Dave

it may be a self preservation thing. Knowing they will get the blame if the technology fails the IT Dept attempts to make sure they can control every aspect of the system. Also the regular beating from legal and compliance teams don't help here. It would be interesting to see the percentage of IT people working in IT Depts using social computing at a personal level v's those that use it through their organisations

Dermot

and who set this game up? Personally, I also despair of the false economies and lost opportunities of much corporate IT: the centralisation, the outsourcing, and all that implies. But there's also a generation of management who made this happen, who demand only (explicit) cost management, while ignoring the implicit costs of their decisions. Who sets the IT management's bonuses?

I once worked in a place where the actual word Facilities used for laying out desks on a floor was "stacking". They hit their personal cost reduction targets by destroying value across the company with an inappropriate workspace.

Frustrated, moi?

Hi Dave,

Good rant. The 'cloak of security' is one we have heard frequently from people attempting to make use of this technology.

We are just at the beginning stages of trying to look at corporate policy around this issue. People working unilaterally against the system (implementing social computing solutions) will inevitably fail. But bring in policy around the application of this technology and (in my case of government) bureaucrats are 'assisted' in the adoption process.

We have also found though that its not just the IT folks. Its also, corporately, the Communications folks who have issues they want to talk about before going forward in this direction.

That negotiation/discussion process is essential to allow us to proceed in a manner that will help to ensure people aren't sabotaging our efforts behind our backs. And its important for us to treat their concerns as legitimate no matter how enthusiastic or impatient we are [and that's generally the Canadian way in any case.. 8:) ].

When we see you again in our region I would like for you to continue on this line of observation....

Regards,

Ray

What is the post referring to? A specific organisation that you have worked with. Organisations in particular country? All organisations that have IT departments globally? Have you any specific evidence?
Have you any specific thoughts on why you believe that It departments are "unable to see that paradigm has shifted (I assume) again"?
Can you explain the impact of not adopting social computing within organisations? Is it a disaster looming? Are people unhappier as a result? Is the world going to end?

Thanks.

Thanks for the comments guys and yes I will pick it up again
David - the context is a whole group of organisations who attended my masterclass on the subject in Singapore yesterday. The IT department issue was the one raised as the obstacle by most of them at the end. It matches similar experience elsewhere over the last couple of years so my evidence is anecdotal, but its a lot of anecdotes over a lot of time. As to why, well its always difficult to change a dominant paradigm, part of the reason for that is pattern entrainment in collective decision making, that is however a big subject.

As to impact - its a missed opportunity for one. Its coming anyway so better for IT to manage it (no objection to management) then for it just to happen regardless. Disaster looming? Well people will start to leave if they can't use the tools. End of the World, I doubt it.

Dave, you got me thinking. Since I'm your guest blogger right now, I've responded in a posting:
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2008/11/serious_play_in_a_complex_part_1.php

Making the IT Dept wrong doesn't help eitehr - you need to work with them. My approach was to introduce some knowledge sharing techniques into the IT Dept so that they could see the value themselves...

Dave, in my travels round the world in the last few years, working with businesses primarily in Sales and Marketing, guess what? The IT department often gets blamed for not providing the right tools/environment at the right time. So....the IT department is often a convenient scapegoat. And it seems quite easy to fall into the trap of accepting this as received wisdom. One wise old bird at a major corporation in Spain told me before I went off to interview the Sales & Marketing execs, that "they will probably blame IT for many things. Don't believe everything they say".

Going back to your original post, you say: " multiple changing applications in different combinations are more effective. ". Well....maybe ...surely it depends on the context?

As for the impact, you say "missed opportunity". Can you explain further? Missed opportunity - for what? Can you give any concrete examples - and what the resultant missed opportunity was?

And do you have any examples of people leaving a company because they couldn;t use the tools they wanted to?

Thanks.

Nice to see the defence David. I've seen a lot of good IT departments, and lot more good IT people around the world. On transaction and other systems they generally do a good job. However they all have a blind spot on social computing. They want to select a blogging tool, determine the best Wiki etc. Worst still they get into buying a single package to do all of KM & social computing which ends of with a lowest common denominator solution. What they have not yet worked out is that people can, within some constraints, choose their own social computing tools and do not need the IT department involved. I have lost count of the times I have heard "its a good idea, but we can't do that as IT mandate we use Sharepoint (I pick one from several examples)".

The context of my post was social computing applications and for that multiple changing applications are more effective. Not for ERP type applications but there again I was not talking about them. The missed opportunity is to reduce cost, and create a more productive tool environment.

I think it was I Cringely or one of the other commentators who mentioned recently that there was a trend for people to say "employ me, accept my Apple". In a recession this may go away a bit but its there.

I have to declare an interest here, I hold two distinct portfolios, Head of ICT and Head of KM. These are commonly conflated into one thing in the minds of the uninformed, but to me they are very distinct briefs and in the context of this debate they could apparently be at opposite ends of the spectrum of views.

I, for one, embrace social computing in both my personal and my professional life and understand its value to the organisation I currently work for. As such I see the encouragement of this technology and the introduction of it as being part of setting the strategic direction of the organisation by setting a tone that encourages innovation, collaboration and exchange and I do this with my IT hat on. Ironically this kind of proactivity, it seems to me, sits at odds with those that see IT as solely a service – i.e. reactive; and interestingly these are generally of a generation of users still active and still senior who feel that any tool available to them is not for “them to use” its for someone else to use for them – generally the office admin or some such.

However there is a tension in this embracing of social computing and the other responsibilities of my role. Whether I like it or not I am required to maintain highly available systems, support users technical needs, protect the organisations data security, its reputation, and accountability which can be challenging in an increasingly litigious world. These demands are often not of the organisations making or even liking they just happen to be the world we live in. Ignoring SOX, FOI or similar legislative requirements are just not options. There are serious commercial consequences for failure so I don’t believe I could be accused of hiding behind an entirely bogus fear, as I have had to deal with the consequences of when I/we don’t get it right. I do understand why some might see it that way though.

This inevitably leads to the requirement that some boundaries have to be set to meet those demands, but I have always seen this as entirely in keeping with Dave’s view of managed complexity ( I feel sure Dave will now disagree with me :o)). The question is where those boundaries are set, and what type of boundaries they are, i.e. constrained or wide and technical or behavioural.

If your tolerance to risk is high then you can trust to the wide set and behavioural boundaries. The less tolerant go for constrained and technical. IT tends to attract those that fall into the latter camp, I like to think I am in the former camp so more of the “safe fail” environment prevails here I hope.

Sorry – bit of a long post.

Dave won't disagree with you Tim! You have to satisfy security and audit requirements, but that can be done within the type of environment I proposed. I've written about this before but to repeat - free collaboration but ban attachments (all to be hot links to a secure database), strip the pop server every night etc. etc. Its also criticial to realise that emails, skype chats are conversations, so subject to the same control/restrictions as employees are subject to in respect of conversations in the bar.

I am currently working onsite for a client. The department that I am working in has been accused of being isolated. At the same time the client is currently going through a large amount of trauma making people open to new ideas. Therefore I have found several people in key positions that are open to the idea of using social computing within the organisation (mainly internal blogs).

In the past, there has been one attempt to set up a blog which was shot down by the IT department stating that the IT infrastructure was not capable of hosting the blog. I am sceptical about this do to the client being a moderately sized government organisation.

Although I am generally quite technologically aware, I don’t know much about IT infrastructure for intranets and deploying internal blogs.

I have a meeting to discuss the possibility with starting an internal blog with the IT department and the change management/HR department next week. Could anyone give me some advice of programmes and infrastructure requirements for this?

Dave has said in several blogs and podcasts that it should be cheap and easy to do.

Dave - not sure what you think I am defending??
My clients are business people - and I do not work in an IT department - or represent them in any way in my work. I am keen to understand what you are saying - and the details behind it. You keep lumping all IT departments together - saying "they......" - and I'm not sure if this is the appropriate way to express it. In my line of work, if I lumped together all the Sales departments together and said "they just don't get xxxx" - it would not make sense - because there is such variation (in my experience) across the globe - and within large organisations.

Anyway....back to social computing applications. Please can you explain in more detail your "multiple changing applications". What do you mean - can you give real examples of portfolios of these applications? How do you know that this is best, if you have said that the IT departments oin the organisation you see don't allow it anyway (!)

Can you be more specific about the costs which will be reduced? I can't really see that at all. Are you talking about IT costs? If so, specifically what elements.

I know this is a bit pedantic - still - I hope you can roll with it - as the originally post, if you don't mind me saying was "artfully vague" in the extreme.

PS I could not find any reference to your quote on "emply me, accept my Apple". Still - maybe someone said it - is there any evidence that people leave a job because they can't use their Apple? Maybe? I think it is perhaps less likely that someone will leave a job because they can't use....some new Web 2.0 tool. (Or do you have some evidence on this happening?).

Thanks, David

David this is a blog (and one tagged as polemic) not an academic article, please note the context.

If you know of any IT department which has allowed free access to social computing tools then please tell me about it. Everyone I have encountered in the last two years has either enforced a single tool for all needs or selected and mandated several tools. In many other respects they are, as you say, different. However in this respect they appear to be the same.

The multiple changing, interacting stuff is how the blogosphere works, I am suggesting that organisations can get the same benefits, but they have to allow the same freedoms,
Cost reduction? Its a guestimate, partly based on my IBM experience and also other organisations. Look at the man time on selection and support of KM (social computing replaces) for a very simple example. My view on what that is can be found in the podcast and several previous blogs not to mention my monthly KM World column - you can read it there.

I said that people will start to leave organisations if they cannot use the tools they are used to using outside the organisation. Its an opinion, flagged as such and I stand by it.

Dave

(Thanks for your replies and 'going with it' - I'm sure you must find this pretty tiresome - as it is not your usual kind of response on your blog).

Anyway, the first sentence in your response is interesting. Are you saying that because this is a blog then there cannot be a forum type debate within it? Why this kind of constraint? Why be limited by the tools/form? Isn't this just the kind of mental strait jacket you are complaining about in IT departments?

In response to your question, I don't know of any IT department which doesn't allow free access to social computing tools. (Presumably you are referring most to knowledge workers in your context).

I'm pretty sure that most IT departments in California are pretty relaxed about social computing tools within their environment for knowledge workers. Perhaps google might be a good starting point.

Your sentence "multiple changing, interacting stuff is how the blogosphere works" needs some more explanation. What do you mean by this?

I am with you on the KM - although I am not sure that it full replaces '20th century KM' - rather it replaces much of it - and enhances a lot of it.

I would be very surprised if there are many people (apart from die-hard IT types who are wedded to an Apple or some particular form of software) who would specically leave a job because of that. I suspect human factors are much more important.

A blog encourages debate, but it is not the same thing as an academic paper. Its an opinion piece, not a researched document with citations (if that was the requirement no blogs would be published).

My experience in California is the same as the rest of the world I am afraid.

Your requirement for more explanation is (as stated) to be found in the KM World articles and previous blogs here on social computing.

On leaving jobs, there is never one cause, but an inability to use modern tools would be a part of a decision.

Certainly do not agree with the assertion that people who work against the system with social networking tools will inevitably fail. However agree 100% that within many organisations that in fact it is often the Communications function that are the major blockers.

These tools are a direct threat to their information control and gate-keeping function and proponents of these tools represent the barbarians at the gate threatening their empires of spin.

Dave,

I'm not sure why you say that a blog is not the same as an academic paper - that is not what I have suggested or requested. I merely wanted some examples in order to illustrate your points. An example might be "a large electronics retailer in Nevada whose staff wanted to use AppleBlogger 5.0 - but their IT department told them they had to use BigBlogger v2.2. As a result of this, 6 of their managers left".

That kind of thing - which brings it to life a bit.

Similar in a way to your guest blogger Keith - who has written some examples into his recent post.

Thanks for the tip on KM World - and interesting to see on the first page, this article:

"The market for enterprise Web 2.0 capability continues to expand and evolve. Wainhouse Research predicts a growth from $220 million in 2007 to $2 billion in 2012. The terminology to describe it is changing along with the technology. IBM now uses the term "social software" to include a range of functions such as social networking, blogs and wikis (see sidebar below). Wainhouse’s definition of social networking includes not only Facebook-style user profiles, but also blogs, wikis and collaboration-enabling components of other products such as Microsoft’s Sharepoint"

So - it seems like the market is growing up - and expanding - and it (Enterpsie 2.0./Social software/whatever you want to call it) will evolve and mature and just become part of the fabric of any organisation like ERP.

Based on that, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about......

I realise that I have been assuming too much knowledge of social computing and forgetting how the world looks from behind the firewalls of IBM. Let me make this simple:

• The quote you give on enterprise 2.0 exactly illustrates the main point and worry behind the blog. I do not dispute that the market is growing, however I do not agree with you that it is growing up. It is not about being mature, but about keeping users in a state of immaturity or reasons of power or control or plain greed. I regard the attempt to create an ERP type market out of social computing as retrogressive. That is what all the fuss is about.
• Blogging is mostly spontaneous, a conversation between friends. OK some are more serious, but they tend to be signified as such. Some are opinion pieces with the odd rant or polemic. I actually tagged this blog as a polemic to replace something that would otherwise have been handled non-verbally in a conversation.
• In contrast a academic paper is researched and/or referenced takes a lot of time to create and designed to stand by itself without the need for further explanation. The burden of proof and evidence is higher than in a blog post.
• In this case I am reporting on a workshop I have just run. I am reporting the response from those workshop participants. They can see the advantage of the approach I was advocating (see keynote podcast and KM World articles) but state pretty unequivocally that in their environments the IT department would prevent such a view being adopted.
• This corresponds with similar statements at workshops I have conducted in the subject in Europe, California and Australia.
• To name the companies in those workshops without their permission would be a breech of confidence, so I didn't. If you think I am lying about it then so be it. To be honest anyone working in this field with any real experience of social computing outside a large corporate is very unlikely to disagree with the substance of my point. Yes I know that is an assertion but its all you are going to get for the moment as I have academic papers to write that need this sort of attention, while a blog does not.
• I made a further statement which was phrased as a speculation that employees working in social computing outside the firewall will be increasingly intolerant of the restrictions imposed on them by IT departments (aided and abetted by the large solution providers such as IBM and others) and given a free choice (i.e. an open labour market) will move elsewhere. This is a speculation, I may well be proved wrong but I stand by it. Even in an academic paper a free speculation does not require examples. If I made a claim about what is currently happening then it would. Please note the difference.

I should of course have remembered how things seemed when I was in IBM. Large organisations like that have a way of creating their own realities and your consultancy experience is going to be intimately linked to the needs and interests of the IT department. So well done for defending them, you may prove to be right but I sincerely hope that you are not.

@typekeypad: you ate my first post, then you claim you know christianhauck, and then you still don't recognize me ;-(

@ david (C.): you want a real case, so I stick my neck out:
Installed Scuttle from sourceforege for scoial bookmarking in the company basically within two days on a semi-productive server aside other tools where I am officially responsible. Another day to polish it to the corporate colors and style and look and feel. Then central IT should provide a "named url" redirecting to the one with the server name. Takes already more than 6 weeks, countless tickets, people, organizations involved, I'm getting significant invoices. No wonder the market grows to 2 billions: bloat and waste and doing less with more. Good people, often nice and competent (in their field) are working together and side by side and against each other to create a kafkaesque nightmare, and I wonder: why don't they get it, why don't they get it ...
I work in a good company, if there are results and if I live the basic values, bending nonsense rules is tolerated. So I may use scuttle which runs on php which is not corporate standard. Fortunatly, the official dinosaur "solution" does not offer social bookmarking.
Greetings to those who know the case from the inside and who read this blog, to the pilot users who already share their links, to someone from our competitor for the scuttle tip and activist role model, and to the external consultant who created some space for me by making the case for company-internal social bookmarking giving a single speech to the relevant audience.

@Frank: in my case, those in the Communications department support it! At least some.

Dave

Thanks for your detailed reply. I'm not sure where you get the information that my consultancy experience is "intimately linked to the needs and interests of the IT department". I have not worked with IT departments for many years and rarely encounter them, as my work is focused on strategic business transformations (sometimes using Cynefin techniques - as you know when you helped out on one project).

I am not trying to defend them (IT depts). I was merely trying to point out that your initial assertion seemed to indicate that all IT departments were the same. It just seemed to black and white - and surprised me because it had no context.

If you had been talking about all 'Fred' departments then I would have responded in the same way. The reason is that my consultancy experience over the last 20 years is such that I see huge variations in all departments whether it is Sales, Marketing, Logistics......and to tar them all with same brush just does not make sense.

Do you get my point?

Not sure what you mean about 'behind the firewealls of IBM'. That's a weird statement. I have all the access to any social computing software I want - and can use as I see fit. (As do most other consultants).

Your point about the development in social computing "retrogressive" really needs a: "because....xyz" at the end of the sentence!

Regards, David.

PS I don't think you are lying. Of course not. I never said that. I am just very keen to get one concrete example. My suspicion would be that if that example was then investigated deeper and deeper then a slightly different situation from the one you have explained would emerge.

I have to speak up for internal communications who funded the social networking tool I've been pushing for for five years at British American Tobacco.

IT departments often see challenges as problems to be solved once and for all. Adopting vendorspeak, they settle on a collaboration "solution" and then try to sell it to the rest of the business.

This might work well for large ERP systems, but it's not the best way to respond in an area which changes and develops so rapidly.

Dave

And just to nail my point about the differences in organisations across the world, there was an interesting survey by McKinsey earlier this year. I think that the number of respondents is possibly more than in your recent workshops (c. 1500) - and possibly a more representative sample of companies across the globe.

Take one example:the question: which statement best describes how Web 2.0 technologies are adopted in your organisation?

1. The business identifies new technologies and works with IT to bring them into the company (25%)

2. The IT department finds and tests new technologies and then brings them into business units (16%)

3. The business conveys its needs and IT responds, sometimes with new technologies (15%)

4. The business identifies new business opportunities and IT responds, sometimes with new technologies (15%)

5. The business identifies new technologies and brings them into the company without IT support (11%)

6. New technologies based on requests from Corporate HQ (6%)

The point about the survey - and the online discussion that McKinsey held about Web 2.0 adoption - is that business driven Web 2.0 is preferred.

And my point - borne out by this survey - is that this is what is happening! IT departments are either doing what the business wants - or relinquishing control altogether of trying to control Web 2.0 adoption in many companies.

That is my point - and that is my experience. Of course there are some companies where it is IT driven - and maybe they have all decided to go to your workshops.....however it is not the same the world over.

The truer picture, I hope you will agree is more complex - and in the main, being business driven.

I hope you can understand my points and the basis for it.

David I don't want to fall out over this but I think we are having different conversations. I will assume that the points to which you did not respond in my previous reply are accepted and move on to your new ones.

• Given that you were talking about your experience I made the assumption that your work was with IT. If you "rarely encounter them" then that represents a different perspective on this discussion. So I with draw the IT specific aspect, but retain the IBM point. Large consultancy/service firms operate within the official structures of the organisation.
• I am happy to accept the possibility that there are IT departments that have fully embraced social computing. By this I mean allowing users free access to varying and changing tools.
• If IBM now allows that free access to ANY tools then I would like to celebrate a major change from when I was there. If on the other hand you are saying that they allow you free access to a selected blog or wiki tool, then that is very different from allowing you to choose whatever you want. That was my whole point after all, that IT should not be choosing the tools, but allowing free choice at an individual level.
• Making comment that trying to fit social computing into an ERP structure does not need a "because ...xyz" after it, given all the earlier arguments and those made in the pod cast itself and the other material I have referenced. It is a summary statement for the argument not an opening.
• The McKinsey survey (like your other ERP quote) really makes my point for me. This is all corporate speak about business and IT, it does not address the question of individual productivity tools and the increasingly fluid boundaries that exist around organisations. I am sure that the formal aspects of the organisation, both IT and the business units are in general will be very happy with business driven IT. The paradigm of social computing is however very different.

I think this is the real issue. You might want to listen to the pod cast. I talked about the two major prior periods of thinking about the structure of the organisation. The first was functional (taylorism), then we got the process orientation which generated ERP. We are now in a networked, complex paradigm and its very different. If you want to view it through a process/ERP lens then I can see how you come up with the conclusions you do.