Case for Social Networking

As a technologist, I first started using Social networks in 1993, on Compuserve (it was not called social networking then). Most technologists have a similar example, like Prodigy or The Well. I am now a regular LinkedIn user, and our technology wiki is indispensible. The benefits to my company are clearly tangible.

It is entirely possible that large companies could significantly benefit from an internal social networking tool (call it a wiki for arguments sake). But how can one explain the benefits to an executive? Its a tough sell.

While I personally believe social networking will revolutionize corporations, I'm not sure I have a sound argument and reasoning. A tool just like Myspace and Facebook for the office? Won't that mean employees wasting countless hours instead of working? What if our employees post incorrect information? Who's going to monitor it?

My argument hinges on:-
1) Wiki is more productive than email
2) Wiki information being self-correcting, like wikipedia

I believe social networking will displace email, in part, as a workplace tool. Conversations in email will move to an intranet wiki, and staff email time will be freed up to spend on a wiki growing a corporate knowledge-base. But will it? How can I prove it? Plus, it may take years for it to happen. This argument also presupposes that email in its current form is often unproductive as a workplace tool, which goes against everything we said to get email adopted in the first place.

And how can I prove that information will self-correct? Wikipedia is not like a company, so proves nothing. If executives believed in "the wisdom of crowds", then crowds would be running companies. And my prototype company examples, Google and IBM, are atypical. If anyone has a better argument that has worked at the executive level, let's hear it.

Thinking in lists

I am a prolific list maker. It's my tool for collecting tasks &/or needs and tracking them. My lists are not ToDo's, I find that too defeating and overwhelming as I try to get them all done. Instead, these lists are things I am tracking, whether they be bugs, ideas, major projects, date deliverables, meeting points (one list I have is things I want to do before I get old :-)

My list-making came from an early experience, where I wrote down bugs and feature requests/ideas on a list, using pen/paper and numbering them sequentially. I lost the first list after 680, started a new list which I used for years (and regulalrly photocopied as a backup). I stopped in the 16,000s. Now, I think in lists and will sometimes even write emails as a list.

I found the experience very empowering. It allowed me to have an open conversation with any staff/client/executive/team member and record the results, without making any commitments. It allowed me to separate the information gathering from the commitment making. And "Jon's List" began to take on mythical proportions at my company, with every sales rep wanting to take me to lunch.

Again, the key for me was not to think of these items as ToDo's. They were list items which had many different facits. And yes, I crossed them out when done, or "Z'ed" them if no action needed, but it was still not a ToDo list. I can now think beyond lists, and my lists today are much more modest in size, but it's still a critical tool for me.

Commitment to delivery

Most technology groups are cross-functional with lots of projects to deliver, and find themselves inundated with new requests, status update meetings, change requests, and the like. Given that technology teams can get very busy, its important to make sure a project will drive to conclusion.

If you want a project to stall, one sure way is to have noone on the team committed to delivery. There needs to be one person, just one, who will drive the project to conclusion as obstacles mount. Without this person, the team will sense there a lack of owner (and no reward for outcome), and shift their focus and priorities to other projects.

This is reasonable behavior, and to be expected. After all, your teams are often being asked to do too many things, and need some mechanism for prioritization. The issue is that the project may be important and beneficial, and you'll need to get someone on the team to "own" it.

Make sure all your projects have "owners" on the team, those who'll stake their reputation on getting it delivered.

Plans & People

(I'm back. My train rides have been preoccupied with Harry Potter, book 7, and I am a slow reader. With that done - no spoilers here - I can get back to blogging).

When I think about what I do as a CTO, what is most importance to me is plans and people. What! Not technology, you say? How can that be? Well, technology is a fundamental skill that any CTO needs, but the members of a CTO's team are masters of technology. CTOs do not need to be the expert technologist in the room. CTOs need to be leaders.

When I was at University, I had no concept of this. As a programmer, I still had no concept of this. As a project manager, plans suddenly seemed important. For me, the CTO realization, that its not the technology, was a slow one, but something I eventually figured out.

When prioritizing my time as a CTO, planning and people are where I put the majority of my time. Without these, there is no technology at an organization. And planning is as much an art as a science. Imagine if as a programmer you were told 3/4s of you code would be thrown away? That's what happens with planning. Yet, it crucial. Simple, but true.

Home technology

There was a time when computers existed only in the business work-place. The closest thing we had to a computer at home when I was growing up was a Texas Instruments programmable calculator bought in my senior year, yikes!

Do your employees have better technology at home than they have at work? With high-speed cable/DSL internet to the home, you may be fighting an uphill service battle, since your employees may be downgrading their expectations daily. One of the smarter things IT has done is follow a 3-4 year replacement cycle for PCs, since this closes the gap with a new home computer. But if your supporting a remote office with a T1 connection, you may be toast in comparison.

On the other hand, home computers have increased end-user tolerance to technology issues. Everyone has experienced desktop issues first hand, and most probably had a bad customer service experience with a Dell rep in India. Our users seem to now view desktop issues as beyond the control of the IT department. The trend to internet-based business applications also supports this view.

This is no excuse for not providing stellar desktop service, but you should be thinking about what you are being compared and contrasted to.

Meeting Face-to-face

In this day and age of email and conference calls, we often miss an important tool at work, the face-to-face meeting. (Note: my apologies to anyone for whom this is obvious, but I've found many technologists to miss the obvious before, including myself).

I was in London recently for a series of business meetings, and again realised just how important in-person can be. As we work more and more with our international offices, we immediately jump into email and conference calls with people we've never met. While this is a hard reality of business, I've found that making the effort to meet has incredible benefits and prodcutive outcomes. It also greatly improves future email and phone conversations.

A good friend of mine had an explanation for this. He asserts that our individual relationships, whether business or personal, rely on a visual image of the person. Without that image, we are less related. I haven't done any further research on this, but it feels true as I've seen personal evidence to support it.

While it would be great to have an online visual image of someone, we are probably a long way from this. Just from my experiences with video conferencing, I find it difficult to get an impression of someone I've never met (it does work if I've met them first). Also, there is no online equivalent of going to dinner or having a drink.

The facebook/myspace generation may break through this barrier, but in the meantime, I'll include face-to-face in my business relationships.

Celebrating wins

With your teams working hard and driving hard to meet deadlines, its important to celebrate wins when they occur. The best kind to celebrate are the ones that have significant impact and visibility for your end users.

Email is a standard way to do this during the ordinary course of business. Collect positive comments from your beta users and managers, and send out an announcement email to business execs explaining the business benefits and comments from their own staff (anonymous is fine). The more enthusiastic the comment, the better (my current favorite "Dancing in the streets").

It's also important to stress that the project was a partnership between technology and a business group, which allows the business to deservedly share in the celebration.

Make sure not to over-use it (weekly is definitely too often), otherwise it will lose its impact. You'll find that your teams will appreciate this public acknowledgement as they dive into their next project.