What the digital workplace needs for success
Categorised under: Digital workplace, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, Knowledge management
This week we start discussing the digital workplace with a bang. (Watch this space for a big release in the next few days.) Observing the discussions to date, it’s interesting to step back and observe the activity and momentum of the movement as a whole.
There’s no question that organisations need to work better and smarter, allowing staff to collaborate in more natural ways, and making better use of the technology that’s already widely used in the consumer space. The challenge, however, is to get widespread support for the big changes required, amongst senior management and staff as a whole.
We’ve been here before. The digital workplace comes as the latest in a number of “movements” that have all provided great ideas, but have failed to get adoption.
A brief history:
- Knowledge management, which aimed to bring together people, process and technology to underpin knowledge retention and better decision-making (amongst other goals). It’s now generally agreed that knowledge management is “dead”, or at least, towards the bottom of the hype curve.
- Intranet 2.0, which drew on web 2.0 to argue that intranets must become more interactive and collaborative. A great idea, but the timing was bad (web 2.0 was fading as a term by the time intranet 2.0 came along).
- Enterprise 2.0, which took a broader view of the modern workplace, through a collaborative and social lens. While this movement is still going strong, it’s yet to gain mainstream adoption.
And now comes the digital workplace, which makes the unarguable statement that organisations are pretty primitive compared to what’s happening the wider (consumer) world, and that we need to adopt new ways of working to allow staff to be truly productive.
Will this be the movement that takes the world by storm?
We suggest three starting points that the digital workplace must meet:
Three starting points for the digital workplace
- Concrete vision. Too many of the discussions in all of the movements listed above are in abstract terms. What’s needed is a concrete vision that shows how all the pieces come together in practical terms. It must be obvious, outside of the “inner circle” of those already sold on the digital workplace, what all this means in the real world.
- Simplicity for staff. The digital workplace must go beyond just meeting the needs of knowledge workers and the technologically-inclined. It must make working life simpler and more productive for the actual workers in organisations, particularly frontline and operational staff.
- Business value. While it’s lovely to foster collaboration, connect staff and improve engagement, this is not enough. The digital workplace must, as quickly as possible, demonstrate how it directly affects the bottom line in organisations. This is where many of the previous movements failed, and where the digital workplace must succeed if it’s to gain a “seat at the table” at senior managers meetings.
More to come
As we hinted at the beginning of this post, we’ll be doing a big release on the digital workplace later this week. This will tackle the first point head on, as well as giving useful insight into the other two points.
We’re excited about the potential of the digital workplace, and see it as a natural extension of the ten years of work we’ve been doing in the intranet space. So let’s make this happen!
Watch this space for more…
Tags: digital workplace, Enterprise 2.0, intranet 2.0, Intranets, Knowledge management
James Robertson is the Managing Director of 
11 Comments:
Hi James,
I agree with you that we need to make the digital workplace happen more widely and quicker than it is already happening.
But I disagree with your view of history or separation of them from the digital workplace.
KM is not dead, well not as far as the organisations I have worked with, and the use of Intranet 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 tools and services helped it to grow and finally become more than a phrase.
I don’t like using these terms but would prefer to say some of the organisations I have worked with have thriving intranets and digital workplaces. These are embedded in to the way of working for most if not all employees.
The benefits are sometimes anecdotal but do show on the bottom line with savings in time and travel, more and better innovation, quicker customer service, better tendering for contracts.
I would prefer to build on the best practice already and highlight how this is used in a digital workplace.
It is an evolution building on what is good and exists already rather than a revolution.
What do others think?
Mark
I pretty much agree with Mark on this one, and I largely aggree with your three “starting points” James.
But – The digital workplace already exists. We’re already there – it’s just broken and badly designed.
Organisations need better (internal) digital governance.
They need to move themselves, over time, away from a landscape where they have numerous divergent systems and platforms with terrible usability and head towards something that isn’t stressing workers to death.
Stress levels at the workplace have been rising since pretty much when the widescale adoption of computers at work began – this is after they had been falling for decade after decade prior to that.
There’s a great book in Swedish called “Jävla skitsystem” (Stupid bloody system!) that covers this – unfortunately it’s not available in english (yet) http://javlaskitsystem.se/english/
So, I don’t think it’s a question of a “movement” that’s hoping for mainstream adoption – or of a revolution waiting to happen.
We have to fix the digital workplace by, as Mark said, building on the good that exists already. Digital governance is essential, and “vision” “simplicity” and “business value” make a pretty good starting point for that…
@Mark and @James, I agree we should be building on existing successes. But: I don’t see it as inevitable that things are going to get better. In our consulting work, we spend a lot of time with actual staff, and we see the pain they experience every day, just trying to do the jobs they were hired for.
While I’m optimistic that organisations can work *much* more productively, we face some big challenges.
A personal example from the last week:
As you can probably imagine, we ship a lot of parcels and books, throughout Australia and internationally. To date, we’ve been using a large, well-known shipping company.
But this is our experience when a parcel goes missing, is delivered to the wrong city, or isn’t picked up at all: “You booked the parcel using our web system? I’m sorry, I don’t have access to that system. You’d like to know how much it will cost? I’m sorry, I’ll have to put you through to our billing department.”
This is a company that doesn’t seem to have worked out that their internal systems are a huge part of the customer service that they deliver. We’re currently moving to a smaller, less stupid, shipping company.
So again, I’m a great fan of the digital workplace (and the other movements I listed). This time around, lets learn from the experiences of the past, to make sure we have the biggest positive impact we can!
GETTING WORSE | EXAMPLE: MOBILE
To build on James R’s point, enterprise mobile technology has barely evolved beyond sending email to Blackberries. The few companies that have done well with internal mobile have succeeded only on specific use cases.
IT managers jobs have become much more complicated and stressful since smart phones became popular (as have employees’ digital lives, e.g. 2 laptops + 2 phones).
DIGITAL WORKPLACE VISION
Totally agree that DW efforts need to start with a vision. Not a vision about technology, but a vision about how a modern employee can work seamlessly, with technology as an effortless enabler.
Related to this, even in the consumer space technologies are poorly woven together. With a bajillion apps, most of which don’t integrate with my other computers, let alone electronics in my house or car, the digital experience is still very splintered.
ASPIRATIONAL VS. DESCRIPTIVE
When using the term “Digital Workplace” we need to decide on a case by case basis whether we’re talking about the future vision of a seamlessly integrated digital environment, or our current collection of digital tools.
If it’s “the future” then it’s not broken, we’re still aiming to create it. If it’s “the present” then it’s mostly lame, but slowly improving.
Well said Ephraim! In terms of a vision that meets your criteria, watch this space for an announcement in the next 24 hours
How is the digital workplace different from enterprise 2.0? Is this just another case of using different terms to mean the same thing?
I like your vigilant “hype radar” Alexis!
One difference: Few companies are trying to cash in on the digital workplace trend with extensive marketing and wonky language. This suggests that “digital workplace” is less of a trend than “enterprise 2.0,” “social business,” etc.
“Digital workplace” can be a very neutral term. Most basically it means all of the computer devices and software you use to do your job. A meeting room is part of the physical workplace, while a calendar used to book the meeting room is part of the digital workplace.
Going by this simple definition, a digital workplace can either be well built and maintained or poorly designed. The term is neutral, and as such, hype free. It’s the equivalent of the word “office,” which is quite neutral.
“Enterprise 2.0″ really refers to certain types of software and ways companies use that software. People never had a clear and simple definition and now that term is being replaced by “social business” – another poorly defined term that consultants and vendors are cashing in on.
Ephraim – I don’t think the Digital Workplace can claim the high ground at this stage over other ideas, either from a conceptual perspective or on the basis of the marketing “wonk” factor. As I understand it, the DW term is being promoted because certain audiences appear to be more comfortable with the words used.
I’d also point out that Social Business as a term isn’t a replacement for Enterprise 2.0 but actually provides the context for those organisations embracing it (and many are). The big difference between the DW and Social Business is that we are affecting in varying degrees how organisations function and are structured, and not just making technology work better around the status quo. Personally where you see neutrality as a strength, this makes me skeptical about the premise of the DW.
James D. – Thanks for calling me out on my overly harsh language about folks working in the “social business” arena. These feelings come from seeing a lot of hyperbole without crystal clear, grounded explanations.
From my perspective we’ve seen an evolution of rather poorly understood terms that went something like this:
Web 2.0 > Enterprise 2.0 > Social Business
Other poorly defined terms in the mix have been “intranet 2.0″ and “social collaboration.”
I see “digital workplace” and “social business” as compatible terms that explain different aspects of work in the modern age. “Digital workplace” can be just the electronic counterpart to the physical workplace (though the two are intimately related). It’s like saying the word “landscape” – you can have landscapes of many different types.
I define social business in this way:
- Use of social media for marketing and to engage with customers, clients and partners
- Use of social media within a company to enhance employee collaboration and knowledge sharing
- Integration of information from external & internal social media channels into enterprise information systems
- Shifting organizational structure to be less strictly hierarchical and more based on real human networks and expertise within (and outside) the company
Many of the definitions I’ve seen of “social business” try to capture all of this in one-liners that are vague and sound like marketing speak.
James D, I’m with you on this one.
I see a significant overlap between enterprise 2.0, intranet 2.0, social business and the digital workplace; although each has a different focus.
From where I sit, this isn’t a bad thing. As you say, different terms resonate with different people. As long as businesses are changing the way they work for the better, do we care what terms they are using!
The challenge remains for all movements, however, to connect with the wider audience. This is why we released our “Week in the digital workplace” report, to put forward (one) concrete vision for how it all might work in practice…
My definition of a digital workplace is “work is what you do, not where you go to” and I believe it is the next step in the evolution of how we use technology to create a better life – personal and work – for everyone.
Jane McConnell’s digital workplace trends report 2012 shows there are a minority of organisations which have built on each initiative as it met a business need that improved their performance.
As James Royal-Lawson and others have said this is not a digital workplace revolution just another stage in the process to the ideal online experience.