 "Breaking out of silos")
Companies like Microsoft's Yammer, Salesforce's Chatter, and Jive all recognize that social networks like Facebook and Twitter are highly effective at fostering serendipity. People can connect with friends or friends of friends to find housing, new jobs, or even new friends. The problem is that you don't want employees to post internal company issues on a public forum like Facebook.
The idea, then, was to come up with an enterprise social network - that is, a Facebook-like platform (some might say clone) that is internal to the organisation. Users can post pictures, write updates, and even follow one another on a stream, much as you might follow Justin Bieber on Twitter.
The results were surprising: unlike other would be collaboration tools, people actually used these networks. In Sydney, Australia, a second-year consultant for the accounting firm Deloitte Australia, for example, had come up with an innovative solution to a problem faced by one of the agency's big clients. But he wasn't sure if it would work. More to the point, he wasn't sure if the client would find the solution as innovative as he did.
In a Hollywood movie, we'd have our consultant stumble into the CEO in the elevator or share a taxi with the senior partner who handled the client - some random, serendipitous event that led to his being able to share his idea with the right person. What the consultant actually did, however, although not as dramatic, was far more effective - he posted his question on Deloitte Australia's enterprise activity stream, in much the same way Justin Bieber might tweet about his new tour.
A partner in risk services, based in Melbourne, saw the posting and suggested that the young consultant talk to one of two partners in Deloitte for help. An hour later the head of consulting chimed in. He said that he knew both of the partners in question and that one of them was the better one to talk to. Armed with the recommendation of the head of consulting, the second-year consultant called the suggested partner the next morning and got the feedback he needed.
Imagine if your company, your school, your agency, had a social media platform analogous to Facebook that was private, accessible only to people affiliated with your group. People could reach out to one another, comment on one another's ideas and suggestions, and make new connections. Your name is associated with your posting, but not your title, your level of seniority, or what you do. A second-year consultant with a good idea can get feedback from the head of consulting. Information flows. Serendipity accelerates.
Essentially, this kind of enterprise activity stream is an exchange forum that enables information on the fringes of an organization to be seen and heard.
Indeed, if information is on the fringe, you want to have as much interchange among people as possible to encourage communication - to remove the barriers to one person talking to another. A sea of cubicles in which hierarchy rules kills this opportunity.
In response, some companies have turned to so called open offices, tearing down the cubicles and leaving vast areas without walls and with open tables for people to work at. Employees in these firms don't have an assigned place - they must find a new spot, or stake out their old one, each day. The idea is that one day you might work at this table, another at a different one, and in the pro cess you'll interact with a great many more colleagues. In some firms, employees have lockers - just as in high school - where they keep personal effects (pictures, coffee mugs, candies) to put on their table.
The problem with this approach, however, is that it's too unstructured. Employees feel unmoored and respond to the open office by buying powerful noise-canceling headphones, which, obviously, defeats the purpose of fostering the serendipitous exchange of information.
This is why New York mayor Michael Bloomberg might be on to something. When he was first elected, he decided to ditch the mayor's traditional office and instead moved into the Board of Estimate chamber on the second floor of City Hall, where he ordered all the walls knocked down. As mayor, he shared his office with fifty-one other city officials. His desk was the same size as everyone else's, and Bloomberg sat in the middle, with his first deputy mayor an arm's length away. The space is known as Bloomberg's 'bullpen.'
THE CHAOS IMPERATIVE: HOW CHANCE AND DISRUPTION INCREASE INNOVATION, EFFECTIVENESS AND SUCCESS
AUTHOR: Ori Brafman and Judah Pollack
PUBLISHER: Crown Business
PRICE: Rs 499
ISBN: 9780307886675.
The idea, then, was to come up with an enterprise social network - that is, a Facebook-like platform (some might say clone) that is internal to the organisation. Users can post pictures, write updates, and even follow one another on a stream, much as you might follow Justin Bieber on Twitter.
The results were surprising: unlike other would be collaboration tools, people actually used these networks. In Sydney, Australia, a second-year consultant for the accounting firm Deloitte Australia, for example, had come up with an innovative solution to a problem faced by one of the agency's big clients. But he wasn't sure if it would work. More to the point, he wasn't sure if the client would find the solution as innovative as he did.
In a Hollywood movie, we'd have our consultant stumble into the CEO in the elevator or share a taxi with the senior partner who handled the client - some random, serendipitous event that led to his being able to share his idea with the right person. What the consultant actually did, however, although not as dramatic, was far more effective - he posted his question on Deloitte Australia's enterprise activity stream, in much the same way Justin Bieber might tweet about his new tour.
A partner in risk services, based in Melbourne, saw the posting and suggested that the young consultant talk to one of two partners in Deloitte for help. An hour later the head of consulting chimed in. He said that he knew both of the partners in question and that one of them was the better one to talk to. Armed with the recommendation of the head of consulting, the second-year consultant called the suggested partner the next morning and got the feedback he needed.
Imagine if your company, your school, your agency, had a social media platform analogous to Facebook that was private, accessible only to people affiliated with your group. People could reach out to one another, comment on one another's ideas and suggestions, and make new connections. Your name is associated with your posting, but not your title, your level of seniority, or what you do. A second-year consultant with a good idea can get feedback from the head of consulting. Information flows. Serendipity accelerates.
Essentially, this kind of enterprise activity stream is an exchange forum that enables information on the fringes of an organization to be seen and heard.
Indeed, if information is on the fringe, you want to have as much interchange among people as possible to encourage communication - to remove the barriers to one person talking to another. A sea of cubicles in which hierarchy rules kills this opportunity.
In response, some companies have turned to so called open offices, tearing down the cubicles and leaving vast areas without walls and with open tables for people to work at. Employees in these firms don't have an assigned place - they must find a new spot, or stake out their old one, each day. The idea is that one day you might work at this table, another at a different one, and in the pro cess you'll interact with a great many more colleagues. In some firms, employees have lockers - just as in high school - where they keep personal effects (pictures, coffee mugs, candies) to put on their table.
The problem with this approach, however, is that it's too unstructured. Employees feel unmoored and respond to the open office by buying powerful noise-canceling headphones, which, obviously, defeats the purpose of fostering the serendipitous exchange of information.
This is why New York mayor Michael Bloomberg might be on to something. When he was first elected, he decided to ditch the mayor's traditional office and instead moved into the Board of Estimate chamber on the second floor of City Hall, where he ordered all the walls knocked down. As mayor, he shared his office with fifty-one other city officials. His desk was the same size as everyone else's, and Bloomberg sat in the middle, with his first deputy mayor an arm's length away. The space is known as Bloomberg's 'bullpen.'
THE CHAOS IMPERATIVE: HOW CHANCE AND DISRUPTION INCREASE INNOVATION, EFFECTIVENESS AND SUCCESS
AUTHOR: Ori Brafman and Judah Pollack
PUBLISHER: Crown Business
PRICE: Rs 499
ISBN: 9780307886675.
Excerpted from The Chaos Imperative/Ori Brafman and Judah Pollack. Re-printed by permission of Random House India. All right reserved.