Motivations in Enterprise 2.0, or Old songs about the main thing
What, apart from the habit (and only from young employees), should make the employees in the companies begin to communicate with each other and effectively cooperate with each other, resorting to the Enterprise 2.0 toolkit? How and on what basis will the size of the contribution of an employee be assessed in a common collection of collective knowledge and in the results of joint work on a particular project?
Answers to these and other questions concerning the motivational mechanisms - the weakest link in Enterprise 2.0, I try to find in this article. She is the third in my correspondence discussion with a very interesting author, who is constantly hiding under the eloquent pseudonym Drama 2.0.
In my first note on this topic, I gave a translation of the main section of his material published on the e-consultancy blog. in which the author answered the question he posed — the statement “Why won't Enterprise 2.0 work?”
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In the second article I tried to deal with those arguments of my “interlocutor”, with which I do not quite agree. Now I’ll supplement the reasons he mentioned, why, for the time being, Enterprise 2.0 does not work in the way that everyone who actively promotes this direction would like.
Enterprise 2.0 won't work without incentives
Motivation and incentives in the article of my correspondence vis-a-vis are mentioned several times. That's exactly what they mention, since I don’t know why, but neither he nor the work to which he refers, nor other sources known to me, go on fixing the motivational problem as such. At the same time, effective mechanisms that encourage the use of technologies Enterprise 2.0, from my point of view, are the weakest link of these technologies.
True, in two places my opponent goes a little further and argues from his point of view that the lack of incentives for social networking does not contribute to the effective implementation of Enterprise 2.0.
The first argument is based on an example of how employees are reluctant to go for a voluntary timing of working time, and how difficult it is to get them to do it. The above analogy seemed unsuccessful to me. There is no objection, “forcing” someone to use something new is always bad. And at work too. However, in the considered case, the employee does not see any obvious advantages for himself, why he should not forget every time to record the time he spent on this or that operation.
My experience in introducing various production management and design automation systems clearly shows that when software facilitates work and, by reducing the volume of routine operations, makes it more creative, ultimately, workers quickly and willingly master such tools. After all, it is not necessary to force employees to use internal e-mail . And what, by and large, blogs and forums are worse for communicating and archiving ideas and considerations on current business processes. On the contrary, only better.
But for self-timekeeping of one’s own time, it’s really impossible to do without additional special incentives. As well as in order to interest a specialist to give his know-how to a common collection of collective knowledge. Or in order to connect to the process of solving the current production problems of those who are not directly responsible for them. Here, too, the necessary effective elements of encouragement.
And here we come to the second argument of the author of the translated article, proving again from his point of view that the majority of employees have no incentive to use social networking methods of collaboration. The point is that, they say, only 1% of the members of any real or virtual community are actively involved in its activities, which means (in the case of a social network resource) provide its content.
I will not argue about the figure, although I know several other similar estimates, ranging from 5 to 10%. In one of my notes (no longer remember where), I suggested estimating the share of more or less active suppliers and / or content processors based on the well-known principle “20:80” - 20% of resource users perform 80% of all activity with its information.
However, the point is not in the figure itself, which in any case is quite small. But the thing, it seems to me, is that many of the tasks that Enterprise 2.0 sets for itself are in no way dependent on the proportion of active or semi-active users. For example , the accumulation of collective knowledge, the preservation of information in case of dismissal of a leading specialist, training and retraining of personnel, work with clients and external partners ...
Old songs about the main thing
The problem of lack of incentives for employees to work with social network resources in companies and organizations, I have already mentioned among the main obstacles to the implementation of Enterprise 2.0.
Indeed, what, besides the habit (and, as we have already noted, only among young employees), should employees working in companies begin to communicate with each other and effectively cooperate with each other, resorting to the Enterprise 2.0 toolkit?
How and on what basis will the size of the contribution of an employee be assessed in a common collection of collective knowledge and in the results of joint work on a particular project?
Will this assessment have a material component or will everything be limited to a set of moral incentives?
How to make so that again, but now at the enterprises, the “madness of the crowd”, characteristic of many resources of mass Web 2.0, did not prevail, and the democratic ideals of social network structures would not become an unlimited anarchic rampant?
Is it always safe for ordinary employees to express their opinions on various work issues, while understanding that it may not coincide with the opinion of the immediate supervisor or administration of the company?
How, in general, to make Enterprise 2.0 eventually turn into a kind of trade union that protects the interests of employees, but without the bureaucratic excesses so typical of traditional trade unions?
The list of these questions can be easily continued. And on closer examination it is not difficult to see that the answers to any of them run into the solution of the following tasks:
1. Providing users with convenient means of assessing other users, the quality of their information, cooperative and other activities in a social network resource.
2. Development of effective methods for system processing of user ratings for the purpose of ranking and filtering both information circulating in a resource and those who are associated with this information.
3. Ensuring maximum transparency of the specified methods of ranking and filtering - the “rules of the game” in the system should be obvious to all users.
4. Creation of mechanisms for experimenting with the specified system methods in order to be able to adapt them to the specific conditions of activity of each enterprise, to modify, expand and supplement with the forces of customers.
5. Integration of the results of assessments laid down in Enterprise 2.0 with the incentive systems operating in companies and organizations (as part of the more general task of integrating social network resources into traditional Enterprise Software systems operating there).
Those who are familiar with my concept of an intelligent social web will easily notice that this section is nothing more than “old songs about the main thing”. Indeed, in one form or another, all the issues raised here and the main directions of their decisions in this concept have already been considered. However, if the criteria for intelligence were simply well-intentioned for the mass public Internet, then for Enterprise 2.0 solutions to such issues can be the basis for creating mechanisms that strengthen, perhaps, the weakest link in the direction. Well, then, pulling this link, look, and pull out all the direction!
Habrahabr as a mirror of Runet maturity
Remembering my “songs about the main thing”, which I “sing”, starting with the “ Open Letter ”, I cannot “sing” one more of them. It is about respecting the content carriers , those who, as already mentioned, are very, very few.
I, perhaps, one of the first, if not the first, in general, in Habré and in the Russian-speaking part of LJ, which almost two years ago began to talk about SaaS (programs as a service) and Enterprise 2.0. Nothing but ridicule and minuses, these conversations usually did not bring me. Like, we all know these “Western” things - not all of this for the unique Russian market.
After the advent of cloud computing technology ( cloud computing) , which absorbed SaaS technology, which is already being discussed at every corner, the situation here began to change dramatically. For my presentations on topics related to customized remote processing of information, I began to receive more and more thanks. So the Runet and the Russian-speaking market is already ripe for this!
However, unfortunately, with Enterprise 2.0, the second seditious topic, the situation has not changed much. As soon as I mention the business application of social network resources, minuses continue to go in an avalanche. The reaction to my previous note on this topic in Habré is an extra testimony to that.
Well, it seemed that, apart from “thank you,” you can tell the translator (the above material is nothing more than a translation, and a rather interesting author)? And if you scold him, then only for the quality of the translation. So no, instead of discussing the publication on the merits, among others, the question came, why did I decide to highlight the abstract, and a bunch of “black balls” (the note itself, the translator, and even the collective blog where the note was placed). I conclude: either the Runet has not yet matured, or in a state of mind on this issue, a change has not yet occurred in the Russian-speaking market. Well, that, we will help, ... whenever possible, of course.
By the way, about constant moralizing in the form and style of presentation of materials that many authors receive from habrachiteli. There are no comments whatsoever: why he singled out this phrase, and why he put a habracut there, and why you refer to your works, and why such a long note or, on the contrary, a short one, etc. etc. And, as a rule, such quibbles come from those who themselves act very rarely, and more often, never act.
I work quite intensively with English-language blogs. Not always and not in all the comments in them are also distinguished by intelligence. Even f-words , unfortunately, are sometimes found. However, what you will almost never see there is the moralizing - the “writers” respect all the same!
I do not want to repeat what I have already said in my " Reflections on a Popular Resource ." I will only note, returning to the topic of this note, that one of the ways to stimulate the active part of Enterprise 2.0 users is to protect them from “why did you say?” And “how did you say?” Replicas, and direct any conversation into the “what did you say.” And here, perhaps, the opposing author is right, the problem is more “human” than “technical” .
In my first note on our correspondence discussion with my counterpart, I promised to also cite the pros and cons of other professionals dealing with Enterprise 2.0. However, the lack of time and the abundance of such materials, on the one hand, together with the already mentioned weak public interest, on the other, forced me to postpone the fulfillment of this promise. At the same time, if the reader is actually interested in (which I doubt very much for the time being), I will try to keep my word as soon as possible ...
In the meantime, I remind you that the previous two notes on the question “Will Enterprise 2.0 work?” You can read in iTech Bridge:
Non-working Enterprise 2.0 - pessimist point of view (translation of the main section of the original article)
Not so bad as it seems to some - the point of view of the optimist (translator's afterword)
Answers to these and other questions concerning the motivational mechanisms - the weakest link in Enterprise 2.0, I try to find in this article. She is the third in my correspondence discussion with a very interesting author, who is constantly hiding under the eloquent pseudonym Drama 2.0.
In my first note on this topic, I gave a translation of the main section of his material published on the e-consultancy blog. in which the author answered the question he posed — the statement “Why won't Enterprise 2.0 work?”
')
In the second article I tried to deal with those arguments of my “interlocutor”, with which I do not quite agree. Now I’ll supplement the reasons he mentioned, why, for the time being, Enterprise 2.0 does not work in the way that everyone who actively promotes this direction would like.
Enterprise 2.0 won't work without incentives
Motivation and incentives in the article of my correspondence vis-a-vis are mentioned several times. That's exactly what they mention, since I don’t know why, but neither he nor the work to which he refers, nor other sources known to me, go on fixing the motivational problem as such. At the same time, effective mechanisms that encourage the use of technologies Enterprise 2.0, from my point of view, are the weakest link of these technologies.
True, in two places my opponent goes a little further and argues from his point of view that the lack of incentives for social networking does not contribute to the effective implementation of Enterprise 2.0.
The first argument is based on an example of how employees are reluctant to go for a voluntary timing of working time, and how difficult it is to get them to do it. The above analogy seemed unsuccessful to me. There is no objection, “forcing” someone to use something new is always bad. And at work too. However, in the considered case, the employee does not see any obvious advantages for himself, why he should not forget every time to record the time he spent on this or that operation.
My experience in introducing various production management and design automation systems clearly shows that when software facilitates work and, by reducing the volume of routine operations, makes it more creative, ultimately, workers quickly and willingly master such tools. After all, it is not necessary to force employees to use internal e-mail . And what, by and large, blogs and forums are worse for communicating and archiving ideas and considerations on current business processes. On the contrary, only better.
But for self-timekeeping of one’s own time, it’s really impossible to do without additional special incentives. As well as in order to interest a specialist to give his know-how to a common collection of collective knowledge. Or in order to connect to the process of solving the current production problems of those who are not directly responsible for them. Here, too, the necessary effective elements of encouragement.
And here we come to the second argument of the author of the translated article, proving again from his point of view that the majority of employees have no incentive to use social networking methods of collaboration. The point is that, they say, only 1% of the members of any real or virtual community are actively involved in its activities, which means (in the case of a social network resource) provide its content.
I will not argue about the figure, although I know several other similar estimates, ranging from 5 to 10%. In one of my notes (no longer remember where), I suggested estimating the share of more or less active suppliers and / or content processors based on the well-known principle “20:80” - 20% of resource users perform 80% of all activity with its information.
However, the point is not in the figure itself, which in any case is quite small. But the thing, it seems to me, is that many of the tasks that Enterprise 2.0 sets for itself are in no way dependent on the proportion of active or semi-active users. For example , the accumulation of collective knowledge, the preservation of information in case of dismissal of a leading specialist, training and retraining of personnel, work with clients and external partners ...
Old songs about the main thing
The problem of lack of incentives for employees to work with social network resources in companies and organizations, I have already mentioned among the main obstacles to the implementation of Enterprise 2.0.
Indeed, what, besides the habit (and, as we have already noted, only among young employees), should employees working in companies begin to communicate with each other and effectively cooperate with each other, resorting to the Enterprise 2.0 toolkit?
How and on what basis will the size of the contribution of an employee be assessed in a common collection of collective knowledge and in the results of joint work on a particular project?
Will this assessment have a material component or will everything be limited to a set of moral incentives?
How to make so that again, but now at the enterprises, the “madness of the crowd”, characteristic of many resources of mass Web 2.0, did not prevail, and the democratic ideals of social network structures would not become an unlimited anarchic rampant?
Is it always safe for ordinary employees to express their opinions on various work issues, while understanding that it may not coincide with the opinion of the immediate supervisor or administration of the company?
How, in general, to make Enterprise 2.0 eventually turn into a kind of trade union that protects the interests of employees, but without the bureaucratic excesses so typical of traditional trade unions?
The list of these questions can be easily continued. And on closer examination it is not difficult to see that the answers to any of them run into the solution of the following tasks:
1. Providing users with convenient means of assessing other users, the quality of their information, cooperative and other activities in a social network resource.
2. Development of effective methods for system processing of user ratings for the purpose of ranking and filtering both information circulating in a resource and those who are associated with this information.
3. Ensuring maximum transparency of the specified methods of ranking and filtering - the “rules of the game” in the system should be obvious to all users.
4. Creation of mechanisms for experimenting with the specified system methods in order to be able to adapt them to the specific conditions of activity of each enterprise, to modify, expand and supplement with the forces of customers.
5. Integration of the results of assessments laid down in Enterprise 2.0 with the incentive systems operating in companies and organizations (as part of the more general task of integrating social network resources into traditional Enterprise Software systems operating there).
Those who are familiar with my concept of an intelligent social web will easily notice that this section is nothing more than “old songs about the main thing”. Indeed, in one form or another, all the issues raised here and the main directions of their decisions in this concept have already been considered. However, if the criteria for intelligence were simply well-intentioned for the mass public Internet, then for Enterprise 2.0 solutions to such issues can be the basis for creating mechanisms that strengthen, perhaps, the weakest link in the direction. Well, then, pulling this link, look, and pull out all the direction!
Habrahabr as a mirror of Runet maturity
Remembering my “songs about the main thing”, which I “sing”, starting with the “ Open Letter ”, I cannot “sing” one more of them. It is about respecting the content carriers , those who, as already mentioned, are very, very few.
I, perhaps, one of the first, if not the first, in general, in Habré and in the Russian-speaking part of LJ, which almost two years ago began to talk about SaaS (programs as a service) and Enterprise 2.0. Nothing but ridicule and minuses, these conversations usually did not bring me. Like, we all know these “Western” things - not all of this for the unique Russian market.
After the advent of cloud computing technology ( cloud computing) , which absorbed SaaS technology, which is already being discussed at every corner, the situation here began to change dramatically. For my presentations on topics related to customized remote processing of information, I began to receive more and more thanks. So the Runet and the Russian-speaking market is already ripe for this!
However, unfortunately, with Enterprise 2.0, the second seditious topic, the situation has not changed much. As soon as I mention the business application of social network resources, minuses continue to go in an avalanche. The reaction to my previous note on this topic in Habré is an extra testimony to that.
Well, it seemed that, apart from “thank you,” you can tell the translator (the above material is nothing more than a translation, and a rather interesting author)? And if you scold him, then only for the quality of the translation. So no, instead of discussing the publication on the merits, among others, the question came, why did I decide to highlight the abstract, and a bunch of “black balls” (the note itself, the translator, and even the collective blog where the note was placed). I conclude: either the Runet has not yet matured, or in a state of mind on this issue, a change has not yet occurred in the Russian-speaking market. Well, that, we will help, ... whenever possible, of course.
By the way, about constant moralizing in the form and style of presentation of materials that many authors receive from habrachiteli. There are no comments whatsoever: why he singled out this phrase, and why he put a habracut there, and why you refer to your works, and why such a long note or, on the contrary, a short one, etc. etc. And, as a rule, such quibbles come from those who themselves act very rarely, and more often, never act.
I work quite intensively with English-language blogs. Not always and not in all the comments in them are also distinguished by intelligence. Even f-words , unfortunately, are sometimes found. However, what you will almost never see there is the moralizing - the “writers” respect all the same!
I do not want to repeat what I have already said in my " Reflections on a Popular Resource ." I will only note, returning to the topic of this note, that one of the ways to stimulate the active part of Enterprise 2.0 users is to protect them from “why did you say?” And “how did you say?” Replicas, and direct any conversation into the “what did you say.” And here, perhaps, the opposing author is right, the problem is more “human” than “technical” .
In my first note on our correspondence discussion with my counterpart, I promised to also cite the pros and cons of other professionals dealing with Enterprise 2.0. However, the lack of time and the abundance of such materials, on the one hand, together with the already mentioned weak public interest, on the other, forced me to postpone the fulfillment of this promise. At the same time, if the reader is actually interested in (which I doubt very much for the time being), I will try to keep my word as soon as possible ...
In the meantime, I remind you that the previous two notes on the question “Will Enterprise 2.0 work?” You can read in iTech Bridge:
Non-working Enterprise 2.0 - pessimist point of view (translation of the main section of the original article)
Not so bad as it seems to some - the point of view of the optimist (translator's afterword)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/46563/
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