Syndication, democratisation and curation of data within the enterprise; killer combination

Syndication

If we take syndication to mean making content available to other sites/subscribers (e.g., web syndication)  then although enterprises seem to be happy with the idea of syndicating public facing content such as press releases, articles or white papers via social media, the idea of syndicating enterprise data isn't yet mainstream. 

So the definition of data syndication would be that data is published simultaneously in a number of other channels - those channels could be outside, or inside the enterprise.

If you're inside the enterprise it makes it more likely that whatever channel is preferred by a user, the user gets the exposed to the data. Perhaps more importantly, it ensures that whatever the data source is, there's a common way to access it. By syndicating the data into multiple channels, the data can be event driven to the user, who can then take control it - it's there on demand as opposed to needing to be found. So the benefit is speed; awareness; engagement.

The case for syndicating data externally is potent. Firstly, it's transparent, so it builds partnership and trust; for instance, the near instant visibility of customer demand down the supply chain can reduce the 'bullwhip effect'. In addition, real-time situational awareness speeds up vendor response. Perhaps organisations will want to bring customers into the product/service development process even earlier than they already are. Or customers could take a complete, cradle to grave view of product quality.

Democratisation

Democratisation concerns the spread of knowledge amongst end-users as opposed to a hierarchical broadcast mechanism. Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) makes some interesting points about the sheer volume of data on the internet and how democratisation is the masses deciding what's important or relevant.

Users in the enterprise face the same challenges as users on the internet; the volume of data is huge and increasing. (This is why enterprise search is big business - HP are buying Autonomy, Google are pushing their search appliance and Microsoft are working their FAST acquisition/Bing into the enterprise where they can). The enterprise needs the same democratisation capability as the internet. Users need to be able to find and through sharing 'vote up' those key trends and issues that need attention, whether it's the trend of data from a manufacturing plant instrument or an unresolved safety audit finding.

Democratisation means the right attention can be given to the right issues at the right time.

Of course, this is a tough thing to do; the nature of data in the enterprise is different - the historical lack of enterprise-wide search means metadata is lacking or inaccurate and vendors have spent years implementing protected, proprietary, and closed systems. But with intelligent design we can overcome this.

Curation

And so to curation. Buzzword du jour. There's a definite move away from the academic definition to curation as a development of the democratisation of internet content, usually via social media. The key factor is that content is filtered and organised by a human for a community of people with common interests, rather than aggregated by an algorithm designed to respond to a single query.

This is a logical step; faced with huge quantities of available data, there's just got to be some way to make sense of it all; what's worth reading and what's worth keeping? An algorithm can't answer those questions because it doesn't appreciate the nuances of the community and those shared interests. You need a curator to take the step from the personalisation around their interests (dealt with in Web 2.0) to the relevance of content or data to the wider community built around shared interests. 

As I write this in August 2011, there are few content curation solutions out there - most are in private beta and all are aimed squarely at the internet and socialising content.

Just as it's the next logical step for the internet, it's the next logical step for the enterprise. The enterprise is full of communities, from those with a shared interest in cycling to those with a shared interest in energy and sustainability, or safety. Communities are reliable, robust and inclusive; they lead to better decisions and by their very nature engage users and ensure that the relevant data gets to interested parties. A well curated community kills a reliance on email, or any other form of serial information delivery. Developing the idea of curating syndicated data mentioned above opens the door for expert third parties to be consulted or offer services. 

Altogether now…

Simply put, I believe that democratising syndicated enterprise data through user communities is a good thing. Each enterprise and each employee that works within it can be more autonomous, more expert and better connected. It's a killer combination.

The job of your staff is to populate your to-do list

....not the other way around.

What the hell…? The job of my staff is to do the stuff I tell them to, surely?

Well, no. The problem with a CxO/manager telling the staff what to do is that the staff are closer to the customer. Or the systems. Or the problem.

Now, this isn't intended as a recipe for corporate anarchy, or some sort of democratic leadership. The CxO has a job in terms of putting in place the structures and processes which ensure that the work gets done. (cf. 5 Rules, 8 Commandments). From that point on, the CxO/manager's job is to respond to what the customer/problem facing team is telling them - or needs from them.

So, the CxO/manager having decided that they/you want, say, an agile development team where the focus is on frequent releases at a production level of quality with low risk, it's the CxO/manager's job to get in place:

The simplest tool you can find.

The simplest, clearest, fewest guidelines necessary.

The simplest, clearest, smallest organisation structure you can define.

Then, let the guys on the ground talk to the customer, do their job, work within the tools, guidelines and org structure that's been prepared for them. The CxO/manager's job is to support them.

(You don't need someone to draw really complex processes that look great and never get followed.)

(You don't need to invest in something expensive or complex.)

(You don't - and as a former Programme Manager this pains me - need MS Project.)

For instance, managing a small development team on an agile software product development project, we have:

• Tool: Defect/issue management software TRAC (an open source solution). 
• Guideline: We flex enhancements in favour of defects for a weekly release.
• Org structure:
• One person takes responsibility for the crucial production trigger points 
• Everyone has a specialism.

Our sales team approach is looser as the team's smaller:

• Tool: Salesforce.
• Guideline: Find new & interesting people to work with.
• Org structure: One person per sector.

The beauty of this approach is that it's scalable. Want to expand the sales team to talk to more sectors? Duplicate it. Again and again. Want to scale up development? Duplicate it.

Every time you duplicate you increase the value of the information the CxO/manager supplies their teams as it can be used by each duplicated unit. Therefore you increase the value of every question that's asked of the CxO/manager.

Therefore you increase the value of every item your team places on your to do list; you increase the value of your contribution to the company.

I'll let you know how we get on.

Four things I say a lot to my team and what they really mean

Those around Sabisu are used to hearing me say;

1. 'Tell me what you need'

Nothing's worse than screwing up when it could have been avoided. I hate the phrase, 'if only'.

If we're about to lose a sale because we don't have a one page summary describing how great Sabisu is for supply-chain collaboration, then it would be nuts not to ask for it. 

Equally, if a customer needs to know why we've gone with functionality A and not B, or any other difficult question, then put them straight through to someone who can help; clear the decks.

Delegate upwards so those at the sharp end can focus on what they need to do.

2. 'Show me what you've done'

I see this as pretty close to Terry Leahy shopping in his own Tesco stores, or a chef working the pass; it's all about checking the quality. It says in Rework: everything is marketing. So everything has to be high quality.

By constantly reviewing what the team is doing, you don't need to check what the team is doing as much in the future; they'll get used to the possibility of a review and up their game to meet a higher standard.

For me, this is nothing more than the 'test first' approach of, say Extreme Programming, or the 'go to production early' approach of any agile methodology extended backwards into the pre-production lifecycle. Get it in front of the customer early to prevent defects being found expensively late in the development cycle.

3. 'Good job.'

Or 'nice one'. Or 'thanks'. 

(Or 'good stuff'. Or 'rocking'. Or 'awesome'.)

Being enthusiastic. Saying thanks a lot. It's just the right thing to do.

4. 'Riiiiiight...?'

Never smack down an idea until you're absolutely sure that (i) it's been expressed fully, (ii) you understand it, and (iii) you understand its implications. 

I suppose it's about pre-judging an idea. It's easy to do - particularly when you're tired, the kids are playing up at home and the dog has developed a horrific bowel ailment or whatever, but I try to remember that the guys in the office are great at what they do and most of the time their ideas are good.

So, 'Riiiiight?' really means 'tell me more'. They get that.

Guest post for MMUCFE

Lead Us Not Into Evil: my thoughts on ethical leadership - guest blog post for MMU's leadership programme @mmucfe - http://bit.ly/e6kYbK

Why the time is right for the Networked Enterprise

Here I blogged about the cloud as an enabler for the ‘networked enterprise’.

The reasons why I think the concept will take off now are:

1. The emergence of truly collaborative platforms that leverage the enterprise network.
   (Disclosure: I’m the owner manager of http://www.sabisu.co/)
   
   Only now is the technology in place; social business software (or Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0) situated in the cloud is the only way for the networked enterprise to return value.
   
   Without these technologies enterprises are back to building specialised point to point bridges with increasing expense blocking implementation and complexity nullifying returns.
   
   
2. Studies are beginning to show the benefits of deploying web 2.0 and cloud technology; this should convince the pragmatists that the emphasis in ‘social business’ is on the ‘business’ part. Until this point, they've had ample anecdotal evidence to belittle the impact of social networking. It's the arrival of studies like this that should change things.
   
   Of course, the social networking side of things is important but without point 1, the collaboration platforms, you've got nothing better than LinkedIn (which is great, but to a point). If the 'networked enterprise' concept is going to return value, you need the collaboration capability too.
   
   
3. People are ready; Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn have rocketing user numbers – each of those users is getting a starter course in the power of the network and the ease of using a web 2.0 application. Collaborating with a user in another organisation isn't scary when you've already LinkedIn with them...and even if you haven't, the very existence of these platforms gives you the permission to work beyond your organisation - the psychological barrier has been removed, so the boundaries fall too (as explored in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point).
   
4. Corporates are (almost) ready:
   
• Deperimiterisation is coming as Execs start to drive adoption of ‘consumer’ technologies (oh go on, I’ll mention the iPad) in the enterprise. This removes a psychological boundary; they expect at work what they get at home, but crucially vice versa.
  
• Savings seduce: IT departments are seeing the time, cost and hassle savings. If an end user can get the service they need direct from the cloud - and for very low cost - then the temptation is to stay out of the way.
  
• Corporates are beginning to understand that the biggest security risk is people, rather than some esoteric hack attack.
  
• Corporates understand that the ‘cloud’ is an extension of ‘vendor hosted’ and generally they have experience of this already. So it’s not too scary.

Of course, there are obstructions and gaps which will slow adoption. But those who do adopt will have a significant competitive advantage - and now for the first time, they can.

Does the cloud mean enterprise relationships will mimic personal ones?

Until now, the usual behaviour for enterprises is that they work together for the duration of a contract then they part. The concept of the 'Virtual Enterprise Network' is a good example; a temporary affiliation of multiple enterprises to achieve a given aim.

Contractually that might be the case, but an enterprise doesn't actually do anything; it's the people that make up the enterprise that do things, and even though the affiliation is contractually temporary, the relationships between people are permanent. 

Cloud computing can change this; it can provide a common demilitarised zone that many organisations can share. Whether it's a virtual private cloud or a 'public' cloud is irrelevant; for the first time there is a place that's permanently online, always on tap and can be made to hold to common standards. Until now, it's been a case of choosing a partner and investing in development to connect and exchange data with that partner, hoping to offset the whole lot with an ROI calculation that someone with a pot of money believes. Now, you can describe the data exchange in a common standard, hook up to a cloud solution and wait for everyone else to join in - the investment is made by the guys the enterprise pays to host your cloud solution.

This allows enterprises to form links that are more like the links people forge between themselves. How often do you de-friend someone on Facebook or LinkedIn? You don't; you keep them in your network 'just in case'. Enterprises can keep others in their network, just in case.

So the position of the cloud between organisations should allow those personal relationships to be realistically represented at an enterprise level; the links between organisation can left in place indefinitely, to be used as required, with little cost implication.

This would support Kevin Kelly's argument in What Technology Wants that over time technology trends towards complexity, for if the cloud is indeed a common DMZ then the future looks very complex with every single organisation generating more connections and never deleting old ones.

The implications are many but here are some that occurred to me:

• The walls around an organisation are destined to become ever more porous. It's unavoidable that there'll be multiple external cloud solutions that the enterprise will want to connect to. 
• Independent consultants and SMEs (with the emphasis on the 'S') could find themselves on a level playing field with much bigger organisations.
• Ultimately the enterprise could become dominated a loose affiliation of knowledge workers, rather than dedicated employees.

And it means that there's no such thing as a 'virtual enterprise network', or a 'collaboratively networked organisation', or any other variant: there's simply a networked enterprise. 

Further thoughts on MMORPGs & collaboration

This is a great blog post:
http://shanleykane.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/online-collaboration-sucks/

For me, that's what blogs are all about; a personal mash-up of experiences shedding light on something new.

I totally buy it. Back in '92, MMORPGs were MUDs and were all text over Telnet; I was a heavy user of Razor's Edge (a CircleMUD in Liverpool) and Infinity (based out in the US somewhere) at the time. Now, at that time MUDs migrated into being 'talkers', which were literally just text chat rooms. This didn't have the same attraction to me because on a MUD you were doing something, whether it was trying to level-up, get hold of a particular bit of kit or whatever. The attraction was working (gaming) together, in a shared environment, with instant communication and the right toolkit for the job...

Anyway here's how I'd extend @shanley's blog into the corporate environment:

1. Collaborators need the raw data

Most workplaces are much duller than the environment created in WoW. Corporate life is spreadsheets and docs; it's data. So when @Shanley describes it as a 'shared experience', for the corporate it translates simply into access for all collaborators to the data that describes the work to be done. It absolutely can be a shared experience though; you just need a single place where everyone can get to the same data at the same time on their terms..

...which means that IT departments need to move from compliance and control, to enabling and de-obstructing; the modern IT department function is to get the business data to where it needs to be - which might be somewhere outside the enterprise...

Perhaps the one place where you could justify a rich graphical interface is where the physical environment is important, say, if you're trying to collaborate on a problem with physical constraints. This could be valuable in hazardous manufacturing, petrochemical or nuclear plants. Real potential for 3D WoW interfaces there.

But for most office workers I think that in practice the interface has to be a portal variant; whilst the experience may be shared, each user needs access to the data, tips and tricks that allows them to add value - in the same way that a user on a MMORPG has particular capabilities or tricks up their sleeve.

I think that's a pretty good analogy for a day at the office.

2. User Autonomy Means Increasing Complexity


So it's going to be awfully difficult to hold everyone's personal configuration isn't it? Well, I don't buy that. Technology has moved far down the path of personalisation but it's not going to stop any time soon. I accept that a corporate is going to want to set users off in the right direction (e.g., everyone in a particular role starts with the same UI layout) but if I can re-configure it to make it work better for me, why can't I?

As Kevin Kelly says in 'What Technology Wants', the technology trends towards increased complexity; that complexity is everyone in the world doing it their way.

If every user is forced to look at their work - a document, project or whatever - in the same way, you lose the illumination that a shift in perspective can provide. The data may not change, but I might choose to view it in a different way...of course, this will root out those who depend on presenting data in a particular format to support their position.

3. Communication Features != Collaboration App

Couldn't agree more. Every application trumpets it's collaboration capabilities. Without the sharing of the data that describes the issue/project/work item itself, you can't collaborate on it, because what you're actually doing is going after the data, copying and pasting it into a messaging system (email, OCS, Lotus Notes, Google Docs).

You have to have the raw data to hand so that you can have that 'shared experience' and truly collaborate.

If that's the case, how many collaboration systems are really out there?

4. Sounding Off

I think finally the technology is mature and the corporates are looking to the value and competitive edge of working closely with their partners, suppliers and customers. The solutions are just beginning to become available; the value propositions are only just being clarified and supported with case studies and benefits evidence.

The main obstacle is in the minds of the risk averse IT departments, who are still blocking Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, and have yet to realise the power of the network.