Boldly go where no one has gone before with Enterprise Social Networks

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Have you ever wondered if there’s a better way to collaborate socially? Do you feel like so many social platforms just provide you with too many distractions and not with meaningful conversations? What if you could use social platforms to get real meaningful work done?

Today, I’m joined by Luis Suarez. He works for panagenda and helps organizations work smarter, not harder through Social Business and Data Analytics. I had the privilege of knowing and working with Luis when he was at IBM.  (Note: Original Post on Linkedin on 13-Aug-2018 – LINK)

panagenda describes three purposes for their company:

1.      Facilitate social adoption in the enterprise

2.      Unleash the potential of social networking

3.      Transformation with all stakeholders involved

Luis and I spend 43 minutes discussing the differences between Open Social Networking Environments and Closed Messaging Environments and how those environments will affect the future of work.

The top three subjects we talked about:

1. Open versus closed social environments. How does this affect work and collaboration? Are email and messaging apps considered open or closed?
2. The future of work: When all mundane repetitive tasks are automated, what will the knowledge workers of the future be able to contribute? Hint: “Soft Skills”
3. Meaningful work: When work becomes a “hobby” due to the automation of knowledge worker jobs, what work will you want to participate in? What big world problems will you try to help solve?

Here are the complete show notes from our discussions:

• What are the Social Tools telling you based on the data it is giving you?
• Understand the difference between Enterprise Social Networking Platforms and Digital Messaging Tools.
• Technology is just an enabler. It is more important to help organizations understand how to transform the way they work.
• Enterprise Social Networks are now a “dirty word”. Now the new shiny objects are A.I., Blockchain, Cloud, Messaging Apps, etc.
• Innovate with new tools, but stop and think: “What is it I want to do in my organization?”
• To transform the way we work, we need to focus on the “people component”.
• Don’t focus on technology, focus on the people aspect of changing the nature of work.
• Beyond technology, what else?
• Are you still the “no email guy”?
• Learn more about the “No email day” = http://bit.ly/noemail-day
• Could you live without email? Even for one day?
• Luis still uses email to communicate with those people that refuse to communicate with anything else but email.
• We will NOT be able to change organizations by using email. Email is a 42-year-old dinosaur.
• Enterprise Social Networks by default promote Openness, Transparency, Collaboration.
• In contrast, email defaults to Protecting and Hoarding.
• Check out the No Email Youtube video here: http://bit.ly/noemail-luis
• Work moving into networks and communities versus top-down hierarchical teams.
• Email and file sharing is not going to help us change how we work. We need to “Think Different” – default to “Open” instead of defaulting to “Private”.
• Messaging Apps are still valid.
• When we face change, why do we adapt so readily in our personal lives, but don’t do that where we work?
• Why in our personal lives it like we live with the Jetsons, but when we come to work it’s like we’re living with the Flintstones?
• We have so many powerful tools in our personal lives, but when we go to work we strip that down and go back to the 1970s.
• What do you see as the next big evolution in Enterprise Social Networking in the next year or five years?
• Technology lifecycles: Groupware (limited access) –> Enterprise Social Networking (open) –> Messaging Apps (limited access).
• Wide Open Access to everyone versus Invitation only Exclusivity.
• Exclusivity limitations: scalability, discovery, serendipity, search in open spaces.
• We’ve moved back to private interactions with a prettier, sexier interface.
• These private tools like email, have moved our mindset back to protecting and hoarding my knowledge through email, file sharing and messaging.
• Future? 3 to 4 years of closed environments, which will then shift back to open environments.
• Working in the open of hyperlinks and trustworthy relationships will lead to less hierarchy and more ‘wirearchy’.
• As an employee, “How are you doing at work?”, the words they will describe their employment is: “Overburdened, Overworked, Exhausted”.
• Overworked employees are not sustainable. Employers need to look after the well-being of employees.
• What is the nature of work? Should we work as exhausted slaves? Or, should we work because we have a purpose?
• Automation or “Assisted Intelligence” will remove the slavery of work allowing humans to do what we do best: collaborative creative problem solvers.
• How do we enable employees to grown and continuously learn and contribute to a meaningful purpose?
• How do we become more creative and think outside the box?
• “Soft Skills” are not so soft, when they are essential to our survival – creativity, effectiveness, problem-solving.
• To learn more: http://bit.ly/survival-skills
• We’re going to start thinking of work as a “hobby” versus something you need to do in order to live.
• A tipping point might be when we write software and automation programs that can, in turn, write software.
• When software-related jobs are “vaporized” through automation, how do we employ these really intelligent knowledge workers whose former jobs were connected to software development?
• How can we use these knowledge workers to help solve the world’s big problems: hunger, clean water, proper sanitation, weather issues?
• IBM has a program called “Call for Code” to get developers to help solve problems related to Natural Disasters. To learn more about Call for code: https://developer.ibm.com/callforcode/
• Citizens will demand that organizations start contributing back to the communities and societies that nurture them.
• We’re going to be living longer healthier lives. The result is that people will want to contribute to meaningful transcendent work.
• Millennials also want to contribute to meaningful transcendent work to impact the societies in which they live.
• By 2025, organizations are going to have to focus on the impact they are having on society and not only on enriching shareholders, or they will not survive.
• We have survived as a species over 2 million years because we have been able to cooperate through all of that time.
• How do we inspire people to come to work to cooperate and collaborate with others to solve the world’s problems?
• Book Recommendation: “Neo-Generalist” by Richard Martin and Kenneth Mikkelsen
• We need to become multi-disciplinary specialists – this will trigger desirable traits of curiosity and courage in the work we pursue.
• “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” (Albert Einstein)
• Organizations have managed to kill our curiosity at work because curiosity triggers people to ask the tough questions.
• Traditional management is defensive against tough questions because they feel you are questioning their leadership.
• Leaders that inspire curiosity in their employees will create employees that will give their whole selves to the work and deep loyalty to the leader.
• Manager or Leader? http://bit.ly/frankorgeorge
• Curiosity will be one of our defining skills.
• Book recommendation from Louis Richardson – “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” – http://bit.ly/orbit-hairball
• How do we shake off the cult of “busy-ness”? Being busy just gets you through the day, but doesn’t deliver quality employee contributions.
• How do we free up time to allow for curiosity, creativity, and collaboration throughout the day?
• Conversation is the currency of work. It’s how work happens. How do we inspire people to have “Open Conversations”?
• Connect with Luis Suarez on Linkedin: http://bit.ly/linkedin-elsua

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