Web 2.0: Computer Supported Collaborative Work on steroids?

MyStatement Conclusion

Bob Van Looveren — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:12:38 +0000

In this post we will conclude our statement on our blog. It will also be our last. We started the discussion on our statement with a focus on computer supported collaborative work, or CSCW. In the first posts we actively kept close to the real definition of the term ‘CSCW’. Soon, however, we broadened our focus to include subjects on collaboration via Web 2.0. Therefore the term ‘CSCW’ should here be interpreted broader then its definition.

Web 2.0

The most important term in our statement is undoubtedly ‘Web 2.0′. What do we mean with ‘Web 2.0′? Of course you heard about Facebook, Flickr and Wikipedia, but what do these platforms have in common? It’s the free contribution via the web. A trend that you often see with online collaboration is the power law (see graph) as Clay Shirky points out in his TEDtalk ‘Institutions vs Collaboration’.

In the above graph the users are mapped onto the x-axis, while the number of contributions per user are mapped onto the y-axis. These contributions can be photos in the case of Flickr, words in the case of Wikipedia, … You clearly see that there are few people with a lot of contributions, while there are a lot of people with only one contribution. For example, many developers contribute only one patch to a Linux distribution, while a few are actively involved. You also see that 20% (green) of the people produces 80% of the value. Institutions will try to obtain the most value for the fewest hires and thus will only hire the green fraction of the user-base. However this implies a loss in value. The question is: do you want those single contributions (yellow)? In the case of a Linux distribution, they could provide a patch for a serious security flaw. Institutions could gain output value if they would evolve to a more open contribution infrastructure. That’s the lesson institutions have to learn from Web 2.0.

Social Software Tools

In previous posts we discussed a few existing social software programs, which we believe can help institutions to evolve to the next stage of cooperation. These programs are:

Dropbox is a folder in the cloud that can synchronize files among different platforms. It can also be used to share files as multiple users can share a Dropbox folder. The basic service is free.
Subversion is an open-source version control system. By keeping track of different versions of files, it allows the users to revert changes and effectively return files to a previous state.
Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together.

These tools support collaboration, but to fully take advantage of them, institutions need to change their internal structure. This change would result in an Enterprise 2.0 structure which we will discuss later.

The Facebook Imperative: What advantages can social software offer?

Here we will sum up the most important advantages of social software:

Social software can tap deeply into emergent human capacity at any scale, in any location. The largest IT systems in the world used to be enterprises, but this has been eclipsed by social software on the Web and the hundreds of millions of users using services such as Facebook, YouTube, and other major sites. Social software now has the ability to elicit participation, build network effects, and engage with virtually any quantity of people while simultaneously reducing complexity and extracting more value from the network than it provides.
Social business models introduce potent new motivations for contributions to an organization’s objectives. Open business methods have been explored in the past, but open source and Web 2.0 applications demonstrate that there are often much better reasons for creating value for other organizations then merely financial. This is actively remaking the business landscape, collapsing costs, and greatly expanding the creative and productive capacity for organizations willing to engage in social business models.
Social IT can collect and aggregate corporate knowledge for reuse and leverage like few other methods. Just as Web 2.0 at its core is about harnessing collective intelligence, Enterprise 2.0 is about the same thing (unleashing the human ingenuity and insight of workers), but aimed at business objectives and with numerous associated benefits.
Social systems engage with, react to, and respond on a shorter time scale than most other modes of business interaction. While all digital communications are in a sense immediate, social software is more effective in terms of its general ability to spread change rapidly and creating ripple effects across large numbers of workers. Mobile devices and pervasive connectivity helps with this but social networks along with smartphones are changing the rules of the game.
Social software naturally breaks down barriers, silos, and tribal boundaries while maximizing inbound participation. The viral nature of social software encourages relationship capital to be built (via the social graph) and cultivated over time. Subsequent worker activity in an enterprise’s social IT systems spreads information and ideas much farther than the standard sphere of influence of normal IT systems, which are primarily limited to the users directly engaged in them.

Social Middleware

By now it should already be clear that institutions can benefit from social software. However as a manager you probably aren’t to keen to let your employees surf freely on these social networks. A golden mean could be the use of social middleware. With social middleware restriction to social media platforms can be controlled up to a certain extent. This way, employees can still make use of the rich social environment on the web without getting lost in it (during company hours that is).
However, we think this is just an old fashioned mentality. Rather than change the way employees interact with Web 2.0 platforms, the company has to change its own structure into what is called ‘Enterprise 2.0′.

Enterprise 2.0

When an institution would allow these changes, its structure would evolve into that of Enterprise 2.0. The term ‘Enterprise 2.0′ means the ideas of web 2.0 are put into practice in an institution. First and for all we’d like to point out that social software, which is popularly referred to as Web 2.0, concentrates on the ‘me’. The user should benefit from using it, otherwise there will be no motivation. However, user-bases on an Enterprise 2.0 structured platform are different from those on a general Web 2.0 social platform. When we look deeper into this, we notice there are a few more differences. They all relate to the difference between the Internet and the Intranet, the latter which would be used in an Enterprise 2.0 environment.
We already observed that there are far more active users on the Internet then there are on one Intranet. While there are millions of users on the Internet, the user count on a general Intranet range from tens to hundreds and in a few cases to thousands. The challenge here will be to activate your community on the Intranet and to keep it alive.
Keeping such a community is definitely a challenge when we take a look at the motivational factors. Users on on-line communities such as Facebook and Twitter contribute to it because it’s fun. Employees on the other hand need to be motivated to stay active on a internal community because the underlying means are functional and useful for their enterprise. Keeping these users active requires motivation, which proves to be a challenge.
A third major difference is the skill set of the users. People who find their way to a community on their own are generally expected to have know-how on how to accomplish this. On the other hand, employees who are ‘forced’ to contribute to a community could lack this knowledge. Therefore internal communities should be shaped to meet the capabilities of its users and to provide them enough usability.
Another obvious difference is the visibility of the community. Internal communities are private and corresponding security measures should be taken to ensure the privacy of its users.
Last but not least, the purpose of an on-line community covers a large range of possibilities, while the purpose of a private internal community generally boils down to profit. As such, the integration of the daily processes into the community is mandatory.

Management 2.0

When an institution wants to take full advantage of the possibilities of Web 2.0 and thus become an Enterprise 2.0 structured institution, it requires the management to evolve with it. Therefore the term ‘Management 2.0′ has been coined. The differences between Management 1.0 and 2.0 will be discussed next. Firstly, Management 1.0 is tailored to manage enterprises with a hierarchical structure. Enterprises managed by version 2.0 are organised according to a flat scheme. Next, flexibility in a Management 1.0 driven environment is hindered by procedures and bureaucracy. Because of the lack of these in a Management 2.0 managed enterprise, agility and flexibility are promoted. A third difference is how technology is controlled. Users in a Management 1.0 environment are not in control, everything is centralised within an IT-department. Technology in a Management 2.0 environment is user-driven and distributed amongst the users. Another difference is the existence of silos and boundaries. They confine user activity in a Management 1.0 managed enterprise. On the other hand, boundaries are open or fuzzy in a Management 2.0 environment, allowing easier user contribution and activity. Lastly, information in a Management 1.0 environment is shared on a need to know basis, while in a Management 2.0 environment information sharing is transparent: everyone has access to everything.

Conclusion

We can conclude that the possibilities of Web 2.0 can help companies to evolve and grow dramatically. However, you just can’t throw in Web 2.0 technology into your enterprise. You first have to adapt yourself: Your company completely has to change his management.
We don’t think a lot of companies are ready to take this step today, but for starting companies there are a lot of opportunities when they incorporate the Enterprise & Management 2.0 structure from the start.

From Management 1.0 to Management 2.0

Thomas Anciaux — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:55:51 +0000

By now it should be clear that the Enterprise 2.0 acts as an interface between CSCW and the Web 2.0. However changing your enterprise to version 2.0 requires your management to evolve with it. Therefore a new term Management 2.0 has been coined.

Ultimately, taking full advantage of Web 2.0 may require… Management 2.0

Robert Hof, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, BusinessWeek

Introduction

First and for all we would like to point out that Management 2.0 does not replace its predecessor, but coexists with it. Management 1.0 is applied in new product development, while version 2.0 is tuned to manage the Fuzzy Front End. In an Enterprise 2.0 environment it’s thus important to have both types of management implemented.

Comparison

Next, we’ll discuss the differences between Management 1.0 and version 2.0.

Organization

Management 1.0 is tailored to manage enterprises with a hierarchical structure. Enterprises managed by version 2.0 are organised according to a flat scheme.

Flexibility

Flexibility in a Management 1.0 driven environment is hindered by procedures and bureaucracy. Because of the lack of these in a Management 2.0 managed enterprise, agility and flexibility is promoted.

Technology

User in a Management 1.0 environment are not in control, everything is centralised within an IT-department. Technology in a Management 2.0 environment is user-driven and distributed amongst the users.

Boundaries

Silos and boundaries confine user activity in a Management 1.0 managed enterprise. On the other hand, boundaries are open or fuzzy in a Management 2.0 environment, allowing easier user contribution and activity.

Information Management

Information in a Management 1.0 environment is shared on a need to know basis, while in a Management 2.0 environment information sharing is transparent, everyone has access to everything.

Overview

	Management 1.0	Management 2.0
Organization	Hierarchy	Flat
Flexibility	Procedures	Agility
Technology	IT-driven, lack of user control, centralized	user-driven,distributed
Boundaries	Closed	Open
Information Management	Need to know	Transparency
Business Model	Closed,Proprietary Standards	Open Business Models

Review of our visit at the Agoria conference on open innovation.

Bob Van Looveren — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:39:12 +0000

Last Thursday, March 11th, we had the opportunity to attend a conference on open innovation and the possible advantages (on-line) communities could provide in its domain. The conference was organised by Agoria and Sirris. One presentation specifically got our attention, namely Wim Soens’ presentation titled ‘Enterprise 2.0 or how Web 2.0 contributes to a company’s innovative power’.

Looking only at the title, it’s clear Soens’ presentation has a lot in common with our own statement. Therefore we would like to discuss its content on our blog in a few posts. In this one we will discuss the difference between a community on the Internet and one on the Intranet and hence the difference between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 respectively.

Users

An obvious first observation is that there are far more active users on the Internet then there are on one Intranet. While there are millions of users on the Internet, the user count on a general Intranet range from tens to hundreds and in a few cases to thousands. The challenge here will be to activate your community on the Intranet and to keep it alive.

Mindset

Keeping such a community is definitely a challenge when we take a look at the motivational factors. Users on on-line communities such as Facebook and Twitter contribute to it because it’s fun. Employees on the other hand need to be motivated to stay active on a internal community because the underlying means are functional and useful for their enterprise. Keeping these users active requires motivation, which proves to be a challenge.

Skill set

A third major difference is the skill set of the users. People who find their way to a community on their own are generally expected to have know-how on how to accomplish this. On the other hand, employees who are ‘forced’ to contribute to a community could lack this knowledge. Therefore internal communities should be shaped to meet the capabilities of its users and to provide them enough usability.

Society

Another obvious difference is the visibility of the community. Internal communities are private and corresponding security measures should be taken to ensure the privacy of its users.

Purpose

Last but not least, the purpose of an on-line community covers a large range of possibilities, while the purpose of a private internal community generally boils down to profit. As such, the integration of the daily processes into the community is mandatory.

Overview

	Web 2.0	Enterprise 2.0	Challenge
Users	Millions	Hundreds	Community activation
Mindset	Fun	Work	Motivation
Skill set	Digitally savvy	Digitally averse	Capability & Usability
Society	Public	Private	Privacy & IP Protection
Purpose	…	Profit	Process integration

Next episode

In our next episode we will take a deeper look at how to tune your management for Enterprise 2.0

References

The Jazz of Innovation – Wim Soens blogs about CogniStreamer®, Enterprise 2.0 and Innovation,
http://blog.cognistreamer.com

The Facebook Imperative

Bob Van Looveren — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:53:05 +0000

In the following article, Dion Hinchcliffe, expands on his statement:

The case can be made that enterprise social software is even more powerful than its consumer cousin

As this statement has a lot in common with ours, we thought it would be interesting for the reader to look at our statement from an other point of view.

Full article @The Facebook imperative for enterprise software

Social Media? No Way. Social Middleware? Oh, Yes – ReadWriteEnterprise

Bob Van Looveren — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:24:00 +0000

As we have already discussed, social software or media provides enterprises with a set of advantages. However the price the managers have to pay to obtain these advantages is one of a decrease in control over their employees.

How would one stay in control without causing the employees to feel supervised. Maybe Socialware is the answer.

In a nutshell: Restriction to social media platforms is controlled or restricted up to a certain extent. In this way, employees can still make use of the rich social environment on the web without getting lost in it (during company hours that is).

Full article @ Social Media? No Way. Social Middleware? Oh, Yes – ReadWriteEnterprise.

Surfing on Google’s Wave

Thomas Anciaux — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:52:59 +0000

In this post we will discuss Google Wave as a means of collaboration support. We should point out that Wave is not Google’s only product suitable for discussion here. Google Docs for example is a service designed especially to support collaboration via the web. However as we do not have much experience with Google Docs, we decided to opt for Google Wave.

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and other features. Waves can be shared amongst a group of users and can be edited in real-time.

One of the most important features are the extra modules which can be plugged in into a wave. They provide functionalities such as easy polls, code-editors etc.

Pro’s

Waves are much more suited for collaboration then classic emails
Ability to replay a conversation, showing the user what happened at what time
Plug-ins providing a variety of functionalities
Chatting in real time
You can add someone to the conversation at any point and they will be able to go back and comfortably read through and catch up on everything

Con’s

Still under (heavy) development
No one to wave with because friends don’t have accounts
It will take a lot of time before everybody will use it

Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration

Bob Van Looveren — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:52:18 +0000

In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning.
According to us this might be the path Enterprise 2.0 should follow.

SubVersioN

Bob Van Looveren — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:52:47 +0000

In this episode we will discuss subversion as a collaborative tool.

What’s Subversion?

Subversion is an open-source versioning tool. By keeping track of different versions of files, it allows the user to revert changes and effectively return the files to a previous state. It’s especially used in software development environments where a team of developers has to work on the same source code. More advanced features are e.g. branches, which allows multiple divergent development paths to exist next to each other. These development paths can be merged or discontinued. The initial development path is called the trunk. For more information, visit Subversion’s homepage.

In the next paragraphs we will discuss the pro’s and con’s of Subversion.

Pro’s

Always a back-up online
Rollbacks possible up to the first version
Advanced features like branching which allows for more flexibility
When saving a new version the user can add a comment to it, these comments can later on be combined into a process log
The ability to generate process graphs

Con’s

Server isn’t free of charge
The amount of possibilities can be overwhelming for novice users
Ill-advised user activity can lead to corrupt repositories
Directory renaming can cause severe implications, due to bad implementation

Next episode

In our next post we will discuss Google’s newest flagship: Google Wave.

Dropbox: File sharing for dummies

Bob Van Looveren — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:51:58 +0000

This is the first in a series of posts concerning a few tools which enable or support collaborative work.

What’s Dropbox?

Dropbox is like a magic pocket. Yet instead of white fluffy rabbits, you put in files you’d like to keep in sync among multiple systems. An account is free of charge for a storage up to 3 GB. If you like more space, you have to pay a monthly fee. For more information, please visit Dropbox’ homepage.

Keeping the files synchronised is only one way of looking at Dropbox. You could also look at it as a file sharing system, as you can invite other persons to one of your Dropbox folders.

In the next paragraphs we will discuss the pro’s and con’s of Dropbox.

Pro’s

Easy to use
Free space up to 3GB
Latest version of all files are always backed up on the server
Sharing between a group of people
Online access, without making use of the client

Con’s

No versioning
In our own experience, we’ve encountered a few situations where the sharing went wrong
The client uses ±50MB of memory when idling, which is quite resource exhaustive
When on a connection with a limited download capacity, the automatic synchronisation quickly becomes a disadvantage

Next episode

In our next post we will discuss the Subversion versioning system.

The sun never sets on the Web

Thomas Anciaux — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:46:16 +0000

In this post we will explore the possibilities Web 2.0 offers concerning the internationalization of corporations.

The concept

A company can have multiple departments, located all over the world. These departments are operating autonomous. This stems from the fact that the activity is either exactly copied to all departments (thus every department producing a local copy of the same product) or is horizontally divided in subtasks. These subtask are loosely coupled with one another, but show a high cohesion.

Imagine now that instead of working next to each other, these departments would work sequentially. This is the idea behind the 24-hour knowledge factory.

The 24-hour knowledge factory

In the 24-hour knowledge factory the tasks are vertically divided in highly coupled subtasks, with a low cohesion. This promotes a sequential process flow.

The departments are all located in different timezones and work in shifts. This implies that one department has to finish the daily tasks before passing the product in process over to the next department. In a way, you could think of it as the information variant of an assembly line. Every department works their normal hours, but, due to the different timezones, the process continues night and day. That’s why another common term is ‘Follow-the-sun’.

The possibilities of Web 2.0 can support and facilitate the communication and management between all the departments involved. The advantages and disadvantages of this type of process are listed in the section below. We expand on some of them in the section about requirements.

Pro’s & con’s

Pro’s

Employees are not required to move to another country, when there’s no department in their own.
The amount of expertise within the company increases.
Delivery times and deadlines decrease. This reduces the effective development costs
An incremental way of working is inherently adapted.

Con’s

An increase in multinational management is imperative. This means extra costs.
Not all governments allow the transport of sensitive information.

Restrictions & requirements

Restrictions

Not all types of organization can implement this way of working. To successfully adapt it, the process needs to be semi-structured, meaning it should be predictable to some extent. In an unstructured process every action is looked at individually. This type of process does not lend itself to be implemented in a sequential flow. Secondly, the work or product should be easy and cheap to transport. Finally, the work should be dividable in logical subtasks.

Requirements

When implementing this type of process flow (meaning there are no restrictions), the company should provide a couple of important requirements. These are mostly technological, tools supporting the 24-hour knowledge Factory.

Safety: Because the information is going to be sent over a public network, safety measures should be taken. Data encryption and VPN are a few examples.
Versioning: A system to track file changes and support version control is strongly recommended. An example is Subversion, which we will address in one of our following posts.

These tools already exist, yet they can be improved to enhance the work flow even more. For example the versioning system should also keep track of context: users should indicate what they have changed and why. This is extremely important as the other users cannot afford to lose time studying the changes. Moreover, if they are working in different timezones they can’t readily contact the author of the changes, causing unnecessary delays.
Another important factor is the usability of these tools, it’s likely that non-expert users are going to have to use them so the software should provide a clear interface. We won’t elaborate on usability as this is not the main objective of our statement.

Conclusion

It seems companies can gain an advantage, not to be underestimated, by implementing the 24-hour knowledge factory work flow. Provided they meet the requirements and use the correct tools.

References

Gupta, A. and Seshasai, S. (2007): 24-hour knowledge factory: Using Internet technology to leverage
spatial and temporal separations.