Five Moves of Power Users in Enterprise 2.0

Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee recently penned an interesting post, Should Knowledge Workers Have Enterprise 2.0 Ratings? The post examines the idea of applying ratings to workers based on their activity with social software applications. Ratings would be part of the toolkit of adoption techniques.

The comments to his post are a good discussion about the problems with this approach. These ratings hold the potential to undermine the spirit of "let's get people talking and collaborating" that defines Enterprise 2.0. That's not to say the idea is wholly without merit. But "ratings" carry negative connotations in this context. Maybe there are "levels" that employees could earn, without the stigma of having a low "rating".

His post did cause a discussion here at Connectbeam. Rather than focus on ratings, we wondered:

How would a power user operate in our application?

There are actually a lot of ways. This being a blog, and we're going to keep things tight. Here are five that we came up with...

The Power Moves

1. SEO your social profile. On the web, those whose success is built on people finding them are very good at maintaining their profiles. Profiles are a basis for being found (e.g. LinkedIn). Inside a company, same rules apply. The power users will be unusually good at building their Connectbeam Social Profiles with key words, along the lines of search engine optimization techniques. The Connectbeam app lets you find people in two ways:

• People search based on terms in their profiles
• Recommendations based on common expertise, interests and projects

Want to ensure your reputation precedes you and co-workers know what you can do? Maintain a vibrant Social Profile.

2. Build a good-sized social network base. Out on the Web, there are individuals who have successfully built up a following of ten of thousands of individuals on Twitter and on their blogs. There are two benefits to developing your own community:

• You can learn a variety of information and viewpoints from others
• You can get your message out to a large number of people, who will in turn talk about it with their networks

Now those kinds of numbers are pretty daunting. Inside the enterprise, power users don't need that big a network. But having a good-sized network does provide them with an information advantage, and a fast way to communicate out to the organization at large.

How to build out a good-sized social network? See #1 above, and read on below.

3. Comment, engage, discuss. A key understanding of social networks is that people want interaction. For many social media first-timers, that can be one of the biggest challenges: how to get the conversation going. The Enterprise 2.0 power user understands this, seeks out areas of interest, and interacts. This simple act does two things:

• It creates a bond between the power user and others
• It moves the ball forward in terms of drawing people into the larger enterprise conversation

A central point of Enterprise 2.0 is to collaborate. Having power user instigators who can push things forward is a tremendous value. And they get the benefit of building a strong internal network.

4. Celebrate and communicate the workstreams of others. Recognition and acknowledgment are important motivators of employees. In Connectbeam employees will see bookmarks, wiki entries, blog posts, etc. The power user will find those nuggets shared by others, and celebrate them. This is not easy - if one re-shares things that others don't find useful, the power user quickly loses status.

But having the talent to spot useful information shared by others accomplishes two things:

• Raises awareness for valuable information that will help co-workers and the company
• Motivates the original source of the information to connect more closely with the power user

In Connectbeam, one can simply re-share a bookmark from one Group to another, including attribution in the comments field. Or one may maintain an internal blog that lists the "best of" information shares. Or even the occasional email pointing to the bookmark.

5. Share information with a vengeance. Build up the set of information you share with others. Share relevant information often. Be it in web bookmarks, wiki entries, blog posts, etc. If the content shared is relevant and useful, the power user's name tends to show up a lot when others in the organization are looking for information in the Connectbeam application. Don't think that goes un-noticed.

Want to develop a reputation for expertise and understanding markets/technologies/customers/etc.? Share with a vengeance.

Those are five moves of the Enterprise 2.0 power user. What we like about them is that they are not only good for an individual's career, but also are good for the organization. If you think of any others, feel free to leave a comment.

Comments

[Daria]

It still takes a lot for people to realize that these simple moves will do much for them. But in fact, in the time of economic downturn things are promicing to be faster. More and more corporate leaders see the benefits of Enterprise 2.0. It would be great, if their employees followed them immidiately.

[Hutch Carpenter]

Hi Daria - Agreed. The idea that your contributions and participation make you more valuable inside a company is one that many employees are still learning. It's going to happen, as they see their peers start to get the benefits from participation.

[Linda27]

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