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I have been reading a paper by James Robertsen of Step Two entitled Successful collaboration requires support. It discusses the need for central support and nurturing of online collaboration within an organisation rather than simply a 'build it and they will collaborate' approach.
While I agree with James' points, I do not feel that it is necessary for all collaborative groups to succeed. Sometime failure can be more educational, or can provide an organisation with insights into the actual priorities of staff and management - or can simply be due to changing communities and situations.
Considering an organisation as an ecosystem, with different operational units being different niches, each with their own specific characteristics and environments, over time some groups will thrive, some will survive but with less success and some will fail (particularly as the environment changes).
I see collaboration as an intersection of communication and knowledge, therefore any collaborative community is keenly affected by changes in its composition, the people, the organisational environment and priorities.
For example if a community leader leaves, or is simply not present, a community may fail, or one or more people may step into these shoes and take a community to new heights.
Sometimes the community leaders are not the obvious candidates, those who make the most 'noise' (the most posts or the most controversial). Instead they are often people in the background who provides the 'engine' of the community - as a critical source of knowledge, as a mediator between strong personalities or by asking the questions that make others reconsider what they believe.
Equally when an organisation changes structure, direction or priorities, some communities grow in significance and interest and others will fade. This is a wholly natural progression in the 'life' of an organisation and does not represent failure by the leaders or administrators of collaborative communities. Nor does it imply that the concept of collaboration is flawed.
My personal experience of collaborative communities over more than ten years of operating and participating in them is that they all ebb and flow over time. Often only a few individuals are required at their core, however without a mosaic of participants, who often are transient or contribute little to the discussions, the communities do not provide the knowledge transfer of value to an organisation.
Therefore, in my view, the best way to foster collaborative communities and support an environment where they can be successful (based on their own characteristics and niche) is to expose them to as large a group of participants as possible, thereby enabling others to learn from and share their own experience - even if it is not directly relevant to their current job.
To make communities fail, the best approach is to restrict participation to a small group, avoid cross-fertilisation and suppress active discussion and left-field ideas.
In other words, collaborative communities, in my view, thrive in open systems and die in closed ones, just as trapping two spiders in a glass jar over several months is not conducive to having them thrive.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Do collaborative online groups need to be successful? | Tweet |
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Intranet Innovation Awards come to Canberra | Tweet |
Step Two will be running a free information session discussing the winners of the 2008 Intranet Innovation Awards in Canberra on Tuesday 11 November from 2-4pm.
According to James Robertson of Step Two, the event will include a look at,
- Transfield Service's uniquely effective approach to rolling out
SharePoint team spaces.- Highly successful collaboration amongst cabin crew at British Airways.
- The rich suite of functionality delivered by this year's Platinum winner, Fuller Landau (Canada).
- The Competitor Wiki at Scottrade in the US.
- An intranet that speaks the news when postbus drivers ring an 0800 number in Swiss Post.
Registration for the event is available online at: www.steptwo.com.au/seminars/iia-canberra
Monday, October 20, 2008
Putting Australian government web traffic in perspective | Tweet |
In August I analysed traffic to our agency's website in July 2008 using Hitwise's data measurement service, comparing our share of web traffic against the total to Federal government websites, other government websites and the top websites visited by Australians.
The results provided me with a view of how important government websites are in peoples' online lives - not very. Less than 2.5% of website visits were to government sites.
It also helped me form some ideas as to how Australian government departments can make their online channels more effective means of engaging citizens.
Reviewing Hitwise's reports from July 2008, tracking around 2.95 million Australians' visits to over 647,000 websites (using ISP logs), the total government sector (6,634 sites) accounted for only 2.26 percent of all tracked website visits by Australians.
Of these,
In comparison, Google.com.au and Google.com together accounted for 9.64% of Australian visits to all tracked websites, four times as much as the total government sector (Google.com.au, the number one site visited by Australians, accounted for 7.85% and Google.com for 1.79% of visits).
Facebook, the fourth most visited website, received 2.36% of total tracked visits - slightly more than the entire Australian government.
MySpace, the seventh ranked site, received 1.78% of total visits - almost 50% more than Federal government sites.
Only one government website regularly reaches Hitwise's Top Twenty list of Australian sites, the Bureau of Meteorology (coming in at 16th position with 0.51% of traffic in September 2008). In fact, this site alone accounts for almost a quarter of the visits to the total government sector.
To put these figures into perspective, I roughly estimated from my Agency's actual web traffic that each Australian web user in July 2008 made 270 visits to Hitwise tracked websites (note that at an average visit duration of 10 minutes, this is significantly less that the figure reported by Netratings in March 2008 (PDF) - of 13.7 hours/week online).
Of these estimated 270 visits,
Even if you discount my estimate and take another measure of the average number of website visits per Australian each month, the proportion based on Hitwise's tracked websites remains the same.
What does this mean for government?
Even a few visits per month by Australia's estimated 11 million plus regular internet users users adds up to a significant online audience for government in Australia.
However my conclusion is that Australian government departments should not rely on reaching our citizen audiences simply via our official websites.
We need to reach out and engage our customers via the websites they choose to use.
These non-Government websites account for over 97.5% of regular internet usage by Australian (per Hitwise's July 2008 figures).
If Australian government wants to effectively communicate with citizens online, our departments need to invest in understanding where our audiences spend their time, reaching beyond our official sites to engage them in the online communities they choose to frequent.
How do we engage citizens on their own turf?
There are many different ways that private organisations reach out to user communities, and government can learn and use many of these approaches, such as
Note
Hitwise checked the numbers drawn from their web reporting service (thank you Alex and Rebecca). The idea for this post, the conclusions drawn and any calculation errors are mine alone.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Are IT departments and web professionals their own worse enemies? | Tweet |
Forbes magazine has asked whether IT departments are their own worst enemies, in an article, The un-marketing of IT, citing examples such as,
I've seen IT teams engage in this type of behaviour time and time again over my career and the usual outcome is to reduce the business's trust and respect for IT practitioners - not because these actions are necessarily wrong, but simply because they are not explained well to business users.
As the article suggests, if IT teams committed to explaining clearly to users why these types of actions were necessary and provided alternate ways to meet business needs it would be easier to build bridges in other areas.
Extending this to web design and development, I've experienced many websites where unusual navigation or rigid processes are used to move users through a web service to their desired outcome.
These situations meet business requirements and allow the user to achieve their outcome, but are often painful and offputting journeys, which do not lead to repeat usage or goodwill.
Often the user feels like they have survived an obstacle course rather than had a pleasant walk in the sun.
When developing websites (or applications) it is as important to consider the journey - the user experience - as it is to consider the destination.
Simply adding contextual support, removing unnecessary steps and modelling navigation on well-understood models can do wonders to smooth the user's journey and vastly improve the user experience.
Gershon report released | Tweet |
The Gershon Review of the Australian Government's Use of Information and Communication Technology report has been released by the Department of Finance, and it makes for an interesting read.
Peter Gershon's key findings were that,1. There is weak governance of pan-government issues related to ICT.
2. Agency governance mechanisms are weak in respect of their focus on ICT efficiency and an understanding of organisational capability to commission, manage and realise benefits from ICT-enabled projects.
3. The business as usual (BAU) ICT funding in agencies is not subject to sufficient challenge and scrutiny.
4. There is a disconnect between the stated importance of ICT and actions in relation to ICT skills.
5. There is no whole-of-government strategic plan for data centres. In the absence of such a plan, the Government will be forced into a series of ad hoc investments which will, in total, cost in the order of $1 billion more than a coordinated approach over a 15-year period.
6. The government ICT marketplace is neither efficient nor effective.
7. There is a significant disconnect between the Government’s overall sustainability agenda and its ability to understand and manage energy costs and the carbon footprint of its ICT estate.
Some of the key activities outlined will have major impacts on the way in which ICT is managed in the public sector, such as,
There were some very interesting points regarding the vulnerabilities of the Federal government in the IT area, partially due to the concentration of power in Canberra. For instance,
There was considerable discussion of how to create professional IT career paths, to better manage the ICT workforce, improving staff retention and corporate knowledge.
Also discussed was cross-agency planning and purchasing, where already slow, out-dated and complex procurement processes lead to sub-optimal outcomes and do not take best advantage of government's buying power. That's not to mention the need to revisit data centre management to also take advantage of central buying power.
The next step is for the government to have a think about the report's recommendations and take some actions in a reasonably short timeframe.
I await with anticipation.
