connecting a distributed workforce - originally uploaded by kolya

Physical spaces within large enterprises like IBM transforming to meet the changing demands of an increased mobile workforce. As employees work from home more often, or have a laptop and work on–site with their customer – they are less likely to have a permanent desk in the office. Groups of peers may be geographically dispersed. Additional demands in large global enterprises include:

• Global workforce
• Maturing workforce & retirees
• Gen Y attrition and retention

The greater sense of connectedness can occur through online communities. Individuals are enabled through access to social computing. They can create personal profiles on social networks and use social media to share and connect with others around the globe – behind the firewall and in the public domain.

Events provide opportunities for people from different teams and lines of business to connect. Virtual events, competitions and challenges give individuals the opportunity to innovate and use their skills. Online communities become a place for connection across the company. Communities may be based upon business unit, special interest groups, projects, skills or personal interests.

Online communities are enhanced with access to social media and social networking sites. For instance Secondlife, Facebook, YouTube, Podcasting, Twitter, Ning communities, Flickr, blogging, social bookmarking, BluePages and Fringe+1

Three key considerations for addressing the issue of segmentation:

Purpose. Workplace example – IBM Values, Innovation Jam events, Beehive (Internal Facebook) Events, Group projects.

• Decide on the types of initiatives for individuals, groups and larger events
• Determine the benefits to the organisation and the individuals
• Consider including strategic organisational issues and challenges for collaboration

Enablement. Workplace example – IBM Social Computing Guidelines. Give people access to the tools and and provide guidelines.

• Provide the tools/websites/learning environments
• Provide education “what’s in it for me?”
• Promote awareness

Facilitation. Workplace example – Voluntary social computing ambassador roles. Departments host and facilitate virtual and physical events.

• Nominate individuals as advocates and facilitators
• Decide on events
• Measure success of events

What do you think about the need for the creation of physical and virtual events, enablement and facilitation to connect segments in an organisation?

This new interplay of information and communication demands a new focus on personal integrity. We read about it in workplace guidelines, but do we ever stop to think about the critical role of personal and professional integrity in an increasingly flattened and open world?

Before you plan to interact and connect with the ‘smartcrowd’, step back and assess your own personal and professional level of integrity (for instance, honesty, respect, values…)

Integrity seems to go hand in hand with a good virtual communication plan, but too often the focus is just on the technology. (Previously posted on IBM’s Innovation Jam 2008.)

Some more food for thought in this video by Gary Vaynerchuk

Here’s a response from the delightful Sacha Chua

Living with integrity makes things easier. You don’t have to worry about who sees what, what you said to whom, or who tagged you in which photos. Your reputation is also more resilient: even if someone attacks you without basis, your previous record shows your consistent trustworthiness. I think that as we share more and more of our lives, people who live with integrity will find it easier to gain trust and reputation, and people will be more discriminating about who they work with.

What does that mean for business and social networking? It could give an advantage to people who share information. If you had to choose between someone … you didn’t know anything about and someone you knew something about–mostly good things, maybe a few personal foibles–who would you feel more comfortable working with?”

An Industry Analyst also asked

I wonder if we are in fact going back to the way things were when we lived in hunter-gatherer tribes, and everyone knew, really knew, everyone else. There was no choice about integrity – it defined your role in the tribe, and could mean life or death, literally.

Then, our community was defined by geography. Today, our communities may not have physical limitations, but in all other respects, we will become as open to scrutiny as we used to be. The hard part is that we have a two-thousand year civilisation, which has in some way, contributed to an aberration … to this transparent integrity. How do we avoid ditching the baby with the bathwater?

What do you think? Is the characteristic of personal integrity becoming more critical for individuals to nurture, as social media permeates our working and personal lives?

Women around the world share their stories
Bringing hope and inspiration
Connecting with women living in poverty
In turn, they invest in changing their world

Small business owner in India, image originally uploaded by Iron Fillings

This is my submission to the 25 word challenge by Liz Strauss.

The 25 Words that Connect Us Project

You can join in too. Here’s how

1. Think about connections, connectedness, being linked together, synchronicity, serendipity, community, oneness.
2. Write a sentence about it.
3. Count the words you have written.
4. Edit the sentence until you have 25 words exactly. Notice how your idea changes as you edit and how your feelings change with each rewrite.
5. Add a picture if you can.
6. Post your 25 words on your blog by October 16th.
7. Link back to her post or leave a link to your post in the comments section.

For instance, what if you were paralysed?

” A paralysed man using only his brain waves has been able to manipulate a virtual Internet character, Japanese researchers said Monday, calling it a world first. The 41-year-old patient used his imagination to make his character take a walk and chat to another virtual person on the popular Second Life website. “… “In the experiment, he wore headgear with three electrodes monitoring brain waves related to his hands and legs. Even though he cannot move his legs, he imagined that his character was walking. He was then able to have a conversation with the other character using an attached microphone, said the researchers at Japan’s Keio University. It is the first time a paralysis patient has succeeded in meeting a person and having a conversation in an Internet virtual world, they added.”

(hat tip Kim Flintoff)

Or what if you had autism?

It’s a great opportunity for connection.

• start to think beyond themselves and contribute to something greater
• think about ways to make technology make life better
• connect with one another
• learn something new
• enable others
• dream big dreams
• communicate something meaningful
• express something beautiful
• think beyond the everyday
• put purpose into action

It’s a good thing social media allows me to connect with other workplace idealists (and pragmatists and cynics) too!

What are the “ideals” that inspire you at work?

Other virtual worlds have not given me the same connection. Even having the ability to select from a small smorgasbord of avatars in Active Worlds doesn’t seem to help, I want the ability to customise and be animated. In the same way, I find it difficult to relate to other avatars there, it doesn’t seem to be as “freestyle” as Secondlife.

Do you have an affinity with your avatar? Does your avatar selection help you connect with and be immersed in your virtual world environment?