March | 2009 | Skilful Minds

SharePoint is not Enterprise 2.0 or Social Networking

March 18, 2009

Social Software Stack

The title for this post is drawn from a recent assessment of SharePoint 2007 offered on Thomas Vander Wal’s bog, Personal InfoCloud. Thomas’ post, as always, offers a unique point of view on what Enterprise 2.0 consists and, specifically, how SharePoint measures up. He isn’t offering his own formal assessment as much as reporting the stories clients and potential clients shared with him over the past couple of years. The social software stack, in particular the difference between collective understanding and collaborative understanding, frames Vander Wal’s perspective.

Given SharePoint’s widespread use, and the growing interest in applying social media applications to collaboration challenges in organizations, Thomas’ discussion deserves wider attention. His overall impression is well summarized in the following point.

SharePoint does some things rather well, but it is not a great tool (or even passable tool) for broad social interaction inside [the] enterprise related to the focus of Enterprise 2.0. SharePoint works well for organization prescribed groups that live in hierarchies and are focussed on strict processes and defined sign-offs. Most organizations have a need for a tool that does what SharePoint does well.

This older, prescribed category of enterprise tool needs is where we have been in the past, but this is not where organizations are moving to and trying to get to with Enterprise 2.0 mindsets and tools. The new approach is toward embracing the shift toward horizontal organizations, open sharing, self-organizing groups around subjects that matter to individuals as well as the organization. These new approaches are filling gaps that have long existed and need resolution.

In other words, SharePoint works well for situations in which defined groups need to reach a collaborative understanding of project requirements, their role in achieving those objectives, and what success means for the project. It works less well in providing resources allowing people across the enterprise, and across teams or departments, to discover connections with others and develop social relationships for networking together in ways that meet both personal and organizational challenges.

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12 Comments | Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Tagged: e-Learning 2.0, elearning 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, social networking, twitter, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons

Remembering VizAbility

March 3, 2009

viz Met Dave Gray, Andrew Simone, and Jim Durbin for coffee yesterday afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed the conversation over a range of topics. Dave’s approach to connecting visualization and explanation is always impressive. Andrew and I stayed around a while after the others left to talk about a range of things, but in particular his own interest in how we communicate what we know visually. The conversation led me to remember a Handbook from the mid-1990s that I worked through at one time called VizAbility, by Kristina Hooper Woolsey.

Upon entering my office at home I immediately pulled it out and popped in the CD to re-acquaint myself with a few of the exercises . I know a lot of books were written on visual design and communication over the past decade, but in my opinion VizAbility really stands out as both a classic and enduring resource of inspiration. It helped me through the visual design side of a couple of tough multimedia projects when I first read it in 1996. A short excerpt gives a good sense of its approach.

…for most of us, drawing is relegated either to our early school years or the hobbies of late adulthood, as if it were relevant on to the beginning and end of our lives. It is a skill that is approached lightly or not at all during the bulk of our education or professional activities.

But excluding people from the experience of drawing because they are not artistically “gifted” is like excluding people from speaking because they are not great orators or from writing because they are not first-class novelists. Drawing is not just a way to produce art, reserved for those talented in techniques and materials. It is a critial skill for bringing ideas into the world, and a tool for better learning and communication.

Anyone who doesn’t know the book ought to check it out. Now if I could just let that insight sink in again 😉

Posted by Larry R. Irons

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4 Comments | Experience Design, User Experience | Tagged: visual communication, visual design, visual thinking, vizability | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons

Finding the Social Core of Facebook Friends: Revisiting the Dunbar Number

March 2, 2009

A recent Economist article discusses the relevance of Dunbar’s Number to friending in Facebook, and its relation to the size of social networks, especially networks of close friends. The article addresses a similar issue outlined in an earlier post here on the influence of influentials on Twitter, which focused on findings of a recent study by members of the Social Computing Lab of HP Laboratories .