Is the 1-9-90 rule for social participation dead?

It has long been an axiom that getting people to participate in online communities is hard, and the 1/9/90 rule helped explain why. 1% will be die-hard content creators, 9% will participate and 90% will be passive consumers and sit on the sidelines.

A recent BBC study claims the old rules are dead and that a whopping 77% of adults should be considered participators in some capacity. Interestingly, GigaOm pounced and claimed the old rules still apply.

I think the BBC research is on to something and that the online participation patterns have changed. Few of the things may have contributed:

• Consolidation: social networks such as Facebook and Twitter consolidate for us updates and posts from multiple communities and allow us to respond directly from there. You no longer need to go and check on 7 different communities to see what is going on.
• Ease of content creation and sharing especially from mobile devices. Probably too easy if you ask me. if you allow it, your phone will post your location, the pictures you take and more without even asking. The success of Instagram is just one example. Being connected 100% of the time allows us to interact 100% of the day.
• We are not anonymous anymore. It has been a slow change but if the late 90′s were about virtual identities and avatars, now we interact as real people. It may look like a small change but the whole nature of online interaction shifted from an outlet to interactions we wanted to have outside of our normal (and sometimes restrictive) social circle to where now most of the online interaction is with our social circle. More and more the online communities and social networks augment and extend our real relationships with people and brands.
• While some people who came to the party felt a bit out of place and stayed close to the wall for a while. After some time you realize that keeping to yourself in a social setting is not very nice and that people actually notice. If you are part of the community, participation is now expected.

So if the BBC is right and we should be expecting more participation what does it mean for businesses?

Business social participation may still be closer to the old rules because they do not reflect a close knit social group but as more people become comfortable in sharing it will start to have an impact.

Internally, collaboration and social networking with colleagues will eventually follow the same pattern of heightened participation if you allow the same enablers. Aggregate and consolidate activities and updates so they are easy to access, make it easy to respond to them and embed interaction and sharing everywhere in internal web applications, sites, tools etc. Making sharing a social norm may not be too far off.

Externally, in addition to the brand enthusiasts and deal seekers there is now a potential in making a lot more people participants

• Think about creating content that people would want to share. Too many websites and social media sites focus on the marketing side “what we have to sell”. Cool or useful things to do with the product or that are just related to the category will more easily be viral.
• Many websites have added sharing and likes to their pages but few take it to the level of actually allowing specific questions or comments through social networks on content or products.
• Think mobile sharing. From QR codes in trade show booths to special coupons for scanning or photographing in the store. Even my dentist has a promotion for getting free whitening pen if you scan a code and like him on Facebook. Brilliant.

Big Data + Small Process Thinking = Disappointing Results

Big data is in the news this week.  In a recent Forbes article describing the hidden opportunities of big data, Albert Pimentel Chief Sales and Marketing officer at Seagate quoted Mark Dean, an IBM fellow and director of the Almaden Research Center as saying, “Computation is not the hard part anymore.”  As with most big technology transformations, one of the hardest parts is always getting the process and people part right.

Big data has the potential to position businesses to outperform their competitors, as described in a recent McKinsey article that dubs big data the next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity.  As businesses race to implement big data technology, there are some serious business process transformations that need to take place to fully leverage the investment in any big data initiative.

In the Big Data-driven approach to business transformation, the most important business processes are those that relate to Customer Experience Management across all fronts:

• Manage customer loyalty
• Manage customer value
• Manage customer relationships
• Manage customer feedback

These processes cross the more  traditional high level process siloes of “Manage Sales, Manage Marketing, Manage Customer Service, ” which were usually organized along departmental lines.

What actions will be taken based on the actionable intelligence that big data provides? Initiatives across departmental siloes must be closely orchestrated or the customer experience will become chaotic and confusing. Marketing campaigns have to be coordinated with activities across all customer facing roles in the organization. Effective enterprise program management is critical to this successful coordination. Marketing has to be thought of less as a department and more as a shared business responsibility.

When trying to leverage big data, it’s important to step back and answer critical questions before moving forward on multiple fronts:

• What strategies and processes do you use to influence customer behavior on your website, in your retail outlets, at virtual and real time events? Are they working synergistically, or are they are crossed purposes?
• What change management principles do you apply to shift customer attitudes towards your company, your employees, your products? Are you fully leveraging the power of third party change agents, or only applying  traditional, direct influence measures?
• Are our processes too rigid to allow us to be a world-class, big data-driven organization? Should we concentrate on defining broad strokes strategies instead?

At the end of the day, the most successful businesses will be those that harness the power of big data and big process thinking to outrun the competition. More food for thought on the intersection of big data and big process can be found at:

• Process Excellence Network
• Dashboard Insight
• Forrester

Crowdsourcing BPM?

One reason that global business process improvement and organizational change management initiatives fail is that they are driven from the perspective of a single business unit, usually the one closest to headquarters where the project sponsors are. Until recently, the other alternative was to painstakingly audit the similarities and differences across multiple business units in multiple locations, and piece together something that meets everyone’s needs.

As an alternative, the Center of Excellence for a particular process area can provide a light framework that prevents crowdsources input from across the organization.  The RACI chart is a great tool for setting some crowdsourcing boundaries, and safeguarding against anarchy. The goal of any Center of Excellence in a particular area like Supply Chain, Finance, IT or Customer Service, is to develop reliable, predictable, repeatable performance, no matter who is doing the work or where in the world it is being done.

Many businesses already crowdsource input from their customers with a variety of survey methods and incentives, but many still struggle with how to effectively pull together and act on the input from their global employee base.

With the adoption of collaboration tools such as Microsoft Sharepoint, and Microsoft Lync, process and organizational change initiatives can be driven from a single center of process excellence, but they can crowdsource improvement input across multiple process owners, process participants, and what we have always called the “process customers” – those who receive the value added outputs of any discrete business process.

The toolset provides broad opportunities for both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration.

• Use Lync within your organization for scheduled voice/video meetings that allow collaborative authoring of process documentation.
• To bridge the difference in timezones and keep the ball rolling between these sessions, Sharepoint offers rich capabilities for collaboration on working documents and drawings, which can then be officially published to the broader audience by the Center of Excellence.

No one likes plain vanilla anymore

More and more businesses are seeing the sense of trying to adhere to “plain vanilla” implementations of packaged software applications, without customization to the application code. It’s cheaper on the implementation side, and certainly cheaper to upgrade uncustomized package applications.

This guiding principle is often articulated in the kickoff slides, and all the key stakeholders and executive sponsors nod in agreement.

Here’s what usually happens next.

Analysis begins. Implementation team business analysts work with designated subject matter experts (SMEs) to gather the business requirements that will be used to configure the application.  They are adamant that their job must be performed exactly as it is performed right now. The SMEs are like ravenous foodies, seeking to outdo each other with requests for  ever more exotic ice cream flavors of the day, while your plain vanilla implementation is melting away, because no one really likes plain vanilla anymore.

How can you get this under control?  Intervene early and police ruthlessly during the analysis phase. Add the following expectation-setting statements to your kick-off slides, right after you articulate your plain vanilla guiding principle:

1.  All customization requests must be reviewed and approved by the steering committee.
2. Potential process workarounds will be explored before any customization requests can be approved.
3. There may be more business process changes than there are customizations to this application.
4. We will provide training on both new business processes and new procedures for working with the new software.

Statement 4 becomes a difficulty if you have not assigned responsibility or budgeted for the effort involved in documenting new business processes, and building and delivering the process training. This is typically not part of the scope of the software implementation vendor’s responsibility.

To prepare for adherence to the full set of guiding principles, you need to develop internal business process/change management capability, or budget  for outside help in support of any major system implementation. Failure to do so puts the success of your software implementation project at significant risk.

Last piece of advice: at your go-live party, serve two flavors of ice cream.

Plain vanilla for the team(s) who favored the process workaround route. If they were really good, give them a choice of toppings. For the others, give them exactly what they craved. They’ll fall into line on the next implementation.

Adobe, IBM, WebTrends, and comScore named leaders in Web Analytics

Independent research firm Forrester recently released their annual “Forrester Wave: Web Analytics, Q4 2011″ report naming Adobe, IBM, comScore, and WebTrends as the current leaders of the web analytics industry. AT Internet and Google Analytics were also included as “strong performers” while Yahoo Analytics took 7th place as the lone wolf in the “contender” category.

Not surprisingly Adobe Site Catalyst and IBM Coremetrics stood out with the top two scores overall but WebTrends Analytics 10 and comScore Digital Analytix showed major stengths as well. Unica NetInsight, another offering from IBM did not make the list because of its inevitable fate to be merged with Coremetrics. In 2010, IBM acquired both Unica and Coremetrics. The Forrester report states, “IBM is incorporating the complementary
and notable features of Unica NetInsight into a merged web analytics solution based on the
Coremetrics platform.”

The full report can be downloaded from Adobe or WebTrends and will likely show up on other vendor sites soon.

Is Legacy Modernization Just Procrastination?

There is no doubt that replacement of core systems for insurers has been very popular over the past six years or so.  With the advancements in technology enabling vendors to provide solutions that are configurable, and more easily maintained with “plug and play” technologies that can be upgraded by less technical resources, insurers are taking advantage and moving in to new lines of business and new territories, expanding their footprint.  It allows many small and mid-size insurers to better compete with the leviathans who once staved off competition due to their enormous IT staffs.

But many of these insurers have been in business for scores of years, and have successfully relied on their older technology.  Does the advancement in technology along with ubiquitous connectivity mean that the mainframes and older technology systems just have to go?  Does just refacing the green screens with new web-based user interfaces mean that the carriers that do so are just procrastinating and putting off the inevitable?

A recent blog in Tech Digest posed that question to which I would reply, “Why?  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  With the horrible economy, many people who need a bigger house aren’t dumping the one they have and buying another, they simply add-on.  The core systems within a carrier are very similar.  If the system you have now works well for its use and if you want to expand in to new lines, you don’t need to rip out that old system and pay for an expensive funeral, just add-on and integrate.  This will start your company down the path to more flexibility which can be supported by a system that is specifically designed to bring all your information into one place – Policy360 based on CRM.

Utilizing a system designed to bring data together from multiple sources allows you to keep your existing technology, leverage the capabilities of new systems, and present and manage that information in a much more accessible and user friendly manner.

Is plastic surgery on your legacy systems really just putting off the inevitable?  Or is presenting a fresh look that sees into the future allowing you to keep costs down while expanding service and capabilities.

How does your company handle major change?

Although many large technology initiatives fail because an inadequate or inefficient change management framework, many companies still lack a consistent approach in supporting their employees and external stakeholders through major system implementations and other significant business initiatives.

 

 

There are many reasons for this.

• The roles and responsibilities for communication, training, and monitoring performance remain vague.
• The approach varies from department to department.
• Information is pushed out once in the wrong format (usually by email) and not made available on a portal under version control. We see this often in companies that have an immature or outdated collaboration style.

We’ve put together a short poll on change management approaches. Please take a moment to tell us how your organization handles major change, and share your thoughts in the comments.

Product-based Solutions Versus Custom Solutions : Tomb Raider or Genesis?

The Product-based Solution is where most of Corporate America is going for IT today.  The talent required to povide a successful implementation (one you actually renew license maintenance on rather than let let quietly die an ignominious death) requires the tenacity, deep specialized product  knowlege (read arcane dark arts), and courage of a cinema Tomb Raider.  The team required has to know the target product as well as Indiana Jones knows Egyptology; with equivalent courage, problem-solving skills, and morals (one can’t be squeamish hacking a solution into submission) to be able to achieve a usable solution versus an embarrassing product snap-in.   In addition to their product skills the team must be able to quickly navigate the jungle of existing applications with their mysterious artifacts to get the proper integration points and data (Gold! Gold! I say!).

What if the team can’t or don’t navigate your jungle of existing applications or do not know all of the idiosyncracies of the product to be installed?  Well you get an Embarrassing Product Snap-In (Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200, Do Flush Career).  Every seasoned IT professional has seen one of these puppies, they are the applications you can’t get anyone to use.  Usually because the do not connect to anything users currently work with, or have real usability issues (Harry Potter vs. MIT interface).  Yes, the product is in.  Yes, it tests to the test plan criteria.  Yes, it looks like post-apocalypse Siberia as far as users are concerned (What if we install CRM and no one comes? Ouch! no renewal for Microsoft/Oracle, bummer).

Custom Solutions are more like Genesis, Let there be Light! (ERP, CRM, Order-Entry, you get the picture).  It is a Greenfield Opportunity!  The team you need is just as talented as a Product-based Solution, but very different.  They need to be able to create a blueprint of your desires, like a rock star architect for a signature building.  The team needs to be experts in software engineering and technology best practice.  As well, the team needs to be able to translate your user’s meandering descriptions of what they do (or not) into rational features resembling business process best practice.  That was Easy!

In the case of custom the risk is creating Frankenstein, rather than new life (It’s Alive!, It’s Alive!).  Again, every seasoned IT professional has seen one of these embarrassing creations (Master, the peasants/users are at the gate with pitchforks and torches!).  The end result of one of these bad trips (Fear and Loathing in ERP) is the same, but usually more expensive, than the Product-based alternatives.

Debby Downer what should I do?  Reality is as simple as it is hard; pick the right solution for the organization, Product-based or Custom.  Then get the right team, Tomb Raider or the Great Architect of Giza.

Is Custom Development Dead?

Is Custom Development dead? After the last two years of custom development’s nuclear winter, (following 2008s Financial Armageddon), one would think the the Grim Reaper did his best in the blast. I really hope not, designing and building strategic systems make the more mudane aspects of software engineering worth enduring the mind-numbing syntactical pain of creation. Nothing like the smell of napalming the competition with a totally new way of doing business in the morning (my view of “Apocalypse Now” with a business bent). Maybe, just maybe, I hope rumors of Custom Development’s death are greatly exaggerated.

Did Custom Development die of natural causes, maybe pulled off of life support by risk-hating Executive Management as a perverse form of parental control after the financial snafu (Custom Development moves from PG-13 to XXX)?  Off-the-Shelf software products and the ever increasing cost of continuing maintenance really hurt Custom Development as a viable systems choice, but is that enough to put it down? Cloud and “nouveau Cloud” technologies (read SaaS, SalesForce.com) may have provided the coup de grace.  I seriously doubt it, every time I look into the Cloud I get serious PTSD flashbacks to the 70s and 80s IBM Mainframe World Domination (OMG there is a 3270 in the corner!!).  At least there was alot less hype and easier choices back then (Nobody got fired picking IBM!).

It is possible Custom Development died offshore (simple Mickey Finn, bag over the head, Shanghaied and Held for Ransom!)?  While Business Processes and System Maintenance have done reasonably well offshore (Castor Oil of the Corporate world, let Mikey take it!), strategic custom development has had less success.  Quality innovation that can transform a corporation really requires a local team steeped both in the host company and surrounding culture.  Plus, Custom Development tends to have a high infant mortality rate so it is best attempted in short phases supported by an Agile Methodology, definitely not in Offshore’s financial model wheelhouse.  So I don’t think Offshore is implicated.

There is the theory that evolution has spoken and Product-based Solutions have succeeded Custom Development, just as mammals succeeded dinosaurs.  Product companies would like you to believe that, but does that seem plausable (Land of the Lost, Jurassic Park where are you?)?  While Product-based solutions have advantages in success rates and cost, they by their nature lack the true freedom that drives raw creativity and innovation.  Custom Development is that wellspring.

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself!  Adversity to risk is curbing animal spirits, creativity, and innovation, ….for now.  Custom Development is not dead and will return from its vacation with Puff in the Cave by the Sea when Jackie Paper locks-and-loads and we begin some serious innovation and transformation with strategic custom software systems (BTW thats when the Jobs return too!).

Your Company’s Social Debut

Planning Your Company’s Debut or Strategy in the Social Media Sphere

Corporations have long been regarded by the law as having “legal personality”-  which means they have rights, privileges, responsibilities, and protections just like humans (with some differences, like marriage).   It should come as no surprise then, that they’re acting like humans more and more – now they’re relaxing with friends, and socializing! As communication gets easier through digital technology, humans are now able to interact with corporate personalities.  And these personalities are just beginning to awaken to the new freedoms they can find in the digital landscape.

If you’re like me, and I bet you are, you are both human, and, also a part of bringing business personalities to the social scene. In this capacity, I recently attended SocialTech2010 in Jan Jose, CA, right from my desk in NYC.

As the Twitter stream flowed by rapidly with commentary and quotes from the speakers, I watched and listened to advice, case studies and stories from the experts on Social Media for Business. I came away with the recognition that Social Media for business is just like a big networking cocktail party!

Companies aren’t accustomed to acting as social creatures and the adjustment will take some time. We all had to learn social skills growing up; companies can do the same. There are a few things that etiquette would require of a cocktail party attendee and that’s the same strategy the speakers at SocialTech2010 are recommending:  Know who you are, be interactive and respectful, don’t gossip, be a good listener, and don’t be afraid to share yourself.

As businesses gain proficiency in this kind of interacting, they follow an arc towards maturity. Kathleen Malone of Intel outlined the following 5 stages of a Social Media Approach:

1)      Listen: In this stage a company finds out: What are people saying about my Brand and/or my field? Where are they having this discussion? Who are the major players and influencers?  Services like Radian6, which Malone says Intel deployed 18 months ago, make this possible.

2)      Analyze: This is the time to read the room/space, figure out what your angle will be when you eventually do pipe up. Which conversation will you enter? What are your expectations? Why are you going to participate?

3)      Create: This is the stage where the business comes up with something appropriate to say. To participate effectively in the conversation, Malone says your content should be: useful, interesting, human, “snackable” (meaning in bite size pieces, easily consumed), inspiring and should cater to egos and build community.  

4)      Engage: In this stage you go public and enter the conversation, getting your content out there in new ways and/or by participating in the conversations that already exist.

5)      Measure: Your social media approach is not complete without an understanding of how you’re doing. The internet is an amazing forum for measuring how people behave with your content, and you should use a variety of tools to understand the response to your forays. Measuring properly will provide insight on how to proceed, both in the ongoing conversation, and with the business itself.

Both Malone and Brian Ellefritz of SAP outlined the natural evolution of Social Media programs at large companies  – first there are what Ellefritz calls “Grass Roots” efforts, where excited individuals branch out in ways that are unpredictable and non-uniform. He says companies should encourage these exploratory missions. Leadership will begin to emerge internally, and informal education will get the ball rolling. Following the “Grass Roots” period, Ellefritz sees “Silos Form.” This may not feel 100% smooth, but is an important step, as “coop-eteition” (a kind of cooperating/kind of competing relationship, sort of like sibling rivalry that spurs each one on) sees different silos jockeying for position. During this step, Ellefritz encourages companies to “invest in leaders, not laggards”, and to get the players from various silos together to learn from each other.  Also, he says, “don’t wait too long for governance.”

The next evolutionary phase in a corporate Social Media Program is “Operationalizing” – where leadership becomes clear, channels become well formed and in alignment with the divisions in your business.  Tools begin to consolidate and more emphasis on measurement and results appears. By this point your business may have headcount devoted to social media, and content should become less problematic, less of a focus, because it’s running more smoothly.  During this stage it’s important to align and integrate silos, and focus on strategy, ownership, metrics and priorities.

After this shift, the next phase is what Ellefriz calls “Lifestyle.” This is when the Social Media program has engaged and competent employees and success is understood and positive outcomes are frequent. This is a level of Social Media implementation that is fairly rare in today’s scene, though Ellefritz points towards Zappos as an example of a company that may be at this level.

.. .. ..

The wonderful thing about participating in social media is that it lets your personality out! For a business that hasn’t previously seen itself as the kind of entity that has a social life, this might seem daunting at first.  That’s why Ellefriz’s evolutionary arc makes so much sense to me. The way I see it, people and businesses want more than ever to get clear on who they are, and who they want to be, in order to present themselves well, and to participate in Social Media conversations. The best advice is to be authentic. Just like at cocktail parties, the people you’re conversing with generally know if you’re “full of it”, or if you’re being sincere.  Your conversational counterparts like to be complemented, offered nuggets of useful information, and generally considered and included.

For businesses, (and the teams of people that perpetuate them) this will mean really focusing on what the goals are, what opportunities exist to communicate clearly and uniformly around these interests, finding “friends” out there to talk with, and owning up to the inevitable minor mistakes that are so easy to make along the way. Since SM is such a public sphere, the resulting increased level of transparency is going to make businesses change and open up in new ways.

Coachdeb:”RT @MarketingProfs: “When someone says they need a Facebook strategy, a Twitter strategy, I say… Wait! Take it back… What’s your story?” @scobleizer #mptech”

So, armed with the Social Media/networking party analogy and with the stages of approach and evolution path laid out before you – what are you waiting for?  Participate!

Here are 10 tips to consider as you get started:

1)      Go where the fish are – target engagement carefully where the conversation already is.

2)      Social Media is Local. The goal is to be uniform while being decentralized – Intel communicates internally with their 1000 “Registered Social Media Practitioners” with guidelines and trainings (some mandatory). Intel also has their own internal newsletter that aggregates Social Media content – Malone says this makes management comfortable as well as keeps everyone updated.

3)      Have a Content Calendar for the year to coordinate Social Media messaging across channels and people, and to keep it focused on your message. Kathy Malone said at Intel, 2/3 of the content that gets put out falls under the guidelines of their content strategy calendar.

4)      Consider in advance how to manage Social Media Risk. One of the most interesting things Jaime Grenny of SalesForce said at SocialTech2010 is that all their employee training videos on Social Media strategy (and how to use online video for B2B marketing) are up for the public to see on YouTube (here).  This level of transparency lets everyone know what to expect upfront.  Malone outlined a “prevention/detection/response” approach in which 3 teams worked from different angles to mitigate risk on the social media front. And experience teaches: “if you screwed up, fess up”, and be transparent.

5)      If your company is doing moderation of dialogue, consider having a light hand to keep the conversation honest – as Intel puts it, they let the good and the bad in, but moderate the ugly – mostly meaning profanity and non-constructive comments, and they’ve found their audience appreciates it.

6)      Build a business case for your business so you know why you’re entering into Social Media – not only will it legitimize your efforts internally, but it’ll provide clarity for your message. Will it extend customer service? Will it increase SEO? Can you use it to create brand advocates and champions? Can you collect ideas on where to take your product?

7)      To measure, use Context. As with all web metrics, in order to understand what’s happening you need to understand the context of your data, and compare it to a baseline to view trends. Knowing your goals will assist you in setting up context.

8)      People are the Platform – Laura Ramos of Xerox encourages us to get our people out there and seen. Show video of your thought leadership. Get your salespeople to share their stories and knowledge with the rest of your company and make them heroes. Build relationships, and let your existing customers create new business for you. Social Media Marketing is not about reaching many to influence a few but engaging a few to influence many!

9)      Social is relevant. Here are some Stats – René Bonvani of Palo Alto Networks says that FaceBook has a 96% penetration in enterprise, meaning that only 4/100 people aren’t using it at work! He also said that only 1% is posting on Facebook but that people are 69 times more likely to use FaceBook chat than to post.  Another impressive Bonvani stat: 69% of business buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions.  No matter the numbers, it’s clear that with the cost of communication dropping close to $0, as social beings, we’re using the web to communicate more often with more people, and in smaller chunks regularly.

10)   Social media has to be part of WHAT you do, not something else you do. Jeremiah Owyang in his keynote said that the only difference between the Social Site and your business is the URL. He says that in the radical future, websites will be dynamically assembled on the fly based on social profiles. URLs and domains won’t matter – the web will be sorted around people and contextual situations.  Because of this, ads will become useful content.  This is already evident.

So – Get out there and participate!

Edgewater Technology provides strategy, consulting, web metrics, and implementation expertise to help you focus on the best ways your company can engage in these dynamic communities and track your success!