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  Carlos Zapater 9:00 am on May 22, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: business social networks ( 8 ), collaboration networks ( 7 ), enterprise social networks, social networks ( 32 ), video ( 10 ), zyncro ( 184 )   

  Once upon a time… there were social networks 

  Estimated reading time + video: 4 minutes

  Humans are social beings. Communication is a need to relate to others that we carry in our DNA. That need for communication applied to the business world is what has made us evolve from closed, boring and unparticipative ways to the new Social Networks that have emerged thanks to the Internet.

  But how did we make that journey from the birth of the Internet to current collaboration, management and shared knowledge tools of the social web? Discover with Zyncro the history of the Social Networks and their evolution up to the present day. We tell you all about it in this video.

  The new communication tools have transformed our way of working and have demonstrated that being social works! Want to start to work socially in your company? Try Zyncro and tell us about your experience.

  
  
   

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  Carlos Gonzalez Jardon 9:00 am on May 8, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: collaborative management ( 25 ), document management ( 12 ), enterprise social network ( 68 ), enterprise social networks, management 2.0 ( 28 ), project management ( 12 ), task management ( 3 )   

  Enterprise Social Networks and Project Management 

  Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

  Editor’s note: Today we would like to welcome a new author to our blog. The clarity of his first post has surprised us, and that has made us even more delighted about him joining our group of contributors. Carlos González Jardón (@cgjardon) is consultant and trainer in project management. With more than 18 years’ experience in the IT sector, his activities revolve around IT project management and quality standards such as CMMi. He holds a computer engineering degree from the Universidad de Vigo, an Executive Master’s from ICAI/ICADE and PMP certification from the Project Management Institute. He is currently consultant in Project Management at Tecnocom. Welcome and thanks!

  We live in a society where access to information is no longer the privilege of a few and has been democratized. Nowdays, in a single click, we can access a wide range of data from multiple sources: search engines, online newspapers, blogs, social networks… The technology revolution is causing a social and professional evolution, in how we relate to our environment. Information continues to be important, but how we access/acquire that information is gaining relevance.

  In this environment, an enterprise social network can become a vital tool that enables us to strengthen some key aspects in our work:

  • Speed. Quick decision-making.
  • Reliability. Quality of the data.
  • Collaboration: Share information.
  • Acccessibility: A single data source, multiple devices to access it.

  The subject is rather extensive, but we will look briefly at how an enterprise social network can help us in executing projects.

  Projects and Enterprise Social Networks

  In project management, communication is a critical factor. But what do we understand communication to be in a project?

  According to the PMBok® Guide (project management knowledge base), one of the leading references for any project leader, managing communication involves all processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, distribution, storage, retrieval and ultimate disposition of project information.

  In other words, the project manager needs to ensure that all project stakeholders have or have access to, at the right moment, the information required using suitable and efficient means. This is extremely relevant as poor management of communication and information in a project could cause the time that the project manager devotes to communicate, distribute, share and access the information to sky-rocket, and even bring the project to the brink of disaster.

  In order for the project manager to have the right information at each stage, they need to interact with their team, the customers, suppliers, and the ‘closer’ they are to the task being done, the better the information. Basically, the project manager needs to beSOCIAL with all those stakeholders in the project. It is not enough to have social skills based on ‘face-to-face’ interaction. We need to seek support from the tools that enable us to manage online or virtually multi-disciplinary and multi-site teams.

  In this scenario, an enterprise social network can play a differential role. If we share aspects of our daily lives, why shouldn’t members of a project team share, through an enterprise social network, their problems, doubts, concerns regarding the activities being performed in the project? This activity is already being done in the corridors, on the phone, but it is difficult to have a document support with the conclusions reached. Using collaborative tools can help to flourish and document information that would be lost otherwise. In those project-focused organizations, an enterprise social network can provide major value by sharing and accessing data easily and quickly.

  Benefits of Enterprise Social Networks in Project Management

  Although I’m sure there are many more, these are some of the benefits they can provide:

  Quick access to one of the best sources of knowledge: the team’s experience.

  The senior profiles are an excellent source of knowledge and that knowledge can be used to resolve different situations that we face daily in a project. Coaching, mentoring, tutoring, training or resolving of doubts can be done dynamically through an enterprise social network.

  Repository of project information and documents.

  Although this point has already been solved by many other tools, an enterprise social network can be the main point of access to shared resources. It means converting the current static or one-directional intranet (always focused from the company to the employee) into a social and collaborative environment ‘company-employee’ and ‘employee-employee’ (beyond a simple question-response network).

  Reduce “meetingitis”.

  In many organizations, there are too many inefficient meetings. Often we finish the day with the feeling that we haven’t done anything “productive”. Simple meetings to exchange information and update everyone can be replaced by short virtual meetings (e-meetings): for example, the status of our project, clarification of doubts, etc. These e-meetings will not replace face-to-face meetings, rather they will complement them and reduce them to the essential ones, as the cost, both economically speaking and cost-opportunity (what I don’t get done) is very high.

  Simplify management in multi-site environments.

  In environments where the team is located at different sites in the company or in the client (or even in teleworking situations), the social network will help us enormously with that task of “sharing”, reducing, or even eliminating problems resulting from not all being in the one place.

  Neglected management.

  On many occasions, we experience many short interruptions that break our usual work rate. Enterprise Social Networks mean that those short interruptions can be channelled through it to be answered at a later stage; or even they could be resolved by other members of the team collaboratively, leaving evidence of their resolution in the “social environment” itself.

  Our value lies not in what we know, rather how quickly we can “update” (learn what we don’t know, acquire knowledge) and how we share it with our co-workers.

  In this scenario, an enterprise social network can become a perfect work environment where different stakeholders in our project can interact according to their role, regardless of their physical location and time zone.

  The work environment is a clearly social activity in most cases, so why not use enterprise social networks? This way sharing knowledge among the project team can be more agile, although to achieve it, a cultural change is required in organizations.

   
   
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  Jorge Ávila 9:00 am on April 22, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: enterprise social network ( 68 ), enterprise social networks, internal communication ( 23 ), social communication, social networks ( 32 )   

  Social Communication: The new communication standard in businesses 

  Editor’s note: Today we would like to welcome a new Zyncro Blog author, Jorge Ávila is founder and CEO of @tresensocial, a company dedicated to promoting the professional use of social media in organizations. He is a trainer and keynote speaker in social networks and technology. An Activist’s soul, with a Businessman’s mind and a good Samaritan’s heart. We are especially delighted to have him as part of our usual bloggers, welcome Jorge

  Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

  During the era of email, some of us were blessed with the present that technology gave communication. We used it both in our professional and personal lives. But nowadays, that is not enough.

  In recent years, Social Communication (based on the social media model) has opened the way to such a point that today we know it will be the new communication standard both within and outside any company.

  Social Communication brings many benefits that our businesses are thankful for immediately, like for example:

  • Capturing not just information on your business, but also the conversations your team have around it. In other words, not just the documents that define our operations, but the why and how we have reached that point
  • Eliminating emails where your participation is not required, but at the same time, keeping this information available to you, as in Social Communication you only receive notifications when you are mentioned specifically or when something you have marked as interesting “is triggered”
  • Capitalizing on the talent available throughout your organization, as everyone can contribute (in visible conversations), no matter what their area or position within the company is
  • Integrating contributors in the exact point of the conversation, with all its context available, giving a more efficient communication than dozens of old emails can achieve
  • Having a direct communication, and hence improve our working environment; communicating is complex, and even more so if we have intermediaries that may cause (involuntarily) misunderstandings. Thanks to social communication, nowadays it is easier to have a direct dialog with our entire organization that will help us to transmit our message correctly. We all love being able to start a conversation with our leader

  Companies around the world already use this communication model, and even are inviting their providers and customers to their collaboration platforms, thus creating a collaborative ecosystem throughout the value chain.

  Of course, implementing them is not a platform issue. In a subsequent post I will look at the processes required for correctly adopting Social Communication in organizations. Meanwhile, let me share a “curious” fact: social networks like Facebook and Twitter have been “training” our employees in using Social Communication for years; so it wasn’t a bad idea to open social networks to employees after all, right?

   
   
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  Cristina Aced 9:00 am on April 9, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: communication ( 32 ), communication 2.0 ( 60 ), corporate communication ( 8 ), enterprise social networks, Public Relations 2.0, social media ( 20 ), social networks ( 32 )   

  Public Relations 2.0: 6 principles that remain current and 4 new ideas 

  Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

  Editor’s note: Today we welcome as author on our blog Cristina Aced (@blogocorp), who will discuss communication 2.0 and social media. We are delighted to have her join us. Thanks, Cristina!

  There are six principles that any communication manager must obey:

  1. Tell the truth.
  2. Prove it with action.
  3. Listen to the customer.
  4. Manage for tomorrow.
  5. Conduct PR activities as if the whole company depends on it.
  6. Remain calm, patient and good-humored.

  In fact, these tips are not mine, they are from Arthur W. Page, who was vice-president of public relations for the American Telegraph and Telephone (AT&T) and contributed to the development of modern public relations. Page was one of the first to join a company as an officer of communications, a usual practice nowadays.

  He established these basic principles at the start of the 20th century, although they could have been written today. It is a good example that shows the bases of corporate communication are still the same and illustrates the need to know the past in order to understand the present (and the future).

  In public relations, there are aspects that are still applicable from their origins, but there are also others that change (as I explain in my book Relaciones públicas 2.0. Cómo gestionar la comunicación corporativa en el entorno digital). Undoubtedly, the Internet and social media draw a new communication scenario, characterized by:

  • Conversation. Nowadays, the roles of emitter and recipient interchange constantly. Companies have to stop seeing themselves as simply emitters of contents and start to listen actively to their audiences on the Internet.
  • Open collaboration. As Pierre Lévy says, “no one knows it all, but everyone knows something”, and the new digital platforms facilitate this exchange of knowledge. Zyncro lets you create enterprise social networks that encourage collaborative work.
  • Economy in our attention. We live surrounded by an excess of information. For example, every minute 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. The difficulty lies not in having a presence on the Internet, but capturing users’ attention.
  • New intermediaries. Social media lets you reach the audience directly (fantastic for the communicator!) However, new gatekeepers have appeared: social tools. As Eli Pariser explains, we live in a filter bubble. Both Google and Facebook apply filters to the contents we receive and often we are unaware of them. For example, in Facebook we see the updates of the people we have “liked” the most before those with whom we have never interacted.

  As we can see, the social web offers new communication opportunities, and public relations professionals need to be ready to take advantage of them. Yet without forgetting the basic principles of a good communicator: honesty, truthfulness, empathy… As Arthur W. Page established at the beginning of the 20th century.

  Cristina Aced (@blogocorp) is a journalist and communication and public relations consultant. She has specialized in the digital area and has published several books on the topic. Her most recent one is Relaciones públicas 2.0. Cómo gestionar la comunicación corporativa en el entorno digital (Editorial UOC). She collaborates as a lecturer at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Open University of Catalonia, and at the Universitat Abat Oliba, among others. Since 2006 she has been writing at Blog-o-corp.

   
   
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  Bill Cushard 9:00 am on April 8, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: enterprise 2.0 ( 90 ), enterprise social networks, sales 2.0 ( 4 ), sales force ( 3 ), salesperson 2.0 ( 4 )   

  Improving Sales Enablement with Enterprise Social Networks 

  Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

  Editor’s note: Today we have the pleasure of presenting a new Zyncro Blog author: Bill Cushard (@billcush). He is an author, blogger, and learning experience (LX) designer with extensive, in-the-trenches experience building learning programs that leverage blended and social learning methods. You can follow him on Twitter or on Google+.

  According to the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), U.S. businesses spend $15 billion per year on sales training and that many sales people find the training ineffective or less than useful. This statistic should drive business leaders crazy because it forces them to ask what they are getting from such a large investment. And this number is just in the United States. Imagine what that number would be if one includes businesses around the globe. Because of the large amount spent on sales training each year, there is great value in solving the problem of improving the effectiveness of sales enablement efforts in organizations.

  The question is, “How can organizations improve sales enablement efforts, in order to get the most out of the large investment they are making in preparing the sales force to grow their businesses?” According to research, I believe there is promise in the use of enterprise social networks (ESN).

  Research is Pointing Towards ESNs

  In a 2012 article in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, it is suggested that the future of sales training must be individualized, jointly determined, voluntary, tailored to fit mutual needs and offered in various modes. Accordingly, the authors advise that future research should explore different types of technology delivery methods, including social, which could help improve sales training effectiveness.

  Enterprise social networks seem to satisfy this need, which is why I am conducting a research project for my dissertation to test Etienne Wenger’s (1998) social theory of learning. I am seeking to find out whether there is a relationship between participation of newly hired sales people on an enterprise social network and sales results. In other words, if newly hired sales people participate in peer-to-peer, social learning activities on an enterprise social network, will their sales results improve? According to a social theory of learning, it should.

  A Social Theory of Learning: How People Learn

  One key element of a social theory of learning considers that people learn through a back-and-forth duality between participation and reification. Participation refers to taking part in communication, activities, or events and applies both to individuals and groups. Reification refers to the process of solidifying the experience of participation in the form of resources. In other words, learning occurs when there is participation in conversation and available resources about a specific topic.  

  Where Enterprise Social Networks Come In

  Enterprise social networks are designed perfectly with the need for participation and reification in mind. Think about it. On an enterprise social network, people can continually participate in conversations and those conversations can contain links to resources and those conversations themselves become resources (reified conversations) that others can access.

  So, if sales enablement is an on-going process of equiping a sales force and learning occurs through an ongoing process of participation and reification, then enterprise social networks should be a foundational platform to get the most out of an organization’s sales enablement efforts.

  But how, you ask?

  There are many ways enterprise social networks can be leveraged to support sales enablement. Here are three ways to start:

  1. Find Experts: It is not always easy to find the right person with the right expertise in medium to large sized companies. This is especially a problem in companies with offices around the world. With an enterprise social network, people can find expertise from people they have never met and from people around the world.

  2. Ask Questions: We all get stuck on a problem from time-to-time. It could be in a sales meeting, a technical support call, or on a big project with new stakeholders. Sometimes, we do not have the answers we need. On an enterprise social network, we can ask a question. Sure, it is easy to ask questions from people who sit near you, but how do you ask questions of people who work in different offices? And how do you ask questions from people you don’t even know?  An enterprise social network empowers people to ask questions of anyone in the organization.

  3. Sharing Resources and Stories of Success and Failure: If I read an article about a major change to an industry that my company sells to, I can post that link to everyone in my sales organization so that the team is aware. To make my post even more valuable, I can add some commentary to set the context for why I think it is important. This commentary can spark a conversation from others and a discussion can occur that may impact a broader group of sales people.  Furthermore, I can share a recent success I had trying a new sales technique that might benefit the team. Someone else may comment on my story about how that same technique did not work for them. Others can ask further questions and decide for themselves whether the technique would work for them and how they could apply it to their situation. This is a scenario that no training can keep up with.

  Sales Enablement Is Not Just About Sales Training

  Sales enablement is not just about sales training. In fact, Forrester defines sales enablement as an ongoing process that equips client-facing employees to have valuable conversations with clients and prospective clients. Yes, training is vital, and so is a systematic sales process. But in order to foster and sustain an ongoing process that equips your sales force, an enterprise social network must become a foundational infrastructure in sales enablement efforts. As much as organizations spend on sales enablement, efforts to equip the sales force in a sustainable way should be a top priority.

  How do you use enterprise social networks to sustain your sales enablement efforts? Share your stories in the comments below. The sales force of Telefónica Latin America use Zyncro. This is our best example

  
  
   
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  Gloria Diez 9:00 am on April 4, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: enterprise social network ( 68 ), enterprise social networks, mobile ( 14 ), mobile social networks ( 2 )   

  The mobile future of enterprise social networks: 10 keys 

  Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

  Editor’s note: Today we are delighted to welcome a new contributor to our blog. Gloria Díez (@globadoo) leads the team at Wamba in London, where she supports the global marketing strategy and international business development of the company. She has lived in many cities across the world, speaks 6 languages, and has an MBA in Business Internationalization. It is a pleasure to have her here. Welcome!

  The way of socializing in the business world is headed towards mobile platforms. As another tool in the corporate world, enterprise social networks cannot escape the mobile fever.

  1. Mobile enterprise social networks are already here. Mobile traffic is growing in all social networks. In our system Wamba, around 30% users connect through a mobile version using our app Mamba for iPhone, Android and Windows. And the trend grows each month. We don’t have to go too far to find a good example in the business world: the Zyncro mobile app and its personalized apps for its customers, such as the “App On” for managing the sales team of Telefónica in 14 countries or the app for the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce that connects 15,000 companies.

  2. 87% of the world’s population have a mobile, with China being the country with the highest number of smartphones (246 million), followed by the United States with 230 millon. In the last three years, 300,000 apps have been developed and it is calculated that in 2017 the value of the global app market will be 12 billion pounds . Spain leads smartphone penetration in Europe with a penetration of 63%, ahead of the UK (62%), France (51 %), Italy (51%) and Germany (48 %) according to ComScore.

  3. We’re hooked. According to Nokia, we check our mobiles 150 times a day, six and a half minutes for every hour we are awake.

  4. Natural means of communication for the new generations. Or in other words, the future of the job market. According to MMA Spain, 65% of kids between 8 and 12 years old have a mobile, as do 75% of young people between 13 and 17 years. 45% of mobile social network users are young people between 18 and 30 years old, according to IAB.

  5. A large part of the Internet on smartphones has a socializing nature. In Spain, according to IAB, 56% of people who access social networks also do so through their mobile device, representing an increase of 47% in a year. According to Comscore, in Europe, 30% of mobile users accessed a social network or blog during the second quarter of last year, with 36% of Spaniards doing so.

  6. Fast growth in checking mail on mobiles. The proportion of emails opened in mobile devices reached 41% in the second half of 2012 and it is on its way to exceed desktop use by the end of this year.

  7. “Double Screen” effect. The mobile has become the “Kit-Kat” moment for taking a break from the computer. And whoever has not looked at their cell “a few times” at work may throw the first stone (or throw their old cell, stop being stubborn and buy a smartphone).

  8. Comfort and autonomy. For those colleagues who go from meeting to meeting or for that last minute detail you remember while waiting in line for the cinema. Contact via cell is comfortable, as it is always with the user and WiFi use is not essential.

  9. The possibilities of geopositioning. Without a doubt, the major added plus to smartphones when socializing is the possibility of locating other people around you. Localization services enable you to locate a colleague in the street before attending a meeting; receive notifications when the colleague you were waiting for has returned to their desk; find out where the event your colleague is documenting with photos is, or see from which office in your multinational that colleague you’ve never met in person is updating information. Geopositioning is also seen as a new tool for use in HR management.

  10. Will smartphones replace the computer in the business environment? Despite their boom, it seems unlikely that they can replace the comfort of the desktop in any case. However, in logistics or sales positions, the effect may be more notable.
   
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  Sonia Ruiz 9:00 am on March 22, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: collaborative work ( 14 ), enterprise 2.0 ( 90 ), enterprise social network ( 68 ), enterprise social networks, internal communication ( 23 ), Intranet 2.0 ( 18 ), management 2.0 ( 28 ), social intranet ( 19 ), whitepaper ( 4 )   

  [Whitepaper] Keys to convincing your director to implement an enterprise social network 

  Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

  You know all the benefits of implementing an Enterprise Social Network in your company…

  but you’re not sure how to convince your boss?

  Well, you’re in luck! Because today we are delighted to present the collaborative whitepaper by PrideCom and Zyncro with the key arguments for convincing management to incorporate an enterprise social network.

  This methodology is the first in a full series of reports that we will present over the coming months from Zyncro, your Enterprise Social Network, and PrideCom, the first Internal Communication 2.0 agency in Spain and one of the pioneers worldwide.

  In this whitepaper, you will find:

  1. Tips for approaching the internal sale phase of the project, with a special focus on how to argument the strategic objectives and benefits that it will bring the organization
  2. An exhaustive TO-DO list so nothing is left out
  3. A list of the myths that you will have to face, as well as their counter-arguments so that you leave no room for doubt.

  If you follow the steps we give you, we’re sure your boss will end up saying: When do we start?

  Download the whitepaper and become one of the first to get the best tool for selling a social project internally: Zyncro & PrideCom Thinking about implementing an enterprise social network, but not sure how to convince your boss?

  If after reading it you think you need some support in building arguments adapted to your organization, don’t hesitate to contact us and we will help you to make your internal sale a success. Write to us at: fans (@) pridecom.es and we will look at your case in more detail.

  Thanks to Zyncro’s experience with its customers and PrideCom’s expertise in cultural transformation, we will publish the essential methodological guidelines to make implementation of your Enterprise Social Network a complete success.

  Start by downloading the whitepaper and continue by putting your ideas into practice. You’ll soon see the results

  “Social attitude has an impact on your income statement”. So we need to present the impact that a digitalization project can have on business to management if we want them to buy in. This way, if you are thinking about embarking on a digital transformation initiative in your company, this whitepaper is perfect for you. It contains practical advice to approach the influence phase with management, an exhaustive TO-DO list so that nothing is left out, and a list of myths that we usually find in companies that will help you to structure your own arguments for internal sale.

  With this document, you will save the first stage in adopting a social project… and in a second stage you’ll have the challenge of converting your boss into a SuperCo leader, but more about that in another episode.

  What are you waiting for? Click here to download the whitepaper: Thinking about implementing an enterprise social network, but not sure how to convince your boss?

  Sonia Ruiz Moreno (@soniaruizmoreno) has more than 12 years’ experience in Corporate Communication in multinational environments. She is founder of PrideCom, the first Internal Communication 2.0 agency. Master’s in Corporate Communication from the Université de Lille III in France, degree in Journalism from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and member of the Internal Communication Board of DIRCOM. Speaker and lecturer at several business schools on Internal Communication 2.0

   
   
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  Ignasi Alcalde 9:00 am on February 20, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: collaboration ( 56 ), collaborative intelligence, collaborative management ( 25 ), enterprise 2.0 ( 90 ), enterprise social networks   

  Collaborative intelligence: Beyond collective intelligence 

  Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

  Editor’s note: Ignasi Alcalde has given us permission to use this article from his blog in which he reflects on the path towards collaborative intelligence. We wanted to post it as we share his interest in technologies 2.0 as tools for working the collaborative and horizontal side of communication. At Zyncro we believe that enterprise social networks encourage creativity and shared learning and we see them as the best opportunity for collaboration and exchange. What do you think?

  A few days ago I read in La Contra an interview with Jeremy Riffkin in which he made some curious comments about electricity. He said “what is revolutionary is its combination with the internet: the network brain. Authority will no longer be vertical, but distributive. The true revolution will spark when energy is transmitted by network and collective intelligence regulates its use.” When I read it, I instantly though of a quote by José Ortega y Gasset: “a civilization only endures if many contribute in the effort. If everyone prefers to enjoy the fruit, civilization collapses.”

  According Wikipedia, collective intelligence is a form of intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals or living beings of the same species, which is a term generalized by cyberculture or the knowledge society. In fact, he sees it as consensus decision-making, as it has been done effectively in the past by bacteria, small animals and insects like bees or ants… and it is framed academically within the field of Sociology, IT science and behavior of the multitudes, a field that studies the collective behavior at quark level to bacteria, plants, animals and human society.

  Extrapolated to people, Tom Atlee describes that collective intelligence can be encouraged “to overcome ‘groupthink’ and individual cognitive bias to allow a collective to cooperate on one process while reaching a higher intellectual performance” and George Pór defined the phenomenon of collective intelligence as “the capacity of communities to evolve towards higher order complexity and harmony, through such innovation mechanisms as differentiation and integration, competition and collaboration.”

  For me, a difference should be made between collaborative intelligence and collective intelligence, which represents a specific case. In collective intelligence, a final product emerges from actions of a group of persons who do not interact among themselves. Collaborative intelligence looks after problems where individual experience and different interpretations of several experts are critical for solving problems.

  A clear example of this application are practice communities, where professional groups and interested collectives exchange knowledge to develop a specialized knowledge, sharing learning based on shared reflection on practical experiences. Both types of intelligence are intimately related with the so-called Web 2.0 and more specifically, with some applications such as Management 2.0, E-Learning 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0.

  On the other hand, in both types of intelligence, there is a series of nuances clearly expressed through the concept “Power Law of Participation” from Ross Mayfield. Mayfield lists a series of activities through which the transition from collective intelligence to collaborative intelligence is made, characterized by greater involvement. These activities include: read, tag content, comment, subscribe, share, network, write, refactor, collaborate, and lead. Wikipedia represents the most paradigmatic example that illustrates collaborative intelligence.

  Collaborative intelligence also can be classified according to the degree and type of collaboration that individuals give to the end product. There are many modes of collaboration. For example, the “fusion mode” where each individual contributes something to the end product where that contribution is fusioned (as is the case of collective writing of articles in a Wiki system). Also there is the “molecular mode”, used in a book written by several authors where each contribution is maintained in its relative entirety within the bigger entity; the “collection mode” where each contribution is made to a greater whole that may be open (as is the case with YouTube, Flickr or blog systems like Blogger or WordPress); or a “agregator mode” , the most simple case being comments on a post in a blog, or on articles on news sites.

  As Ramón Sangüesa and Irene Lapuente from Co-Creating Cultures point out, technologies 2.0 enable you to work the most collaborative side or horizontality of communication as experts and non-experts can coexist on the Internet. They also say “the Internet has provided an opportunity for mass collaborative exchange, but it is also true that over time, we are witnessing an inflation in purely commercial applications in the social media. What we are interested in is the initial value of a part of this collaborative technology and what we do is hybrid this collaborative work impulse, with participative design methods, to create a learning opportunity. This new reality can be brought to other levels and start knowledge exchange projects and the capacity for reflection and empowerment, giving many people a voice, and enhancing the capacity for creativity and learning”.
  

  To do this, Design Thinking is a concept that is becoming more widespread in the business world, and more specially, in the areas of competitivity. It is linked with the way in which professional designers think, approach problems and reach solutions. It is an attitude towards problems and the challenges that the limits impose in problem solving.

  Ignasi Alcalde (@ignasialcalde) is a Graduate in Multimedia from the UOC and holds a Master’s degree in the Information and Knowledge Society. He is consultant in IA and teaching consultant at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. He shares his thoughts on collaborative work on his blog and his twitter feed.

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  Ignasi Alcalde 9:00 am on January 24, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: collaboration ( 56 ), enterprise 2.0 ( 90 ), enterprise social networks, organizational culture ( 13 )   

  Effective Collaboration: Beyond Enterprise Social Networks 

  According to Forrester Research, the international software business for creating and managing enterprise social networks will grow annually by 61%, reaching a turnover of approximately 6,400 million USD in 2016. In other words, it supports the obvious trend that enterprise social networks are becoming the central communication pillar for businesses, promoting collaboration, cooperation and synergies between employees.

  The change from static intranet to enterprise social networks is a reality, and they will become the main communication tool in companies over the next few years. This, in my opinion, is due to two key reasons. The first is that static intranets have a closed and organized structure based on departments, units, areas, folders and services, often organized according to ICT logic. This is a reflection of a relationship model designed for production, based on the division of work and the exhaustive control of operations. At this stage of the 21st century it is obvious that in the current environment of an information and knowledge society that is in constant evolution, has global interdependencies, and which is digitalized and hyper-connected, businesses cannot base themselves solely on these types of model.

  The other reason they will end up clearly becoming part of the business environment is the tools in the “cloud” concept. Apart from being more economically attractive than company ICT structures, the cloud facilitates the ubiquity and accessibility in real time of company information to employees and customers.

  But let’s look a little bit beyond the obvious. Recently I gave a workshop, together with Laura Rosillo, at the Madrid headquarters of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, called “The 3Cs: towards a culture of collaboration in companies”, where, over three days, we reflected with a group of HR professionals on the advantages of promoting collaboration within organizations to be more competitive in the new economy. We mainly explored the reasons of “The Economy of Collaboration”, the why and how of sharing within organizations. It is obvious that knowledge is in people and is strictly personal, and that it is based on information, its understanding, implementation and the accumulation of subsequent experiences and learnings.

  This is well defined by Maite Darceles in her book Guías para la transformación (Guidelines for transformation), in which she explains that “what surrounds people is information, not knowledge. Books in libraries, all types of information on the internet, reports in our archives, statistics, scientific publications… All of it is information that, through the knowledge of people, obtains value in multiple forms… Information and data can be systematized, procedural, but knowledge can’t. The relevant fact will be its use in the organization, in other words, how people learn and how they act using their knowledge, in a continual flow, interaction and recursiveness”.

  And there lies the challenge, beyond the tool is a business culture change, which leads to a transition in a purely transactional and hierarchical environment towards relationship spaces of people, ideas, experiences, knowing if we really want to progress towards the economy of knowledge and therefore be innovative and competitive.

  Ignasi Alcalde is a Social Business Advisor and teaching consultant at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. His also publishes his reflections on collaborative work, on his blog and on twitter

  
  
   
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  Maria Ripoll Cera 9:00 am on January 4, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: enterprise 2.0 ( 90 ), enterprise social networks   

  To digitalize a brand is to transform it 

  Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

  

  Five large brands have confessed that they will “invest more in social media in 2013″. The conclusions of Catalina Pons, Bea Bahima, Mireia Guix, Anna Martin and María Abad, digital managers (in the same order) at Intervida, Bacardi, Tous, Philips and Ford, invited by Epsilon to the First Exclusive Forum for Digital Managers at Esadecreapolis, confirm that social media is more than justified.

  Does social media sell?

  The Mecca of social ecommerce that obtains sales through social recommendations is currently overseas news in Spain. Even for Bea Bahima, social media is not the most efficient way to sell. However, it has become a common ingredient in campaign management, forming part of prelaunch briefings with stories of intrigue -as Ford has done-, or connecting “with the consumer in the regions we want to occupy”, explains María Abad. “Social Media doesn’t create direct sales, but it does create the possibility of becoming Top of Mind” was the general conclusion to this question posed during the Forum.

  Social media in 2013

  When these five women who are top level managers were asked about future digital plans for their companies, they were unanimous in the commitment to content as the main pillar of the digital strategy, particularly on Facebook and YouTube. “At Bacardi we will use social media to learn what our followers want and to give them the contents they are interested in, working by territory using simple 20-second videos” explained Bea Bahima. Ford is already investing in co-creating and making products using their consumers’ suggestions, and in encouraging their employees to be brand opinion leaders, whilst Tous intends to consolidate its international strategy by externalizing its digital management, to better connect with the markets. 2013 “is the time to engage by using information obtained from social networks”, adds Catalina Pons.

  “Favourable opinions help us increase our product margin. This way we talk the same language as sales”, reveals María Abad, when asked how they justify their budget to management. “We ask of digital what we ask of communication”, adds Bea Bahima, who explained the case of fashionable entertainment venues that have not invested in maintaining a community and have seen how opinion leaders have made other venues more fashionable.

  The social media management of a brand

  “The key to digitalizing the company is understanding the internal processes and acting as a facilitator”, reveals Bea Bahima, who is responsible for this process after many years working for Bacardi. Mireia Guix adds that it is important to share the process with various technical profiles, with a communication vision. All of the speakers coincide as to the relevance of recruiting an internal community manager, who reflects the values of the company and responds creatively to its day to day work.

  And they have their work cut out. Tous, for example, manages an international, bilingual Facebook page from Barcelona and 8 by local CMs, with who they share common contents and report their local proposals. Bacardi locally manages global pages on Facebook. And they all have a “dos and don’ts” manual for digitally managing the brand. “But the most important thing is to capture mails of followers so that you don’t have to depend on the channels where you are present”, concludes Bea Bahima.

  Monitoring is one of the areas that will evolve most: “the challenge of monitoring is to make use of the information that networks provide”, says Catalina Pons. “Every two weeks we summarize what has been going on, on the network to look for solutions” explains Mireia Guix, “social media intelligence allows us to adapt our content to the different markets”. “At Ford we measure using specific security and design parameters, to focus on communication and verify that new followers are correctly affected by the brand attributes”, points out María Abad. “We look at the noise share in the market compared to the competition, we look for useful information”, adds Bea Bahima. “We have a lot of analytics but little intelligence, the key is to know how to ask for what we want to analyze”.

  “Digitalizing a brand is an internal transformation” concludes María Abad”, it requires building teams, training, consulting, contents. Brands now work with an extra element: being interesting”. Something that an enterprise social network like Zyncro can manage in an internal and personalized way.

  María Ripoll Cera is a digital communicator and promoter, as well as being a writer. You can find out more about this author on her Spanish website, which we at Zyncro highly recommend.