Keynote Speaker at WorkSpace Connect

Many years ago I used to attend and present at UBM's Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston and Santa Clara, emphasising the importance of people and culture alongside technology to create more social and collaborative organisations.

UBM merged with Informa and the event became the Enterprise Connect conference which I follow on Twitter but is a little bit too technology focused for me to attend.

However Informa Tech have now launched a sister show, WorkSpace Connect, which has an even broader agenda than E2conf had, and in fact deliberately intends to pull together IT, Property / Facilities Management and HR - the first conference, I think, to target all three of these disciplines (as I do in my book, The Social Organization).

So, partly because of this connection to E2conf and also, even more importantly, because I passionately believe that all workspace related disciplines need to be working much more closely together - to provide a compelling employee experience, and the people and organisation outcomes our businesses require - I am delighted to be keynoting at this year's inaugural event.

If you are interested in the opportunities for integrating the three disciplines - and if you're reading this blog, you should be - the event take place in Dallas from 9-11 September 2019 and it would be great to see you there!

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#E20S - Social HCM?

 

   There’s a new term in town – social HCM.  Or so it would seem….

It might just be coincidence of course, but I recently received a press release about a UK based system called Fairsail, linked to the USA’s HR Technology conference last week.  Of course many HCM systems are already quite socialised (see this post) and Saba branded itself the people collaboration system for a while, but this is the first time I’ve seen one describing itself as a Social HCM system.

Then I got a Facebook invite to discuss Social HCM with Bjoern Negelmann who runs the European Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Paris and which has led onto a Google + Hangout discussion I was supposed to talk at on Wednesday, but unfortunately didn’t manage to make (actually it’s a Hangout On Air which means you can watch the archive on Google / YouTube too).

So what is this thing – social HCM? Well you can see Bjoern’s thoughts here.  As usual, I have a rather different take.  One of my beliefs about HR – taken from Dave Ulrich – is that we need to focus much more on outcomes than we do on activities.  This 1. makes us more strategic as we avoid investing in activity for activity’s sake; 2. makes us more credible as people who deliver things are always viewed more highly than people who do things; 3. gives us a chance to take accountability for the outcomes we produce; and 4. gives us more opportunity to create value by taking these outcomes to our business colleagues as things we can deliver which will help the business improve, rather than just talking about how we can support the business to do what it already needs to do (ie moving from adding to creating value).

It’s why I define HCM as managing people to create human capital – activity to provide an outcome.

So what’s social HCM?

There are probably three possibilities.  The first is doing HCM – or probably more realistically HR – in a social way (activity).  As Bjoern suggests, this might be about being more open, co-creating, collaborative etc.  These are great approaches but this still leaves the door open for following these approaches for their own sake.  Also I’m not convinced that all organisations need to use them.  And I expect that those who believe most organisations are going to become highly open, co-creating, collaborative are being overly optimistic.  I can’t see it happening, and don’t necessarily think it needs to anyway.

The second possibility is focusing on creating human capital through social approaches (a mix of activity and outcome).  For example trying to raise employee engagement by creating a more collaborative environment, as most people – though not everyone – would agree this is one of the major engagement drivers for employees around the world.  This is good too, but is really just an aspect of HCM – I’m not sure there’s enough to justify a new name for it.

And the final option is about creating social human capital (outcome) – which you can just call social capital really – so social capital management (SCM) then, ie the management of people to accumulate social capital.  The problem with this is that you can’t really do this – ie manage people to create this outcome.  You have to lead and enable them instead.  (Actually the same thing applies to HCM but the requirement is even more pronounced with social capital – and the dissonance associated with calling it SCM therefore that much greater too).

It’s the third of these options which excites me, and I’d suggest organisations, their HR functions and Enterprise 2.0 practitioners need to think about.

 

Also see my posts from the E2.0 Summit last year:

• #E20S Developing social strategy 2
• #E20S Developing social strategy 1
• Tweeting Netiquette

 

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Technorati Tags: Fairsail,Bjoern Negelmann,Enterprise 2.0,Summit,Paris,social,HR,HCM

Sosialhjelp 2.0

 

   Another event later on this year that I’m particularly looking forward to is PersonalForum organised by HRNorge in Tonsberg, Norway in November.

I’ll be doing a workshop – possibly on HR measurement – and a keynote on HR’s role in the social business.  More details here, or in English below:

“The organization's use of social media is HR's responsibility, says Jon Ingham. There is a wealth of possibilities in 2.0 organizational development. Why does he do it? The answer he gives on the Human Forum 2012. Jon Ingham has been suggested as one of the 25 most prominent thinkers in HR, and some also have designated him “the next Ulrich.”

Ingham is mildly critical of two important trends in HR. The strong focus on HR must get closer to the business means that we risk losing some of what makes HR value - the human side. In addition, he points out that the focus on performance measurement may be too strong. "When performance measurement is performance monitoring culture will suffer", therefore it is important that HR work more relationship-oriented, says Ingham.

He believes that HR has much to gain from being more relationship-oriented, and here comes the social media.

HR technology is an area where there are extraordinary opportunities to create new values ​​of HR, says Ingham. At the same time they are used in special processes such as recruitment, training and internal information. Through social media based business network that can prove to be valuable, for example in recruitment. It is about using technology to develop new and deeper relationships that business can take advantage of in order to attract the very best.

After recruitment, it is internal communication and training that is the most common use. Social learning is more effective and it can be done through informal conversations with each other or training of the teams and larger groups. Collective intelligence is not about information flows and processes that are supported by social tool - it is about giving people autonomy to make faster and better decisions with the help of social relationships.

The blog "Top 100 influencers" quotes Einstein in his presentation by Jon Ingham:

For every 250 blogs that speaks out in an empty virtual room for nothing, it's a voice that delivers value and perspective. The democratization of publishing technology has made it possible for all kinds of voices to be heard. The fact that so little is actually said is a problem only if you do not agree with Einstein, who said that "only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity - but I'm not sure what is the universe."

In other words: The ability to deliver social media is absolutely no guarantee of quality. Or success.

But Ingham has success, and he has made it even through his blog), and later with the book "Strategic Human Capital Management: Creating Value Through People".

The Human Forum 2012, Ingham to talk about how HR is now increasingly use social media to support their own processes. How will HR in a more efficient way to facilitate relationships and expertise effectively 2.0 business must have.

Jon Ingham, is a British HR blogger, author and Top 25 HR Thinker in the United Kingdom 2011. The Human Forum 2012, you can hear him lecture "Social media in the business - why it's HR's role."

Read more about Personal Forum 2012 and register here.’

 

Technorati Tags: HR,social business,enterprise 2.0,Norway,HR Norge

 

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#SMWLdn Like Minds and Social Business

 

   It’s social media week this week, and I’m presenting at two events with Like Minds on social business today.

I’ve attended a few other events already and social business has already had a significant focus.  For example, yesterday I was at Edelman where Euan Semple was talking about enabling people and changing culture to be able to say (and tweet) what they think.

David Armano from Edelman was then speaking about the importance of the employee within a social business (building upon the results of their recent Trust Barometer, that whereas trust in CEOs has fallen, trust in technical experts, regular employees, and particularly ‘people like me’ has been maintained).  However, I agreed with whoever asked a question, suggesting that despite this mention, the agenda was very much focused on marketing and PR.

I’ve tried to re-tilt the balance at the event today.

I was second, after JP Rangaswami from Salesforce who suggested that companies are sometimes antisocial because they have a level of fear in being open with their customers.  There’s also a deepening connection between employees and customers.  Eg Cluetrain made a case that there were different external and internal conversations.  Nowadays, these are both and across.  People are used to connecting with each other and having conversations with each other inside and outside of their firms.  This is going to mean a change in the nature of the firm.  Absolutely – though I still think organisations can focus social first - and I think the same point applies to internal antisocialness too.

In my session, I talked about five things:

• How HR activities are changing (social recruiting, social learning etc – but other areas too eg social performance management using Rypple / Success Force from Salesforce).  This provides benefits for efficiency, effectiveness and transformation but needs a high level of trust.
• Transformational benefits depend on focusing on outcomes rather than activities.  These can include human capital, eg engagement, but social (internal) and relationship (external) capital too.  I talked about the Visa case study you’ll find here as an example of a social / 2.0 organisation which doesn’t use social media at all (though a guy from Detica in the audience suggests that they are now moving this way).
• Out of these forms of capital, it’s social capital which is most important.  Eg see Hamel’s / Birkinshaw’s stuff on management / organisation (internal) vs leadership / business (external).
• Because of this, each organisation’s journey in social business will be different – as we discussed in the Enterprise 2.0 Summit last week, there are no best practices.  An organisation focusing on social innovation will need to take different actions to one focusing on social execution, including in their use of social media tools.
• However, the other enablers need to be tailored to the relevant outcomes as well.  These can include social leadership; social approaches eg open space / unconferencing; social facilitation / community management; social HR practices – and also social values.  I talked about the need for ‘love’ (in Euan’s book), or a high level of mutual regard, again here.

 

Later sessions reinforced some of the same points, eg:

• Euan talked about the way the language of business has been desanitised and depersonalised and that we need to talk more normally, ie be more human.
• Joanne Jacobs talked about community, suggesting the people can flock together but won’t want to be part of a borg collective.  They’re still a group of individuals, just working together.
• Neville Hobson also talked about how social business is a bigger agenda than social media, though mainly from an external communication perspective, and demands trust.
• Delphine Remy-Boutang talked about IBM’s social business journey, which has been about leadership, technology and process (but people are the most important) and started internally with things like Beehive (IBM’s internal Facebook) before they allowed it to take place externally too.  Last year, new developments included:
• Social Business @ IBM tool providing guidance on using social media and including Foursquare type badges
• The formation of their Social Business Management Council
• A Social Business Jam.
• Lee Provoost also emphasises the need for social to solve business problems (or boost opportunities?).

 

Of course there were a few disagreements too, which will hopefully become clearer in this afternoon’s panel (I think people learn best by considering disagreements between people rather than listening to everyone violently but maybe superficially agreeing).

For example I suspect I see a need for greater teaming than Joanne. Love may be the wrong word but for me, a social business has to have a strong sense of social identity.  And whereas Lee emphasised the need to understand individual people’s selfish behaviour which may not fit into a company’s plan, I’d suggest what’s even more important is encouraging selflessness.  I’m not a believer in a unitary agenda between organisation and employees, but I do believe that social depends largely on a strong consensus about what’s really important, and a shared commitment to making this work.

 

Also see Live Minds’ live blog.

 

Technorati Tags: Like Minds,social business,social media,week,London,2012,smwldn

 

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#E20S: Shouldn’t we talk about HR 2.0 instead of Enterprise 2.0?

 

   I’m at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Paris today – you can see my posts on the conference at Social Advantage, these include, so far:

• #E20S Developing social strategy 2
• #E20S Developing social strategy 1

 

I’ve been attending some of the most technically oriented sessions rather than the organisational ones, so initially missed one called ‘Maximising Social Work Mindset’.  However, I started to see lots of tweets about HR 2.0, and as I hadn’t been tweeting from my own session (a good sign that I’m not getting much out of it) I decided to move.

Actually, I didn’t find the session itself that exciting, but the twitter stream was particularly good, and included the tweet in the above picture: “shouldn’t we talk about HR 2.0 rather than Enterprise 2.0”.  The basis for this was that if we’re talking about people then HR should have prominence in the move to the social business – obviously something which resonates for me.

Nevertheless, I don’t agree that these are the same thing.  I’ve shown the following slide on here before, taken from a webinar I ran last year:

 

 

The diagram attempts to show that there are a number of things we do in an organisation (activities) around managing people, facilitating connection, and developing an enabling organisation – including use of Enterprise 2.0 technology.

From this perspective, HR 2.0 (the use of social media in HR – for recruiting, learning, performance management etc) and Enterprise 2.0 don’t have much to do with each other – other than they use basically the same technologies and approaches (eg the role of communities) and so doing one makes it easier and more appropriate to do the other too.

 

But there are also three critical capabilities we need to create in an organisation, namely human, social and organisational capital.  Each of these can be supported by the three groups of activities identified above.

Eg I write here mainly about human capital, and although HR – including HR 2.0 - approaches will be the main part of a strategy to create human capital (hence HCM), social and organisational activities will also play a role (eg through creating communities of practice to share knowledge and build capability, or by creating organisational structures which make it easier to contribute and hence raise engagement).

But our focus here is on social capital, or the social business / enterprise (the theme of the Enterprise 2.0 Summit is ‘Designing and the Social Business Excellence’.

Social capital / the social business can also be developed through HR activities (eg managing team performance or introducing pay transparency) and organisational ones (eg creating structures which break down silos and get people collaborating).  So HR and ‘enterprise’ activities are certainly both key parts of a social business strategy.

Both HR 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies and approaches can also be used to build social capital / the social business, so again, from this angle there is an additional overlap.

However, the most critical enabler for social business are just social activities, whether these are:

• Face to face – eg just getting people talking to each other, or playing with DUNDU dolls which we’ve just been doing here, or

 

 

• Virtual – eg using a social networking system to support management of a community.

 

So perhaps, rather than HR 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0, we should talk about Social 2.0 instead?  But I’d prefer us just to focus on the social business / enterprise (outcomes vs activities).

(Actually I think social organisation is the best name for this, but again, that’s another whole other blog post, and I suspect you’ve probably had enough!).

 

Technorati Tags: Definition,social,media,business,enterprise,organisation,HR,2.0,DUNDU

 

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Enterprise 2.0 Summit / Social Business Immersive

 

   I’m attending / blogging from / presenting at some great conferences over the next few months.  Next week, I’ll be an ‘ambassador’ for the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Paris and will be posting on some of the sessions there, mainly over at Social Advantage.

The social technology theme continues the following week with Social Media Week - London where I’ll be presenting on social business with Like Minds:

“Taking care of your people is taking care of business. Developing and managing a ‘social’ workforce is critical for your future success.”

 

Hope to see you at one of these events, and if not, do follow their progress here.

 

Technorati Tags: Enterprise,2.0,social,media,business,events,conference,week,2012

 

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#SBF11: HR as Humane Relationships

 

  I gave a short presentation on ‘The New HR’ to the Social Business (Enterprise 2.0) Forum in Milan today.

I wanted to make two main points to emphasise the importance of E2.0 folk involving their HR colleagues in Social Business projects:

1. That thinking about the cultural change required to support Enterprise 2.0 technology implementation (which is a good thing to do), is not the same as planning for the outcomes of cultural / social change – which may then involve technology, or HR, or something else.  From a simplistic perspective in the first situation, HR acts as the traditional support function.  In the second, HR is the main act.  (I still don’t think this change in perspective is widely understood which is why I tweeted about E2.0’s schizophrenia earlier today, and why I think that as a community, we’re still on a journey from Enterprise 2.0 to this bigger and more important thing, the Social Business.)
2. That they may need to help HR needs to step up to this new challenge and think about HR as Human Relationships, not just Human Resources (I’ve blogged on this before here).  The point on Human Relationships got tweeted and retweeted, and was then improved by Dan Pontefract, suggesting we should perhaps say Humane Relationships instead?  I think that’s a great build.

 

I also talked briefly about the opportunities for HR to use 2.0 tools, and 2.0 thinking - ie the same combination of technology and other physical, but social, approaches – within HR itself.  This was probably more content than I had time to deliver, but I wanted the E2.0 (technology) practitioners in the audience to also consider the opportunity that HR needs them as much as they need HR.

 

You can find out more about these two things, ie HR’s support for the social business, and then also social HR, in these two webinar archives:

• Social Business
• Social HR: archive / slides

 

I’ll be posting more general perspectives on the conference, and on my schizophrenia point, at Social Advantage over the next few weeks.

 

Technorati Tags: Social Business,Forum,Milan,2011,Enterprise 2.0,Open Knowledge,HR,culture,outcomes,#SBF11

 

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Social business webinar

 

   My next webinar, building on the theme of today’s will look at the social business, and will be on Tuesday 3rd May.

“The social business is often defined as one that uses social media or Enterprise 2.0 technology.  However, it's much more useful to define it by outcome rather than activity.  So Jon Ingham's definition of it is an organisation in which social relationships between employees and with others are valued and accumulated.  In this webinar, Jon will describe the range of tools, technologies and other activities - face-to-face and virtual, which are available to organisations to develop their peoples' relationships.”

 

And this webinar will be social!  Ie we’ll definitely have questions working, and I hope I’ll be able to put some of you on to talk about the social business too.

 

You can book here.

 

Technorati Tags: Social,business,enterprise,2.0,HR,webinar

 

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Getting what you ask for (oh, and it IS a popularity contest)

 

   I posted earlier this week about one of my submissions for this Summer’s Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston: HR2.0 and the Future of HR (I also posted on some other submissions about Culture and the Social Business on my other blog).

In my HR2.0 post, I also noted that the conference’s selection process – using an enterprise 2.0 system from Spigit -  is something a lot more conferences should use: “It doesn’t guarantee a good conference,but it gets much nearer to this”.  It also establishes a lot of early interest in the conference, which those of you following the #e2conf twitter hashtag will have seen!

Of course, the process is wide open to gaming too (something that can be controlled within an organisation, but not, at least easily, in this sort of application).  And I was interested to see a call from the conference organiser not to treat the process as a popularity contest!

The thing is, it IS a popularity contest.  OK, the selection of presentations will not be down just to the voting, but there clearly is designed to be a link.  That being the case, people will want to get votes, and will take the actions they see fit to support this.

Now, personally, I’ve tried to focus on raising interest in my proposals, rather than directly asking for votes:

 

joningham Jon Ingham 

More on my social cultures / outcomes proposals for #e2conf -http://bit.ly/hTSc1I

12 Jan Favorite Reply Delete

  

joningham Jon Ingham 

RT @BKneuer @SMinOrgs: Check out HR 2.0 - what it is and how it impacts E2.0. Voting underway! http://bit.ly/fiplHO

11 Jan Favorite Reply Delete

 

Or at least I started off that way, but as this week’s gone on, I’ve turned to my blogs, Linkedin, and the Spigit site as well, to promote my proposals as much as I can.  And of course, this post is also a dressed up request to ask for your VOTE!

And this behaviour is, of course, exactly what the conference organisers should expect!  It’s not about cheapening the process, it’s about getting what you reward.  If you ask for it, you’re going to get it, and shouldn’t be too surprised when you do.

I’ve written in my proposals about the need to get HR involved in Enterprise 2.0 – in this proposal in fact (please vote for it!!! (lol)).  And this is perhaps an example of this requirement.  HR people are used to designing effective compensation schemes to encourage the right behaviours, and ensuring we avoid getting the behaviours we don’t want.

We know in this profession that if we incentivise oil men and women to prioritise exploitation over safety and risk management that the result’s not going to be good.  We know that if we compensate bankers for risk taking they’re going to take actions that will have negative consequences for us all.  We know that paying hospital consultants £1000 for hour hours overtime is going to result in them finding more things to do within the day so that they can do more overtime at night.  Don’t we?

Perhaps not then.

If you reward certain behaviour, that’s going to be the behaviour you’re going to get back.  Why’s that so hard to understand?

 

Technorati Tags: Enterprise 2.0,conference,Boston,e2conf,Spigit,popularity conference,HR,reward,incentives,behaviour,VOTE FOR ME!

 

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HR 2.0 and the Future of HR

 

  The other thing (*) you can vote for me for is another submission to the Enterprise 2.0 conference.  This is basically the same as last year’s submission to Boston (which didn’t get through) and Santa Clara (which did).

But this time, I’ll be talking with Courtney Hunt of SMinOrgs, as unlike Peter Cappelli and others, I don’t like doing the same presentation twice, and co-presenting is much more fun.  Plus the conference is about collaboration, and collaborating just feels right.

You may be wondering why I want to talk there again at all?  - particularly with the rigmarole of having to submit a proposal and being voted in to speak.  And then, they don’t pay me!

Well the reason is that this conference, and in the organisations presenting at this conference (as well as a couple of my clients!), is where I think the future of HR is being made.  As I wrote above the focus of the event is on making organisations work collaboratively together, rather than just people performing as individuals – which is what I think the HR agenda should have always been about.

And actually, I think this selection process is something a lot more conferences should do.  It doesn’t guarantee a good conference,but it gets much nearer to it.  And btw, well done to Techweb / Spigit for calling what were ‘spigs’ the much simpler ‘votes’.

 

See my submission and vote here.

See and vote for my social business focused submissions to the conference here.

 

* Vote for my management hack here.

 

Technorati Tags: Enterprise 2.0,HR 2.0,conference,Courtney Hunt,SMinOrgs,social media,organisations

 

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Enterprise social media Influencer

 

I’ve been included as one of 25 influencers in Enterprise social media in Bill Ives’ A list developed from Traackr (putting me in 6th position):

 

 

Thanks to Bill for putting the list together.

 

Also see best blog bling!

 

Technorati Tags: Bill Ives,Traackr,top,25,Enterprise,2.0,social media,blog,twitter,influencer

 

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Webinar Series

 

         In 2011, I’ll also be delivering five of my own webinars, as well as continuing to participate on those of other leading organisations and commentators. Topics and dates of my webinars will be:

• A review of HR2.0 opportunities, technologies and case studies (it’s not just about social recruiting!): 3.00pm Tuesday 15th March
• The social business – what it is and how HR, Enterprise 2.0 and other tools and approaches can be used to develop it: 3.00pm Tuesday 3rd May
• Think DiffeHRently: opportunities for innovation in HR and people management: 3.00pm Tuesday 12th July
• Tba: September
• Tba: December

 

My webinars are delivered using GoToWebinar with the support of Citrix Online and I will also be delivering a webinar for them at 11.00am on Tuesday 1^st March: Online training and the learning organisation.

There’ll then be another one for them (tba) on Monday 6th June (look out for details on this blog closer to the time).

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: HR,HCM,HR 2.0,Enterprise 2.0,social media,social business,webinar,webcast

 

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HR and Enterprise 2.0 Happy Hour

 

  I also managed to speak about HR’s role in Enterprise 2.0 on last week’s HR Happy Hour with Steve Boese, Shaua Moerke and Matt Wilkinson from Socialcast.

Do take a listen – and it’s well worth paying particular attention to the part where Matt describes the Socialcast product – I do think this systems’ security and integration features does generally make it a more compelling proposition for intra-organisational use than Yammer (which we’re using inter-organisationally for Connecting HR).

As well as the technologies and processes aspect of Enterprise 2.0, we also talked about the culture component – which was the subject of my presentation with Margaret Schweer, and which I still need to review on my Social Advantage blog…

I will just say that I thought Matt and I were talking about two slightly different things – ie his interactions vs my relationships, his talking to staff about how they connect today, my focus on supporting strategic objectives etc.  I’m going to come back to this on Social Advantage too.

 

Also see:

• Andrew McAfee on HR Happy Hour: close but no dice
• CHROs and Collaboration

 

Technorati Tags: Matt Wilkinson,Socialcast,Steve Boese,HR Happy Hour,Andrew McAfee,Enterprise 2.0,conference,Santa Clara

 

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HR, Collaboration and Analytics

 

  The other panel at the Enterprise 2.0 conference, also chaired by Oliver Marks (pictured with me) focused on measures.  We noted that because of the complexity surrounding HR and collaboration, many of the things we wish to measure are intangible.  I suggested that participating in conversation may often be a better way to measure Enterprise 2.0 initiatives than trying to calculate ROI and noted Jay Cross’ comments on Jack Phillips ROI methodology as an example of this difficulty.

However, the ROI of incorporating social tools within HR may be intangible but it’s also, in Joshn Bersin’s words, ‘really big’.  We talked about some social learning and social recruiting examples of this.

 

Some of the tweets:

joningham: With Richard Chong NetApp @cameranh @josh_bersin @olivermarks on HR measurement #e2conf #e2conf-8 #cipd10

mikegotta: @dahowlett I don't think we have the right metrics for assessing the value of better relationships, better sharing, better cultures #e2conf

jonhusband: @josh_bersin says the ROI is intangible, but really really big (of e2.0 tools) #e2conf (via @gordonr)

SameerPatel: #e2conf #HR 'within a year NetApp got $2 million back in cost savings from their Saba enabled program" #e20

tdoyon: Kudos being incorporated into performance management but get culture right first and the use data #e2conf

jholston: social ROI: reduces time-to-relationship #e2conf

 

Picture credit: Alex Dunne (me and Oliver Marks)

Technorati Tags: Richard Chong,NetApp,Cameran Hetrick,Socialcast,Josh Bersin,Oliver Marks,HR,measurement,analytics,collaboration,enterprise,2.0

 

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HR: beyond Compliance through Collaboration

 

  One of my E2.0 sessions was a panel looking a how HR can move out of its compliance role through the use of collaborative / 2.0 technologies.

I thought this was a good panel session, and was pleased that we seemed to come to the conclusion that HR is complex, not simple, and that getting beyond compliance means accepting, tolerating, and navigating through this complexity.

It’s a conclusion that is very different from that generated by many HR conferences at the moment – which is maybe down to this conference’s focus on collaboration, and the additional complexity inherent in dealing with teams, networks and communities rather than just the traditional focus of HR ie the individual employee.  Also see Rawn Shah’s summary on this:

“Mr. Ingham described another dynamic that HR is not yet ready for: the shift of emphasis from interactions between two individuals, to interaction in collaborative groups. I readily agree that this makes things much more complex. In fact, I would point out that there is a basic lack of understanding in what constitutes collaborating groups. More simply, there is a lot of talk about working in a ‘community’ but little agreement on what constitutes a community.”

 

This is why I do rather disagree with my co-panellist, Danny Portillo (from Rypple)’s suggestion that we drill down, using analysis, to identify simple HR actions we can take.

To me, strategic people management, particularly of the collaborative kind, requires synthesis (understanding of the system – the people, and particularly the relationships between people) rather than it does analysis.

 

Some of the tweets:

joningham: @dporillo (Rypple) @joshbersin Michelle Johnston @olivermarks on HR beyond Compliance #e2conf #e2conf-11 #cipd10

rypple: Rypple is a great social tool to help development, it supports diff org structures and lets people choose coaches #e2conf

swylie650: I've never met a company that failed because their employees were over-empowered @Josh_Bersin HR track at #e2conf

MeganMurray: Getting into the guts of human issues, HR and collaboration in M1. #e2conf

ryanvesely: #e2conf collaboration is impactful when HR processes and org culture are aligned. Think about how you bring collab to performance

 

Picture credit: Alex Dunne (Josh Bersin, me, Michelle Johnston CPP, Oliver Marks – sorry Danny Portillo Rypple’s been cut off)

Technorati Tags: Dan Porillo,Rypple,Josh Bersinm Michelle Johnston,Oliver Marks,HR,Compliance,Strategy,Enterprise 2.0,conference,Santa Clara

 

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HR Collaboration Strategies at E2.0 Conference

 

  After this Summer’s E2.0 conference in Boston, where I suggested that people were trying to develop something that was basically designed to develop collaboration in a fairly non-collaborative sort of way – eg without much input from the HR profession – I proposed to speak on HR at the follow-up conference in Santa Clara.

I didn’t expect much of a positive response, and certainly didn’t expect to see HR turning into a track of its own at the West coast conference, so full credit to TechWeb for listening and having the imagination to try something new.

I ended up being on two panels and will post on these shortly, and I  also presented on Culture (I’ll put my notes on this up at Social Advantage).

But first, I just wanted to make a hat tip to the opening keynote, and the session on real-world HR problems I didn’t participate on.  Here are some of the tweets from these:

joningham: @billmcnee @olivermarks @ciaramsmyth Tony Treglia HR meets E2.0 and the Cloud #e2conf starting next http://tv.e2conf.com #cipd10

joningham: @petefields @bethrivera @leighlevensaler Lisa Ackerman @olivermarks on real world HR problems #e2conf-14 #e2conf #cipd10

mikegotta: When HR groups see themselves in a strategic (vs. admin) role - they can be a key champion and sponsor of E2.0 initiatives #e2conf

joningham: Needs to be included RT@MikeGotta E2.0 enables workers to gain reputation score/rank/rating - impact performance reviews? Risk item? #e2conf

joningham: @ciaramsmyth HR professionals need to be capable in explaining how 2.0 supports productivity etc #e2conf #cipd10 #connectinghr #chrchat

joningham: ciaramsmyth HMH piloting E2.0 = "Executive 2.0" - reverse mentoring programme! #e2conf #cipd10

cflanagan: RT @gialyons: #e2conf Houghton-Mifflin is implementing reverse mentoring for their execs this year <-- GREAT #e20 tactic 4 trad'l cultures!

mikegotta: Interesting session some of the "behavioral" discussion calls out the need perhaps for orgs to have people versed in sociology etc #e2conf

cflanagan: Some co's use social tools to promote brand, yet block employee access. Must match action. Move beyond fear. Trust employees #e2conf

mikegotta: "relationship onboarding" - we need to get employees connected more effectively to peers, teams, communities, etc - E2.0 helps #e2conf

TylerCagni: Collaboration platform must answer THE question 'does this help ME do my job better?' HR track #e2conf

 

All the conference tweets are available here.  Also see David Sparks’ write-up on the keynote.  And Rawn Shah’s summary of this and the track sesions in Forbes.  Or this list of all the blog posts from the conference.

Videos of all the keynotes are available at http://tv.e2conf.com.

The track whitepaper is at http://www.e2conf.com/whitepaper/HR.

 

Picture credit: Alex Dunne (Oliver Marks, Eric Lane (Intuit), Ciaram Smyth (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / HMH), Tony Treglia (Aviva), Bill McNee (Saugatuck Technology)

Technorati Tags: Enterprise 2.0,conference,HR,collaboration,technology,strategies,keynote,panel,Oliver Marks,Eric Lane,Intuit,Ciara Smyth,Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,HMH,Tony Treglia. Aviva,Bill McNee,Saugatuck Technology

 

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