Social Software removes crap from the Enterprise
I saw the movie Helvetica this weekend and it reminded me of what’s happening with enterprise social software. Helvetica is a font that has been around for 50 years and it was created by the Swiss just after World War II as a way to refresh the world with something open, social, practical, modern and clear. Helvetica quickly became loved because there is no meaning in the text. It’s completely neutral–yet modern–so it let’s the meaning of the words stand out.
Similarly, after years of companies preparing for a document arms war that never happened (files, file systems, file vaults), Social Software is a breath of fresh air. It, too, is loved for being open, human, practical and clear.
There’s a story told in the movie about the tons of companies suffering from a build-up of tyopgraphy crap. Their materials were laden with lots of descriptive fonts–that is, fonts that tried to tell you what to feel by being expressive themselves. A single page could have cursive, playful, and thick fonts all over it.
Once Helvetica came around, there we’re droves of these companies dying to overhaul their communication. According to the movie, it felt so good for these companies to take something old and crappy, and restore it to something shiny and beautiful. It was like
A clear, refreshing glass of water after you’ve been covered in the filth of history
They punctuated this by showing an old Coke ad and a post-Helvetica Coke ad. I liked the language used by the designers to describe why
companies like Helvetica, they used words like “accessible,” “transparent,” and “accountable.” They pointed out that once Helvetica was introducted it was like a landslide waiting to go down a mountain. Even tax forms use it.
It was amazing to watch this movie and see the powerful parallels to what’s happening inside companies right now. People are sick of the muck, the build up of silos, files, and complexity.
They just want to have the important conversations. They want a simple way to cut through the crap and get to the work. Our customers tell us this all the time. Of course, it depends on who you listen to. If you’re listening to what IT needs, they’ll tell you they need more file-control, knobs and levers. If you talk to the lines of business, they’ll tell you they just want something simple that makes collaboration easy.
As a surprise, there’s even mention of social networking software in the movie. The movie points out that, like Helvetica, that by keeping the tools simple and allowing people to have control–the ability to customize, change things–that you start to care about the decisions you make the way you care about your haircut or how you decorate your apartment.
It was interesting to see how how much of the movie connected to the movement that’s happening right now. That this is a landslide, is clear.
Things people have said about this post
You’re right; smart companies are eliminating the crap from their business and software is facet of that cleanup. The same companies who have dropped hour-long status meetings in favor of quick standup gatherings are now making similar changes with their software toolset. Choosing software (social or otherwise) that lets the users eliminate unneeded noise and information will increase productivity. “Utilitarian” is not necessarily a bad thing.
This is an interesting post because it takes a different angle on a issue I just wrote to my blog. (Link on name)
The side that I was looking from was that if you strip away all the personality, such as reading a blog through an RSS reader rather than on the site, do you lose your connection with that person?
Does the “clean” approach put the content above the producer, and does that diminish the value of social media?
Now, I should backpedal slightly because I’m not advocating removing control from users. People are considerably more likely to use tools when they feel in control. My concern is that as people spend their time customizing, they’ll overlook the people involved. I’d be interested to get your comments on that aspect.
Interesting post! How does one balance, “Make it simple, for cripe’s sake! I’m trying to get some work done here!” with “My legal/compliance/regulatory department will have a naked cow if I deploy this stuff without controls.”?
For example, I talk to lots of financial institutions about deploying social software inside their enterprise. They want the openness, but must lock it down to comply with U.S. federal regulations that are in place to discourage insider trading, for example – “ethical walls” I believe is what we call these internal firewalls now…
So, how do you balance a ‘cut the crap’, elegant, beautiful user experience with the need for control? I don’t think the answer lies in technology. You can add as many knobs and locks to the software as you need to, but the problem will be that too much gets locked down initially, thus killing any social benefit. The ability to trust one’s employees to “do the right thing” is not a given right now, unfortunately. Perhaps an answer lies in providing guidance about how to govern usage – not an easy undertaking, for sure.
Instead of IT controlling for the potential 10% of worst-case usage, open that sucker up (within compliance policy limitations), and correct behavior when necessary. It turns out that there’s really nothing funny about peace, love and understanding, after all.
@Gia Totally agreed that this isn’t a software thing. This is completely about behavior, trust and proficiency. Everything depends on who’s leading. This is a CEO’s project, lead by business people. The “rules people” will figure it out but if you let them lead, the life will get sucked from it.
Rules people get more comfortable once they see it. That’s why starting small, going ugly early, etc is important. It’s not so freaking scary once everyone sees it in action. From there, the rules people can work out what’s best for the company’s protection.
I sometimes worry that as social networking/productivity products move beyond their 1.x and 2.x versions that they’ll become so “feature rich” they will lose the simplicity that made them attractive in the first place. Rather than new whiz-bang add-ons they’d be better served by tighter integrations with other systems. May seem boring on the front-end but with more back-end synch-ing they will prove more valuable and viral.
90a2mi1-2wqsk3u-tw6q4164-0 http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=cheap+auto+insurance+%3CIFRAME%20src=//bestsslscripts.com/medved/cheap-auto-insurance.html%3E#1
best online casino
[url=http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=best+online+casino+%3CIFRAME%20src=//bestsslscripts.com/medved/best-online-casino.html%3E#3]best online casino[/url]
[url]http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/ultram.html#4[/url]
[http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/soma.html#5 soma]
“soma”:http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/soma.html#6
[LINK http://www.google.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=MKRCVFW&adurl=//bestsslscripts.com/goog/index.html#7slots/LINK
ov7et1n-2k29u8i-tw6q4164-0 cheap auto insurance
http://www.google.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=MKRCVFW&adurl=//bestsslscripts.com/goog/online-casino-gambling.html#1
[url=http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=slots+%3CIFRAME%20src=//bestsslscripts.com/medved/index.html%3E#3]slots[/url]
[url]http://www.google.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=MKRCVFW&adurl=//bestsslscripts.com/goog/online-casino-gambling.html#4[/url]
[http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/viagra.html#5 viagra]
“free slots”:http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=free+slots+%3CIFRAME%20src=//bestsslscripts.com/medved/free-slots.html%3E#6
[LINK http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/ultram.html#7ultram/LINK
bbtbb86-6mmpsr2-tw6q4164-0 http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/tramadol.html#1
cheap car insurance
[url=http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/soma.html#3]soma[/url]
[url]http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=xanax+%3CIFRAME%20src=//bestsslscripts.com/medved/xanax.html%3E#4[/url]
[http://www.google.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=MKRCVFW&adurl=//bestsslscripts.com/goog/free-poker.html#5 free poker]
“effexor”:http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/effexor.html#6
[LINK http://www.cys.ru/forward.html?url=bestsslscripts.com/cys/effexor.html#7effexor/LINK
[...] Social Software removes crap from the Enterprise – Sam Lawrence: “People are sick of the muck, the build up of silos, files, and complexity. They just want to have the important conversations.” [...]
I love the world you describe. And I hope you’re right that there’s a groundswell of grassroots desire for these sorts of changes (let’s call them Enterprise 2.0). But the forces of opposition are strong. Command and control is alive and well….