Related to my recent posts on burst working as well as my past Enterprise 2.0 posts, UK-based social computing and Enterprise 2.0 expert, Euan Semple has a great post recounting a workshop he conducted at the BBC on the introduction of social computing tools as an approach to increase collaboration and knowledge management (among the many other benefits, I’m sure he touched on).
While in part funny, Euan’s post is strongly reflective of the attitude I (as well as my colleagues Matthew Hodgson and Andrew Boyd) see from the management at many of the client sites I work on. Foremost in Euan’s tale are these three factors:
- lack of trust of workers
“I could never trust my staff to use these sorts of tools”, he said, “they would end up wasting all of their time”.
- perception that busy work is the only work with intrinsic value
“I go to lots of meetings”
- the status quo holds sway over the opportunity for progress in may workplaces
There is a lot wrong with the workplace currently yet it is often not questioned to the same extent as proposed changes are. Andrew is right some current assumptions are very strongly held and won’t go away over night.
The recent online (and offline) discussion between me, Andrew and Matthew has us thinking about what might be involved in coming up with a compelling package of material to present at government and public sector management conferences and to senior managers directly in order to convince them of the value of allowing and even encouraging access to social computing and similar Enterprise 2.0 tools. I get the feeling that we might actually be roping this together in the next couple of months and putting it forward for consumption.
One Comment
Steve,
you’ve no doubt seen it, but Seth Godin wrote a good post on meetings a couple of days back. Imagine envying someone who only spends 30% of their time in inward-facing meetings.
Cheers, Andrew