Action and Reaction

Sorry about not keeping up here -- I'm saving the posts here for interesting questions and/or challenges we come across in our journey.

And a few weeks ago, we stumbled into another one.

And it's going to be interesting ...

We Want People To Have Conversations

And they are.

Lots of conversations, really.  Mostly about work stuff.  But not always.

A while back, there was a notable surge in "off topic" discussions -- favorite movies, raising rabbits, anime, commute times, etc.

In a pure Web 2.0 idealized world, it's all good, right?

Well, we're not exactly in this progressive 2.0 world quite yet.  And we have to be mindful of the transition.

There Is A Valid Business Need For Off-Topic Discussions

More and more of our teams are geographically and culturally dispersed.  We want people to align and bond around common interests -- whatever they might be. 

Just like we spend boatloads of money to fly people around for group meetings -- and subsequent "team building" events -- this sort of idle chatter has a role in "enterprise 2.0", and we don't want to be shutting things down.

But, we also want broad adoption in our 1.0 employee base.  And if certain 2.0 behaviors hamper that, well -- that's an issue, isn't it?

Problem #1 -- Clutter

With our current 1.x Clearspace implementation, we have a "home page" that dutifully records each and every thought someone shares (except blog comments for some reason).  That off-topic clutter at a corporate level is downright annoying to many people.

Sure, the user can take action: set up filters, personalize, etc.  There's some of that in Clearspace 1.x, more in 2.x, and then there's RSS feeds, etc.  But all of these are highly dependent on users taking control of their content stream.

And that's a new 2.0-ish skill that not too many people at our company have.  Sure, we could tell them "here's what you have to do to control the problem", but we're trying to drive broader engagement and adoption of the platform, and we've had more than a few people new to the environment simply say "I can't handle this social content stream in addition to my email deluge".

It's one thing when they're exposed to the business-related deluge.  It's another thing entirely when it looks like 40-50% of the stream appears to be purely social in nature. 

Doesn't make it look like a business platform, which is how it was sold to the company.

Problem #2 -- Naysayers

In physics, every force results in an opposite force.  And in driving corporate change, the same generally holds true.  I'm not being negative, just practical.

And, not surprisingly, there are those that look at our internal social media platform with a cold, cynical eye.  They don't understand, they may be threatened, they're not comfortable, or maybe they're generally concerned. 

Collectively, they have "voice".

And now they have a bit more evidence for their case.

Problem #3 -- The Proficient

We now have upwards of 1,000 people who are truly comfortable and really enjoy the deep end of the pool.  They love being exposed to everything.  They're very comfortable controlling the content stream. 

And they inherently resist any thought of control, policy, etc. -- it just doesn't work for them.  And they're quite vocal that the rest of the world has to adapt to this 2.0 world, and they better get on with it, now!

And -- they have a point.  But I'm looking at outcome, and less to make a philisophical statement.

We Thought We Had A Fix

We thought we had a handle on this issue originally.  We set up a "water cooler" community for off-topic stuff.  But we haven't found any way to limit the feed to the home page.

And, even if we could, maybe we shouldn't. 

After all, there are people who choose to participate in the big fire hose, and they should be able to.  The problem is the default for the broader and less-proficient audience we've got here. 

What We're Doing Short Term

A couple of things, really.  First, I went to the more -- ahem -- prolific threads, and simply reminded people that everything they write is syndicated up to the corporate feed, and that their insightful comments were widely read by several thousand people. 

And that while it's OK to get off topic, please keep in mind that we've got a business platform, and you may want to think twice before an extended off-topic discussion for several reasons, e.g. is this what you do all day at work?

The second thing we're doing is engaging the community.  I wrote a blog post outlining the problem and the tradeoffs, and simply asked "what do you all think we should do?".

People appreciated that we engaged them rather than arbitrarily doing something -- good 2.0 behavior.  And, somewhere in the dozens of comments, the discussion became pretty clear: we should take no action to limit discussions on the platform, but we should work towards having a "default" home page for newbies that's a little less intimidating.

So, What Do You Think?

Now that we have a clear "digital divide" in our company with regards to our social productivity platform, what's the ideal compromise position?  Or should there be compromise at all?

And -- any proposed solution can't involve a bunch of custom software, nor can it involve hiring and dedicating people to the task.  Nor can it involve having tens of thousands of employees learning to control their content stream as a prerequisite for success.

An interesting challenge, to be sure ....

Comments

[KenF]

Chuck, I've noticed in the 2.0 demo when you personalize your dashboard that you can edit the widget settings for things like "Most Popular Discussions". My guess is that Jive can tweak similar settings in the default dashboard.

If so, you could re-group your spaces under 3 categories: 1) Getting Started/Support, 2) Work, and 3) Life. Then have Jive tweak the default dashboard so that most of the widgets are only pointing to the "Work" space that contains all your business related communities. Keep at least one "Life" based widget in the default dashboard so new users can get a flavor for the "Life" space discussions - this should give you a default dashboard that's 90% business stuff and 10% life stuff.

This reminds me of an article I just saw in today's Dallas paper - it was about the battle between drivers and bicyclists. Bicyclists have a legal right to use the roads but they are not supposed to impede traffic (your business communities).

I think both parties would prefer bike lanes because 1) it's the safest solution for both, and 2) it's more productive for both - they each get to go about their own business without the confusion & frustration of sharing the same space.

So you need a bike lane - the bicyclists still need to be visible to everyone else, just not impeding them.

[Richard]

Chuck,

Sorry for the long comment but there are so many useful things in your post.

I think you have hit on the approach to take - use social norms that already exist to help modify human behavior. There will never be a purely software solution to these sorts of problems. But the community you are creating can learn correct Web 2.0 behavior.

A metaphor - You've got a bunch of people, ranging in age from 6 to 25, that have a whole arena to play in. As the 'parent', you have to help them learn to manage their own behavior. There is no time to hire nannies, tutors and mentors for them all. Move those same skills into Web 2.0.

Sounds to me you already are.

So you carefully informed some that they are somewhat beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior, but without showing them up to the group. They'd gone running over the hill, forgetting the rest of the group behind them. If they can self police, which many of them will, then problem solved.

You asked the group what they thought should be done - climb the hill now or wait. They appreciated being asked and came up with solutions while also learning what their behavior should be.

A community needs a mix of personalities. Laggards or naysayers are necessary in many settings, to keep the entire group from charging over the hill without checking what is on the other side (like a cliff). But they can be moved along using social conventions also. Making sure they do not feel left out always helps.

Diffusion rates of innovation throughout a community will determine where and how the groups respond to these new technologies.

Help increase the rates, by using the people who have reached a level of 'maturity' and then identifying who in the community needs nannies, who needs tutors and who needs mentors (i.e. find early adopters who can span the chasm you see and explain to laggards the value).

Using the community for these roles is also good Web 2.0 behavior, because it helps everyone gain reputation and notice in the community; things that can be very useful come performance evaluation time.

Software changes. People don't. You used that and seem to me to be on exactly the right path.

And by asking the outside community, you acted as a good parent checking to see if any of the other parents have any advice. I appreciate that.

[Chuck Hollis]

Ken

Very insightful -- I think that's what we're gonna do!

Thanks!

[Chuck Hollis]

Richard -- thanks for the comments!