Openness

A lot can be interpreted on the word "Openness" at the work place. Doors seem open but one cannot really enter. Eyes, ears and the mouth don't seem to exhibit their nature of work at work!

One gets exposed to several unique people at work. Work place provides learning experience that cannot be obtained elsewhere.

There is an inherent confidence and authority that one's position gives the person at work place. This also places a "mask" and turns issues that need attention as areas that can be deliberately overlooked.

Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson, in her lecture titled "Can Complex Organizations Learn" discusses this topic in detail and uses the term "psychological safety" which people resort to at work place where no questions are asked, no problems get solved and no feedback is taken and addressed and everything appears simple.

Several of Professor Amy Edmondson's articles can be found for further reading at the site for Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.

People will not be able to develop a healthy outlook towards their organization in such a work atmosphere. They slowly tend to attend to themselves and their own well being rather than develop the broader outlook towards their organization.

What is better - self centered employees or those employees who can risk their own self interest and work towards the greater good of their organization with openness?

How can organizations truly adopt openness and transform for the better?

Do Web 2.0 technologies help build the confidence and trust among employees to embrace openness?

Collaborative Tools - Context for the Enterprise

Blogs, Wikis, Facebook and other collaborative tools are very easy to use. There appears to be high level adoption in the consumer web space (internet users are many, even a low percentage appears to be high in numbers). Inherent openness with no central control, ability for readers and participants to enrich content, ability to tag, link in order to organize and structure content are some of the features. Debatable area is control of users and content.

For the enterprise, adoption to openness is the biggest challenge.

Blogs and Wikis promote openness and participation from multiple sources (employees, participants in the supply chain and other stakeholders) in comparison to the closed channels such as email and instant messaging. Opinions expressed are open for further debate. Abnormal behaviors during participation is minimal as there is scope for self correction within the participating community.

The collaborative tools offer channels for direct communication regarding topics in an organization that would not have been addressed with multiple perspectives. They are especially useful for leaders to know the patterns of their organizations/ people they are leading.

The concerns on the risks due to uncontrolled openness as well as lack of compliance can actually be resolved in such open channels/ environments. However paying attention to the participants is the key. Genuine concerns need to be heard and addressed is the only approach to mitigate risks of openness. Facilitating such collaborative environments is key to successful organizations.

Community Managers/ Facilitators have a role to help keep the collaborative environment healthy. Establishing and enforcing policies for tone of the users and the quality of the content in the enterprise is important though.


Sources/ References:

Enterprise 2.0, New Collaborative Tools for your organization's toughest challenges by Andrew McAfee, HBS Publishing [Chapter 5, Uniquely Valuable, Benefits of enterprise 2.0].

Developing Strategies for web 2.0 in the enterprise


http://blog.whatever-company.com/index.php/2010/04/survey-enterprise-2-0/

Enterprise 2.0

Andrew McAfee demonstrates how technologies can be sold to organizations with his craft of facilitation and story telling techniques in his book titled Enterprise 2.0. The book is about collaborative technologies - web 2.0. It is also about the revolution of way work is done understanding group dynamics, range of ties among people of the enterprise in depth.

First, he builds the context with stories of businesses handling their problem areas and their desperate need for help.
Then, he provides history/ or the trials of technologies in providing the required help, the standardized beliefs about technologies contributing to group work, setting the stage for trends in solving "old problems with new approaches".

Readers are bound to be curious about the solutions that the author has to offer to solve their own organizations problems in the area of collaboration. The author continues to engage the reader building the case for web 2.0 with refined definitions during stages of discussion, trends that led to better tools, take away points of similarities and differentiators of the technologies offerings.

He clarifies possible skepticism on the use/ relevance of the technologies based on their features and their capabilities. The utility of these technologies for different purposes is then re-emphasised.

The author describes the patterns on the concerns/ risks of leaders for adoption of the technologies. Guidelines to deployment are provided.

In essence, the table of contents deliver what is promised in this book.
Very influential and informational book for the people deciding on adopting web 2.0 technologies for whatever be the type of organization.

IS Professional Learning - Insights Into The Thought Process

Insights into the thought process and how the student learns is an area that is often ignored during higher education / training programs in the industry.

Educators tools need to be explored and implemented with a sincerety of purpose into the curriculum.

Critical analysis and thinking, discussion, open debates and questioning are important to adhere to during the facilitation to learning. A course completion with a grade assigned is only an indication that the self learning can begin well equipped with the right tools.

Learning can be facilitated with the facilitator in control of questions that examine the several layers of the cognitive learning domain. The facilitator has the additional responsibility of retaining the focus and bringing the discussions back on track.

For example, consider Bloom's taxonomy [Reference 1] with the six levels for Cognitive learning applied to the relevance of Open Source Software discussion question.

Opening Discussion Question/ Question relating to Knowledge

Discuss the influence of Open source on Software Development.
Many defend that open source systems have several advantages over the traditional approaches to building systems. Comment on this aspect.
What is the competitive advantage offered by other vendors in this area?
Question relating to Comprehension:

If you were to make decisions on adopting Open Source for the next project in your company, what would you do to justify your case?

Question relating to Application

How are existing players (vendors) reacting to the Open Source revolution?

How are large and successful business enterprises utilizing the benefits of both the traditional as well as Open source offerings?

Question relating to Analysis:

Is Open Source ready for mission critical applications in large enterprises? What could be the complexities that need to be managed?

Question relating to Synthesis:

What do you think the future of Open source would be?


Question relating to Evaluation:

What could be the criticism on the "Free" part of Open source? If companies and people join to form Free Enterprise not having control on ownership how would profits be made?

Reference 1:

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html