Anticipate the arguments of your critics

"What does not kill me, makes me stronger." -- 

                                                            Friedrich Nietzsche, 

Twilight of the Idols, 1888

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The Attack: A Progression of Gates

§        does E-2.0 have a powerful coalition of internal support from enterprise leaders, for shelter and nurture during its vulnerable beginnings?  Have corporate ‘gatekeeper’ functions of IT, Legal, HR, and Corporate Communications been consulted early, brought inside the tent? 

§        is there an explicit business case for E-2.0 implementation?  If viewed as a ‘strategic investment’ (no ROI required), do you have a clear idea of what business outcomes you want to emerge?   What are you trying to do?  Are the expectations set at a reasonable level?

§        let W = the sum of all time, energy, attention, and money wasted on E-2.0, to include personal uses, goofing off, learning curves for each flood of gizmos.  (W for waste.)  The total time, energy, and money expended, less W, we can call “legit business use” (LBU)

§        (ever wonder what ratio W / LBU is? ... Oops, negative thinking)

§        note LBU at this stage is simply activity level, not outcomes

§        usage stats (first level metrics of LBU) = activity, are not convincing that E-2.0 is worthwhile, let alone the NBET (Next Big Enterprise Thing).  If the task at hand is to generate ideas, e.g., we have to ask if the ideas are redundant, are novel, are valuable.

§        some sub-set of LBU is effective at generating a value, or business outcome.  If ideas, they are good non-redundant ideas.  Good, but we are not yet talking about a NET benefit, because thus far we are not counting [often not able to count] the costs, including opportunity costs (production you would otherwise have accomplished in that time, and the time of the people you “network” with)

§        even the flow that passes this gate, i.e. where we can show a Net business benefit, we do admit you could be solving a problem, but not yet an Important Problem ... perhaps the business value created is not aligned to our strategy, and will not be implemented

§        or, we agree you could be advancing the ball for an Important Problem, but not in a noticeably effective or efficient way.   "We'd rather do it with email." 

§        or your proposal bid team has efficiently located and re-used knowledge from a previous client project, and saved time, but the resulting lack of originality weakens the quality of the bid.  Re-cycled content signals low regard for current client, so you lose the engagement.  [Haas & Hansen, 2007]

§        or you could be successful at augmenting flow of new ideas into the innovation funnel but, "Sorry, we do that part very well already!" ... the unmet need is downstream commercialization of ideas.   Your invention is adding to our burden, not reducing it.

§        you could be increasing dramatically the capability for collaboration, but the barrier was willingness to collaborate, not capability, and the motivation has not changed [Morten Hansen]

§        Yes, you are running an experiment with E-2.0, but with no controls, no metrics, just stories. Thanks, but we know the odds of success in organization change are 20-40% to begin with, and we had lots of (unrepresentative) stories before you got here.

The Defense:

Ben Franklin Defense

“Of what use is a new baby?” 

(Attributed to old Ben, when asked what practical use there was for newfangled electricity.)

Bob Dylan Defense

“You better start swimmin’

Or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changing"

Knowledge Worker Puzzle Defense

If I could measure the ROI of knowledge workers with scientific rigor, I would win the Nobel Prize next year, because no one else has been able to do it.

Knowledge Worker Defense, Part II

Knowledge workers do assert their independence, but well designed E-2.0 is emergent, frictionless, freeform [McAfee], so the voluntarism of helpful tools becomes an attractive menu, not forced compliance.   Professionals guided by their own strong values will adaptively seek out high Quality, efficient Time savings, both the image and reality of competence.  [separate K-work dimensions, Haas and Hansen]

Satchel Page Defense

(“Don’t look back, somebody may be gaining on you.”)

If you wait to see what the competition is doing, it will be too late.

Fast to Fail Defense

Yes, a lot of new initiatives fail.  Capitalism is all about “creative destruction” and survival is Darwinian.  The future belongs to those who can evolve and adapt Fast.  ‘No worries’ about the failure rate, the winners make up for it.  [see Clay Shirky]

Counter-Attack Defense

Oh? You want to examine a waste of time?   Just how productive are the endless meetings around here?   What’s the ROI on your first class seat for dubious travel?  How about the business logic behind you arranging tee times with your golf buddies, eh?

Batting Average Defense

So what is the success rate of enterprise-wide software in your domain?  CRM?  SAP? BI?  Big bang IT seems to meet expectations about 20-40% of the time, and that's after huge ROI justification studies, and a price tag in hundreds of millions!  The E-2.0 suites are very inexpensive, and once installed are "general purpose technologies" that contribute in many ways, not highly specialized applications that are bolted to the floor, inflexible.

Organization Change Defense

Yes, this is a hard game to play and win, as to large scale behavioral change.  Our odds of success go up as we iterate our learning loops, reserve budget for extended training, allow systems to adapt / evolve to meet emerging user needs.  [see Peter Senge for Systems Thinking; see McAfee for “the long haul.”]

Neutrality of Tools Defense

Social software platforms and apps are just neutral tools.  They serve as enablers, accelerators, and potential lures into productivity. ‘What is the ROI of your cell phone?’  Nobody said the tools alone would transform a culture of not-sharing, not-borrowing. [And good luck changing a culture.]

Intrinsic Rewards Defense

With possible exception of crowd-sourcing a new business product, do not get distracted into monetary incentives for motivating collaboration.   Homo sapiens is already hard-wired to collaborate if you remove the barriers.  More to the point, extrinsic rewards have a terrible track record of unintended consequences.   If people need extra motivation to do their jobs, maybe we need to fire them, get some different people.

Reverse Engineering Defense

With guidance from our exec steering group, we selected three target areas for high impact demonstration projects in E-2.0.   Then we reasoned backwards to imagine how E-2.0 tools and processes might assist us meet goals.  That is where we are concentrating our efforts.   We are looking for Evidence, not Proof.