This collaboratively and collectively written book about Enterprise 2.0

is the English version of the original French, published online at the

end of last year. This translation was made possible by a partnership

with the company LinguaSpirit, who carried out the work for us. We

would like to thank them for it.

LinguaSpirit is a translation agency with a particular focus on web

communication, working to make translation adaptable and

accessible. Our team is made up of professional translators from a

variety of backgrounds with wide-ranging language and technical

skills. We offer our services to NGOs and charities on a voluntary

basis via FreeSpirit and provide free translations to blogs of all kinds.

Translation is our profession, but breaking down language barriers is

our calling.

Social Innovation: The Power of Communities to Innovate

The enterprise lies at the heart of fast-paced social change. Consumer

behavior, lifestyles and uses are undergoing paradigm shifts. As product

offerings are constantly rolled out, novel approaches are emerging to foster

loyalty and shape new services. Never before has so much information been

available to so many people at any one time. Not a day goes by without the

launch of another innovative device that quickly becomes an ubiquitous part of

our everyday lives.

In the enterprise, employee expectations are evolving as a new "wired"

generation of Internet-savvy people enters the market. New business models

are emerging to hone firms' competitive edge, which in turn are spurring new

needs and uses.

To stay agile and stay ahead of the curve, companies must open up and adjust

to all this change. The answer lies in devising new ways of imagining, creating

and innovating collectively by connecting knowledge, skills and talent.

Employers must also learn how to uncover, recognize and leverage talent more

dynamically, harnessing both individual and collective contributions. Much more

than simply implementing specific tools, today's enterprise focuses more on

openness and a shared sense of purpose. Sharing and dynamically leveraging

knowledge in this way implicitly puts employees at the heart of the process.

In Enterprise 2.0 companies, employees are discovering new ways of learning,

interacting and understanding. At the same time, it is up to the enterprise to

provide an environment conducive to exchanging and connecting ideas, as well

as organizing its wealth of intellectual property.

The key to connecting teams, processes, information, data and virtual

experiences lies in empowering organizations and their various job families to

expand their horizons, allowing them to interact and collaborate across

organizational boundaries in order to spur innovation.

As part of the quest for innovation, companies must also look beyond the

confines of their organizations to include their entire customer, partner and user

ecosystem, fusing the imagination of users and consumers with the insight of

their design teams.

Enabling everyone - from employees to customers, suppliers, users and

consumers in general - to play an active part in innovation processes is the

underlying principle behind the Dassault Systèmes (DS) Social Innovation

strategy. This approach was given renewed impetus two years ago following the

worldwide deployment of the DS SwYm community platform across the Group's

entire organization.

Several companies have already embraced 2.0 Transformation, which is where

the future lies for enterprises of all sizes and in all business sectors. Enterprise

2.0 is today recognized as a catalyst for sustainable innovation.

Pascal Daloz is Executive Vice President, Strategy & Marketing, at Dassault Systèmes. Prior to this, he was Research & Development Director in charge of Business Development for the Group. Pascal has extensive experience in strategy with investment banking and consulting firms, including five years at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he served as a senior technology analyst, and five years at Arthur D. Little. He is a graduate of the École des Mines de Paris engineering school in Paris.

When we think of about "Enterprise 2.0" since 2006, the year that Andrew

McAfee coined the term, we see that there has been considerable experience

feedback in France in 2010. The term is certainly employed more on the Web

than it is by companies, but whatever the term, the results cannot be ignored—

there are a large and growing number of these types of projects. It seemed

beneficial to address the subject through a variety of lenses, supported by

consultants, operational staff, and editors.

All too often the idea of Enterprise 2.0 is reduced to a set of tools that are

applied through a collaborative platform or an enterprise social network (ESN)

and with a uniquely internal focus. That is to say, the implementation of

collaborative processes surrounding these tools and the affect they can have on

organization and governance. I wanted to address each aspect of Enterprise

2.0 that make it an all-encompassing enterprise I believe to be made up of 3

elements.

The first and most common element is the creation of a business network, often

a community, in order for employees to work collaboratively. It is not a pilot

project or an extra layer added onto other processes, but rather the backbone of

an organization around which are organized all of the businesses processes.

The second element, has to do with managing external stakeholders, such as

partners or clients in community management way. Unlike managing a social

media presence, this means the complete administration of a ―personal‖

environment (not a Facebook page), where one is free to establish their own

rules and manage the community. It’s from this community that you’ll generally

find your ambassadors. Once again, a collaborative working approach with

stakeholders is needed in order to benefit everyone involved, perhaps resulting

in co-creation.

The third element has to do with engaging the business in social media.

Business is not self sufficient, "no one is an island"; it is connected to the rest of

the world, especially by social media. This engagement begins with monitoring,

in preparation to interact—whether it be to find an idea, to increase your

exposure, to find clients, to respond to criticisms etc. You need to create value

for your business, not only through the use of a conversation manager, but with

each and every colleague in the business.

In closing I'd like to thank two people who helped me with the practical details of

this project: Frédéric Domon for the layout and the graphics and Tarik Lebtahi

for his help in obtaining such a prestigious preface author. Of course I'd also like

to thank all those who contributed to make this project possible.

Happy reading

pg. 3 Preface

by Pascal Daloz

pg. 10 Training

by Claire Leblond

pg. 15 Positioning in IT

by Cécil Dijoux

pg. 21 Collaborative Platforms

by Arnaud Raynole

pg. 26 ROI

by Bertrand Duperrin

pg. 31 Change Management

by Frédéric Charles

pg. 39 Labour Relations

by Vincent Berthelot

pg. 44 Governance and Management

by Anthony Poncier

pg. 49 Monitoring

by Aref Jdey

pg. 53 Knowledge Management

by Christophe Deschamps

pg. 57 Storytelling

by Camille Alloing

pg. 61 Social Learning

by Frédéric Domon

pg. 67 Integrated and Responsible

Participative Innovation

by Muriel Garcia

pg. 72 Internal Communities and CSR

by Fabrice Poiraud-Lambert

pg.79 BtoB

by Alain Garnier

pg. 83 Personal Branding

by Fadhila Brahimi

pg. 89 Generation Y

by Julien Pouget

pg. 93 Employer Brand

by Franck La Pinta

pg. 98 Social CRM

by Mark Tamis

pg. 105 Social Media

by Emilie Ogez

SKEMA Business School is the result of the merger between CERAM Sophia

and ESC-Lille. SKEMA’s strategy prioritizes training future managers, pioneers

of the knowledge economy who are "able to understand and adapt to their

environment and create sustainable performance."

The role of the school’s faculty is therefore to "train 2.0 managers" who

cooperate and share in order to create value together. The task is not limited to

using tools, but also involves mastering the practices that make the participating

students evangelists within the workplace, able to fulfil the expectations of

businesses whilst being aware of impacts on the environment.

The Geemiks (a team of community organisers and research assistants at

SKEMA), have up to this point focused on connecting individuals with

information (publications, databases, learning platforms, information portals,

thematic environments, resources training…), but from now on they will turn

their attention to a second level of connections: connecting individuals to

each other (students-teachers-speakers-colleagues-businesses). This involves

making introductions, promoting connections between people in networks and

creating spaces and tools to facilitate sharing, exchange and involvement.

The aim is for each individual to develop their own ecosystem, which is not

only informational but also social, building on the professionalization of

internet customs and practices.

This second phase is taking shape today with the development of a concept (La

Fusée) designed to provide all the conditions necessary for the discovery and

affirmation of talent—giving the people at SKEMA the opportunity to make the

most of their skills, passions and values.

The development of this idea involves, on the one hand, creating a space which

encourages sharing while taking into account people's work place, conditions

and hours; and on the other hand, offering new training formats that incorporate

a process of distinguishing individuals as a benefit to the group.

The space is located at the Lille campus and is unique in that it is multi-purpose

and flexible. There is room for all the different stages of a project, from

brainstorming to final decision-making. Individual needs are also catered to,

with a layout and an atmosphere encouraging relaxation, reading, the exchange

of ideas etc.

The space is the result of a long period of reflection and is complemented by a

virtual space that aims to use the web to break down physical barriers. SKEMA

has sites in many countries and it is therefore necessary to give remote teams

the chance to participate.

Although the Paris campus does not yet have this physical space, the concept

is still being put into practice. Because there is not enough space at the two

Paris campuses, we are trying to make use of other spaces elsewhere in the

city. This option often has advantages because it allows us to think outside the

"academic" box, encouraging innovation.

With regard to learning models, we are setting up training-discovery

modules, which allow a different way of learning. These modules have several

different forms, adapted to various needs and preferences.

Amongst these modules there will be:

Digital workshops: 45 minutes designed to discuss professional

applications of the internet. We offer topics such as managing digital

identity, use and validation of digital resources, monitoring techniques

and a presentation on the law and the internet. These workshops do not

have a defined programme. The aim is for the programme to adapt to

demands made by students in order to better meet their needs and make

them active in their education.

Cafés découvertes: share a coffee with some interesting people (artists,

travellers, entrepreneurs…) in a friendly environment. As with the other

modules, the content should eventually be determined by the students.

Babel café: learn a language in a friendly atmosphere by discussing

current affairs with people from different backgrounds.

Training to develop creative potential, personality and talent; learn to

overcome fears; understand how to form a team with reference to

complementary skills; experience and develop creativity in order to

innovate. This time-consuming training is offered by Isabelle NORMAND

to a small number of students. However, this approach is also reflected

in projects that we are setting up with students, such as the Creatinove

project. This will be a year of discussions on MOBILITY, with

approximately 30 students working on the many dimensions of the word,

creating content from meetings and readings, to eventually organize and

stage an event in March 2011.

The establishment of a shared monitoring system to learn how to share

knowledge on target topics and co-operate in the creation of a common

knowledge base.

The exchange and implementation of modules on managing digital

identity. These will raise awareness and help students understand

internet mechanisms and logic and to develop intelligent habits. Today

we are immersed in the internet from a younger and younger age and do

not always have a detached view of our activities.

Lastly, making the student an actor and also an author presupposes that they

will be allowed to share their vision and knowledge and use skills within the

group that they do not usually use in an academic or even a professional

environment.

To do this we encourage students to lead workshops, organise cafés

découvertes, write tutorials, share their experiences in a blog entry, to

contribute to a wiki school of established themes, to collaborate on projects with

teams in different places etc. The introductory training module becomes their

own module, which they lead and develop.

At the end of the day, doing is the best way to learn.

The modules are designed with our ―school audience‖ in mind. This not only

includes students, but teachers, researchers, partner businesses and

professional networks. The ultimate goal is to participate in the creation of a

knowledge and know-how network, involving both the school and external

participants, and is led not only by employees, teachers and the media library,

but also by the students themselves.

What can Web 2.0 bring to all this? Basically, by facilitating the development of

these practices by building on tools often used simply for fun, participation in the

community is encouraged.

The next step: bringing together know-how!

Claire LEBLOND is a "Geemik" and a Facilitator for the

"entrepreneurial" community at the SKEMA Business School—

where students, researchers, professors, businesses and people

with business projects from the TONIC business incubator all come

together. Part of Claire's role as a Facilitator is to promote a

dynamic of sharing within the community. She usually works from

one of SKEMA's two Paris campuses (at La Villette and La

Défense) and also teaches courses in strategic monitoring and Business Intelligence at ITEEM.

Claire is co-author of three blogs: "geemik", on our profession; "S’informer pour se former", a

result of monitoring entrepreneurial trends and news; and "YouOnTheWeb" (on professional

Web uses).

Social networks are at the doors of the business world. The question we need

to ask is how can these collaborative platforms be integrated into IT

management strategy?

Over the last few years, companies have invested massively in analytical

systems that enable them to streamline and optimize Enterprise Resources

Planning—ERP, Customer Relationship Management—CRM, Supply Chain

Management—SCM and Product Lifecycle Management—PLM.

In his enlightening book on PLM (1), Michael Grieves proposes a map that

illustrates PLM's position in relation to other analytical systems within business.

The goal of this article is to extend the map in order to show how Enterprise

Social Networks—ESN can be integrated into this strategy as well as how they

complement existing systems.

Business Systems 1.0

Figure #1: Enterprise Business Systems 1.0

In Grieves' chart, the Y-axis identifies the different functions and activities of the

company, and the X-axis, the different areas of expertise.

The simple diagram shows where the systems intersect as well as the essential

need for integration.

For educational purposes here, the diagram has been modified to illustrate a

basic problem in business that does not appear in the one above: managing

non-captured tacit knowledge. The column widths (PLM, CRM, SCM) and the

ERP line have been reduced to emphasize the fact that the systems do not

cover the entire scope of the activities.

The fluid nature of ESNs

As Andrew McAfee noted (2), these systems are designed to structure and

control the activities of knowledge workers; they have clear limitations and a

strict framework of responsibilities.

On the other hand, Enterprise Social Networks are completely different. If ERP,

SCM, CRM or PLM are complicated products with limited responsibilities, ESNs

are systems that are "easily accessible, open, emerging, and in principle,

without structure" (A. McAfee).

Via the internet, these tools have shown their amazing ability for a wide breadth

of collaborative projects and their easy to use nature makes them easy to

adopt. They capitalise on the network effect to bring out new uses and their

application can evolve according to need.

In other terms, rather than forcing the user to adapt, ESNs adapt to the uses of

the knowledge worker. This gives ESNs an element of fluidity that enables them

to infiltrate and fill in the areas left unaddressed by other systems.

ESNs have no predetermined form, they adapt to the form of the environment in

which they operate: the type of activity and the area of business expertise or, at

the very least, the corresponding knowledge captured in the information

systems.

Knowledge Capture

ESNs are particularly useful for information capture.

First off, it much is easier for knowledge workers to capture informal units of

information into collaborative platforms (wikis, blogs, forums etc...) than as

formal entries into legacy enterprise systems whose reputation of complexity

and lack of user friendliness intimidate users.

Beside, these collaborative platforms also offer a single entry point for

researching information, no matter the type of document (blog, MS Office,

announcement etc.). This contributes to significantly reducing the time spent on

researching information.

Knowledge and Innovation Communities

The second ESN core feature that contributes to this fluid nature is the idea of

communities. The collaborative tools naturally contribute to the creation and the

activity of transverse communities that, within the context of the company, are

structured around certain areas of expertise, trade knowledge and know-how.

These communities put the abilities of different experts from various fields

(technical, architectural, product marketing, commercial, consultative) side by

side in one particular area. This allows for the construction (and the capture!) of

multi-dimensional expertise for specialized problems.

As a result, by encouraging conversations between a variety of experts in

different branches of the organization, ESNs allow for the clash of viewpoints on

different ideas, which we know from Mark Granovetter (3) or Ronald Burt (4) is

a great way to initiate innovation.

Integrating Process

Finally, the fluidity of these open platforms allows them an easy technical

integration with other systems and by doing so, better integration of business

processes (*Business Process Management—BPM).

On the internet, online services (API) like Flickr, Twitter or Facebook are

enjoying considerable success, in large part because of their simplicity. For

BPM (5) purpose, social networks provide an alternative light and fluid strategy

to heavy and complicated Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

Software vendors have quickly addressed the opportunity. SAP offers

StreamWork, which integrates into its ERP ; Saleforces proposes Chatter an

Enterprise Social platforms which integrates with their CRM while with

3DSwYm, Dassault Systems proposes an integrative community platform for its

PLM V6 Platform.

Business Systems 2.0

Figure #2: Enterprise Business Systems 2.0

The position of an ESN in a company's IT structure: a driver that facilitates

knowledge capture and sharing, the creation of transverse communities and an

easier integration of work processes.

(1) Michael Grieves: Product Lifecycle Management, Driving the Next

Generation of Lean Thinking

(2) Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Company Toughest

Challenges - Harvard Business School Press

(3) Mark Granovetter: The Strength of Weak Links

(4) Ronald Burt: The Social Origin of Good Ideas

(5) Forrester: Social Technologies Will Drive the Next Wave of BPM

Cecil Dijoux has been working with Information Systems for more

than 20 years. His work has taken him to large business groups, to

start-ups, and abroad. He is currently in charge of the Development

and Architecture Platform teams at Lectra for Lectra Fashion PLM,

a Product Lifecycle Management solution for the fashion industry.

Cecil has been blogging about culture, various organizations and

social media for 3 years at #hypertextual.

Communication is Operation

While some people see conversation and discussion as a futile exercise, in the

era enterprise 2.0 engaging in communication will give an advantage to

organizations that learn to master it.

Email is in fact today's primary manner of collaboration

It's a fact: the primary means of communication within companies is email

messaging. Information is exchanged, meetings are organized and documents

are sent. In the best cases, email is used to send notifications and contextualize

documents that are accessible using a link. It's not wrong to have tried to

structure the approach by planning or equipping with groupware. Exchange

takes precedence over sharing. Primary needs rely more on exchange and

interaction than on disseminating or sharing resources. In any case, the extra

effort needed is prohibitive.

Is it an inability to move towards collective austerity? or a pragmatic

need?

When planning structuring projects, micro projects pop up, and these are

spread out: their rollout is minimally planned and the people involved and the

objectives change. The sprawl of the 'project mode' lead to a weakening of

methodology: the requirement of collective work for communal practices

resulted in the smallest common denominator winning out. The idea of

collaboration has changed due to increased communication possibilities, or has

at least become more broad.

Or the limits of a document-centric approach?

Is it the failure of structured collaborative processes? Or of traditional sharing

platforms, i.e. "Groupware"? In any case, it is an endpoint for their claim to

universality in the field.

Let's look at some of their limitations:

document-centric platforms: difficult to share closely related information,

even in the work version that allows for contextualisation that we just

outlined for example. Sometimes we use a forum, but the segmented

construction imposes disassociation between documents and discussion.

So much so, that we use these spaces to create a complementary

document reference system out of the platform of exchange that is still

email messaging, creating extra complications in the transmission of

resources for sharing within the project.

platforms requiring pre-defined organization: diagrammed structure,

member list, options for space etc. This indicates that organization and

structure needs to be anticipated at the beginning of a project.

a space to be administrated: imposed so that all colleagues can have

access. This option is generally avoided due to (justified) fear of the

proliferation of interactive spaces or of centralized management of

spaces that lack reactivity and are harmful to micro-collaborations.

Collaborative management solutions remain adapted to project professionals,

and may even be reserved for them. Our vision of collaboration has to

recognize this and no longer systematically associate it with a need for

document sharing.

Introduction of organizational modes in a network

Enterprise 2.0, as a scope, generates new requirements for collaboration. This

is linked in part to new easier methods of exchange and connection between

individuals.

The new collaborative contexts

Each project—or collaboration rather—leads us to work with new people.

Motivation and level of involvement varies from one person to another.

Less and less centred on process, the issues of collaboration are moving

toward the capability to identify good partners, unite them, involve and even

mobilize them.

Practices that bring the social capital of each person to the fore are reinforced in

proportion to the collaborative spaces that extend outside the borders of the

company.

Soft collaboration*

In this context, new softer forms of collaboration that are focused on

conversation and discussion are emerging, facilitating the understanding of

others and based on organization within a network. It is up to each person to

initiate conversation and discussion with others in order to coordinate an action

into which documents can eventually be inserted. By coming together, the

discussion within a community can be organized and, if necessary, the

information even structured. Information management; the entry point of which

is the participants, the timeline and the keywords associated with the group.

The presentation of the information is centred on the individual. Finally, it's

about an organized version of existing email practices today.

Diagram: Social collaboration - Sharing all information that relates to an activity within a

conversation

A complementary addition for existing collaborative forms

It doesn't completely replace the existing tools—email or document sharing. It

completes and works well with them, in a way that refocuses usage on the

strong points of each one. This soft collaboration is upstream of the production

process. Ideas and coproduction can be organized around conversations and

their production is poured into a reference document project. It also has to do

with less formal collaborations. It also allows for a refocusing of email use.

A paradoxical break in use

Though this collaborative form is complementary to shared spaces and close to

existing email use, it also represents a break in use that is sometimes difficult to

deal with. Until now, I explained this mainly to try and position a new tool

alongside email and existing sharing tools without providing any real

explanation; the situation marked by the low adoption of 2.0 concepts and even

more so by the lack of their implementation in business strategies. In other

words, tooling steps often lack direction.

I think that the issue surrounding the development of uses is better understood

in large organizations today. I also don't doubt that next, creators will propose

gateways with traditional sharing spaces and email.

*Term used to qualify the fact that these new collaborations begin mildly and

implicitly. They require no preparation and can start before any commitment to a

team or a project.

Arnaud Rayrole is the founder and Director of Lecko. For 10

years now Lecko has been consulting and assisting organizations

to modify and achieve their Web projects and to develop new

target uses. Arnaud has led several benchmark studies in his field,

including on business social networks. These can be downloaded

for free from the USEO community.

The question of ROI is the most debated and controversial subject in enterprise

2.0 due to the apparent contradiction of two basic premises.

The first is that all investments are justified, whether in money, time or attention.

The second is that the power of a 2.0 project lies in making an organization

more adaptable, flexible and gives it the ability to react to unforeseen

circumstances and solve problems that, in addition to regular tasks, are the

norm for today's employees. As the system is designed to better respond to the

unexpected - which is fast becoming the norm - it is impossible to anticipate the

resulting benefits, precisely because of the unpredictable nature of the events

we are dealing with.

It has long been said that there is no need to prove ROI and that the value of a

project is intrinsic. General Electric acknowledged, after the fact, that their

intranet '2.0' was "the heartbeat of the company." Easy enough to recognize in

hindsight, but difficult to grasp inside the majority of organizations because

there is no need to justify or address the issue. Does this mean that these types

of projects can only see the light of day inside organizations that are "believers"

or already convinced? Not at all. ROI needs only be studied and applied where

suitable. Just because we can't plug the benefits into a model doesn't mean that

we can't anticipate or measure them according to financial or other relevant

criteria in order to discuss their value.

Enterprise 2.0 is never an end in itself. It's a tool for businesses, for their

strategy and operating methods. It stands to reason therefore that if nothing has

changed after its implementation, the project probably shouldn't go ahead. This

also leads us to view the problem in another light: if the project is only a means,

the project objectives must also be evaluated. Innovation? Reinforcing the

sense of belonging? Collaboration? Coordination. These are all measured in

terms of ideas, of development cycles, of numbers of meetings, of the time

needed to solve a problem, of the length of a sales cycle if targeting a

commercial environment, of market conditions etc. The list of these micro-

indicators, adapted to the working point of the company or of an individual

employee, is long. It is simply a matter of isolating the ones that make sense in

a particular situation, then it will be easy to measure any changes over time.

After the question of measure, there is the issue of forecasting. It must be

understood that within the framework of an enterprise 2.0 project it isn't the tool,

but the work practices and the operating methods it enables that renders value.

From that moment on, any rationale to establish and formulate quantitative

individual behaviour is biased and, if at all reassuring, guarantees neither the

accuracy of the forecast nor the improvement of the indicators mentioned

above. This doesn't necessarily mean that the value of the project will ultimately

depend on the goodwill of certain individuals in a best-case scenario and on

chance in the worst. The confidence of obtaining expected benefits increases

by developing new daily work practices; and more so on their adoption rather

than on the tool itself.

Many rules, implicit or explicit, that are followed on a day-to-day basis, are

subject to the restrictions of work tools that don't allow for certain methods of

interaction or collaboration. When talking about tools that lift the restrictions in

question, one has to consider rethinking the way we work. It is the only way of

actually guaranteeing that increased collaboration and more flexibility in

organization enable the achievement of the targeted objectives. It isn't about

demanding more sharing and collaboration from employees, but demanding

that they really think through the scenarios for employing the tools adapted to

the objectives, needs and limitations of each person, the small daily routines

that little by little transform their work. Only on these terms can we start off on

the right foot.

Enterprise 2.0 tools have no ROI; it is found in the new operating modes,

procedures and processes the tools will support. Everything that is enterprise

2.0 comes from what is called the company's 'intangible capital'. This includes

employee skills that are developed, the ideas and solutions they bring to the

table, ties between employees that enable stronger collaboration, flexibility and

information generation etc. Historically, companies struggle to capitalize on this

potential in which they make significant investments to create more value. The

reason is simple: until now, the tools available to employees hardly enabled

them to be identified, mobilized and therefore utilized. This is changing with

"social software", but only if the processes used to create value through work

relearn how to take advantage of this capital that they couldn't count on before.

Until now, the only goal of many "enterprise 2.0" strategies was for users to

accept and use new tools. Following some success, they didn't necessarily

manage to systematically create value. There is no use identifying an expert

whom no one has the right to consult or who doesn't have the right to make

themselves available. There is no use in developing ideas boxes to make an

organization more innovative if the people in charge of innovation don't even

consult them. And there is no use in promoting the exchange and sharing of

best practices if employees aren't allowed to use the new solutions in their daily

work.

Alternatively, take for example a company like CISCO, where decision-making

and concept processes for new business models are constructed based on a

network function and the ability to identify and mobilize a variety of expertise.

The result is concrete numbers throughout the development of company

plans—on what benefit they brought to the company and on the capability of the

organization to take advantage of market opportunities. As Norton and Kaplan

outline in their work "Strategy Maps", intangible assets only bring value when

they are used as an integral part of a business process.

From now on, the question of enterprise 2.0 isn't about demonstrating automatic

ROI, but the transformation of human and social potential, made up of

knowledge, ideas, individual or collective problem-solving ability and a tangible

value at the operational level that will ultimately improve value creation. We

don't need to find or reveal the potential of value; we know and can identify it.

Rather, it is the capacity for value to become more than just potential that is in

question.

All of which leads us to look at the question of the ROI of enterprise 2.0 from a

different angle, starting with a good set of premises and asking the right

questions:

The "tools" of enterprise 2.0 have no intrinsic value. Rather than looking

for the ROI of the tool, look at the ROI of the project(s) that the tool is

facilitating.

The question is no longer asking how a certain tool will create value but

how an organization will use the tool to create more value. An "enterprise

2.0" tool doesn't create any value in the organizational status quo.

Rather than asking "what is the benefit of €1 invested in an enterprise 2.0

project", it's better to establish clear strategic and operational objectives,

elaborate them in practical terms and then identify the tools that make

them possible. The ROI of the project is to achieve more ambitious

objectives using new operating methods.

To reduce the uncertainty that surrounds the realization of potential, the

relationship between the enterprise 2.0 project and the company must be

thought out in order for the project's contribution to the functioning of the

company to be made as automatic and systematic as possible, even if

other uses can no doubt be developed outside of this scope.

Finally, the costs of inaction need to be taken into account: leaving fertile

potential fallow while investing in its development, maintaining

bottlenecks on collaboration, and depriving oneself of the potential for

employee innovation in an economy whose cycles are growing

increasingly shorter all has a price.

Rather than thinking of ROI, think about added value and new methods

of value creation.

As a consultant at Nextmodernity, Bertrand Duperrin assists

companies in establishing new collaborative processes and new

methods for value creation.

A recognized expert in issues concerning business social networks

and their place in the process of value creation, Bertand is the

author of a blog on the subject and participates in a number of

conferences in France and abroad.

Change at the heart of the Business Social Network

A business social network (BSN) connects employees within a company and

thereby facilitates collective intelligence—the capacity to share information

and collectively produce knowledge and know-how. A BSN complements

document-centred activities, such as document or knowledge management. It

relies on the ties between employees, and not on a search engine, to filter and

make sense of information, sometimes is quasi-real time.

For a company to arrive at this level of operation, the dominant factor is

definitely the human one. Implementing a BSN requires leading major

changes. On the other hand, the network is a great lever for change and for

decompartmentalizing the company—especially for companies that need to

adapt to markets that are going through major changes. This two-sided dynamic

is fuelled by change; properly managing this over the medium-term is definitely

a factor in a company's performance.

This article focuses on the internal aspect of a company and doesn't touch on

change when it concerns the rollout of an external BSN with clients.

What is change management?

When talking about change management, we mean the capacity to implement

and lead a support program that includes several aspects:

ongoing and varied communication,

developing skills (training, coaching, ...),

developing organisation and operations,

adapting management methods.

Change management happens through the use of the system of the future, and

in the case of BSN, on it being deeply rooted in company operations; the

singular goal being that a "critical mass" of users take advantage of all the

BSN has to offer. Two failures to be avoided are under-use and misuse.

Under-use, because putting a BSN in place is an investment. Even if return on

investment is seldom the primary objective for its implementation, under-use

reduces any potential gains accordingly. And in a more empirical way, to benefit

from "Metcalfe’s Law", which states that the value of a telecommunications

network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the

system: so if there are two times as many users, there is four times the

value for each member. The ever-present risk of rejection can lead to under-

use.

Misuse is a traditional failing of recently implemented systems. It remains

something to watch for in the case of BSN but isn't always necessarily

something negative and is therefore more difficult to value. If new, initially

unanticipated, uses emerge, they can benefit the company through the use of

the BSN and by the results they generate.

How can we address these two risks?

Let's start by identifying the changes

The first step in this type of program is identifying resulting changes; the

things that will impact the implementation of the network. The primary resulting

changes identified are:

not knowing beforehand who will read what is written to them; a big

difference compared to email, which remains the company's principal

means of communication.

the creation of an internal digital identity that includes a trace, open to

everyone, of all someone's comments. Also open to all are simple things

like someone's photo (unbelievable but true!)

a reconsideration of established hierarchies—seeing as everyone can

comment on any subject. Who is that and on what authority do they

speak to that subject?

changes in behaviour such as "the principle of sharing" and "the right to

err"; uncertain answers like "I don't know but ask so-and-so..."

increasing the speed of getting information out and around the

company—observed several months after implementation,

etc.

It is also identifying opportunities for change that can be introduced by

implementing a BSN:

decompartmentalizing services,

the possibility of addressing diverse and broad themes such as

innovation, ethics and security, without needing to create a specific

organisation in order to do so,

the return into operations, with a greater visibility, of employees and

networks that are sometimes "buried" in the company: archivists,

knowledge managers, analysts etc.

etc.

The work of identifying these opportunities is difficult to execute in a

"theoretical" manner prior to implementing the BSN. Experience feedback from

companies that are more advanced in their implementation should therefore be

counted on as much and as early as possible, and then extrapolated to one's

own business.

Be smart from this point on when making comparisons within a certain business

sector and count more on the "cultural and social proximity" of a company

before drawing any comparisons. That way, two entities from the same sector—

one hyper-centralized with a national brand and employees who have been with

the company for 20 years, and the other hyper-decentralized with a local

element and a major recent recruiting push—won't have much in common when

it comes to the resulting changes and opportunities for change for implementing

a BSN.

The program for change management

Based on this analysis, we're going to work on the 4 aspects of the support

program presented above: communication, skill development, organization and

the development of professions.

Communication plan

Primary communication is essential. It's the name of the platform! and

its logo if possible. It can't be neglected—it's very hard to bring back.

SwYm - See What You mean (Dassault Systems), Join (GDF SUEZ with

the "in" de Linkedin), Engage (Alcatel-Lucent), LIO Plaza (Lyonnaise des

Eaux) were the first ones to sign on (internally, understandably) and spur

the question of whether or not to join a BSN.

Get rid of the domain names associated with the business. Tomorrow's

BSN will no doubt be about collaborating with your partners under the

framework of an extended enterprise 2.0 on the Web.

For the "big bang" or "viral method" migration strategy, prepare

communication that is adapted to the launch. In the first case, a

countdown prior to the launch and a tease inside the company. In the

second case, a kit (email, information pamphlet, tokens...) for the first

participants to go out and recruit people themselves. Teach them how!

The goal of early communication is to explain why the change is

happening and why it isn't possible to remain static: too much

knowledge loss within the company, email is becoming unmanageable,

compartmentalization is obstructing innovation etc. Next, show why the

change is attractive, what it will bring to the company and to each

individual; this can be targeted and job-specific. Finally, demonstrate that

no one will be left behind and that there will be an effort made to help

bring everyone on board.

In any project there are 10% who oppose it, 10% who are fans of it, and

80% undecided. Obviously, the priority is to convert those who are

undecided into fans before trying to change the minds of those against it.

At first, the latter will cite over-exaggerated risks (confidentiality, legal,

social etc.) that don't reflect the reality of implementation. At that stage,

the risks are only potential, so monitoring the level of actual risk is

important in order to progressively adapt to increasing risks. But under

no circumstances should you plan a security device from the beginning

that is out of touch with uses and is definitely a deterrent to new

membership.

Because growth is progressive (leaving time for the change management

program to adapt), publishing planning boards or other items for internal

communication—usage figures, ideas, examples, interviews etc.—will

maintain interest and convince personnel while respecting the rhythm at

which they sign on to the new changes.

Skill development plan

An absolutely essential aspect to respond to the resulting changes,

particularly those affecting behaviour: sharing ideas, documents, photos

etc. A BSN Terms of Use is the first step, though rarely pedagogical.

Coaching the community leaders before the users is essential and

should be a priority. Because the platforms are very user-friendly, the

approach is often intuitive. What is not intuitive however, are the

concepts and the leadership techniques. There's a "Community

Manager" inside every employee! Start by drawing out the ones who

will recruit, successfully set up the initial communities and ensure the

platform's expansion for you. Identify these future leaders prior to the

launch. Using the rule of 2% leaders, 8% contributors and 90% users,

the number of people needed for a community of 100, 500 or 1000

people is easy to determine. Anticipate the fact that only 70% of them will

be drawn to a well-established community.

Experience has shown that at first there is often confusion between a

BSN and a company community portal. Training leaders can help

avoid this situation, pass by down-the-line communication and engage

the members in conversation. The positioning of a BSN within an intranet

requires a lot of company maturity from the beginning. It seems more

simple to do something separate so that users understand that they are

taking part in something new before bringing it forward as an essential

piece of the intranet.

Skill development is also recognizing and placing value in good habits

and know-how. It is a bit Pavlovian, but think about Foursquare, a

growing social network that uses geolocation to indicate places the user

has visited. What would it be without rewards and challenges for user

actions; its Badges and the "ability" to become the mayor of a location?

Development of Professions

The main subject here is the change in management. It might be a bit early

for feedback within the company to go into detail about specific actions, but

the business of managing an enterprise 2.0 is changing (read through the

chapter on Governance & Management). One impact will probably be less

technical operational support (the employee can get it themselves through

the BSN), but more personal coaching and development. Integrating

"generation Y" into businesses would be very helpful for management to

adapt—or not.

The job of a "community manager", to lead external communities where

clients (loyalty), communication, marketing and sales promotion all

intersect. This job can't carried out by a "snipper" who is isolated and

outside of the company, it needs an active internal component for the

different jobs to increase efficiency and coordinate actions within external

communities (Facebook, LinkedIn etc.).

Organisation

At the organizational level, the priority is to implement something that

enables you to manage the BSN. Even if launched by a functional

department such as Communications or IT, it's essential that the platform

becomes the company platform. A BSN governance committee has to

guide the evolution and make decisions on rules as necessary. Should

YouTube video links be allowed?; did two different Department

communities that were too "similar" reduce BSN readability; do the

Terms of use need to change? etc. These are the first subjects for the

committee to tackle. It can also have a relationship with an existing

committee, like the Intranet committee, which is often already quite

broad.

Steps for organisational change might be required to make the most

out of contributions and optimize company efficiency. At this stage, the

BSN has been successfully integrated into the process as a work tool for

some employees—generally leading actors in the company network

(Quality, Security, Monitoring, Innovation etc.). A real and encouraging

sign of the impact of the BSN!

Change management shouldn't be underestimated, even if there isn't an

enormous commitment of resources. It shouldn't become an end in itself, but

remain a catalyst: a chemical component that speeds up a reaction without

altering the finished products. So grab your burette and start measuring.

Frédéric Charles is the Manager of the department for Strategy and

Governance at the Information Systems Directorate of Lyonnais Des

Eaux - Suez Environnement. He joined the subsidiary in 2007 during

the creation of the department for strategy and governance and

created a collaborative IS division that includes all the collaborative

services offered to Lyonnaise des Eaux's 7000 users (messaging,

intranet, document management, social network etc.). The division

provides a comprehensive and social platform ("2.0") to manage

collective knowledge. Frédéric is the creator of the blog Greensi.

Generation Y, Enterprise 2.0, online reputation and personal branding are all

key words. But they are above all customs and practices which have started to

impact the way that trade unions currently make demands. To understand the

challenges that trade unions are facing we must take a quick look at the

developments which have led to a situation in which fewer than 7% of French

employees belong to a trade union.

Labour relations have a long history in France, two centuries of trade unions

and their relationships with employer organisations and the ruling political

bodies. The trade unions were forged in struggle and during exchanges which

had more in common with conflict than dialogue, with bosses ill-inclined to

share or have their decision-making powers questioned. Trade unions had their

trente glorieuses before a worrying decline: a decline related to changes in

business and the economy; to relationships that place the individual at the heart

and weaken the collective; to globalisation, which has many effects, but the

principal result of which is to distance the decisions applied on a local level from

those really responsible for them.

This decline, which has led to de-unionisation, goes hand in hand with low

turnout—not only in elections for industrial tribunals, but also in the general and

presidential elections.

In this context, Enterprise 2.0 offers a new perspective on possible

developments in labour relations in business because it links at once the

notions of autonomy and collective, transparency and openness.

There are a few questions that immediately spring to mind:

What is the role of the trade union between a connected employee and a

collaborative business?

What will be the new forms of action, relationship and dialogue?

Likewise, what role will mediation, guaranteed by the trade unions, play

during a conflict between the collective and management?

As we know, Enterprise 2.0 has been the victim of a rather rose-tinted, touchy-

feely vision of business, in which everyone collaborates, communicates, works

and innovates for a better collective performance. Let’s forget role-playing

games, Iribarne’s logic of honour and Crozier’s actors theory1, and go back to

the fantasy of business without paralysing hierarchy, that allows autonomous

individuals to better fulfil their duties. So Enterprise 2.0 isn’t interested in labour

relations: it assumes that the question has become useless, because

transparency and openness allow us to resolve the slightest problem almost in

real time.

We reflect very little on the role of intermediaries, and therefore managers as

staff representatives in this version of the concept, as well as the North

American cultural assumptions introduced by the Enterprise 2.0 concept. A flat

business wants to become more communicative and simple, but destroys

mechanisms in place since the start of the capitalist business model in trying to

do so, without gaining any clue as to how to achieve the transition. The actual

representation of unions is already caught between the dissatisfaction of

employees, dating back more than 15 years now, and the increasing power of

the internet, which allows employees to side-step union spokespersons to make

their voice heard. The hard truth is that this representation is only further

weakened by the arrival of 2.0.

Imagine that a trade union is telling you about employee dissatisfaction about a

certain project, a reorganisation or another collective problem by telling you the

views of the rank and file. You, as a good 2.0 HR manager, show them the

results of your own internal social monitoring: a positive online survey; no

negative comments after your last blog entry on the subject or in the blogs of

other employees; and the topic didn’t come up during the last video chat that

you organised... At the end of the day, who is more representative? In the eyes

of the law, it will be the trade union, if it won more than 10% at the last

professional election. But what authority will it have to make suggestions, to

1 http://qualiconsult.pagesperso-orange.fr/crozier.htm

2 Distinction proposed by Michael Idinopoulos between activities in the flow and above the flow.

represent employees during the negotiations? Rejoicing in this fact, as many

journalists and some politicians are doing, would be a grave error. They explain

at great length that trade unions are out of date, in the way of change, too

expensive and harmful to the competitiveness of businesses. The most short-

sighted among them are even demanding that the right to strike be removed…

Let’s not forget that the reduction in trade union leadership in a dispute often

leads to radicalisation and the emergence of ephemeral coalitions with key

actors who have no training in negotiation, quickly becoming an obstacle to a

managed resolution of the crisis.

We can retain a positive view of labour relations in a 2.0 business when we

realise that there is a certain balance between the different forces and that the

unions are not (as they too often are) a hiding place for employees without

skills, leadership qualities or drive, who want to protect themselves. As a result

it is in the interests of management to develop methods for their employees to

express themselves within the company, so that they are not driven to external

sites when they cannot make their voices heard internally. It must then adapt its

social monitoring of these new tools. This will allow it to understand areas of

tension as well as satisfaction amongst employees and pick up on the subtle

signals which make it possible to measure the quality of social dialogue. HR

departments will have to define to rules of the game to encourage this dialogue

within the company, training managers in close social dialogue and improving

on the use of these new tools, amongst other things. They can also produce a

users charter for social media and carry out community management of

different spaces in cooperation with the communications department. For their

part, unions should ensure a better mastery of the different communication

spaces put at their disposal by the company, whilst not depending on them

completely, continuing to develop quality external communication and web tools

as part of their union marketing. It is essential that they manage to people in

management positions and work on the online reputation of the new ones so as

to inspire the confidence of employees and encourage them to come and seek

advice and support.

It is vital that all these actors understand that a presence in the different spaces

of the Web, 2.0 is at the same time a usage test and an avant-garde standing,

giving them legitimacy in the eyes of new employees who work more and more

online and are used to such practices. HR professionals, like union officials,

need to use their professionalism and competence to position themselves as

the first port of call for an employee faced with a problem or a question, and not

let Google, Twitter or Facebook take their place. Enterprise 2.0 has to be the

recognized social link, and should be constructed revitalise the work and to

develop long-term performance, putting the individual at the heart of business, a

focus on the person, and not only as a way of making money.

HR and unions may find common ground on which to develop a calmer social

climate within the company and greater consideration of the need to listen to

employees, to allow them to express themselves and participate in the smooth

running of the business whilst ensuring its economic development.

Vincent Berthelot is a specialist in internal and external social web-

use strategies, specifically in HR, skills, mobility, management and

labour relations. Using his background in HR and Intercultural

Communication, Vincent was the first to launch an HR intranet at a

large French group. He shares his views via his personal blog,

Conseilwebsocial, consults and advises in the business world and

participates in various conferences.

Governance in enterprise 2.0

When meeting with business managers on a collaborative project, the notion

that collaborative = anarchic or self-managed comes up often (even if this 'fear'

subsides). The role of senior management in not disappearing; it will validate

the operational collaborative processes and collaborative components: internal

participants, clients, partners etc. Even if there is a larger element of autonomy:

it also means freedom and means of 'doing', and senior management is always

there to establish business strategy and objectives.

To develop collaborative working practices in a business, senior management

needs to be more than a sponsor—it has to set an example, in attitude and in

the use of collaborative principles. This materializes in greater agility (reduced

decision-making times in line with operations and/or related to feedback),

decompartmentalization, and transparency in line with a freer flow of

information. We can speak of an integrative organisation. The main difference

with a classic organization(al model) is therefore increased listening on the part

of managers and the empowerment of their colleagues. Senior management

therefore has to concentrate more on direction and results than on the

micromanaging teams.

The result is a reduction in the pyramid, to the benefit of a more horizontal

organization (based on the identity of those involved and multi-communities). As

John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco has pointed out, it is illusory to think that one

can manage 66,000 employees; which is why the rigid, bureaucratic side of an

organization that is tied to the pyramid structure of classic organizations

(delegative according to Henry Mintzberg) needs to be reduced.

So the 'transfer' of this plan and how it is received can be accomplished directly,

via the blog of the CEO, or more broadly through a collaborative platform that

provides the employees with the opportunity to react and engage in dialogue.

If governance evolves when establishing an enterprise 2.0 or a collaborative

organization, it stands that the management methods must also evolve.

Management 2.0 in your company

When speaking about collaborative work within a company, the term community

manager quickly comes up. If the creation of communities is one of the main

results of collaborative work, it doesn’t mean that traditional management

ceases to exist: the "manager 2.0" model isn’t exclusively that of a community

manager. For a long time (and still often the case), the manager was the one

with the information and they transmitted it to their teams based on the model of

information = power. So what can we expect from the "next generation"

manager?

First, they need to instil confidence in their teams. This means the freedom to

express themselves and to share, which will lead to participatory management

and even collective decision-making by the groups, and therefore ultimately

more engagement. But the role of manager can obviously not be conceived with

only power and hierarchy in mind; so the role will therefore be more the one of a

facilitator or a coordinator. In any group dynamic, there is the potential for

tensions and issues to be resolved; the person who is able to stay above the

fray can help move things forward. If management participates, we can also

assume that the level of daily delegation is substantial. The manager is actually

there to help their teams grow and achieve results, and therefore to lead

employees in the direction that the business wants to go, giving them the

autonomy they need to grow individually and collectively. This means giving

support, advice or offering help when needed. The time and attention given to

doing this enables the manager to improve their team and take time to think

about the direction of activities and above all, prioritize them in order or

importance (important, urgent etc.)

But more than delegation, the manager develops the willingness of their teams

to work collaboratively and provides them with the means to do so (knowledge

and capability). They will be a promoter. The manager will be the one

connecting with their n+1 or n+2 in order to promote the work of their colleagues

and to emphasize the personal and collective achievements of their teams.

Even within a network system, we are much closer to "internal personal

branding" that will capitalize on employee reputation within the company.

This brings us to some key ideas:

respect rather than dominance

confidence rather than discipline

transparency rather than secrecy

the collective rather than the individual

to value rather than to appropriate

All of this is nothing new, much like collaborative work practices or communities

(web 2.0 didn’t invented that). But many mangers are worried about their status

in a collaborative company. If their role evolves, their actions will also have to

evolve; being a manager doesn't mean displaying leadership. Nevertheless,

managers within the structure of a collaborative company will no doubt have to

display leadership. This means changing perspectives from a managerial skills

standpoint. Managers will need to respond to two specific challenges:

coordinating without centralizing; and doing so outside of a hierarchy.

Both of these challenges present problems for managing a project and having a

project manage you. To tackle these, and to allow everyone to develop their

potential, you need to inspire the following:

a sense of freedom, by accepting to let got of—and "lose"—control;

a sense of community, by reinforcing the sense of belonging;

a sense of direction, so colleagues can completely invest in their work.

By assuming this leadership posture, the manager will become an enabler that

inspires their colleagues; freeing their energy; knowing when to make a decision

or to reach a consensus when needed. This might mean going along with their

colleagues in order to demonstrate an open mind, and enabling them to grow by

allowing them to make mistakes (meaning delegation), without which

confidence and risk-taking isn't possible. A favourable environment for individual

success is created.

This often scares managers. They are worried about what their superiors and

their colleagues might think. Delegation doesn't result in decreased authority,

doesn't take away recognition from, or of, superiors and colleagues. On the

contrary—recognition and support provides motivation. The goal of a manager

is to organize a team and to help them develop. A manager is judged in the way

they manage a team, not on their ability to do so. In the words of Peter Drucker:

"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people

to work. In the new world of management I see frontline employees being in

control of their own workload and calling upon the coach for advice when they

need it."

As a conclusion

Some managers won't know how—or want—to take on this dramatic change in

"culture". The role isn't necessarily for them, because it is sometimes too far

removed from their own history and culture. Management therefore needs to be

involved and exposed to different points of view. The more managers are

involved early on, the less they will feel like "the fifth wheel" and will be open to

change. Managers need to play a role in this change in culture and be

recognized for its contribution to the collaborative company. They will also be

the main liaison in implementing communities or collaborative work processes

within the company. As I said before, enterprise 2.0 is integrated and doesn't

push managers aside. For those who aren't able to adapt, the company owes it

to them to give them other roles; providing their expertise for example.

Anthony Poncier has a PhD in Contemporary History and a

Master's degree in Strategic Management and Competitive

Intelligence. He has taught International Relations at Paris X

Nanterre and NICT at IUFM Paris. Anthony is Director/Consultant

of management and enterprise 2.0 (management 2.0, collaborative

projects, SCRM, social media strategy, etc.) at LECKO. He

regularly participates at conferences in France and abroad,

delivers university seminars at HEC and SKEMA, is a business

consultant, regularly publishes articles for online magazines and

maintains a blog.

Monitoring for enterprise 2.0

Attempting to define enterprise 2.0 would be a useless effort to force it into a

framework, effectively going against its intrinsic characteristics. It's more useful

to speak about what makes an enterprise 2.0 what it is: agility, the function of

and a reliance on a skill network, using so-called social software applications at

their fair value. A 2.0 business is fertile ground for exchanging skills between

peers and knowledge between employees and professionals. At this level,

information becomes the keystone for individual and collective performance—it

circulates, is enriched and transformed into knowledge.

As such, monitoring in the broad sense, research, oversight and studies, will be

focused on adapting to the characteristics of an enterprise 2.0. Without

necessarily speaking of monitoring 2.0, the activity should include three key

parameters in order to be able to bring real added value to the company:

An approach for governance and management

Intelligent implementation of internal skills

Technological support focused on the company's professions

First off, it's important to think about the activity of monitoring in its entirety,

across all aspects and functions of the company. An efficient and effective

monitoring mechanism requires an approach for governance and management

of the resources used and the activities put into practice according to

collaboratively created processes. This type of governance will enable the

evaluation of monitoring actions on three levels: operational, tactical and

strategic. Management via key quantitative indicators also allows for the

application of corrective actions.

Moreover, an approach to governance enables the coordination of all

monitoring activities in a 2.0 business and ensures a certain interoperability of

individual and collective monitoring systems. This interoperability is all the more

necessary in a 2.0 business; it's impossible that monitoring be entrusted to a

single central body, or delegated without a minimum of participation and

coordination of all employees. As it happens, it is a second criterion for

monitoring in enterprise 2.0.

Given the agility and the flexibility of a 2.0 business, the most appropriate model

for carrying out monitoring activities would be a deft, delicate mix of

centralization and decentralization; intelligently implementing internal skills,

professions and support in an overall monitoring dynamic. This means that

information-documentarian professional profiles like archivists and monitors will

be oriented towards specific aspects such as qualifying sources, methodological

transfers, internal coaching, managing software tools etc.

As for the professionals—engineers, researchers, product heads, marketing

staff etc.—and their growing demands for autonomy in regards to research and

oversight, they will be appealed to on the grounds of professional, even

strategic, analysis. Based on their positions and their activities, these

knowledge workers often request specialized, tailor-made monitoring in addition

to their desire for autonomy when using and working with collected information.

It's essential to come up with suitable collaboration methods to satisfy this group

while subscribing to performance logic and professional processes.

This happens principally by establishing practical and knowledge-sharing

communities that bring together specialists and experts that could, for example,

be led by information professionals. Collaboration can also occur through the

implementation of analysis committees, by organizing a variety of professionals

to deliver communal value added production: outlook, activity reports etc.

Now collaboration becomes indispensible, above all in a context where a single

employee can't provide all the working methods and techniques, the analysis

and the production. It's more reasonable then to trust in this collective

intelligence to provide and create added value that is adapted to all of the

professions involved. With the desire to optimize performance and efficiency,

this collaboration is impossible without basic technological support, in line with

the global Information System of the company.

Technological support occurs through the implementation of collaborative

applications for content production (like wikis) or collective publishing tools (like

Google Docs), but also occurs via Business Social Networks (BSN). A BSN can

bring real added value, especially if it is used within the framework of specific

professional projects: launching a new product, designing a layout, defining a

benchmark etc. Through content sharing, physical and digital, and via

annotation and comments, a BSN allows employees to give direction to shared

information, tackle the different visions of the marketer, the engineer, the

communications specialist and the product head. With a single interface to

access Internet and hardcopy information, traceability and an activity history in

addition to co-production of content and direction, a BSN contributes to the

creation of economies of scale and is synonymous with gaining time and

efficiency, improving margins of error and therefore performance.

As a conclusion, monitoring for an enterprise 2.0 is in essence collaborative. It

benefits from social software infrastructure and, in particular, does so while

understanding governance and management so as to ensure consistency and a

dynamic that directly ties into the company's business.

Aref JDEY is a consultant-researcher specializing in oversight systems and information management. Aref has an authoritative

blog, Demain la veille, on monitoring and issues that come up as it relates to Web 2.0, social networks and enterprise 2.0.

Knowledge management is not a new subject. About 15 years ago Nonaka and

Takeuchi published an article explaining how tacit knowledge could be captured,

shared and recorded, mainly through the use of nascent intranet technology. From then

on, knowledge management projects continued to multiply until it became apparent

they weren’t living up to expectations, leading ultimately to disappointment and wasted

money. What happened? Under pressure from publishers to sell software, we had

forgotten a fundamental truth, as stated by Peter Drucker: ―Knowledge is between two

ears and only between two ears.‖ The apple of knowledge is just an ordinary apple until

you eat it. It is necessary therefore to find it, pick it and eat it to get the energy needed

for action. In other words, you need to actively look (monitoring, filtering useful

information) and then learn (analysis/synthesis, learning, ―rehashing‖) before being

able to benefit (implementation, know-how, integration into a new theory). By acting on

what was information, that is to say, knowledge-in-waiting, it becomes working know-

how, i.e. knowledge.

What’s up, doc?

The arrival five years ago of a new generation of Internet-derived tools has completely

transformed the landscape of knowledge management. The fact that they came from

the web is not insignificant. It means that very often they were created by individual

developers (to begin with, at least) in order to meet their own needs: improved

information sharing in a group project (Ward Cunningham’s wikis) or managing

favourites (Joshua Schacter’s Muxway/Delicious). These tools were designed to meet

individual needs—a very different situation from the first generation of knowledge

management tools, which were focused on the sacrosanct document and placed the

group (project team, department) ahead of the individual. Enterprise social networks

(ESN) and the tools associated with them (wikis, blogs, microblogging) are focused,

once again, on the individual; every action they execute in the system is automatically

associated with their profile either visibly (group notification that So-and-So has shared

such-and-such document) or invisibly (recording and combining clicks in an Amazon-

style collaborative filtering system). The primary aim of these tools is to meet both the

personal needs of the individual—finding useful information or the right person in-

house—and their collaborative needs: working in project mode, creating a practice

community etc. We always forget that collaborating for the sake of collaborating is not

the goal, at least not in the business world. Groups, networks, communities and teams

are, initially, no more or less than the sum of their individual members. With time, if all

goes well and the environment is favourable, this sum may become a multiplication of

talents. However, this is rare, strongly linked to the chemistry of the individuals

involved, and rather unpredictable. This is not to say that we should not try to create

the conditions to encourage it. If the features of the tool used are designed to serve the

needs of the group before those of the individual, the individual will not be inclined to

use it (the ―that thing is useless‖ syndrome).

With ESNs, the individual is central because they initiate the conversation. By sharing a

link to an important article, the individual generates reactions, discussion, arguments

and objections... added value in other words.

In doing so, these systems that enable information to circulate hold potentially valuable

elements. Snippets of information stored here and there have the potential, once

grouped together by an internal search engine, for example, to provide useful decision-

making tools. This is the reason why, in our opinion, the next elements to incorporate

into ESNs are natural language processing applications (text mining via graphical

interfaces for example) which will allow the user to use this internal database

quantitatively.

Returning to the comparison with the first generation tools, we must note the

emergence of simple but indispensable ergonomic developments. One of the major

problems was the fact that an employee had to duplicate information: I send the file to

my project group and then I file it in the company’s KM system. This ensured that the

individual spent most of their time working via email and hardly any time sharing

knowledge by making contributions to the organisation2. Simple features now allow

them to carry out these two acts at the same time.

Chronicle of a death foretold

Let’s be clear about this, enterprise 2.0 and the ESN have signed the death warrant for

KM as we know it. Soon no one will be ―doing‖ knowledge management. We will go

about our business and let the system gather information, restructure it, classify it,

index it and notify anyone who has set up an alert etc.

But is this enough? Not all the information that an organisation needs can be turned

into a conversation. Technical data, job descriptions, standards and other ―serious‖

documents are hard to accommodate within conversations. There is therefore a body

of documents that a ESN isn't able to handle. But is this new? For a long time in fact

this information has been managed by professional applications, according to records

management and archiving procedures that are much better adapted. Moreover, it is

not knowledge that is more active than it was before, simply potential knowledge. This

leads us to the conclusion that our systems have never managed (and will never

manage) knowledge, and the question of knowledge management breaks down here.

Both types of document are needed by organisations, however. Technical and formal

documents must be managed because they ensure the quality of the output of the

―production machine‖ that is the company. Conversations must also be managed

2 Distinction proposed by Michael Idinopoulos between activities in the flow and above the flow.

because they ensure the smooth running of another machine equally vital to the

organisation’s survival, the ―innovation machine‖. This machine, because it is made up

of people who think, look for and share information, doesn’t fit into a method of

information management which is standardised, normalised and codified. Trying to

apply methods that have emerged from production management to the sphere of

innovation and ideas renders them sterile. This is where 2.0 technology plays its role;

by making the hierarchy more flexible and more adaptable to the complexities of real

life, thereby allowing the emergence of a 2.0 business, or more simply, of a business

which has succeeded in adapting to its environment.

Christophe Deschamps is an independent consultant and training

expert in information management and strategic monitoring. He is a

professor at ICOMTEC and has blogged about Competitive

Intelligence at Outils Froids since 2003. In 2009 Christophe

published Le nouveau management de l'information - La gestion

des connaissances au coeur de l'entreprise 2.0 (The New

Information Management - Knowledge management at the heart of

enterprise 2.0) from FYP Editions.

Relating knowledge, the place of storytelling in Enterprise 2.0

The objective of a so-called enterprise 2.0 can be oversimplified to facilitating

collaborative relations between various actors in the organization. This is done

to enable discursive interactions (through "interactive applications") and tacit

knowledge sharing, generally formalized as "experience feedback" (through

"integrative applications3"; a DMS for instance). This is knowledge

management.

According to Wikipedia, knowledge management can be defined as "a range of

strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent,

distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences." The goal of

systems, managerial or technical, associated with enterprise 2.0 can be to

facilitate the circulation of employee knowledge in a company. One question to

ask is: how can this knowledge be formalized through a perspective of sharing

that is accessible to as many people as possible rather than for the reuse of

"documents" (organized by defined, universal rules)?

3 Charlot J-M., Lancini A., Faire de la recherche en système d'information, Vuibert, 2002, Paris

"Storytelling" (as we will define it) is an interesting way to formalize the

circulation of knowledge within business networks (intranet, BSN etc.). What's

more is that these networks make it easier for various employees to interact and

communicate.

Storytelling: a narrative approach to knowledge sharing

Basically, storytelling is a narrative communication approach: present the

message in the form of a story (tale, legend etc.) so the listeners can find

reference points (analogies) that enable them to understand the meaning and

especially adopt the intended message more easily. Speaking more

"conceptually", storytelling can be seen as a "strong cognitive hypothesis for the

way in which we organize our experiences and therefore bring out meaning in

our interactions.4" In other words: a way of formalizing our experiences, not

according to their potential use (or reuse), but through the lens of interactions

and exchanges that enabled knowledge generation etc.

More pragmatically, to paraphrase Edgard Morin, there is no given objective

reality; all of the knowledge that we develop is tied to the various interactions

that we've had with others. For example, the process of creating a certain

product is not innate; it is a result of the exchanges that take place between

various project contributors. The interest is therefore to find and identify the

interactions (discussions within a BSN, exchanges on an internal blog, sharing

information and points of view on a wiki) in order to then transmit them to other

employees as a narrative. And therein lies the question of operating in an

"enterprise 2.0": encourage and enable digital exchanges so they can be

formalized, memorized and communicated to the people they affect the most

(company newcomers for example). The goal of storytelling in enterprise 2.0 is

to emphasize interactions and conversations as a way of supporting the transfer

of knowledge and tacit knowledge.

What are the tangible uses within an organisation?

4 Soulier. E (sous la dir), Le storytelling : concepts, outils et applications, Hermès Science, 2006, Paris

When talking about businesses operating on a collaborative 2.0 model, there

isn't a lot of feedback for storytelling strategies that have been implemented (at

the technical and managerial levels) for knowledge management purposes.

Nevertheless, in a 2006 article from a French management review on the

knowledge management system as a support for storytelling in business ("Le

système de gestion des connaissances pour soutenir le storytelling dans

l'entreprise.", Revue Française de Gestion), E. Soulier, a French researcher

working on the problem proposes several paths to develop a knowledge

management system based on storytelling. Here are some of those paths,

together with some other thoughts and facts on the ground:

Encourage narration during feedback by using video (video conferences,

podcasting etc.): have an employee transmit their knowledge on a given

issue using a video interview. "Staging" the experience feedback by

encouraging an employee to propose a logical implementation explained in

a narrative form facilitates the use of the "storytelling approach" for the

transmission of their experience and knowledge.

Propose, during individual feedback sessions or once a project has been

completed, interviews (filmed or not) wherein each employee talks about

their vision of the project. The goal is to bring out similar "stories", analogies

that are used by everyone that can then be made available (using

appropriate tools like a blog).

Get moving again on the interactions and exchanges generated using

internal 2.0 tools to try and "capture" the knowledge that comes up

throughout the conversations. The use of tags can be useful (and

reemphasize their role with certain tools) when they are inserted into a

predetermined narrative.

If the organisation has a BSN, allow employees to clearly define their own

"digital identity". History is written by people, so every employee can be

seen as having a fixed role in a project (for example). Their "personality"

characteristics—their skills, needs etc.—are promoted when they register on

the network. Organising a project doesn't go through "who can do what?",

but "which personality/digital identity will advance the story?"

Present a project as an event within internal 2.0 tools.

To sum up, don't present a "catalogue" of information about a project, but a

group of narratives that happen between the information. Right now, the use of

storytelling within enterprise 2.0 is more of a theoretical vision than a practical

one. In order to be applied effectively, storytelling needs strong conversation

and digital exchanges between employees: an honest conversational approach

when working on company projects. The main idea is to render an operational

act subjective and to use the often informal conversations that take place using

the organisation’s 2.0 tools to do so.

Nevertheless, this approach (in a hypothesis wherein there is fertile terrain for it

to grow) seems the best suited to the transmission of knowledge, to

metaphorically reformulating the actions and knowledge of every person. After

all, who hasn't listened to the head of a large company begin a "corporate"

speech with an anecdote about the how and the why of their success?

More than formalising practical knowledge, the narrative approach enables the

transmission of values unique to each organisation, values that are necessary

for good collaborative practices in the company.

Camille Alloing is a R&D researcher and author of CaddE-

Réputation, a blog dedicated to online reputation-management

tools and methodologies.

Learning is social by nature

Without going all the way back to the theories of Vygotsky or Albert Bandura,

the simplest way to explain social learning is perhaps to look at the work of

Richard J. Legers (Harvard Graduate School of Education), who has shown that

one of the most important factors for success in higher education is a student’s

ability to form and/or participate in small study groups. In comparison to those

who had worked alone, those students who had studied in a group, even only

once a week, were more involved and better prepared. The students from these

groups were able to ask questions to resolve uncertainties and improve their

own understanding of the subject by hearing the answers to other students’

questions. The most powerful element was the ability to play the role of teacher

to other students, as it has been shown that the best way to learn is to teach.

The philosophy of social learning is in contrast to the traditional Cartesian view

of education. In the Cartesian model, knowledge is a kind of substance and

learning is a way for teachers to transfer this substance to their students.

Instead of basing itself on the Cartesian principle "I think, therefore I am", the

social conception of learning holds that "We participate, therefore we are".

It is in society that we learn. Observation, discussion and collaboration are also

opportunities to learn. The social aspect of learning is fundamental. Social

learning is therefore not a novelty that has appeared alongside Web 2.0.

Learning is not an event

When we talk about learning, we immediately think about formal learning; in

other words, about training and education. However, this kind of organized

learning only represents about 20% of everything we learn in our lives (see the

works of Cofer).

Solving problems, design, creativity, research, experimentation and innovation

are full-fledged learning experiences. Sharing experiences, observations,

discussion, helping one another and cooperation are also kinds of learning.

80% of our learning is therefore unexpected, unplanned and informal.

From this point of view, the emphasis is less on the content and more on the

activities and the human interactions that take place around the content.

Indeed, real learning can be found in all the nuances of our way of

collaborating, sharing and working. Learning is not something that takes place

outside of work. Learning and work are in fact part of a single stream; it’s a

continuous process, a skill, an ability to act.

Enterprise 2.0 = Learning 2.0

In our businesses, we know that informal learning takes place all the time, most

of the time however, the answers and the experts most capable of solving a

problem are not connected with the person who is attempting to tackle it. Social

learning networks can remedy this situation by giving everyone access to a

much larger group of people who can help them.

2.0 technologies are enabling technologies that connect us with each other,

facilitating communication and collaboration. But they are not only technologies;

and social learning, by allowing us to capitalise on the ever-increasing streams

of knowledge that have made the walls of our organisations porous, fills the

empty barrels of 2.0.

4Cs for Enterprise 2.0

Because social learning necessitates design, training, support, leadership,

oversight and highlighting successes both big and small, we have developed an

innovative and pragmatic approach in order to support our clients throughout

their projects, both internally (tools and collaborative learning) and externally

(social media). This approach facilitates acquiring and diffusing knowledge

within social networks via an iterative and fractal process that can be

summarised in four steps: Comprehension, Conversation, Collaboration and

Capitalization.

Our 4C method is based on two indirect consequences of 2.0, which are vital for

the success of any Enterprise 2.0 project: visibility and transparency.

Making work visible and transparent

One unexpected and rarely-acknowledged consequence of the first generation

of IT tools (email, word processing) which make up our day-to-day work

environment is to render the work process less visible, precisely at the moment

when we need it to be as visible as possible.

The end products of our work are highly refined abstractions. For example, this

article tells you nothing about the initial idea or its evolution. Likewise, it doesn’t

give you any information about the exchanges I may have had with my peers

(via social networks or face-to-face), or about my own experiences that have

shaped my thinking.

In business, the gains in personal productivity produced by these IT tools are

often made at the detriment of organisational learning.

In the 1.0 world, I worked in an events management company. I was in charge

of organizing a professional trade show, and for a beginner like myself, the

sales targets seemed unreachable. The only way to meet them was to bring

together all the stakeholders of the project whilst meeting their needs (explicit or

otherwise). I couldn’t rely on the planning boards from previous years’ shows, or

on the sales databases, and even less on the dry minutes of old meetings to

help me understand.

I was lucky enough to have a managing director who gave me access to his

office for several months. I was able to access all his notes, emails and his

address book. I participated in all the formal and informal exchanges on the

topic. Within a few months I was able to sketch a reasonably accurate map of

the world of Florence that I had to navigate and proposed a strategy to make

this trade show an unmissable event. By allowing me to observe his work, the

director gave me an invaluable learning opportunity.

Transparency is the key to social learning and to Enterprise 2.0. This

transparency encourages access to the people and information that we may

need to make good decisions. It is the consequence of the open and

multidirectional communication made possible by social tools. It can’t be

imposed or forced. Transparency in Enterprise 2.0 involves making our actions

and decisions visible to others. It’s about sharing information and knowing who

has provided it. We’re talking about accountability and recognition. By bringing

people and their experiences and ideas together, social learning allows us to

increase our confidence in the shared information and in those who created it.

Changing models: from "command & control" to

"connect & animate"

It is transparency that is proving the greatest challenge to the classic "command

and control" management model. Managers have to accept that information is

created and spread more quickly over networks. They must also accept that this

movement will most often happen outside of their control.

Lately, one of our clients told me that "the problem with your approach is that if

you give everyone the right to speak, they might just take you up on it!" It’s

precisely this commitment to openness and transparency, which goes hand in

hand with Enterprise 2.0, which must pressure management to innovate and

adopt a "connect and animate" model.

Your IT department and in-house lawyers will tell you that it’s risky. But these

risks can be managed. The value created by greater transparency in business

is much greater than the potential cost. On the contrary, the real risks are

attached to a lack of transparency, to bad decision-making, to making the same

mistakes again or redoing the same work, to an inability to innovate or to

understand and satisfy client needs.

Until now competitive advantages have been built on information asymmetry. In

the future, we will be mistaken if we think that exclusive access to information is

an advantage. In today's complex environment, real competitive advantages are

created by people who can find relevant information, transform it into practical

knowledge and use it to create value. The challenge is to find, attract and hold

on to these people; the challenge is to create an environment in which their

talent can be developed and used to its fullest; and transparency is essential in

such an environment.

Frédéric Domon is co-founder of Socialearning, a consulting

agency for organization and collaborative strategies. Socialearning

assists businesses to understand the issues surrounding new

methods of value creation and helps them develop collaborative

work and training practices (enterprise 2.0, social learning) for

innovative partnerships with their clients (social media and social

business).

Frédéric is also the creator of Entreprise Collaborative, a think tank

on social learning and businesses inside networks.

Due to his background in communications and marketing, Frédéric

still has a passion for graphic design, as you can tell from the layout

of this collection.

By definition, participative innovation is a structured management

approach to stimulate and facilitate the introduction, implementation and

circulation of ideas to personnel. The notion of "participation" introduces a

management axis, a mechanism for listening and for dialogue toward

employees, kindness and a positive stance: each employee can have ideas.

Voicing the idea needs to be promoted. The notion of "innovation" introduces

boldness, curiosity and risk-taking, implying that one has the right to err.

With strong practical experience in business, the partner members of the

association INNOV’ACTEURS constructed a reference system to

successfully implement Participative Innovation, or PI.

Visual representation of the reference system for Participative Innovation

At first, businesses need to define their values, their mission and their ambition.

Then they need to build the processes that will enable them to achieve their

vision and to define the type of innovation to put in place, according to the

situation. The business could have spontaneous innovation: every person can

put forward an idea and the manager needs to know how to receive and deal

with the idea; or encouraged innovation: using and leading methods for the

resolution of problems or for creative purposes, or to have internal challenges

on a given theme. Then the company figures out the synergy with institutional

innovation and supporting services. That is where we handle the regrouping of

all the areas of innovation in the company. Step six consists of increasing the

scope even more by listening to clients and suppliers. Step seven is then

essential: managing participative innovation definitely requires a policy that

recognizes and values the authors of the ideas. Take for example the industrial

companies that save millions of Euros thanks to participative innovation: it's

crazy to think that they don't provide some sort of financial compensation to the

employee who came up with the savings. Finally, the company should have

effective communications. In order for participative innovation to really bear fruit,

there has to be a "buzz" created right from the beginning that can be reactivated

when there is success. These eight points enable a structured process for

participative innovation.

Built a few years earlier, this PI reference system would be seen as a

precursor to its own content!

By effectively suggesting openness to the outside and integrating

stakeholders such as clients and suppliers, the system implicitly deals

with the use of new technologies and, in particular, collaborative tools like

WEB2.0.

The system also leads to another vision of work in a company and

reintegrates the individual at its heart; relevant here at the start of the 21st

century! Another important thing to point out is the system's goal to also

improve social and economic performance.

From this point of view, the evolution of participative innovation and its

longevity show both the acuteness of the participatory management

approach and its remarkable modernity.

Historically, participative innovation first appeared with the ideas box in the

1980s. Not well organized and sporadic, it was a spontaneous approach that

first emerged in quality circles. During the 1990s and in the early 2000s, the

approach changed and idea management tools appeared. Deadlines and

traceability were formalised and problem-solving scenarios were used. At the

time, innovative participation was quantitative and vertical; it was mostly in the

world of Industry and determined largely by quality.

Eventually, a "world of innovation" emerged: a community of internal and

external stakeholders. Broadly speaking, innovation now means incremental

as much as it does disruptive technology and can be lead by R&D, marketing or

by any employee when it comes to improving procedures. Until now

collaboration was split up; today, it is the interaction of the whole system that

decides whether or not a company can be labelled innovative. Thanks to new

technologies, every business segment in a company is affected, and

participative innovation is now concentrated on the qualitative. It relies on

creativity linked to strategy under a dynamic, open-bubble concept. Participative

innovation is increasingly seen as an avenue for bringing the human element

into the company and a way to provide a sense of direction for action. We are

no longer searching only for innovation, but to build an overall mindset of the

innovative company.

As such, quality circles from the 1980s help us today during the explosion

of collaborative communities characterized by interactivity, co-

construction, the 'right time' and the 'right use'.

It is a considerable paradigm shift, since as a result it can only work (besides

as a technical tool) on the strategic basis of alliances, openness,

cooperation among very diverse parties, accepting that time is speeding

up and an unrestricted circulation of information.

The engine for the system resides in the will to better integrate interdependence

and the numerous disciplines of the parties involved; and to build innovation

together.

It's a new way to work and it corresponds to the expectations and the

profiles of the Y and Z generation workforce, who are skilled at operating

within a network and are familiar with information and communication

technologies.

It is certainly a gamble on the ability of businesses to project themselves

actively into this new dynamic and to accept new management methods that

are unsettling to organisations with a pyramid structure and hyper-hierarchical

operations.

Muriel Garcia is President of INNOV’ACTEURS and manger of the

Innovation, HR and Management-Communication division for the

Quality Management Directorate of La Poste group (France).

Following 10 years of experience in Line Departments (postal and

financial services), Muriel turned towards operational activities in

1992: trainer in communication and management; management

consultant for strategic pilot projects; marketing project head for

Branding; HR manager for Engineering; and sustainable quality and

development manager for the Banking branch of La Poste (La

Banque Postale). Muriel has been at her present position with La

Poste since 2006.

Entreprise 2.0: an agent of innovation

The Enterprise 2.0 concept is manifested in many ways within a business.

Some manifestations are technological or impact on the architecture, design

and ergonomics of computer programs, and so have a rather indirect effect on

employees. An example would be the generalised integration of RSS feeds as a

solution for documentary and knowledge interoperability. This kind of

architectural vision means that information can always be present, everywhere,

and especially where individual employees want it to be, which brings us back

to the eternal problem of every communication department: ―How do we make

sure that our intranet is used?‖

Other manifestations make collaborative work and communication easier. Some

of them focus on collective intelligence and innovation, principally by the use of

social media, and especially Business Social Networks (BSNs) to meet internal

communication needs. Only 25% of innovation comes from laboratories and

R&D teams. BSNs make it possible to gather together each person’s ideas and

discoveries in order to discuss them and identify innovative approaches.

Business Social Networks (BSNs) as collective intelligence platforms

The BSN concept can have a limited impact in some businesses because many

associate them with social networks like Facebook which are accessible to all.

Facebook is still often a synonym for a site ―where we waste time and which

can therefore only be a source of wasted time in a professional context‖.

Although the operating principles of BSNs and Facebook are basically the

same, the uses to which the business can put them provide solutions to vital

needs which were only partially met by traditional means: telephone, email,

video-conferencing and so forth.

The main aim of a BSN is to use practice or interest-based communities to

connect all of a company’s internal and external collaborators, including

partners, suppliers, clients and, more generally, all the actors who surround it

(its stakeholders).

This contact is asynchronous and minimally intrusive (each person can connect

when he wants, if he wants, where he wants, via the internet or using a

smartphone or touchscreen tablet). It is a particularly useful solution to the

following problems:

How do I make the most of the ideas and collective intelligence of all my collaborators to innovate faster than the competition, or simply solve a problem quickly?

How can I share information without overwhelming my correspondents with piles of emails and replies?

How can I get answers from and share good practices with a large group of users, whilst still allowing each person to contribute?

How do I foster links between team members who are in different locations and are often isolated?

Good practices for establishing a BSN

Although in early 2010 many organisations were still wondering how useful and

profitable BSNs could be, this question has now been replaced by: ―BSNs can

help us to be more effective. How do we go about putting one in place?‖

• Some key factors for success:

It is particularly beneficial to start a BSN with:

pre-existing communities, where the human network already exists,

which are large (to reach a broad spectrum of users), especially

since, out of 100 potential users, on average only 20% will use the

BSN regularly, 2% will write content, 5% will leave comments and the

remainder will simply read it. Attempting to establish a BSN with a

small sample group runs a high risk of failure if there are not enough

users to make a contribution.

highly visible (especially to management): this helps to convince all

managers, up to the highest level, of the utility of the solution, to

encourage the top to support other initiatives, and to guarantee the

solution’s funding...

and which meet a real, concrete need in the short term, not just in

the eyes of management, but of the users themselves. This will

guarantee the longevity of the community.

• A community devoted to competitive and strategic intelligence is very often

created to do this, but communities which work well are often connected

with mutual assistance, communication within widely spaced teams,

technological watch and so forth.

• Moreover:

The choice of community leaders (volunteers, trained and

motivated) is very important, so that the communities thrive and

develop. The activity of a community is directly linked to the

number of contributions: if there are no contributions (new, or in

the form of comments on existing contributions) then the

community will remain silent and disappear if no one revives it,

due to lack of time or commitment. The role of leader is therefore

to return to issues which have been considered only in passing or

not at all, to ask open questions which stimulate the desire to

answer, and so on.

It is important that high-level backers and management set an

example by using the BSN, and reassure employees that they

may contribute freely, without fear of repression or censorship.

Contrary to common belief, it is usually completely useless, and

even highly counter-productive, to pre-moderate contributions,

because the main problem will not be an avalanche of

inappropriate contributions, but rather employees’ strong

inclination towards self-censorship, a constraint stemming from

the fear of being censured or rebuked.

• Some practical considerations

Although it is important that the first communities created be

unequivocally successful, we must accept that some communities

will never get off the ground. These failures are often learning

opportunities on the specific conditions necessary to ensure the

survival of an online community, and to make clear within the

company the mistakes linked to certain ostensibly good ideas.

The life cycle of a BSN is long and often follows Gartner’s well-

known hype cycle. The success of a BSN cannot reasonably be

demonstrated in less than a year; it is more likely to take several

years. Even if the beginnings are promising, a certain disillusion

can set in after a few months, before an upsurge in use due to

increased maturity about the best ways to use the BSN, and the

issues raised by users.

Be careful not to use the BSN as a traditional intranet for

communication. The temptation to do so may be strong for some

people, even though it is in complete contradiction with the basic

nature of a BSN, focused on people and not on content.

Using BSNs to uncover expertise and skills

A BSN would be nothing more than an enhanced forum if all it contained were

discussions within communities. The most advanced BSNs therefore include

two innovative ways to manage employee skills:

• A declarative method, according to which users themselves publish their

skills and expertise on enhanced user profiles, which are backed up by the

votes of other users. This approach might worry human resources

departments, because it goes against the traditional approach whereby HR

records the skills and expertise necessary for the job that the employee

currently does. By sharing freely his skills and expertise, be they the result

of past professional or personal experiences, each employee allows the

whole business to find an unusual skill set when necessary, with a search

range of up-to-date information which is greatly exceeds the capabilities of

an HR department.

• A contributive method, via the expertise gained and demonstrated in the

publications of each employee. The same rule applies to communities as to

blogs: the more you read and contribute, the more your skills grow and

strengthen. An employee who, in the usual way of things, has a rather low

profile can distinguish himself by the quality and value of his contributions.

BSNs are invaluable therefore in uncovering internal skills and talents. In

this way the future leaders of your internal AND external communities can

be identified, on the basis of their demonstrated collaborative dynamism.

Using BSNs to stimulate a new internal organisation for businesses

Whilst many organisations have not yet taken the first steps towards a BSN,

others are expressing their desire to follow the lead of the pioneers, aware that

the establishment of communities is a potential source of strong competitive

advantages: the innovations generator that is a dynamic BSN is an asset which

cannot be copied, because its establishment is long and complex and

intrinsically linked to the culture of the business, its employees and its

management.

The potential of horizontal communication within BSNs has today led captains

of industry to view them as very important, and even to explain publicly that the

hierarchy of large organisations will change in the months and years to come. It

will be flattened out under the effect of these horizontal relations which are

beneficially uncontrollable and bypass certain traditional and clumsy managerial

methods, which can be a brake on development in a world which changes more

quickly than the speed of adaptation and reaction of the chain of command.

BSNs cannot be ignored

After static intranets, communication blogs and collaborative wikis, BSNs have

done what forums never managed to do: usher in a dynamic and horizontal

space for exchange which connects all employees, and, most significantly, is

not focused simply on questions and answers (content), but on the sharing of

intelligence with a strongly human element. Agents of change, BSNs can help

businesses adapt to a quickly changing context, and become an irreplaceable

change management tool.

If your competitors are already trying BSNs out, how much of a head start are

you going to give them?

Fabrice Poiraud-Lambert is manager/director of the collective division of the Information Systems Directorate at Lyonnaise des Eaux - Suez Environnement. He has over 15 years experience establishing a variety of integrated collaborative solutions for large groups. Fabrice currently heads up more than 30 internet communities and won 3 international awards in 2010 for his innovative collaborative projects (―Break out Technology Award IBM‖ and two prizes for innovation at the Suez Environnement group).

There is good reason for separating B2C and B2B activities: B2C is about the

consumer class; and B2B is about business activities that affect companies

insomuch as they differ in rhythm and organization. Something similar can be

said for "2.0" and "E2.0". The 2.0 wave—and even more so social networks—

welled up from the general public after the fashion of Facebook and the millions

of company FAN pages that were created. The issue is just as important for

B2B—more qualitative than quantitative, as we'll see—but also crucial for

transforming business and relationships.

Let's be clear, the organisation of a B2B business is no walk in the park!

Whether a large group separated into various business units or a small or

medium-sized enterprise, B2B organization is difficult. Companies aren't faced

with a neat segment of consumers and even less so with a concentrated

distribution network. It's just the situational variety and the complex relationships

between interested parties (partners, sub contractors, clients, prospective

clients, trendsetters etc.) that characterize B2B activities. It's an ecosystem that

mixes with an internal organisation that is often also complex. That is where

E2.0 addresses the complexity of managing such a closely-knit, multiparty

network that goes from R&D and production to sales, by way of

communications and marketing.

The questions regarding a network are therefore ongoing: When to contact

people; what to say; how to approach them in this new model; when is the right

moment to tell them about a new or signature product; is the product flawed;

getting their feedback etc. These are all crucial questions because we know that

a network doesn't "survive on its own", it needs to be continuously developed

and cultivated. We also know that there is neither the time nor the resources to

be actively and proactively present for all of these interactions—when there are

many of them or when information known internally isn't circulated at the right

time to the right sub-network.

That's where new types of relationships stemming from public social networks

provide a powerful alternative to the problem.

What is it? The idea is to equip oneself with a private social network (in which

each registered user is approved by the company that manages it) where some

or all of the company's ecosystem is added. It can be a product-oriented social

network, sales or communication. To each company their own agenda and

business themes; and each is added to sub-groups according to their

characteristics and their expectations. One group per product that includes the

entire value chain, another for communiqués and announcing events, another

for the R&D chain and sub-contractors etc. Then all the company has to do is

connect the value chain with the internal organisation to complete the

relationship. It can also be understood through the philosophy behind its

implementation: reusing existing strengths and connections so as to reduce

their number, not to create extra work.

The strength of the model is first of all in the creation of company interactions.

This enables business relationships that are more focused and thereby more

effective. Communication is then at once decreasing and increasing: the

members of the ecosystem can act, pass on information, seek out questions

and debates, provide business news, request pricing etc. A new channel is

being implemented.

The other benefit is the effect of the resulting reaction. Traditionally, by

telephone or email for example, an employee act is a single action. Through the

network, an action is felt n times, by as many stakeholders; more so however, if

one of the stakeholders responds or reacts, and the action has another impact

of n, and so on. It's common enough for a message, announcing an event for

example, to have a strong impact with current or prospective clients and

partners, thereby reinforcing your message.

Which leads to the main reason for B2B to go 2.0 in this form: the lead

generation. By adding all the people that revolve around your business, you are

creating all the more opportunities for them to come back to you—for a product

launch, for a new client or just for general information about your company. You

might be wondering just what exactly is the difference between this and a

newsletter? Well first of all, it consists of personal information, an established

relationship and targeted messages.

And by creating an ecosystem you move to the centre of a profession and bring

value; your role as an expert is strengthened and the community organizes itself

around you. It's then easier to control the company, to offer leads to the right

partners and to make the network a natural channel for offers. The marketing

investment in a private social network not only relieves some of the pressure of

communications but is also a source of revenue!

But this isn't to say that implementing this type of system is a cure-all! The

network governance structure also has to be established—determining who is

responsible for what and establishing indicators for monitoring the operation

and the results. It's a project like any other, so think about timelines and

deadlines, costs, commitments, as well as change management. Understand

that the new method requires new business reflexes.

We needed to wait for the arrival of mature models (business social networks)

and SaaS (software as a service) before mid-market B2B actors and SMEs

could benefit from them. On one hand, the tools are mature and operational and

the methodologies are in place, but above all, the costs are within the budget of

a B2B business unit.

Be the first to build the community around your business, before your

competitors beat you to it: there won't be dozens of communities around the

same business. Like on the Web, those who act first reap the rewards.

An established entrepreneur, at 26 Alain Garnier created ARISEM, a software publisher specializing in semantic information processing. Following the sale of ARISEM to THALES in 2004 he continued his entrepreneurial streak and cofounded EVALIMAGE, an internet evaluation and analysis service focused on brands and consumers. EVALIMAGE was also sold a few years later, this time to TheCRMCompany. An engineer and a man of letters, Garnier has written a book on uses and tools for unstructured information in businesses (L’information non structurée dans les entreprises : Usages & outils). Most recently, he is the founder and CEO of Jamespot.

Personal Branding for company benefit

Insurance salesmen used to go door to door. Today, they develop a Personal

Brand online and build ties with clients through social networks—the employee's

personal and professional spheres interact. Employees are becoming

ambassadors for their companies via their personal profiles and are contributing

to its personal, human, visibility. But how can you manage employee initiatives

that don't actually come from company management?

Personal Branding: stand out to improve employability

Personal Branding is an approach for better understanding ones own talents

and strengths so as to promote them, thereby benefiting established

professional goals. Showcasing them results in regular and committed

behaviour in the daily assertion of values and convictions. Transposed to the

social Web, Personal Branding adds visibility such as social media and

marketing tools (logos, avatars, charts, photo and video etc.)

Stand out to be noticed

An individual becomes their own medium by openly putting what makes them

different on display so as to be involved in a complementary or substitute

activity, or just to stand out. From whom and why? Sometimes from new

employees, often by people who have the same values and passion, but above

all to develop their own network and manage their image and notoriety.

The "branded" person joins the 2.0 process

Via Personal Branding and managing their digital identity, an employee joins an

economy of participation, collaboration and recommendation. Finding ideas;

stopping to think on them; getting inspirations down on paper and seeing them

materialized; structuring and conceptualizing ones thoughts; building up and

circulating ones production; monitoring and evaluating the impact;

recommending and promoting content and people; respectfully disagreeing and

building knowledge together; meeting and interviewing talent; exploring and

learning new boundaries; communicating and conversing over long distance

and online etc. Personal Branding is a perpetual process of change. The

Personal Branding process develops the capacity to:

Seek direction in what we're doing

Identify key skills to achieve excellence

Develop self-esteem, self-acknowledgement and self-confidence

Be oneself and in tune with ones values

Be self-sufficient, responsible and an intrapreneur

Project oneself in a vision of success over the medium and long-term

Be in a permanent state of personal and professional development

Consistency between Enterprise 2.0 and personal brands

At a time when companies are faced with deep structural and cultural changes,

how can they manage without employees who develop the skills expected for

tomorrow's businesses on their own?

First, because companies and union organisations completely bought in to

shared responsibility in employment by signing an agreement for ongoing

vocational training in 2004. The commitment brought forward the idea that

employees should take responsibility for their own employability. Second,

because tomorrow's Company is in a network that needs to continually renew

its "talent" pool so as to remain effective and innovative. Third, because

employees develop their Personal Brand online by displaying their connection

to their employer while at the same time that employer is displaying their

business and/or corporate brand on the Internet.

Through their presence in the same spaces and by using the same tools, the

company and the employee brands coexist in a world of coopetition.

Consequences of the paradigms borne by the 2.0 culture.

The parable of The Waterer Watered

The story of an employee who becomes better known than their employer... or

even "more competent" than their boss: a marketing manager reading

Marketing magazine comes across an account by one of her co-workers about

their own abilities and their personal brand.

Subduction of tectonic plates

When the "talent promotion" doesn't correspond with "promotion policies".

The author of 3 books on social media is turned down for a promotion to

become online communications manager because they don't have the proper

qualifications in order to be considered.

The “game preserve” tactic

Michel-Edouard Leclerc, Louis Le Duf, Steve job, Richard Branson... They all

put their personal brand to work for their company brand. They boost company

values and vision by providing a human identity to the corporate brand. If the

business is fine with using the charisma of the company head to strengthen its

position, why not use the talent sprouting up in the hallways?

Things to watch and areas of improvement

Old habits / new context

Wanting better, being active outside of the company, self-training, becoming a

leader, seeking validation... None of this in new and it includes all of Maslow's

hierarchies. What has changed though?

Context. Change has become a given;

Temporality. Business boundaries are becoming blurred: work and home

are mixing. Everything moves so quickly!

Tools. Mobile phones and laptop and tablet computers are the primary

tools of the administrative machine;

Work methods. Teleworking and teleconferences are slowly replacing the

need to be physically present. We've entered an era of nomadism and

mobility;

Work organisation. Services and Directorates are becoming

decompartmentalized to the benefit of transversal and network oriented

work;

Communication. Information has given way to conversational &

community communication;

etc.

Everyone is a "potential" ambassador for the company brand

On average in France, 1 person in 9 has an online social profile and doesn't

really know what that means for themselves or their company. Nevertheless,

some of them really excel in a specific field: from leading and developing

communities to promoting expertise. On a higher level, they create and develop

their own personal brand. These all have an impact on the company. Because

their profiles include their employment status and their profession, it makes

sense that the "good" reputation of a personal brand has an effect on the

company reputation. Conversely, when employees are angry about something,

they express themselves in their personal space and creative negative press.

As an example: to express their discontent employees at a Domino's Pizza

video themselves talking negatively about the food they're about to serve.

Opportunities in managing talent

It's in the interest of a 2.0 company to make its employees aware of these

issues—about the idea of risks as well as "good behaviour". But it's also in the

company's interest to showcase the skills developed by employees and to

encourage them to take initiative:

Publish a chart of good practices and behaviour;

Train employees about managing their digital identity;

Teach co-workers about the legal risks connected to conflicts between

the two images.

A new challenge: managing famous employees

The visibility of an employee contributes to the company's "human" image and

therefore to one of "closeness" with current and prospective clients. The

employees various products (conferences, blog, books, community) provide as

much value to their personal brand as to that of the company.

If they are known in a market niche that corresponds to the company's own, it

strengthens the business' credibility within the field. As an ambassador, they

become a contact point for the company and can more easily attract new

clients. All the same, their position as a leader makes them a trendsetter

outside of the company as much as inside. They can play on their influence to

question hierarchies, a project, a product etc. Their high visibility can also result

in their defence of a value or a vision that is contrary to the company's own. It

makes sense to evaluate the opportunities and the risks for the company so as

to decide whether or not to integrate this "new" position into company activities.

Conditions for marriage: I You We

It's no longer the time for discovery or reflection, but for action: the issue is

integrating new challenges connected to managing the corporate image and the

image of personal brands into skill management. By integrating into the overall

communication strategy and personnel management the idea of ambassadors,

trendsetters and managing every business element’s digital identity, the

company is on the road to e-Co-Responsibility!

Fadhila Brahimi is the CEO of FB-Associés; a strategy coach for

Internet presence; certified by the ICF; professional conference

speaker; and radio personality on Widoobiz.

Fadhila's background in HR includes the challenging environment

of the Airline Industry (Air Lib) and the BPI group (Paris). She

became passionate in 2004 about new uses and behaviours of the

Social Web and in 2005 started the first blog on Personal

Branding, quickly becoming a specialist on Internet visibility.

In this article I will attempt to demonstrate how the arrival of generation Y will

influence the development of enterprise 2.0. Let’s get something straight right

away: this is an exercise in style, as the arrival of generation Y into a company

isn’t the sole factor that will lead to the development of enterprise 2.0. In

addition, companies play host to a mosaic of generations and it would seem

difficult to develop new organisational frameworks without some sort of

consensus. That being said, it seems to me that this generational

crossroads represents a major factor for change. The statistics for this, provided

by INSEE (the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies),

speak volumes: a third of workers active in 2005 will have left the market by

2020. In certain sectors like banking, insurance or energy, the rate of retirement

will be between 40% and 50%.

But before explaining my argument, I'd like to stop for a minute and consider the

concepts of enterprise 2.0 and Generation Y.

Concerning the notion of enterprise 2.0, the exercise is difficult because the

concept is shifting and there are as many definitions as there are authors. One

new way to define this new form of company is to show how it is different from

the traditional one. Broadly speaking, authors agree that the major changes

involve the use of Web 2.0 tools (wikis, bookmarking, blogs, social networks,

etc.) within a company and the development of practices such as collaboration

and knowledge sharing.

The generation Y concept is used to designate people who were born from the

end of the 1970s onwards (in France it is most common to include people who

were born between 1978 and 1994). Sociologists group individuals into

generations (Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y) on the basis of a

simple principle: that individuals born within close periods are linked by common

ground that goes beyond their individual characteristics. This common grounds

stems from the context (political, economic, technological, etc.) in which these

generations grew up. Each generation is therefore shaped by the events,

leaders, developments and important trends which occur during their youth.

Generational sociology considers that this period, when individuals form their

‖world view‖, marks them for the rest of their lives. The members of a

generation continue to be influenced by the context in which they grew up, both

at work and in their personal lives. If we consider the context in which the

members of Generation Y grew up, we must of course take note of the

tremendous development of the internet and other information technology.

Whether it is the duration of internet usage, the percentage of mobile users or

the social-networking penetration rate, all the research has pointed to the strong

link between members of Generation Y and ICT. The digital natives described

by Marc Prensky are a reality and are progressively entering into the world of

work.

If we accept the somewhat simplified proposition that the development of

enterprise 2.0 will take place alongside a change in tools and practices, it will be

interesting to see how the arrival of members of Generation Y into the

workplace contributes to this.

Changing tools?

According to the authors, the first notable change within enterprise 2.0 is the

usage of tools resulting from Web 2.0. One question immediately springs to

mind: in what conditions might wikis, social networks, blogs, mashups, RSS

feeds and other collaborative tools supplant traditional tools?

I believe that the move towards 2.0 tools is only possible if users judge that they

are credible and easy to use. From this point of view, the massive influx of

―digital natives‖ into the workplace is obviously important. All the studies show

that young people of Generation Y already use these tools to an enormous

extent in their everyday lives. Whether they are bloggers, social network users

or followers via RSS feeds, the adoption rate is nearly always superior to that of

the older generations. This is explained by the fact that the majority of them

never experienced ―previous versions‖ of the web. For them, web 2.0 is simply

the web. They therefore have little or no adaptation to do as far as practices are

concerned.

The conclusion is simple: the tools of web 2.0 are ―natural‖ for young people

today and they expect to find them when they first enter the workplace.

Moreover, the existence of a quality technical environment is an important

motivating factor for Generation Y members. It is therefore a safe bet that this

generation is pushing for the adoption of this technology. With the support of

Generation X members, often pioneers or creators of the aforementioned

technology, they will make it possible to reach a critical mass of workers who

are open to 2.0 technology.

Changing practices?

In a similar way to what occurred with E.R.P, the fantasy of performance without

effort or fundamental changes also exists with enterprise 2.0. Even so, the

majority of authors emphasise that the development of enterprise 2.0 cannot be

restricted to the introduction of new tools. To succeed in a real 2.0

transformation, companies have to encourage new practices like knowledge

sharing and collaboration.

With regards to this too, I believe that the arrival of Generation Y into the

workplace is a bonus. They are willing to question the traditional approach in

which a single person possesses knowledge to the exclusion of others. This

traditional vision is found in companies where the manager benefits from

privileged access to information compared to other employees. This

informational asymmetry is one of the classic foundations of the manager’s

legitimacy. The new generations, on the other hand, value sharing and

spreading knowledge. The traditional credo ―I know therefore I am‖, is opposed

by young people with ―I share therefore I am‖, emphasising advancement for all

and the prestige which results from this. Spontaneously, these new generations

think, work and interact in a more collaborative mode. They no longer work ―for‖

a boss or a company but ―with‖ them. Pessimists say that this is the end of the

concept of authority. The optimists, and I count myself among them, recognise

an opportunity to develop the concept of collaboration in the workplace.

In conclusion, both enterprise 2.0 and the members of Generation Y are the

result of the same contextual evolution. They are therefore perfectly compatible

and the renewal of the social body taking place in companies will without a

doubt precipitate the advent of enterprise 2.0. Harmony will reign... at least until

the members of Generation Z, born after 1994, enter the workplace in five years

and push for new organisational models.

A specialist in Management and Human Resources, Julien Pouget is a trainer-consultant and conference speaker, as well as an expert on change management and generational issues. In addition to being the author of a book on the integration and management of Generation Y (Intégrer et manager la Génération Y—éditions Vuibert, 2010), he is the founder of La Génération Y.com, a leading blog on the recruitment and management of youth.

E2.0 and the employer brands: the watercourse theory

A trip back in time

The first real sign of the takeover of the recruitment market by digital tools goes

back to the end of the 90s and the emergence of job boards. The business

model and their rates shook up a market that was primarily dominated by print.

It needs to be noted that the market was characterized largely by the will to

maintain a comfortable and secure income for the various parties: agencies,

media brokers and print media. In a few years, most of these stakeholders were

passively helping the inevitable revolution, pushed along by candidates who

immediately integrated the benefits of the web so as to optimize their job

searches.

The 2.0 revolution very quickly infiltrated employer communications. The arrival

of new, easy to use tools, transformed voracious Internet information

consumers into producers, issuers, selectors of audio/visual-rich content. The

recruitment site, once the beginning and the end of the candidate's experience

with the brand, supreme in information research for employment applications,

gave way to self-produced content. Internet users, especially those who had

had an IRL experience with the employer brand (recruitment interview,

internship...), became a source of privileged information for candidates,

considered as more trustworthy because of their impartiality.

The new candidate attitudes

The majority of companies today are crippled when confronted by candidates

who have thrown out the old rules for the recruiting process. The candidates

contact employees directly to learn about the reality in the company, they reject

the formatted conversation of HR, don't believe in the "social contract" offered to

them anymore and Google their potential managers. They challenge company

HR departments, adopting instead a consumer approach to the job market,

looking for a company that will increase their "market value" over the short term.

Like all traditional communicators, the company and its spokespeople are in the

best of cases seen as circumspect, and in the worst with pure scepticism.

Candidates reject the communication techniques repeated through a powerful

medium in order to impose a standard message that is often rightly recognized

as biased and not at all a reality. Consequently, they will elect the brands that

will consider their individuality and develop a peer-to-peer relationship based on

dialogue—rediscover the virtues of an equal division between listening and

speaking. I'm only interested in myself, so talk to me about me: nothing new

after all.

E 2.0: risk or opportunity for the employer brand?

The eternal question unfortunately no longer has any raison d’être; web

democracy has also made its way into employer communication. Companies

don't control their own brands anymore, leaving reputation paramount and

meaning that out of this web democracy comes a mosaic of information in which

each internet user is both conscious of their power as a communicator and has

the tools that give them a substantial audience. The megaphone has given way

to the agora. The only question worth asking marketing or communication

managers today is "are you ready to be completely dispossessed of your brand

on social media sites?"

One of the opportunities for the 2.0 employer brand, and not the least of which,

is managing to reconcile recruitment goals with objectives for motivation and

loyalty.

Candidates want to trade-off with the company? Offer some employees the

opportunity to become ambassadors for the employer brand and to lead

discussion groups about their profession and new issues.

Candidates want to enter into a dialogue with your brand? A great opportunity

for recruiters to learn more about the candidates and to hone their choices,

much more so than with a CV.

The value of how well suited the company’s business culture and the

candidate's own values are is increasing, are self-management skills widely

recognized? CVs and recruitment interviews can't help. But what about a

workshop on LinkedIn that brings together employees and candidates?

The advantages of 2.0 for the employer brand

There are enormous possibilities for those who decide to focus on the

opportunities while remaining vigilant and keeping a clear view when dealing

with risks. There is a unique opportunity to reinvent the relationship with

candidates. The act of applying for employment is a particularly involved buying

act, on a personal and a professional level. It not only involves the candidate,

but also their partner, husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend and will determine a

large part of their life for the next 2 or 3 years. Curiously, this buying act is

preceded by a period of introductory talks that reduces it to its most

fundamental: the short period between when the ad is published, the application

and the interview. 2.0 is an opportunity to develop a real relational sourcing

strategy, a lasting relationship between the candidate and the company; a

relationship that begins even before the need to recruit or the active search.

And because the transaction is not a short-term objective, the candidate and the

company will be able to better evaluate how suitable they are for one another. A

failed recruiting exercise has a strong impact on both parties.

Whatever the company and its business sector, it has employees who are

already active on social media, already official spokespeople and who would be

willing to become official ambassadors for the employer brand. Every company

is also capable of identifying the areas in which they consider themselves

legitimate and better than their main competitors, or can identify primary

objectives. The issue is then bridging the subject and the expectations of the

people being targeted. Obviously, putting a system of monitoring in place, aided

by free tools like Google and Twitter, will increase the chances to identify the

subjects that will benefit the dialogue.

This new approach will instigate a re-evaluation of certain internal

organizational aspects: the process of approving information, the decision-

making channels, the allocation of communications budgets, the division of

responsibilities etc. The watercourse approach works well here, finding the

easiest path to follow and flowing around obstacles. In our case this means

identifying the most accessible paths that will enable quick, though modest,

victories. This will have the huge benefit of reassuring sceptics, help adapt

organisation and identify necessary resources. In short, demonstrate that it can

work.

I have limited myself to the external breadth of the employer brand on purpose

so as to avoid the subject becoming too broad. It's obvious that there is just as

much impact on the internal aspect; it was brought up earlier with brand

ambassadors. Let's just keep in mind that the candidate, once recruited into the

company, only rarely undergoes a change that makes them abandon their 2.0

reflexes to become a passive information consumer stripped of all critical

intelligence or spirit.

Franck La Pinta is the Manager of Employer Marketing and HR 2.0 for the Human Resources Directorate at Société Générale (France). He has a mandate to develop the appeal of the Société Générale brand internally and externally, particularly through the use of digital and social media. He supervises digital HR activities and is responsible for crafting the HR 2.0 position of the Group, introduced in 2008. You can also find Franck on Delicious and Linkedin.

When looking at how we organize our businesses, we tend to think in terms

such which industry it is in, what the market size is, what market share we have,

which products we commercialize, how sales and distribution channels are

organized, who our competitors are and so on. As such, there is nothing wrong

with that, but ultimately by focusing on our side of the equation, there is a risk to

losing sight of what is ultimately the most important part of business, namely

customers!

Customers are a funny lot. We try to put these square pegs in little round holes

that we create for them and then try to make each round hole as fit as best as

we can. We try to do segmentation such as ―Jeanne is a home-maker who lives

in a house in a Paris suburb, her median discretionary income is €950 per

month‖ and so on and so forth, and then when push comes to shove we find out

she isn't, but that we have to make do with those generic characteristics when

designing the products we want to sell to her and those like her. With a resulting

failure rate of new product launches of around 80%.

Now what has thrown a spanner in the works is that Jeanne has found her

voice, and she has a mind of her own. She wants to be respected as an

individual and is supported by her peers! We can no longer just tell her to

believe whatever we want her to believe, she has gotten wise on us and is able

to decode any message we try to plant in her head to push her to buy in the

blink of an eye! Furthermore, now she has the means to reach out, find and

connect others that ARE like her, and share her thoughts and opinions on any

subject with anyone anywhere in the world in real time! Suddenly she has a

bigger reach than many established companies have, and she expects that

those companies listen to and respect her.

The above serves to illustrate succinctly and rather simplistically that the World

we were used to and management methodologies we have been using ever

since Taylor are being turned on there head, so how to do we adapt are

organisations to better meet the needs and expectations of the Social

Customer. And how we deal with the Social Customer is referred to as Social

Customer Relationship Management.

Paul Greenberg, renowned CRM Analyst who literally wrote the book on Social

CRM has the following definition to frame Social CRM:

“Social CRM is the company's programmatic response to the customer's

control of the conversation”

Basically what Paul is saying is that it will be increasingly difficult to 'manage'

your Brand's image as it is now in the hands of your customers. It is the

programmes to interact and learn from and with your customers that you can

then use to contribute to and shape those conversations.

Contrary to what some currently seem to think, A Social CRM programme does

not equate to superficial gamification such as the ―Like‖ buttons for your

Facebook page (in any case more than 90% of people who ―Like‖ a Fan Page

never return), nor is it the number of followers on Twitter.

If you cannot identify your new Fan as a new or existing customer, how can you

know what they value when they manifest their interest for you and how you can

help them achieve the various objectives they may have. And more importantly,

what you can do to make them appreciate your company and services and

return for your custom? As Peter F. Drucker said "The purpose of business is

to create and keep a customer."

Learning from interaction with your customer and participating as an equal in

their conversations is key to Social CRM, and requires a different approach to

how organisations are structured, with more open communication beyond the

'company firewall' to allow for a deeper understanding of the environment in

which the company operates, and better coordination between internal

departments and even suppliers and channels to ensure that the customer's

expectations are met or exceeded.

This deeper understanding of the customer and their needs and expectations

coupled with better coordination AND collaboration - supported by an Enterprise

2.0 initiative - with the entire ecosystem can in itself become a competitive

differentiator as a company more closely aligned with its market and thus in a

better innovate in accordance with it will stand a better chance of winning the

custom prospective buyers and turn existing customers into committed ones.

Knowing your customer and tracking their interactions with you – and other

customers – can provide you with insight into whether they are committed to

your brand, and whether they are likely to ―churn‖, thus giving you a basis for

deciding whether it is worthwhile to ―invest‖ your resources and also how much.

Another key insight is understanding that your customers not only value what

you can provide them with in terms of pre-sale advice and post-sale service, but

also that they are looking to you and to other customers for ways of improving

the value-in-use of the your product. This opens up a whole new way of thinking

about how you can organise your company to provide additional value so as to

prepare the next buying cycle for your clients by keeping your products top-of-

mind.

Now that you have a fairly good idea about what Social CRM aims for, I would

like to point to Brian Vellmure's (@CRMStrategies) 5 Opportunities to capitalize

on now:

1. Use Social Analytics and Social Network Analysis to better

understand your customers and prospects (aggregate Demographic,

Psychographic, and Socialgraphic data)

My take: Getting deeper insight into who your customers are will help

you to better segment and target your interactions, extending your

current understanding with the potential network effects of each of

your customers in terms of potential Word of Mouth Marketing for

example. Knowing more about the context of your customer will also

help your Service Organisation provide assistance in line with

expectations and avoid nasty negative Word of Mouth incidents.

2. Use Listening and Monitoring Tools to extend reach beyond where

and how you’ve been able to listen and engage before (Add social as an

additional interaction channel)

My take: Although ideally you 'own' the properties on which you

engage with your customers (think of an online customer community)

because it is easier to plough through the data to pick up on issues

and trends and formulate an appropriate response, it is still very

common to have customers talk to you about your products (and

those of your competitors) elsewhere. These conversations can be

extremely insightful and could even provide the basis for discovering

new opportunities and ideas, but if you are not listening, you cannot

pick up on these.

3. Capitalize on first mover advantage by communicating in new and/or

more relevant ways with your customers (align your business with

emergent social technology and culture, and beat your competitors to the

party)

My take: as with many new concepts, being the first to do it well in

your market can help set the bar about what customer will come to

expect as well as gain share of mind - which all puts pressure on your

competition to catch up or lose market share. We're still in a stage

where we are discovering how social technologies can provide the

most benefit, so there is still a lot of room for experimentation!

4. Utilize Internal Collaboration (Enterprise 2.0) and/or Community

Platforms to streamline communications and/or product and service

development functions

My take: Community Platforms and other Enterprise 2.0 tools are

a great way to encourage exchange between employees to find

answers to issues and ideas for innovation - whilst capturing

information in an easily searchable and retrievable format and

providing insights into employee skills and internal networks. The

Enterprise 2.0 tools enable a flattening of the organisation,

reducing both physical distances and mental barriers and help to

align the different parts of the organisation to providing customers

with what they need.

5. Increase engagement with existing customers on new channels in a

way for the world to watch and observe (Be everywhere your

customers are – and enable them to share what they love (or don’t love)

about you to their network(s)

My take: the New Order is about Authenticity and Transparency,

which means that customers are coming to expect that you

communicate openly and humbly, be it to positive or to negative

commentary – and part of the new game is turning both types to

your advantage. One thing that is currently still largely

underexploited is Customer Enablement – facilitating interactions

between customers and us and especially between each other. It

is the sharing with each other that will give you a whole new level

of insights if you can become an equal in those exchanges.

Where I think Brian Vellmure's list can be completed is the need to organise for

Social CRM by enabling your employees to 'participate in the conversation' and

learn from these interactions using Customer Feedback Loops. This feedback

needs to converted into actionable insights, then integrated, prioritized, and

ventilated to the right people in the organisation in the form of innovation ideas,

customer experience management, dealing with support requests and so on.

Managing this requires effective and efficient collaboration and this is where

Enterprise 2.0 is a key enabler. There is no Social CRM without Enterprise 2.0

and vice -versa. A Social CRM programme cannot be run solely by one

department as it just would not be effective – all parts of the value chain can

impact your attractiveness as a supplier to meet the needs and expectations of

your customers – from the pre-sale to invocing to customer service and beyond

during the value-in-use phase. Any interaction between a company and its

customers can potentially have major consequences on how you are viewed by

the outside world, you no longer control your Brand's image but you can

influence it through your actions.

And similarly, Social CRM cannot function optimally if the whole of the

company's ecosystem is not engaged in providing the services and experiences

that the Social Customer now comes to expect. The service you provide may be

great, but if you doo not collaborate with suppliers and channels to align all with

what you know about your customers and their needs and expectations, you

risk that they will judge you negatively for factors that you do not manage

directly, and thus impact your sales.

To conclude, Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0 are the true enablers of Social

Business. The key driver is collaboration between your company and your

customers in an open and fluid manner. These interactions can be used to

nurture a better understanding of - and a closer alignment to - current and future

needs and expectations – and adapting how you organise your company to

meet these.

Mark is an experienced Consultant, Manager and Advisor who has successfully

provided Consulting and Education Services across EMEA. He spent five years

with BEA Systems and Oracle where he successfully created and managed a

Professional Services Practice doing Enterprise 2.0 and Business Process

Management. With his current venture called Net-7 he specializes in Social

CRM, Social Business and Adaptive Case Management. In a very short time

with Net-7, he became one of the first people in Europe to be certified in by

Paul Greenberg's BPT Partners in "Social CRM Strategies for Business", and

has gained an international reputation as a thought-leader. You can find out

more on his blog Social CRM ideas.

Introduction: Enterprise 2.0 isn’t only for employees

For many people, the expression ―enterprise 2.0‖ refers to the notion of a social

platform that facilitates collaboration and communication, internally, between

employees at the same company. In my opinion, this definition is too limiting.

First, because the tools do not do everything (there are also the methods, the

processes etc., but the aim of this article is not to linger on this point), second,

and most important, because this expression also refers to the capacity of a

business to use social media externally. In particular, so the business can

manage their web reputation and communicate with clients/consumers.

There are very few companies that have launched a ―social web" strategy,

particularly in France. However, this is beginning to change. Reassured by

more and more positive feedback and also by necessity (consumers are users

of social media), companies are less and less hesitant to use Facebook, Twitter

and the like.

Every company has an interest in exploring this avenue and its possibilities; the

benefits are enormous, however they also raise many questions.

Having a digital identity and managing your web reputation

Fashionable or not, one thing is certain, every company owes it to themselves

to manage and monitor their web reputation. Social Media are forums where

everyone can express themselves and discuss brands. Nasty surprises, even if

they are quite rare, do exist. It is important to take them into account, whether

your business is a sole proprietorship, a microenterprise, a small or medium-

sized enterprise, or a large group.

I am surprised to hear/learn that many businesses don’t know what is said

about them on the web. How are they viewed? Imagine that within the first few

Google results that appear following a search for your company, you find an

article that is disparaging towards your products or that emphasizes the poor

quality of your after-sale service. What will a potential client think if they see

this? Not very appealing is it?

What to do? First of all, prevention is better than cure; don’t wait for negative

comments about you to circulate. Act as soon as you can, start now! Then take

stock of what is out there and define objectives and establish a plan of action.

Finally, monitor/analyze so you can respond or adapt your position if needed.

Particular actions that can be taken include the creation of relevant content

(creating a blog of experts, creating a Facebook page so you can provide

updates, monitoring tweets that mention your company, to mention just a few

examples).

To conclude, have a presence, be attentive and react when you need to.

"Listen, Engage, Respond"

A satisfied client is one who will buy more, more regularly, be more loyal, and

who will be an ambassador for your brand and your products. But how do you

get a satisfied customer? To start with, you need a good product! Next, listen,

engage and respond. In other words, we see two elements: involve consumers

and make them participate (we're talking about crowdsourcing); and respond to

consumer concerns via client service/support.

Crowdsourcing

For brands, crowdsourcing means making consumers participate in the

development or promotion of products or services. Participation is possible

through voting (e.g. choosing a new flavour—at Danette internet users have

been asked to vote for their favourite flavour since 2008), or via suggestions

(e.g. Pepsi’s Refresh Everything site or Dell’s IdeaStorm). All sectors of activity

can be involved: from the world of lingerie (Victoria’s Secret) to banks (in 2007,

the Caisse d’Epargne gave individuals under 25 the possibility of designing a

visual for the payment card designed for them, and then submitted it to a vote).

According to a study by OpinionWay, the use of crowdsourcing meets several

objectives. Brands use it to:

Develop brand/consumer proximity (79%)

Listen to consumers (78%)

Improve products/services (47%)

Support seasonal sales/events (46%)

Support sales (33%)

Other (1%)

Client Services

An acquired client might not always stay a client. You have to make them want

to stay; you have to listen, monitor and be available. And not just using

traditional tools (like telephone or email), but also via other tools like Facebook

or Twitter, which offer an aspect of responsiveness and immediacy. Yet very

few companies use Twitter for client support (cf. the study by a Gartner

consultant which indicates only 15%). Still, we can find the internet service

provider Free @LALIGNEDEFREE, the airline company EasyJet

@easyJetcare, or the English clothing brand FatFace @fatfacedotcom. And we

can also point to Mozilla, who has just launched a mutual-aid community via

Twitter.

Things have changed. Today we can’t just mention the consumer; we also have

to mention the responsible consumer. They have an increasing role in design;

they express themselves, provide opinions, inform, share, recommend, so there

is an interest for brands not to content themselves with just saying that they do

things well, but to do them well.

Conclusion

Slowly we are moving from the idea that done well, it is good for the image of a

company to use social media, to the idea that it is becoming a necessity.

Companies understand more and more that they can’t overlook social media as

a way to listen to, involve and provide answers to their clients. Several studies

have shown that they are interested and that this bears fruit. Don’t be afraid of

the risks, the benefits are huge. Using the social web makes a business more

responsive, accessible and open to their clients, and more commercially

efficient; it’s a win-win approach.

Be careful though, marketing via social communities is double-edged. There is

a loss of control that is not to be ignored, which is why it is necessary to put

forward a planned strategy, to have identified the most adapted tools and the

messages to communicate.

Emilie Ogez is the manager of Marketing at XWiki (a web-based

content solutions company for open-source collaborations based on

wiki) and a consultant on social media and managing web identity.

She blogs for several sites (Emilie Ogez News, Doppelganger

and Motrech among others) and is an event coordinator (Yulbiz

among others). Emilie is also an author, and has been involved in

several publications (ebooks and collective works). She can also

be found on Facebook and Viadeo.

Design : Frederic DOMON

Illustration : Rockgem