Dienstag, 15. Februar 2011

Sharing - a new work pattern

One important aspect for driving change and the implementation of Knowledge Management is the ways of working, work behaviour and work patterns.
I have experimented in looking at it, analyzing how my own work behaviour has changed, distinguishing between the “traditional” and the “Web 2.0” behaviour.
The “traditional” ways of working I use for something like 2005, and they include mainly face-to-face, phone and email, while “Web 2.0” way of working stands for today and is a collective term for also including community and wiki collaboration, as well as the deployment of Social Media in terms of blogs, microblogging and virtual connectivity / social networking of any kind.
A model that provided me with some insights distinguishes the work purposes (respectively the productivity character of occupation):
  • work on own agenda (this gives my own productivity);
  • stay on top of things / learn (no immediate, direct productivity)
  • help / support others / share (this creates productivity of others, when re-used)



While the traditional work pattern – and the steering mechanisms – focus on working off the own agenda, the “Web 2.0” work pattern are characterized by much less work on the own agenda, but increasing efforts spent on staying on top of things / learning and support others /sharing.
So sticking to steering mechanisms that favours working off the own agenda create a mismatch towards wanted ways of working in an Enterprise 2.0.
Moreover it is a fair question by managers – no, in fact, it is THE question: What is happening to the collective productivity when changing the ways of working towards “Web 2.0”?
But before answering the question on productivity in a simple model, the approach should be verified (My own experience – especially with changing jobs in between – is a bit of a sub-optimal sample, so I am heavily interested if you work behaviour has undertaken the same change): Do you experience the same shift in work patterns?

regards
gerald

11 Kommentare:

  1. Hi Gerald, thanks a lot for the Twitter conversation and for the feedback comments! Interesting read, although I am not sure I would agree with the statement that through email you get to work on your own agenda. I actually think it's quite the opposite! Through email you get to work on other people's agendas, tasks and to-dos. @teppo in Twitter earlier on today shared this precious tweet: "Remember: Email is a tasklist that someone else creates for you" and I strongly feel that very same way. In fact, that was the main reason why I started living "A World Without Email" over three years ago!

    Interestingly enough, that new work pattern you identify with sharing is the one that allows me to have a much tighter grasp of my own productivity, since I am making it much more of my own productivity interacting with others, soliciting help and assistance where I may need to, but also giving my two cents back, as part of that open, collaborative nature of the interaction, resulting in an opportunity to give and take, i.e. today for you, tomorrow for me. Whereas with email it's today for you and tomorrow as well!

    I am sure you may have been following the progress reports I have been sharing all along on this topic of ditching corporate email; thanks to it, I can finally state I'm now the sole owner of my own productivity, something I couldn't say about email in the past, and somehow I feel that's a much better, and smarter!, work pattern I would want to follow up on further ... :)

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  2. Hi Gerald,

    my experience is:

    Share as much as possible. Update the team.
    My productivity will increase x-times by doing so.

    Also fun and new things are then possible to achieve.

    Reinhard

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  3. @Reinhard (Anonym):
    You have been anticipating The Power of Sharing:
    http://geraldmeinert.blogspot.com/2011/02/power-of-sharing.html

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  4. @Luis: Thanks for your comment and the discussion, I take this opportunity to let you know that a video of you presenting giving up email let me to stop (a first step) using predefined distribution lists and replace them by collaboration sites (reasoning: if you take to efforts to create a predefined distribution list, then there exist obviously a reason to collaborate. Then it is only a small step to use collaboration tools to do so.

    Your comment on email with regards to work patterns:
    It is even supporting my message The Power of Sharing http://geraldmeinert.blogspot.com/2011/02/power-of-sharing.html
    in the post scriptum there is a paragraph on your comment.

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  5. Hi Gerald, thanks a bunch for the follow up and for the comments! Greatly appreciated! Glad to read that video sparked a moved towards open and public collaboration amongst your group(s); to me that's one of the biggest advantages of using these social tools versus traditional ones like email, where one to many or many to many interactions are perhaps not very well suited for.

    Your follow up blog post confirms that pattern as well; email still has got a place, indeed, for the 1:1 interactions of a sensitive nature where the mutual benefit of increased productivity is the ultimate goal; however, for all other use cases you shared across it looks like social tools are better suited.

    Over the last 3 years, since I stopped using email as my main method of communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing, my experience has been very similar, and quite an incentive to keep it going altogether :)

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  6. Hi,

    one more: if you add people to the team its easier to share knowledge if the knowledge has been shared in WIKI / colaboration tools.

    If information is scattered and hidden in outlook archives its a desaster..

    CU
    Reinhard

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  7. @Rinhard (Anonym):
    simply yes, fully agree.

    and seldom there exist these moments of genius, the masterpiece with the first hit, usually a wiki / collaboration tools enable the refinement process.
    "The slow hunch" in "Where good ideas come from"
    Steve Johnsson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=related

    regards
    gerald
    regards
    gerald

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  8. @Luis
    That's a position of common sense. Email wouldn't have been so successful, if it hadn't had its benefits. It is not about demonizing it. But use, when it creates value: 1:1 (which is much less than today's average usage), for many-to-many there are smarter ways (I am not talking about one-to-many, because I feel it is an out-phased communication model, the best monologue is only an incomplete dialogue).

    regards
    gerald

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  9. Hi Herald, thanks a lot for the additional comments! What a great point you are making, indeed, on nailing the use cases for email and find better ways of collaborating under other guidelines using better suited collaborative tools. I am glad to read we are very much in agreement on that and very interesting your perspective on the one to many communication; I, too, agree, it's obsolete and we need to move onward from it. Thanks for the inspiring conversation! :)

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  10. @Luis:
    Just as an appetizer (more coming soon): is anyone really reading newsletters? The relation of one-to-many communication and empowerment?

    regards
    gerald

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  11. Hi Gerald, hummm, I bet they aren't! As an example, i unsubscribe from newsletters over three years ago and I don't miss them at all! Even better, I haven't had a single chance where I thought I was going to need the info contained in them! Not a single chance! Which, to me, was a rather interesting eye opener... those newsletters are created based on the interests and needs of the editorial teams, who think they know better what their readers would need, when it is eventually not the case. Put those email newsletters in an open wiki where everyone can contribute and you will see how much that perception changes on their usefulness!

    We have got several dozens of those previously sent as email newsletters moved into open wikis and the number of page hits and edits has grown exponentially! Collaborative open newsletters are just so much more effective in delivering the right messages for wider audiences

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