Crowdsourcing

 

I've just been reading an excerpt of Jeff Howe's new book, 'Crowdsourcing' on wired.com. 

Howe defines crowdsourcing as the act of taking a job traditionally performed by an employee and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people using the transformative power of today's technology which allows communities to be formed by shared interest rather than vicinity.  This enables the power of the many to be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of the specialised few.

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/09/crowdsourcing.html

 

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Unjust Rewards

 

Good session at the RSA last night looking at greed and inequality in Britain today.

The session was opened by Polly Toynbee, author of a long-term favourite text of mine, Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay Britain, and who has just co-authored Unjust Rewards with David Walker.

Among the various facts that Toynbee presented were that although half of earners earn under £23k, only 10% earn over £45k.  But these people still don't feel rich.

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/09/unjust-rewards.html

 

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H2O / social media in the UAE

 

While in Dubai recently, I had an opportunity to catch up with Steve Vaile at H2O New Media, a UAE based and focused web development company (the contact was suggested through a comment on my blog).

Steve gave me a good summary of social media and its use in the UAE:

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/09/h2o-social-media-in-uae.html

 

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Tomoye / communities of practice

 

Bersin also notes that many social software providers have formed partnerships with Microsoft around its SharePoint product, allowing the two applications to compliment each other.

In some ways, Sharepoint is a competitor to these systems but the vendors have realised that Sharepoint is so ubiquitous that it makes sense to coopt it rather than compete against it.  In addition, Sharepoint is being positioned as a business productivity rather than a social application.

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/09/tomoye-communities-of-practice.html

 

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Bersin / social networks

 

I referred earlier to Bersin's new report on social networking and a little while ago, I attended their new principal analyst, David Mallon's webinar on the report.

Bersin's research contains a good overview of social networking tools / providers and of their variety.  As Josh Bersin explains on his blog:

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/09/bersin-social-networks.html

 

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Trends in Digital HR

   I'm really pleased to announce that on Thursday 11th September 11 at 1:00 pm Central Daylight Time, 7.00pm British Summer Time (Summer???!!!), I'll be presenting on 'Digital HR' with Knowledge Infusion's CEO, Jason Averbook.

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/08/trends-in-digital-hr.html

 

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Collaboration in talent management

 

I've posted on HCI's / IBM's new talent management research on my HCM blog.  IBM found the factors that made the biggest difference to organisational performance are whether organisations understand and address workforce attitudes and engagement levels, and whether employee and workgroup incentives are aligned with appropriate business goals.

However, another factor that appears to quite important is collaboration (I also suspect that the importance of this element is currently being undervalued, and that it will grow over time).  The research finds here that only about half of organisations believe that their employees are collaborating and sharing knowledge with other employees.  These organisations believe that doing this helps promote organisational goals and results.

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/08/collaboration-in-talent-management.html

 

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Orange: ubuntu

 

I think Orange's new ad provides quite a good description of ubuntu:

"I am my mum and my sister. I am my best friend Mike who I've known since school. I am Kate who's still somewhere in Thailand. I'm all the girls I've ever kissed, and the girls I will. I am the teacher that failed me, and the one who spurred me on. I am my bosses, and every one of my friends. I am a bloke I'll meet travelling, who'll teach me the guitar. I am the places I'll go to with mates, and the jokes I'll share with them. I am the people who put me down, and the ones who'll pick me up. I am who I am, because of everyone."

Ubuntu / Changing social thinking

 

Although this blog focuses on developing social capital in businesses, much of the learning that can be used within organisations comes from society at large.  And there's an interesting speech by Michael Gove on the Conservatives website, explaining how the party's social policy is designed to deliver progressive outcomes.

It refers first of all to Bill Clinton's use of the Bantu word Ubuntu which, broadly translated, means 'I am because you are'.

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/08/ubuntu-changing-social-thinking.html

 

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Aberdeen Group: Workforce collaboration and web 2.0

 

The Aberdeen Group report provides a number of interesting findings too.  The report defines workforce collaboration as "connecting employees and sharing knowledge to achieve identified goals".

It is therefore one outcome of both connection (through social networking) and knowledge sharing (through web 2.0).

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/08/aberdeen-group-workforce-collaboration.html

 

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McKinsey: Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise

 

There were several interesting reports on web 2.0 / social networking published last month, including by McKinsey, Aberdeen Group and Bersin (I will be reporting on my won research shortly).

The McKinsey report provides an update on last year's research and finds increased use of web 2.0 tools which are still being used more frequently for internal than for external purposes (internal applications include managing knowledge - 83%; fostering collaboration across company - 78%; enhancing culture - 74%; training - 71%; developing products and services - 67% and internal recruiting - 54%).

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/08/mckinsey-building-web-20-enterprise.html

 

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Social Workers

 

I am quoted in an article on social networking published by the IOD's Director magazine, 'Social Workers' - see my HCM blog for details.

 

Technorati Tags: David Woodward,IOD,Director magazine,Social Workers,social networking,BT

Witty's Number

 

According to Management Today, new GSK chief exec Andrew Witty has proposed that "instead of the existing seven large global centres, GSK’s hunt for new drugs should be tackled by many more, much smaller teams – a maximum of 80 scientists per group, in fact".

The rationale is apparently that:

"The new model is based on the assumption that smaller, more dispersed teams will naturally tend to pursue a broader portfolio of products. Each of them may be rather less lucrative than one of the old blockbusters – which are anyway getting much harder to find – but the damage caused by one of them failing will also be a lot less traumatic. Less of a roller-coaster, more of a gentle drive in the country."

That makes sense, although I think there's something about the smaller number too.

When I was an HR Director at Ernst & Young, we started to organise our audit teams into groups ('stables') of 50-80 too, in order to improve collaboration within teams.  A group of 80 would include up to 10 managers and we felt that this was about the maximum number of people who could work well together, and through them, bring the full group of about 80 people together into a cohesive team.

Dunbar's analysis may suggest we can network effectively with a slightly higher number of people that this, but I think for real, effective focus and team working, 80's about right.

 

Technorati Tags: Management Today,Andrew Witty,GSK,smaller teams,Dunbar's number

Leadership pulse findings on Relational Capital

 

 

Theresa Welbourne at eepulse (see also Energize Engage) reports finding that relational capital (here defined as relationships with all stakeholders not just employees) is more important than human capital for building long-term competitive advantage in an organisation.

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/07/leadership-pulse-findings-on-relational.html

 

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Collaborating for business performance

 

I've only just come across this research via Steve Roesler's All Things Workplace.

“Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance”, published recently by Microsoft, Verizon and Frost & Sullivan, measured companies' “collaborativeness” through an index consisting of the quality (the nature and extent of collaboration that allows people to work together as well as an organisation’s culture and processes that encourage teamwork) and capability (an organisation’s orientation, infrastructure and technologies) of collaboration.

Continued at: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2008/07/collaborating-for-business-performance.html

 

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