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Does the stardard SaaS pricing model work for Business Social and Collaboration Services ?

2012-03-30T12:48:10Z

Look at the cost of using any SaaS offering and you’ll be presented a varying scale of Per User prices. The scales change usually depending on how many Users you’re expecting to use the service. Vendors do this so that they can “reward” larger Customers because, like the airline industry, in SaaS numbers mean everything. You stand up an infrastructure and the fuller it is the more profitable it is – just like the airline industry and was the reason given by Microsoft for the recent reduction in the prices for Office 365. But the similarities start to blur when it comes to pricing models. Whereas airlines will start off cheaper and get more expensive as the plane fills up with a SaaS service there’s no benefit to Customers whether it’s empty, half empty or nearly full. Pricing is all about HOW MANY seats you want. So if a SaaS provider can fill their infrastructure with organisations requiring a small number of seats (thus paying a higher per seat price) then it’s far more profitable than if they filled it with a few large Customers. (This ignores the cost of sale, on-boarding, support etc. but bear with me).

Per User pricing can work well for organisations as it is so closely matched to the scale of their usage. It can also mean that organisations that might not be big enough to afford to buy a sophisticated ERP system, even though that’s what their business needs, can afford to buy a few seats on the vendors SaaS platform.

But does Per User pricing always work best for the Customer ?

When I joined PFIKS we had a SaaS offering for their Intelligus product. It was aimed at three main markets; small scale implementations, short term projects or organisations that wanted to test drive Intelligus before committing to installing the service in-house. I persuaded them that a full blown SaaS offering was a good idea.

So naturally I sat down and started to work out a pricing model for larger scale implementations. Which, of course, was Per User. After building my spread sheet so that I could tweak a few variables so that I could quickly model various options I came up with a number of approaches to discuss with colleagues.

The problem was that I wasn’t really happy with any of them.

Intelligus is an Enterprise Social Networking product. It allows people to collaborate, share knowledge, communicate, interact use Social tools etc. By its very nature the more people using the service the more potential benefit the organisation gains. Add the fact that doing all those things beyond the boundaries of the organisation – with your partners, suppliers, customers (which may be the general public) – can be even more valuable and you have a situation where you want to positively encourage as large a use of the service as possible.

So what’s the problem ? Why don’t I have a huge grin on my face ? I have a service that not only generates revenue year on year but also probably grows year on year even if I don’t increase the price and the number of employees at the Customer remains static.
You’re right I should have a smile on my face. But now let’s think about the proposition I put to my prospects.

“I have a service that you’ll find difficult to judge how many users there’ll be and the costs will rise based on numbers but you want all employees to actively encourage other people (both inside and outside the organisation) to use the system so it’s going to be really difficult to budget for.” Add to this that the benefits can be difficult to quantify and measure in order to build a classic ROI case and you start to see some of the problem. There are not many organisations that will sign up for service where trying to control the number of seats they are paying for may have a detrimental effect on the benefits gained from the service.

Like all SaaS vendors I recognise that I need to cater for different sizes of organisations so the Per User model still works for small and medium size organisations. But it must be at a level that doesn’t act as a barrier to adoption. If the pricing creates a situation where people are having to select who is worth collaborating with or who might have the most useful knowledge to share or who might make the most insightful comments on blogs or forums then the system has failed.

So I think we need a Per User price which at an appropriate point up the scale turns into a fixed price. So it resembles a hosting service of old. Buy it’s in the Cloud so it’s still SaaS, right ? Just not priced Per User.

Now it's not just prospective employees that'll scrutinise your Social Networks

2012-01-27T12:19:20Z

Just to add to the paranoia surrounding the use of Social Networks about how prospective employers will scour the net to find out about applicants and all those dubious comments made whilst under the influence or those photos that at the time seemed hilarious.

Well Big Brother just got BIGGER.

The BBC is running an article about the FBI looking for someone to develop a mash-up to search through all the main Social Networks looking for signs of what the "bad guys" are up to around the world.

The technologies are already there - which is why the FBI are asking for someone to build a mash-up and not a brand new piece of software. Intelligus already takes in streams from these Social networks and lets you filter the data on different criteria and semantic searches.

The good news is that we'll all be able to sleep safer in our beds as the good guys will be one step ahead of the bad guys.

Remember how our Bobbies found the two plonkers that posted Facebook pages encouraging people to go and wreck their town centres during the riots and nobody turned up ? I certainly feel safer that we banged them up for 6 months !

I'm sure that they are aiming higher than these two in their plans for using the new mash-up. However I'm equally sure that the Taliban in South Waziristan don't Tweet that they are just jumping in a pickup and driving off to a planning meeting in Babar Ghar.

One of the big points we make about Intelligus is that its ability to filter out the "noise" from what's useful is a key feature. One of the slides we use to represent this says it all

UKGovcamp 2012

2012-01-23T11:30:06Z

Friday 20th January saw the annual UKGovcamp take place at Microsoft's Victoria Street offices in London.

UKGovcamp is an unconference. Meaning there's no pre-set agenda. The agenda is agreed by the attendees in the first session of the morning. So by about 10:45 there were 40 sessions agreed for the rest of the day in the different breakout rooms allocated to the event. Lots of diverse sessions on a good spread of topics for everyone to get their teeth into.

Luckily there were no clashes for me on the sessions I wanted to join so first up was a session on Yammer. 30 people in a room discussing how they use a service that most of them had snuck in "under the wire" was quite entertaining. Discussions ensued about the danger of announcing too widely that they were using the service in case IT blocked it at the Firewall. Talk about how do we get over the fact that the data isn't stored in the UK (as per Government directives) - don't mention it and perhaps they won't ask was suggested quite a few times. But interestingly for me those people in the session that were using Yammer were using the Free version and didn't see a need to upgrade to the paid for service. As there's no advertising on Yammer and nobody in the session had any intention of paying them an money now or in the future I really don't understand the business model. The only Freemium service I have experience of is Spotify and it's really clear and pretty compelling why I'd chose to upgrade to one of the 2 paid for options available. I encouraged everyone from Local Government to take a look at KHub.

There seems to be a real buzz around the whole topic of using technology to better serve the tax payer whether it was a local or national department, which was refreshing to see considering the bad press the use of IT in Government gets all the time.

I sat through a couple more sessions on topics around the use of Social Media and Collaboration and the buzz was very encouraging until the topic of budgets arose and that seemed to put the dampener on many people's enthusiasm. Though it was encouraging that the general opinion was that the gulf between the younger and older generations in their understanding and acceptance of the new technologies around Social Media was getting noticeably smaller. It's becoming a way of life in business so we should all embrace it. Just be careful which pictures you upload to your business Facebook account I've definitely seen stuff that needed to be on their personal Facebook account !

Why did we replace Lotus Notes?

2012-01-19T13:01:03Z

Around the time Lotus Notes began to go out of fashion around a decade ago I was involved in a protracted debate that took place within a large multinational for which I worked. Why isn’t Lotus Notes working for us?

Lotus Notes doesn’t work for us, argued global I.T, because it’s too anarchic – anyone can create a database, there’s too much proliferation of content, people just don’t know where to go. We have to take control and people will benefit from structure and relevance.

The business complained that Lotus Notes was too inflexible, submitting change requests for the creation of databases, access changes and the like stifled creative output and team engagement.

So out went Lotus Notes. In reality, there was probably nothing fundamentally wrong with Lotus Notes as a forerunner to today’s collaborative products. We just couldn’t agree how we wanted to use it. Many of the issues were most likely attributable to the psychology of collaboration and knowledge sharing, and this is still relevant today.

Many customers worry about the freedom of participants to create collaborative communities at will, others are excited by the ability for peers to get the job done, free from bureaucratic constraints.

Understanding that differences in mind-set exist is more important, for me, than the technology. The technology simply needs to be flexible enough to accommodate the different psyche of collaborators – cautious or all embracing, frequent\ infrequent users – in order that all participants gain as much or as little as they need and everyone edges closer to achieving a common goal.

We at PFIKS understand how to help customers get the most from our collaboration platform – we’re professional technologists and amateur psychologists.

Maximising the power of collective knowledge

2012-01-03T11:33:34Z

Thanks to Steve Dale for this blog posting that he has posted on his personal blog.

Introduction

This is a summary of one of the breakout session I ran at the Cisco Public Services Summit, Oslo 9-11 December 2011. It describes the role of Communities of Practice in supporting more effective collaboration and knowledge sharing between organisations working in the public sector. It notes the key lessons learnt from a 6-year journey, starting from the launch of the UK local government CoP platformin 2006 and how this led to an ambitious attempt to create a new kind of platform for online collaboration and data sharing – the Knowledge Hub. The slides are embedded at the foot of this post, and also available at Slideshare.

Project Purpose

The main purpose of the project was to break down some of the silo’d work practices both within councils and across the public sector. Local councils were delivering the same set of services, but were not learning from each other about good/best practice. This was also the first time that communities of practice had been used within the public sector environment as a process and methodology for encouraging knowledge sharing and personal development.

I’ve made clear in the slides the difference between “Communities of Practice” (CoPs) and “Social Networks”. Put simply, CoPs operate from a sense of shared values and objectives. Social Networks support a far more personalised agenda, or in other words, its “we” as opposed to “me”.

The following points correspond to the slide presentation, and as noted previously, represent the lessons learnt from a 6-year journey.

Communities of Practice - Lessons Learnt

1. Don’t expect everyone to join in.

Command and control structures are alive and well, particularly in public sector organisations. Joining a CoP where status and rank mean nothing, and where the free-flow of knowledge is encouraged can be a bit of a culture shock for some people. By all means encourage colleagues and managers to join, but accept that collaboration and knowledge sharing doesn’t come easy to some people. Concentrate efforts instead on building trust between those who want to be there and create a safe haven for knowledge.

2. Community Facilitation is essential.

You need a community facilitator or moderator to provide cohesion and maintain direction for the CoP. Almost without exception, the most successful CoPs had a good and effective facilitator. Some of the roles and duties of a facilitator include:

a. Supporting sociability, relationship and trust building

b. Seeding and feeding discussion topics

c. Maintaining and sustaining the community ‘rhythm’.

d. Curating and signposting knowledge artefacts for capture and reuse

e. Helping to connect community members

f. Providing help with the CoP tools and facilities

g. Ensuring the community space is kept "tidy" and navigable

h. Reporting CoP activity – metrics, evaluations, newsletters

i. Monitoring success criteria and impact.

3. Establish your KPIs.

Be clear about what your CoP is trying to achieve. Remember this is a “community” so engage with the members to agree purpose and intended outcomes. Once the purpose and outcomes are agreed you can identify the metrics that will measure progress. Try to use a combination of qualitative and quantitative data for the metrics you measure.

When monitoring the metrics, remember that each CoP will have a particular rhythm or cycle. Some will be light on discussion and strong on shared document building and vice versa. Others will be ‘one-shot’ supporting a single challenge. Not all communities will be a hive of activity; some will support its participants at a low level of interaction over a long period, others for short bursts around face-to-face-meetings or events.

Key lesson: Don’t rely on metrics to claim your community is successful; use metrics and indicators to understand your community better.

4. ROI can be measured.

You can guarantee that someone, sometime, somewhere is going to ask about return on investment. I’d much prefer to consider the “I” in ROI as meaning “Impact”, but we live in a world where – for some – value can only be measured in terms of cash saved. Be prepared for this and consider how ROI can be quantified. In the example for local government CoPs we identified cash savings for online (virtual) conferences compared to physical (face to face) conferences and found that on average £8000 can be saved for each on-line conference. Online conferences have now become a fairly regular feature, so the potential savings continue to accrue.

5. Hotseats generate heat!

Hotseats are where you invite a recognised expert or illuminory to spend some time answering questions from the community. The event should be promoted and advertised in advance to generate interest, and the person invited into the hotseat can seed the discussions by issuing a statement or question (possibly controversial) prior to the hotseat starting. Questions and answers are posted in the forum. The event can generate a lot of interest and discussions within the community usually continue long after the hotseat has finished.

6. Use stories to promote the benefits

Don’t just rely on newsletters, statistics or case studies to promote the benefits of the CoP. Bring it alive through stories and anecdotes from the community members. Publish, promote and reward these stories. There is no better endorsement for the success of a CoP than from the CoP members themselves.

Knowledge Hub

The final part of the session was devoted to the thinking behind the development of a “next generation” community of practice platform – the “Knowledge Hub”. What problems were we trying to fix with this new platform? Briefly stated these were:

(i) Over 80% of the CoPs had been set up as private spaces (gated access via the Facilitator as opposed to just being able to join). In effect these were silo’d knowledge repositories. We wanted a system that would encourage more interaction between CoPs.

(ii) There was lack of permeability with external (outside the firewall) conversations. We wanted a system that could easily integrate with external web services.

(iii) We wanted to address the perennial issue of information overload, perhaps more accurately described as “filter failure”. Using explicit data provided by the user in their on-line profile, e.g. where they work, their area of expertise, what groups they join, etc., filters could be established to improve the relevance of information received.

(iv) In a similar way to the way that Amazon works, we wanted to track user behaviour (their digital footprint) in order to “push” relevant information – e.g. conversations, events, and documents to the users.

(v) We wanted active and guided navigation to help users find and access relevant knowledge.

(vi) We wanted to tap into the emerging market for mashups and apps; providing users with the tools to combine and link data to create value-added apps for improving council services.

(vii) We wanted to reduce development costs and open up the architecture to enable developers and entrepreneurs to create additional value. We would use open source software and adopt open standards (e.g. OAuth, OpenSocial, OpenGraph etc.).

However, as with all things public sector, the budget was radically scaled back early in 2011 and consequently not all of these features will be implemented. The cut-down version of the local government platform was launched 27 October 2011. (http://knowledgehub.local.gov.uk).

But the dream lives on. With support from PFI Knowledge Solutions (Knowledge Hub developers) a roadmap of future enhancements for their innovative Intelligus platform may eventually deliver all of the original requirements. More on this later; a matter of “watch this space”!

I’ll be happy to answer any questions about the Community of Practice project mentioned above, or the Intelligus platform that may realise the original vision for the Knowledge Hub.

Eliminating email in organisations

2011-12-20T15:41:32Z

Eliminating the use of e-mail as an internal communication tool among staff in an organization is not impossible, but it is not easy either. While the adoption of social enterprise and collaboration tools is indubitably on the rise, traditional e-mail's ease of use and how it is already entrenched in work culture can be further enhanced with social media integration.

So why am I even suggesting that such a trend may develop ? Thierry Breton, CEO of French IT company Atos Origin reiterated in late November 2011 that his aim to ban the use of email for INTERNAL communication between the company’s 74,000 employees in 42 countries would, indeed, be implemented in 18 months’ time.

According to an ABC News report, Breton said 10% of the 200 messages Atos staff received per day were useful, while 18% were spam. Instead of e-mail, the company's employees will now communicate with each other via collaboration and social media tools such as instant messaging (IM). External parties such as customers and partners, on the other hand, will still receive e-mail from the company.

Six months after it kicked off the initiative, Atos reduced the number of internal email by 20%, a company spokesperson said.

If 10% are useful and 18% are Spam, that leave 72% (or 144 emails) of dubious value. If it takes 30 seconds to open and establish that fact, then that's an hour and twelve minutes a day potentially wasted.

How much better would the social tools be ?

People are used to prioritising email use. They might allocate set times to look at emails or they might only scan their inbox every 30 mins or they might look at their emails each time Outlooks pings to say there's new emails.

The problem with, say, IM is that people still take note of the "I" part of the name - Instant. Watch anyone under 25 react to the sound of an incoming Text, they'll stop in mid-sentence and read it and maybe even reply and then continue as if nothing happened. I think there's a danger that as soon as you log on to a social platform and people know you're there then they'll come to expect a speedy response to their IM.

At least with email people don't have quite that same expectation.

But then I'm older than 25 and observing how my teenage children communicate may show that like everything else in life, according to my children, I’m behind the times. They don't use email for anything. If they log on to Hotmail it's to use IM or they use Facebook and the rest of the time it's text messages. They rarely even phone people.

You've also got to consider security and audit trails. There's no encryption of IM and keeping an audit trail for legal and commercial reconciliation is part of everyday life with emails.

What is great about Enterprise Social and Collaboration Software is that ability to more easily find and collaborate with the right people. Once you've made that contact and established your collaboration group then the communications flow from there by whatever means the group decides.

The Cost of e-Government

2011-12-14T21:07:00Z

The National Audit Office has stated that “Since Government has not routinely measured the benefits of online services, it cannot demonstrate optimal use of resources”. Measuring the benefits of government to citizen engagement portals is crucial to ensure that tax payer funded services deliver “value”, however “value” is not always measured in pounds shillings and pence.

Determining the value metrics of a service; understanding what lack is being met, what improvements an e-service is delivering, how an e-service is encouraging increased citizen participation is not only essential in evidencing tax payer value, but also in providing essential feedback on how the service can be improved.

However there are many benefits that cannot be easily measured. Social and collaborative networks are not restricted to the digital age, but encompass all aspects of our lives. Encouraging participation in a single individual will influence many others. We may be able to measure the participation, satisfaction and cost/benefit of the original individual, but how do we measure the influences that that specific “influencer” has had on the behaviour of his social network? Changing the behaviour of an individual impacts the participation behaviour of the whole network, and in ways that cannot be measured…or can they?

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, produces regular reports on e-government performance, at national level, in a global context. The e-government survey uses a wide range of metrics that asses the impact and effectiveness of e-government initiatives to elevate the standards of its citizenry.

“E-government is a powerful tool for human development. Many countries are experiencing its transformative power in revitalizing public administration, overhauling public management, fostering inclusive leadership and moving civil service towards higher efficiency, transparency and accountability. They recognize e-government as a way of realizing the vision of a global information society. In contrast, countries slow to embrace e-government tend to remain mired in the typical institutional pathologies of supply-driven services and procedures, remoteness between government and citizen, and opaque decision-making processes”

The e-Government survey of 2010 places the UK 5^th out of 192 member countries in terms of e-particpation and 4^th in terms of e-government. Despite an inability to demonstrate optimal use of resources, its clear that the UK initiatives are reaping rewards at a much higher level than simple cost/benefit analysis would imply.

How to engage with customers without filling up their Inbox

2011-11-23T12:46:39Z

Following on from John's blog about his experience with his watch supplier I thought it would be good to show how this might be done better.

So, rather than sending out a blanket email to everyone that (possibly by default) subscribed to your email list things could be somewhat more sophisticated and targeted.

In the brave new world of Social Media people tell their contacts what they're doing and what they're thinking about. Admittedly some people do this more than others and the detail can be somewhat tedious. However it's definitely the way of the world for a vast number of people. The thing is all that information is a treasure trove of info for the switched on companies.

All that info about what people are doing, talking about, thinking of buying, have just bout etc. etc.

If you tap into that information source and mine it for relevant info then you can target messages to the right people at the right time and not use the scattergun approach of a mass emailing.

Get people to link to your Social Media page(s) on the various platforms, get them to follow you on Twitter. This gets you a link into their world and a way of associating some of that "noise" back to individuals you "know".

Now take feeds from all of that noise and search it for relevant keywords and surface it into a portlet in Intelligus so you can see what the buzz is on the topics you’re interested in. It could be as simple as searching for any mention of your product - let's say an aviator's watch. That way you can see the positive messages that are out there and the negative ones. You can then react to those messages. Reinforcing the positives and tackling the negatives.

And because the info is pulled into your Intelligus environment you can, if necessary, collaborate with colleagues on issues that are raised in order to formulate your response to the issues you see being talked about. In real-time !

How did Facebook know that a big percentage of people didn't like a recent change to the site design ? Because lots of people were updating their walls with derogatory comments within hours of the change.

By contrast, just 3 or 4 years ago, it took GAP weeks of expensive market research to find that people hated the revamped logo, which they then changed back to the original.

You can now join the throng to counter negative comments that may be inaccurate or need explanation. You can tweak things to correct perceived problems (like an issue with battery life on iOS 5) or you know you have a success on your hands so you know to increase production.

Now just think how this might work if you bring some of those customers into your Intelligus environment and get them collaborating with you on ideas along with your partners and suppliers.

I love Watches but not that much

2011-11-23T11:12:38Z

A number of years ago, I was passionate about a certain Swiss watch-maker, having aspired for some time to own one of their remarkable (aviator) timepieces (despite never feeling the urge to take the pilot’s controls).so I bit the bullet, purchased a stunning chronograph, and enjoyed it immensely.

However, whilst completing the purchase I went and provided my email address (silly me). Ever since, I’ve received fairly unnecessary email communications from the manufacturer: their latest ‘promotional’ messages about a ‘limited edition’ timepiece; their corporate sponsorship or some other ‘exciting’ merchandise without which my life simply wouldn’t be complete.

Now I realise I could simply ‘opt-out’ of such messages, but it got me wondering? How many people do? Just how many of the emails or other ‘alerts’ we receive from such retailers get ignored or deleted without being opened or read. A significant amount I would hasten to guess…

Why do retailers simply continue to bombard us with messages on a frequent basis because we once gave them our details, without verifying on a fairly regular basis that 1) we remain interested and want to continue to have our inbox populated with their ‘messages’, and 2) where our interests lie?

Surely retailers need to understand their customer base… and then, match it with messages and communications that are properly relevant. These days, shouldn’t we expect only relevant communications? We have little time to read ‘noise’ or unwanted correspondence, but I’ll happily make time to open/read something I think has been sent to me because it is relevant to my interests and needs.

Come on retailers, don’t just broadcast to all and sundry the same ‘corporate’ message on a Friday, just because you got our emails addresses by default. Use some intelligent approaches to target your customers with tailored messages once you understand what makes us ‘tick’… we all appreciate the personal touch, and by doing so, you will earn (be rewarded by) our loyalty…

Bleak Council Estates

2011-11-22T00:20:42Z

The Cabinet Office’s Mike Bracken is right. The vast swath of government web sites are defined by their labyrinthine structures, the feeling of despair and futility they engender, their drab unimaginative atmosphere. Government should make their citizen portals simple, inviting, helpful and encouraging. This does not mean that they should endorse the latest web wizardry; bedazzle its constituents with trinkets and widgets, but provide simple, fast access to the right information, the right organisation and the right people. They should do this with an eye on driving down costs to deliver the service, not aiming to support the flood of technology releases that inundate us almost daily; browser releases, operating system platforms, mobile access devices.

Facebook and Google are great role models for their enticing and welcoming services, however the government digital services need to ensure that they don’t emulate other elements of these mega-corporations where every signal is recorded, analysed, compared and added to the vast Acxiom data stores. The government digital services need to ensure their citizens that whilst their experience may be “google like”, their privacy is definitely not.

Hedging your bets

2011-11-18T11:23:11Z

In my village shop this morning, I overheard a (distant) neighbour say to the shopkeeper he was about to embark on his annual task of cutting back his hedges. It was a job he dreaded… they were badly overgrown, he’d have to use ladders and over-reach, he admitted not really knowing how hard to cut them back…

Now, I happen to adore working with hedges and obsess about keeping them tidy, straight and regularly trimmed… some might say it is my OCD! I found myself having a good conversation with my neighbour, talking about the various challenges he faced, the equipment he was using (trimmers/ladders etc), various techniques and how I might go about the task if I were him.

It got me thinking… through our encounter, we properly collaborated… he accidentally stumbled across an (admittedly ‘self-proclaimed’) expert, he gained some knowledge, and even got some recommendations of an alternative hedge trimmer that would (IMO) be better suited to his needs and would reduce the time he’d need to spend on the job.

In fact, he did better than that; I’m actually going to help him this weekend which should make his ‘burden’ a whole lot easier. I’ll be enjoying every minute.

Let’s bring that problem into an organisation. It will be highly unlikely we’d stumble across an expert (say at the coffee machine) who can collaborate with us to help with our project/task/problem, so is it possible to make those connections?

Firstly, there needs to be an easy, automated way that my ‘expertise’, my interests, the projects I’ve worked on, the things I’m passionate about, the things I’ve read, the things I’ve authored, I’ve ‘liked’ etc can be intelligently captured.

Next, a collaborative solution needs to be able to intelligently match and connect people, not just bringing like-minded people together who have shared interest, but truly and accurately match people who are in need of expertise with those who have it. Regardless of whether that’s an internal facing (corporate) environment, or as part of a broader community. Think of it like an expertise brokerage without the need to deal with a broker!

People need better ways of being connecting to like-minded people, or with ‘experts’ who can help with their challenges. Without this truly collaborative capability, continue to struggle without the benefit of expertise, and once again re-invent that wheel, or do a less than optimal job… what a missed opportunity to excel...

Community engagement in practice

2011-11-16T15:01:33Z

We've been working with one of our partners on projects for local councils with an emphasis on community engagement projects. And some of the things that have been discussed have shown just what this whole Enterprise Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing and the Social Business stuff can mean to "real people" in a practical sense.

We were looking at what typical community engagement websites look like now and then hypothesizing how they might look in future using a product like Intelligus.

So right now they tend to be static websites, controlled centrally with pretty much the only way to interact is to click on an email link and hope it's not out of date and someone might respond. The sites are a shop window for local community groups within the authorities area along with links to national agencies that provide services locally. Whether it's scout groups, mums & toddler groups, sports clubs, the local alcoholics group or the women's refuge. There's a bunch of pages that tell people what's on (sometimes out of date or not updated) and info on where they are and how to contact them. Fine but not very engaging.

Step forward the brave new world of a social and collaboration alternative and it's a different story.

The pages for each of the groups are controlled by the groups.
There's dynamic content with twitter feeds on what's happening and the latest news
There blogs on topics that relate to the group
There's a forum for people to ask questions
There's contact info and different options on how you connect - Facebook, IM etc.
People post photo's on recent events
The content can be tagged for easy searching
Form interest groups that work together on local issues
Form campaign groups
allow people to setup alerts so they know when things they're interested in have changed

There's now a BUZZ to the site.

And practically how does this help ? They could ask:-

So a family that's moved into the area could go to the site and post a question about the nearest scout groups that meet on a Tuesday evening
Or what under 12 rugby teams are nearby
Or is there a mums and babies coffee morning near where I live
Is there a school that's good with dyslexics

And the info could be displayed on an interactive Google map so they can see how close they are and get directions if they need to.

It's about finding out information from a reliable source without having to spend an age surfing the net to find the info.

And because local people can contribute to the info about the local groups and services that they help with, join or use the groups feel more personal and localised and people feel part of the group and the broader community. Which means they're probably more likely to help and contribute their time to the things that are going on around them.

And just like in business, when something needs doing, it's not just not just about what you know it's also who you know. And the more people that get involved the wider and more diverse the range of skills and knowledge that can be drawn on.

Knowledge sharing - a no-brainer

2011-11-15T10:57:52Z

I spend a lot of time talking about or contemplating Collaboration and at its root the principles behind knowledge sharing.

Howard Jones' blog asks why we collaborate and share knowledge when from a self preservation point of view it would seem better to make sure you're top dog on the knowledge front.

I think it's an acknowledgement that the value of a known fact multiplies each time someone within your ecosystem learns that fact. Whether that's a colleague, a supplier, a partner or a client. It's the old "two heads are better than one" principle. If someone shares a piece of knowledge with me then I get an opprotunity to put a different slant on it and potentially grow the knowledge or use it in a different way. And each time it's shared the potential for it to grow is there, so once it's been shard, say, 10 times then it's importance to the business could have been magnified several times over.

I'd sum it up as "information from others is richer than what we can discover ourselves". In simple terms think about the difference between being shown how to calculate the margin on a business proposal or trying to discover how to calculate it from scratch (of course it's never from scratch because you've got all that accumulated knowledge that you adapt to the task but you get the point). You could just search the web and find information on how to do it but is it the right info for the right job. If you get the answer from a trusted PERSON then it's far more appropriate to the task at hand and therefore far more effective.

More than ever before it's the people in an organisation that make the difference not just how good the product is.

Intelligus opens up the opportunity to share knowledge, find knowledge and find who has the knowledge people need to get things done.

Community Engagement and Civic Pride

2011-11-14T17:31:03Z

Silvio Berlusconi’s departure from politics seems a very un-democratic removal, more like getting fired by the “Board” rather than a removal by the people. Regardless of his standing in the community, “the people” were not given the opportunity to remove him, the bankers and financiers did. It seems another indication that banks and corporates make the decisions, and citizens have less and less influence over any thing that matters.

What message do citizens receive when they see major decisions taken out of their hands and made behind the oak panelled doors of banks and boardrooms? Getting people back into the democratic process, involving them in policy decisions, encouraging participation and collaboration on matters that impact their lives on a daily basis is fundamental to creating a citizenry that feels valued, appreciated and engaged.

The Localism Bill was published in December 2010. It sets out a series of proposals with the potential to achieve a substantial and lasting shift in power away from central government and towards local people. These proposals include: new freedoms and flexibilities for local government; new rights and powers for communities and individuals; reforms to make the planning system more democratic; more effective, and that decisions about housing are taken locally.

Government at a local level has the power to harness the innovation, common sense and pragmatism of the local citizenry. Local citizens should be involved in policy making ideas, deciding where their local taxes are distributed, how they pay for their services and how much. Community engagement and collaboration are essential to restoring civic pride and personal responsibility.

I Do Not Like This

2011-11-10T19:28:32Z

Whilst reading an article on the Wired magazines website I was struck by the incongruity of Facebooks “like” function. The article reported on the torture and decapitation of social bloggers in Mexico. A very socially important article that people should be informed about, be aware of and hopefully support action against. But did I “like” it? Apparently over 300 people had expressed that opinion.

But what does “like” actually mean? Does it mean they supported the separation of head from body for posting a blog? Does it mean they think the quality of the writing was exemplary? I was tempted to Google “+1” it, but I also have no idea what that signifies. Google say that it’s a “…a public stamp of approval”. Why would I “approve” the article?

Of course the distinction is obvious if it’s an article about kittens and fluffy ducklings (is it?), but what happens when the article has societal import? How then is your sentiment conveyed to fellow readers. Where’s the “this is important” button? Wheres the “we should do something” button?

The “like” feature is vacuous and insipid. It conveys nothing of any real significance or meaning. It encourages pandering and narcissism (“look how many “likes” I got…yay! people like me”). We should encourage the use of real social sentiment “expressiveness”. Develop features that encourage social action. How about a “flag this to my political representative” button. Or a “create an e-petition on this subject” button or “sign the petition” button?

I’ll get on to the team right away….but in the mean time, feel free to “like” this at your leisure

Knowledge Hub (part 5) - Day of the App

2011-11-04T20:54:55Z

By Steve Dale. Taken from http://steve-dale.net/2011/06/03/knowledge-hub-day-of-the-app-5/

Continuing my sequence of blog posts about the Knowledge Hub, the new and innovative community and collaboration platform for the UK public sector. I am devoting this post to the Knowledge Hub’s “App Store” facilities that will get delivered in the next development phase (no dates yet, but potentially around Sept/Oct 2011).

I think maybe a pause here for a definition as to what an “app” is and how this might differ from a ‘widget’ or a ‘plug-in’.

“App” is an abbreviation for application. An app is a piece of software. It can run on the Internet, on your computer, or on a mobile platform, such as a smart phone or tablet device (e.g. iPad). Apps have become synonymous with Apple’s iTunes App Store, where proprietary apps can be downloaded for use on any Apple product. Platform/device independent apps can be accessed from the Android Market.

Web-based apps (device and software independent apps that are accessed and run from the ‘Cloud’) include Google Apps,. Common applications include calendars, webmail and on-line documents. Web applications are popular due to the ubiquity of web browsers. The ability to update and maintain web applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity, as is the inherent support for cross-platform compatibility

A “widget’ is software that can be embedded into an app, or in the case of a Web Widget it can be installed and executed within a web page. A widget is usually tied to a platform, such as an iPhone widget.

A plug-in is a set of software components that adds specific abilities to a larger software application. Plug-ins are commonly used in web browsers to play video, scan for viruses, and display new file types. Well-known plug-ins examples include Adobe Flash Player and QuickTime.

Knowledge Hub will support apps, widgets and plug-ins, but for the purpose of this post, I will use the generic label ‘apps’ to include all of these varieties.

All apps on Knowledge Hub will conform to the OpenSocial standard, which has been supported by a number of vendors, such as Google, MySpace, Yahoo!, IBM, Oracle, Saleforce.com, Ning, Plaxo, XING, Six Apart, LinkedIn, to name a few. This means that that the app will be interoperable with any other social network system that supports this standard. This is part of the underlying “open standards” design philosophy for Knowledge Hub, which is positioned as an “open” alternative to the Facebook Platform.

Why is any of this important? Well if you’re not one the several million smart phone users that are accessing and downloading the million or so apps available from the various app stores, then maybe you’re not aware of what the fuss is about. This is clearly a growing market – some analyts are quoting growth of over 70% for this year alone.

For the public sector it offers new and exciting ways of delivering products and services at a fraction of the cost of traditional channels (e.g. online transactional websites). Opportunities will be fuelled by the growth of publicly available government/local government data (Open Data). This offers a number of models that can be exploited by users of the Knowledge Hub, e.g.:

downloadable mobile or desktop apps – Apple-style app store approach. These apps can make use of externally hosted datasets registered on Knowledge Hub, datasets uploaded to and registered within Knowledge Hub and external datasets not registered on KHub.
hosted web apps – runs on a server somewhere and the user logs into it via a browser. Knowledge Hub could in principle provide hosting capabilities for this kind of web app as part of a ‘premium’ service to the sector, but demand for this sort of facility will need to be tested with users and stakeholders.
client-side Javascript mashups, visualisations, apps. Code that is downloaded as part of a web page and runs as Javascript inside the user’s browser.

As with the majority of the commercial app stores, Knowledge Hub will encourage users to rate and review the apps they download in order to identify the most popular apps.

The main benefits of the apps store can be summarised as follows:

Easy to use and trusted conduit of software.
Download model is widely understood by both consumers and developers of software.
‘Mashup’ tools will make it easy for apps to be built and shared by anyone.
Provides centralised control and value-add including commercial, security, access controls, digital rights.
Stimulates ideas for compelling new business scenarios and service innovation.

Though I’ve frequently mentioned mobile devices in this post, this does not mean apps are just for small screens. Newspapers and e-books have started to wrap their content in apps that come with additional features, hoping that it will allow them to charge for more things. And as other electronic devices—television sets, alarm clocks, e-readers and even electricity meters—become smarter and more connected, consumers will be able to download apps for these too. Perhaps, in the end, everything will have an app!

Some examples of where apps are being used in local government:

Scores on the Doors lets you and I see businesses’ and schools’ hygiene ratings by searching through its online database. You can check the hygiene ratings for any takeaways, pubs, clubs, schools, restaurants and food halls in your area (as long as your council is one of the 200 participating in this scheme!)

Smartphone owners can report graffiti, vandalism and anti-social behaviour in Wokingham thanks to a new app. The Looking Local app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch enables residents to use a ‘Report It’ feature to let Wokingham Borough Council about problems in their area.

Daventry District Council used location-based technology to improve refuse collection routes through better planned routes. This resulted in £223,000 savings from reduced mileage, less overtime, smaller vehicles and fewer rounds.

London Transport for iPhone – Real time journey planning, live departure boards, licensed taxi booking, wireless printing, bus stop timetables, nearby stops and stations, live traffic cameras, and more…

In a future post I will explain how apps can be developed using the Knowledge Hub’s “Mashup Centre“.

NB: Knowledge Hub is built and supported on the PFIKS Intelligus Platform

Why Do We Collaborate?

2011-11-02T15:01:14Z

Conventional wisdom holds that people are “self-interested”. The theory holds that collaboration is completely at odds with ensuring the betterment of ourselves to the detriment of others. If we share our knowledge and our resources we give benefit to others. We have consumed our own energy and resources to acquire these benefits, and to give those away without guarantee of return is against our own self interest. It makes a great deal of sense to look after and protect our own resources whilst benefitting from everyone else’s because they’re daft enough to share theirs. Of course, we “collaborate” all the time when we know what we’re getting in return, “By giving up this, I’ll be getting that”. But what if there are no clear benefits to giving up what we have earned?

This conventional wisdom (from economic theory) has been fundamentally challenged by the development of and advances in social networking theory. Social studies have shown that we are fundamentally societal “givers”. Individually, our self interest instincts make perfect sense, however we, as a society, seem to also know that collaboration works. That collaboration makes us all, collectively, better off. We behave in many ways that recognise that society is better off if we cooperate. We shift the immediacy of an exchange, of short-termism, of near-sighted profit to long-term unknown future gains.

Whilst we see individual benefit from a one-time opportunity which we naturally wish to exploit to the utmost, we also see that individual transactions over time build into long term benefit, which may not be immediately visible, but we know will be ultimately “profitable”. So why do we collaborate? Because we trust.

Introduction to the Knowledge Hub

2011-10-25T10:22:12Z

As we approach the first (Beta) release of the Knowledge Hub, a project that has consumed my very existence as lead consultant for these past 2 years, I thought I would share a presentation I put together for the Knowledge Hub Conference that was held on 1^st March 2011 (yes, a month ago, but still relevant). My previous blogs on this topic…

…will give some appreciation of the scope, scale and capabilities of the Knowledge Hub, but in a paragraph….

“The Knowledge Hub will build on Local Government (LG) Improvement and Development’s community of practice (CoP)-based approach to knowledge management. It will support multiple communities, using the best features and functionality that have evolved through the development of the CoP service. It will offer a range of free tools and services to help the sector share and analyse their data and engage more effectively online. It will provide a platform for developing and publishing open source applications created and owned by the sector.”

But even this doesn’t begin to explain what this is all about; an issue I was well aware of before the 1^st March conference. Until people are actually using the Knowledge Hub and exploring for themselves its capabilities, any text-heavy communication is likely to paint a rather abstract picture in people’s minds.

Not that a PowerPoint slide set will achieve a level of understanding that I was striving for, but based on the old adage that “a picture paints a thousand words” it’s probably as good as I can do pending users experiencing the product for themselves.

The quirky angle on this was to consider how social media and the social web is currently being used (or not, as the case may be) across UK local government and the wider public sector (target audience for the Knowledge Hub). I’m only too aware of the fact that many public sector organisations block (or severely restrict) access to social media facilities for their staff. Even after several years of accumulated evidence of how social media and social networks can lead to greater productivity and improved learning and sharing opportunities, the word ‘social’ means ‘wasting time’ or ‘reputational risk’ to many senior managers.

In order to realise the full benefits of the Knowledge Hub, users will need to have access to the rich conversations on their particular domain of knowledge that are happening beyond the limits of their enterprise firewall. Conversations – e.g. on blog sites or Twitter – that many staff can only access via their smart phones or when they are at home. One of the many features of the Knowledge Hub is to aggregate and connect these conversations and associate them with user profiles – i.e. users see information that is relevant to them and not so much of the irrelevant noise.

One of the other features of the Knowledge Hub is the ability for councils to upload datasets – e.g. on performance – and compare (benchmark) with other councils, thereby highlighting potential areas for improvement or savings. Is this new? No! Most of us do something similar when we’re buying products, e.g. car insurance (e.g. Compare the Market/Meerkat), who’s got the best value in terms of coverage and cost?

And then there’s the issue of how we attach value and trust to what we read. Do we always believe what is in the travel brochure, or do we check out websites such as Tripadvisor to find out what real people have to say about the hotel or resort we’re thinking of booking? Similarly for the Knowledge Hub, where we’ll be able to see peer reviews of documents and other knowledge assets, and gain a degree of confidence in using or adapting that particular policy or process.

And not forgetting our Amazon experience, where recommendations are made on what we’ve previously bought. In a similar way, the Knowledge Hub will recommend contacts, workspaces (communities) and documents based on what the user has flagged as relevant, or what the user has shared in their personal profile (e.g. expertise, location etc.).

So, most people seem to be comfortable using social web facilities and applications in their personal lives, and maybe not even realising they are doing so. All we need to do is to provide a trusted and secure environment where these same activities can be conducted in a business environment. The real power of the Knowledge Hub is that you don’t even have to go to lots of different websites and applications – each with their unique design and interface – to find the information you need to do your job, or to do those performance comparisons or download that app you need. You can do it all in one place – let the data and information come to you! That, in essence, is the Knowledge Hub!

Check out the slides below. The Slideshare originals include notes, which will explain why the elephant appears (a clue – it’s to do with the time, pain and anguish of public sector procurement!)

Introducing the knowledge hub v1Introduction to the Knowledge Hub

Entry for Management Innovation eXchange M-Prize

2011-10-25T12:05:53Z

By Steve Dale. Taken from http://steve-dale.net/2011/07/22/entry-for-management-innovation-exchange-m-prize/

The Management Innovation Exchange(MIX) is “an open innovation project aimed at reinventing management for the 21st century. The premise: while “modern” management is one of humankind’s most important inventions, it is now a mature technology that must be reinvented for a new age.”

One of the MIX initiatives is the Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation. There are two types of entries: an instructive case study (a Story) or an experimental design (a Hack). The goals is to show how Web 2.0 values (including transparency, collaboration, meritocracy, openness, community and self-determination) can help overcome the design limits of Management 1.0—and help to create Management 2.0.

I have submitted a case study (story) about the Knowledge Hub, a project I initiated over 2 years ago but only now being rolled out for UK Local Government. The concept was part of a 3-year Knowledge Management Strategy I was commissioned to deliver for the Improvement and Development Agency – an organisation that has since been integrated into the Local Government Group. The underlying idea was to provide a central ‘Hub’ that would collect and aggregate data and information from many sources (including blog and Twitter feeds) and use semantic technology to link and categorise the content. The system would then match and push relevant content to users according their interest graph and their social graph.

Although the project was spec’d over 2 years ago, I’ve noticed that many of the features being rolled out in Google+ are very similar to features being delivered in the Knowledge Hub, e.g. Circles (social graph) and Sparks (interest graph). It’s just a pity I didn’t have their resources available to me when I started this project!

I hope you will take a a moment to look at the article and let me know what you think. You can comment on it and/or rate it. Your views would be appreciated.

NB: For anyone interested in the technology, the Knowledge Hub is an open system, using open standards and open source software. It is hosted on the PFIKS Intelligus platform.