Social Computing: Building Contexts for Interaction (Part 3)

By: Adnan (AD) Al-Ghourabi
Enterprise Architecture, IHS

6. Potential Obstacles

According to the Burton Group, one of the major obstacles for implementing social networks is the uncertainty with regards to the business case and ROI.

From the research they have done, most of the discussions were mainly around the business case, metrics, policies, roles, participation, and cultural dynamics.

Perception of the intended solution is very important to the success of the initiative. Some companies have shied away from the term “social” altogether or used terms such as “online communities” or “corporate social network”. [2]

Another obstacle is the change in the mindset. In order for such initiatives to be successful, individuals need to be actively participating to keep the content fresh. This may seem as “yet another system to access to do my job.” [2]

The Burton Group report stressed the importance of making these initiatives relevant to the business and presenting them in a way that garners people’s support. This requires a careful management of perception and the engagement of other groups earlier in the project. “Governance should be outlined from the beginning. Policies need to be established or updated. Usage procedures need to be agreed upon. Groups such as HR, Legal, Compliance, and Security are vital in ensuring the success and the sustainability of such projects.” [2] Having them engaged early would create a sense of ownership. It may even be wise to underscore the value such solution may bring to these groups and have them become one of the earliest adopters.

In any case, such an undertaking requires multiple sponsors across the organization. As the benefit of social networks or online communities can be hard to ascertain, a proof of concept may be critical in providing tangible results for SMART goals; specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

7. Ensuring a Successful Adoption

7.1 Before Implementation

As people are the consumers and will guide the requirements process, the technological solution is more about providing the right tools for the desired context. [3]

The following is a list of best practices for successful social-network implementations (internal and external):

1. The need to engage legal, HR, security, and compliance teams earlier in the process to address any “loss of control” concerns but without stringent policies and guidelines that will discourage participation. [2]

2. Garner acceptance from management by providing a business case and articulating scope, goals, and purpose.

Note: it’s often hard to quantify the return of investment (ROI) in internal social network implementations. Metrics, such as adoption rate, number of active (and also passive) users, or reduction in e-mails (numbers and size) is often used to gauge the success of such an implementation.

EMC, for example, is using an internal implementation on Jive software to gain the expertise for launching an external-facing community. [17]

Another metric for measuring value is how much such an application would help process improvement.

3. Finding the first champion.

As a white paper by NewsGator puts it, the champion provides “the needed push at the beginning of the project to keep usage up and discover more advocates among users. The champion needs to keep helping and encouraging users until this initial base of power users is created.” [3]

A champion can also be very influential in putting together the business case. As possibilities for process improvements are identified, a business case will be much easier to put together.

4. Identifying the initial group of adopters, such as a research group or customers of a product.

Amy Shuen, the author of Web 2.0 Business Strategies, describes the initial adopters as those who “provide the critical momentum that powers the whole system.“ [1]

5. Setting modest expectations. [17]

6. Providing tools that are easy to use to contribute content and establish channels for providing feedback.

7. Encouraging openness of communities and knowledge sharing between employees and avoiding “gated communities.” [17]

Internal implementations have some unique criteria for success: [2][3]

1. Tackle the business and cultural issues that may be raised and create a positive perception based on analyzing inhibitors, advantages and the perceived-value of such an implementation.

2. Encourage “self-monitoring” and develop a policy for inappropriate content without impeding adoption. This would likely be different for customer-facing implementations.

3. Understand the need for an “element of enjoyment” to encourage adoption within the enterprise.

4. Looking at existing business processes used by internal adopters and how the social-network implementation aligns with it.

5. Integrate with existing systems so it doesn’t appear as yet another system or task than employee has to access.

6. Considering new incentive systems to encourage and recognize participation.

7.2 After Implementation

One interesting observation about social networks is that they are self-evolving and provide persona-driven content. The more content there is (and participation), the more relevant content is surfaced, and the more meaningful relationships and associations are deduced and introduced, which further drives adoption and more knowledge-sharing over the life span of the community.

The Sustaining Communities of Practice white paper succinctly puts the characteristics of a community in the sustained performance phase as:

1. “Measurable progress against community objectives or creation of new objectives when launch objectives are met;
2. Changes in measures such as member numbers, content numbers and other quantifiable issues;
3. Activity that demonstrates learning;
4. Work processes being modified to take advantage of knowledge sharing and collaboration capabilities;
5. Taking action on lessons learned, forum topics and comments to knowledge objects to keep community content fresh;
6. Communications to community membership;
7. Shifting focus to knowledge innovation—better answers to new and tougher problems;
8. Articulating community value through success stories;
9. Knowledge sharing behaviors recognized in people development; and
10. Active and involved leadership.” [4]

In addition to the above, in order for the community to remain effective, it requires a dedication of resources (people, time) and support (management, adoption).