How we use discussions internally
The staple of Enterprise Social Software are discussions. Simply, it’s the active clash of interactions that powers the big gains. There’s no place to have these conversations at most companies so suddenly being able to get together and talk is a basic but unbelievably powerful behavior. It’s connective tissue that surrounds all objects.
Here’s how we use it at Jive:
Pre-baked ideas
Whereas an internal blog post is good for formed ideas, discussions are fantastic for incomplete ideas. At Jive, we go ugly early and just put it out there without fear of getting it right or repercussions. Across the company you see a lot of half-ideas. These are stabs to get opinions and help shape the final idea. I’m consistently amazed at how folks will chime in from other departments and add their two cents. The results are always better than if we emailed or met to talk about it (though sometimes you still need a good old fashioned meeting).
Competitive Intelligence
We’ve found competition and market intelligence to not only be a highly active category at Jive but everyone of our largest customers have echoed that as well. It’s the conversations about the movements in the market that leads to action and knowledge growth.
Small questions
One of the most common marks at the end of the title of a discussion is a question mark. Everyday questions are posted at Jive. “Where is our new Best Practices paper” or “Does Widgetcorp own their own datacenters?” The answers typically get resolved quickly which saves lot of emailing and/or meetings.
Big questions
Small questions can lead to bigger questions once a company gets used to not being afraid to ask. Questions like “Are we growing to fast?” or “How come we don’t let our employees telecommunte?” are hugely important and it’s the diverse views of the employee population that help dimensionalize the issues. Being able to convert conversations in Clearspace to decisions within documents can also help make sure that the ideas are captured and actionable. The big questions that cross P&Ls or business units are the conversations that need to be happening within the Enterprise. That’s where innovation lives.
Fly Fishing
Every once and a while you’ll see some nutty or spontaneous things thrown into the mix. I love these discussions because they attract all sorts of people to participate. Sometimes it’s as simple as “Oh no you di’nt” to “Why I don’t nod back at you when you walk by my desk.” Keeping this sort of stuff in the mix is a critical aspect to keep Jive’s culture alive.
Things people have said about this post
Per the informal stuff which extends the ’social’ identity of individuals beyond their ‘work persona’, almost 10 years ago when identifying the distinct attributes of communities, I was careful to include a distinct design for ‘communities of interest’, to facilitate the random gathering of people around their personal interests.
The ‘walk by my desk’ raises another critical ’social’ factor: 4′ cubes. The standard cube design is 5′plus. 4′ cubes add a sense of ‘connectedness’. More (still eliminates some) can stand during a phone call and connect visually with others on the floor. I go to the office (1 hr. commute) and may see no one the entire day…and drive home. What’s the point of that?
“Go ugly early” … I like that, a lot. It brings to mind Arno Penzias’ tactic of “setting up to fail”: keep the front-end investment low and watch to see just precisely how the concept goes pear-shaped (if it does); low investment makes an objective reading of the entrails more likely whereas more formal presentations tend to entail ego-investment i.e. folk run for cover in the event of spin/stall/crash/burn/die.
I could not agree more with your opening paragraph! Making those discussions as easy as possible is paramount. Interesting post.
“We’ve found competition and market intelligence to not only be a highly active category at Jive but everyone of our largest customers have echoed that as well. It’s the conversations about the movements in the market that leads to action and knowledge growth.”
Love that. Sounds like you have it nailed. Too many of the OLD traditional companies have piles of competitive data that those in the trenches don’t ever get access to, or worse, someone gets a whole division stuck in analysis paralysis. I once spent an entire year rewriting marketing and PR plans for an “Internet” start-up within a large company because no one could move and the business objective changed monthly. Needless to say, I left.
On the flip side, so many young players are moving too fast or feel too strapped to actually dedicate constant resources to active monitoring and response, which can help keep a strong lead, or make a breakthrough.