goals you set out to achieve. Which brings me to the main issue of
needing – A solid Business Strategy!
Here
it is important to realize what the organization is trying to achieve;
first as a business organization, and second with the use of these new
tools and ways of working. It is surprising how many organizations are
still struggling to reach a consensus on business strategy and how to
move forwards as an organization. What are the Critical Success Factors
and how can they be measured? Is it only about more turnover and margin
or is there more to it than that? Once these have been defined and
accepted, then it is time to bring in Enterprise 2.0.
What
are the areas defined as part of the organizational culture that need
more support and need to be improved. Which tools can help us to
achieve this? Is it collaboration or findability we are trying to
improve, or is it an email replacement strategy? Maybe improve customer
service, speed up a process and create a new Reality by having Wiki’s
instead of classical Document Management Systems, giving people more
places to leave their ideas to drive Innovation inside the organization
and across departments? Each one of these goals needs to be looked at,
evaluated, and checked against the stakeholders in the organization,
this is not as easy as it seems.
Finally
some free advice for every organization before moving your project
forward. Remember that these tools can generate a huge amount of
additional unstructured content. Some of it is very much relevant, may
be discoverable and may need to fall under whatever Records Management
Policy is already in place. These tools may present new problems in
each one of those areas. Let’s also not forget that content is created
in many different places and these tools may need to integrate with a
number of existing applications.
Enterprise
2.0 is full of opportunities, but it also presents its own set of
challenges that need to be faced before an implementation can be deemed
a success. There are plenty of examples out there where this is the
case, but rather than re-invent the wheel, make sure you sign up for
some best practice training first. Why not try AIIM’s Enterprise 2.0 Certificate program on www.aiim.org/freetraining and use the code E25PA9?
Published February 27, 2009 What is MoReq2? After my last post about going to Iceland, I have been asked by several people what MoReQ2 is and why we should care about another standard since we already have so many in Europe – (btw I ignored the questions about Iceland). I think the question itself already shows the problem: there are too many guidelines out there already !
Whether it is a national standards of the Netherlands, France, Germany, Norway or the UK, they are all different enough to make it difficult for multi-national enterprises and vendors to be everything to everybody. And even if you do not fall into this group, the best practise worked into this document and the the way it builds on ISO 15489, DoD 5015.2, TNA 2002, MoReq1, ISO 23081 and others makes it an excellent source and reference work for anyone starting on a Records Management Initiative, or an update, upgrade, or just as a plain reality check on whether the project is still going the right way, without the need to reinvent the wheel.
For more information on how to use MoReq2 or some practical advice please contact the MoReq2 Governance Board at governance.moreq2@dlmforum.eu.
To download your free copy of MoReq2, go to the DLM Forum website or go here. For a history of MoReq2 or additional presentation and reference material not controlled by the DLM Forum check out www.moreq2.eu and www.moreq2.de.
Published February 13, 2009
In my last post I looked at the world of publishing and writing of novels by budding authors, passing the traditional channels of publishing houses to either self-publish in paper or publish on the web.
Looking at the Information Management industry one of the drives in various campaigns over the last year has been to “Go Green” and how to reduce paper in our office processes. Apart from the question whether using less paper is actually good for the environment, or at least better then having to replace it with the installation/upgrade of more computer hardware, there is another side of the story as well : The Paper Industry !
How does the drive to go green impact them, especially in a situation where the economic crisis is squeezing everyone already? According to some reports, also published in the magazine “BOSS” in Germany, the demand for paper is indeed dropping. Prices for paper are therefore to be increased (not quite sure how that will help to sell more ?!) and factories will have to run at reduced capacity or be closed, new investment projects halted to reduce the overcapacity currently in the market.
I am sure this will just be blamed on the economic crisis, but I also think that improved handling of paper-based processes as businesses are getting smarter and more efficient has its role to play. BPM or Business Process Management is the flavour of the month as also noted by Gartner in some of their recent research. To get a good overview of BPM in all its facets, visit AIIM Training and check out where the next course is near you.