Enterprise Social Media: Why we need to rethink systems managementStrategic Research Initiative Enterprise 2.0 and Corporate Social Media

Dr. Paul Scifleet, Discipline of Business Information Systems, The University of Sydney

Dr. Kai Riemer, Discipline of Business Information Systems, The University of Sydney,

Example:A research initiative into Enterprise Microblogging

› Initial questions:

- What are the benefits? Will it improve knowledge sharing?

- What are management challenges?

› A more pressing question emerged:

- What is Microblogging?

Research into enterprise use of Twitter-like services (e.g. Yammer)

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Microblogging on Twitter

› Study by Naaman et al. 2010

- 41% of all posts: information about oneself ( “I'm tired”)

- 25% random thoughts ("Blue sky in Winter”)

- 24% personal opinions ( “Great game yesterday”)

- 21% exchange of information (“New Study on Enterprise 2.0: http:// ...”).

› About 80% of post classified as largely hedonistic, self-referential forms of communication

- Me-formers

- Only 20% of users said to be Informers

› Twitter has largely shaped the perception of Microblogging

Twitter motto: What are you doing?

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Microblogging in the Enterprise?Controversial discussion in the ‘blogosphere’

› Social Media Opponents:

- “Social” has no place in business

- Importing Social Media into the Enterprise will lead to importing the same behaviours as seen in the Public Internet: Procrastination, time wasting, ‘chatter’

- Leads to chaos – too unstructured, no guidance, detrimental to info management

- Yet another platform: “enough already”

› Social Media ‘Evangelists’:

- Enterprise Social Media (Enterprise 2.0) will radically change the way organisations operate: breaks down information silos, re-engages employees

- Flat hierarchies; network/idea/reputation-based authority, rather than role-based

- Democratic communication structures

Largely opposing positions

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Study Overview (October 2011)

Four organisations so far

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Communardo:-Software company-Communote platform-Team context

Communardo:-Software company-Communote platform-Team context

IREKO:-University context-Communote platform-Cross-project interaction

IREKO:-University context-Communote platform-Cross-project interaction

Capgemini:-Consultancy business-Yammer platform-Enterprise-wide

Capgemini:-Consultancy business-Yammer platform-Enterprise-wide

Deloitte AU (early stages)-Consultancy business-Yammer platform-Enterprise-wide

Deloitte AU (early stages)-Consultancy business-Yammer platform-Enterprise-wide

1 2

3 4

Enterprise Microblogging

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Genre Analysis

› Genre repertoire- A limited set of genres to describe the communication practices of a

group

› Genres - are “socially recognized types of communicative actions […] that are

habitually enacted by members of a community to realize particular social purposes.” (Yates et al., 1999, 84)

- Genres are the result of interpretation, cannot be directly observed

› Genre Analysis:- Observation or recording of communication events as instances of

genres- In our case text utterances captured on the EMB platform- Analysis of these traces of communicative events to identify genres- Identification by purpose

Overview

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Two examples (translated from German)

Blog post #1“Connection problem with #ALE is solved.But there is another problem emerging: The configuration of …@jkl can you please handle that?Btw, we should prepare a support offer for #OJO. There is demand for support from them right now.”

Blog Post #2“WuLa-platform is #Live! Great @ejc @lue @esaNeed to send out support offer.#Essa is next topicWe get a reference release from #HAS@oha how do I do that?”

Update task

Notify of emerging problems

Delegate

To Do

Social Feedback

To Do

Update event

Ask how-to questions

Gen

re c

odes

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(1) Communardo Genres

Individual focus: why does someone post on the platform?

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(2) IREKO Genre distribution

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Comparison between cases (1) and (2): what is microblogging? striking differences

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(3) Capgemini Genre Repertoire

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Genre Repertoire

Genre Repertoire

Information sharing (12.0%)

Post links & referencesNotify of upcoming events

Information sharing (12.0%)

Post links & referencesNotify of upcoming events

Others (8.2%)

Provide social feedbackSelf Marketing | Note To do

Others (8.2%)

Provide social feedbackSelf Marketing | Note To do

Opinion & Clarification (44.3%)

Ask for opinion | Voice opinionAsk for clarification | Provide clarification

Opinion & Clarification (44.3%)

Ask for opinion | Voice opinionAsk for clarification | Provide clarification

Problem solving & support (18.8%)

Ask for solution (how-to) | Provide solutionAsk for resources | Provide resources

Problem solving & support (18.8%)

Ask for solution (how-to) | Provide solutionAsk for resources | Provide resources

Updates & notifications (16.7%)

Ask for status update | Provide status updateAsk for task update | Provide task update

Updates & notifications (16.7%)

Ask for status update | Provide status updateAsk for task update | Provide task update

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Microblogging as contextual practice

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TwitterTwitter CapgeminiCapgemini CommunardoCommunardoIREKOIREKO

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BB

Change management

IT management is modelled on the basis oftraditional systems thinking

AA

System is in state A:e.g. “as-is process”

BB

Intended systems state Be.g. “to-be” process”

Intervention

Systems implementation & Rollout.

!

e.g. ERPe.g. ERP

B*B*

Messiness of the everyday worldAppropriation, “unfaithful use”

Does it work ?Does it work ?

Traditional systems thinking

› Planning: Orderly process, top-down, guided by rationality

› Fit: Focus on task, individual and the technology create “fit”

› Causality: Assumption of (linear) causality of intervention

› Constraint: IT will prescribe ways of working

› Solution: IT as bearer of knowledge regarding process, best practice, task

Principles

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Emergent Social Software Platforms

› Key principles of emergent social software platforms (McAfee 2009):

• Simplicity: providing only as much functionality as needed,

• Participation: users on these platforms are not merely consumers, but producers i.e. write, edit, rate and comment on content

• Interaction and communication: either indirectly through facilitating shared context and relationships among users, or directly as communication

McAfee (2006): Enterprise 2.0 = use of emergent social software platforms

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Complex Adaptive Systems

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AA

B

?

C

XX

D

YY

Complex Adaptive Systems

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AA

B

C

?

XXCo-evolution of organisational system and technology

Safe-to-fail experiments

EZ

Complex systems thinking

› Experimenting: Series of safe to fail experiments (exploration)

› Appropriateness: It has to make sense in the particular context.

› Adaptation: Mutual adaptation rather than (linear) causality

› Guidance: Leadership and guidance to constrain the space for experimenting (promoting via ‘use cases’)

› Self organisation: Engaged users will see the benefits and start promoting the service

› Co-evolution: IT and work practices evolve at the same time (what the IT is becomes defined only through use in a context)

Principles

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See also: Dave Snowden – Cognitive Edge blog

E2.0 Project initiative: team and activities

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Dr. Kai RiemerUniversity of Sydney

Dr. Paul ScifleetUniversity of Sydney

Dr. Alexander RichterBundeswehr UniMunich, Germany

Group of Eight International Linkage Grant: Consortium Building w/ Munich

Sydney University Business School Strategic Research Initiative Grant: Organisation of E2.0 Symposium

Yammer Inc Research Assistance Grant: Yammer Data Analysis

1 PhD student early stages, 1 more prospective

So far 4 short student theses on EMB topics

One more currently ongoing.

Publications and theses on EMB

› Riemer K, Diederich S, Richter A and Scifleet P 2011 'Short Message Discussions: On the Conversational Nature of Microblogging in a Large Consultancy Organisation', Proceedings of the 15th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems PACIS 2011 - “Quality Research in Pacific Asia”, Brisbane, Australia, 11th July 2011

› Riemer K, Altenhofen A and Richter A 2011 'What are you doing? – Enterprise Microblogging as Context Building', Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Information Systems 2011 - "ICT and Sustainable Service Development", Helsinki, Finland, 11th June 2011.

› Riemer K, Richter A, Diederich S and Scifleet P 2011 'Tweet Talking - Exploring The Nature Of Microblogging at Capgemini Yammer', Business Information Systems Working Paper, Sydney, Australia.

› Riemer K, Richter A and Boehringer M 2010 'Enterprise Microblogging', Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE), vol.2:6, pp. 391-394.

› Riemer K and Richter A 2010 'Tweet Inside: Microblogging in a Corporate Context (Winner of The Bled Outstanding Paper Award)', Proceedings of the 23rd Bled eConference 2010 - "eTrust: Implications for the Individual, Enterprises and Society", Bled, Slovenia, 23rd June 2010.

› Ruwen Reddig (2011):“Yammer @ Deloitte AU” (early stages)

› Philip Overfeld (2011): "Sensemaking in social media adoption: Investigating user conversations during Yammer appropriation at Capgemini" (Capgemini case)

› Stephan Diederich (2010): "Microblogging in the Enterprise: A case study comparison with Twitter" (Capgemini case)

› Friederike Althen (2010): "Adoption of Enterprise Microblogging: Exploration of User Types and Communication Behaviour" (Capgemini case)

› Alexander Altenhofen (2010): "Enterprise Microblogging in group work: an exploratory case study using genre analysis” (IREKO case)

October 2011

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