Google Wave and ECM

I just finished watching the demo video for Google Wave and all I can say is WOW.  If it works as well as they say it does it could revolutionize the way people communicate.  But the key question for me is how will this affect the business world, and because of a question someone posted on LinkedIn my first thought went to how this will change enterprise content management.  My answer is I don’t think Wave will.  But I think the ideas from it could be groundbreaking.

One of the most interesting things about Wave is that it allows you to create documents by combining various communications and editing individual messages.  It’s kind of like a combination of a wiki, an email system and IM.  You can tag any of the messages that go into a wave allowing you to find individual pieces of the thread later on.  Its these elements that in my mind could revolutionize disposition of documents and records.

If documents are created in Wave obviously the final document will have a retention period based on its content.  The various content used to create the document will have various retentions based on how it fits into the process.  Some will be working papers, but others may not be.  If big bucket or another retention that allows for general retention categories were used, tags could be applied to the specific content within a wave and that content could be deleted at the appropriate time, leaving the rest of the wave available for reference and for audit and discovery.  Some training would be required to get staff to tag content properly as they created it, but this would provide much more control than is currently available in managing email, IM and other communications.

Anyhow, that's my initial take on Google Wave's impact on ECM.  I'm sure I'll have more thoughts once I actually try it out, but since I'm not a developer I'll have to wait a bit.  In the meantime I look forward to hearing other thoughts on how Wave will impact the business world.

The power of a positive story

One of the most common uses for corporate storytelling in to create Lessons Learned documents.  I have nothing against that, since Lessons Learned docs are valuable tools for continuous improvement.  But what is too often forgotten is the power of a positive story.  Now I don’t mean Best Practice stories, though they are often positive in that they talk about a successful process in the hopes that the process will be copied and repeated.  The positive stories I’m thinking of, though, are bigger, bolder and not just designed to talk about a good way of doing a single task or process.  Instead these stories talk about the corporate direction as a whole, the corporate goals and the successes that are helping the company get there.

I’ve been thinking about this kind of story for a while, but I decided to write about it after reading 2 blog posts.  The first, “What's up librarian?” is from a new blog by a friend of mine in which she discusses the idea of a Yes Session, a brainstorming session in which, among other requirements, the word NO is banned from the discussion.  The second was an entry in the A Success Experiment Blog entitled “Create that winning feeling.”  The last line of that post sums up perfectly the importance of positive stories:

A winning feeling is a positive feeling, and one that forgets misses and reinforces successful attempts

And that’s what positive stories do.  They talk about what we’re doing right, and where doing things right will lead us.  It’s the sort of story that inspires people to do better.  It’s the sort of story that you see so often at the top of best seller lists.  It’s the sort of story that Barack Obama used to win an election (I’m not trying to make this a political blog, but how many of you remember what facts he gave vs. what stories he told?)  It’s the sort of story we should all use every day to inspire ourselves and others.

So here’s an experiment I’d like you to try.  Make a list of everything you’re working on.  Next to each item write at least 1 way that this project will help the organization achieve one of its strategic goals.  If you can’t immediately make that connection work at it a little bit.  Ask around and find that connection, even if it is a bit of a distant one.  And it doesn’t have to be a benefit to the bottom line, either, just something that supports a broader initiative that ties into your organizations goals, because it’s those connections that will make the story matter.

Once you’ve created this list, whenever anyone asks you “what have you been up to” (or any variant of that question) tell them about one of your projects and why it matters.  Try as much as possible to apply the Situation, Task, Action, Result format.  Encourage others around you to try this too.  It might seem a little strange at first but I think you’ll be surprised at the positive feeling you’ll get when you start talking about how your work matters.  In any case let me know how it goes.     

What's wrong with the Generation Y debate

I've been thinking a lot about the debate over whether Gen Y has a particular way of working, and whether it is the best or worst thing to hit the business world in EVER.  Partly I've been thinking about this because I am a Gen Y-er, relatively new to the corporate world, and in a position where I get to test out new tools and ways of working.  And partly its because precious few magazines, journals, and blogs get published these days without making some comment about the issue.  So I've been thinking a lot about it and I've come to a realization: that the whole premise of the argument is flawed.

It's flawed in 2 ways: 

1. There is an incorrect assumption that all (or even most) Gen Y-ers have a particular way of working 
2. There seems to be an implicit assumption that this is the first generation to have their own views on the world, or that they are the first to bring significant change to the workforce.  

Lets look at each of these problems in a bit more depth.

I know plenty of people born after 1980 (the usual cut-off for the beginning of Gen Y) who find no value in bringing web 2.0 tools to the workplace.  I also know plenty of them who do not expect to be treated any differently than the rest of their colleagues.  Many of them do expect to have their ideas judged on the strength of the idea and not because of their position in the corporate hierarchy, but I don't think this is unique to my generation since I'm pretty sure Socrates hinted at the idea once or twice. 

I have not done extensive research, but I would bet a dollar or two that every generation brings some change to the workforce.  You don't have to look that far back (the early 1990s) to find a debate about proper business attire.  In fact this debate took place just about exactly when the Gen X-ers were coming onto the scene in force. What's different this time is that the pace of change has sped up because this change is technological, and at the speed of technological change no one, not Gen Y, not Gen X, and not boomers, have time to keep up with everything.  And that makes the struggle to identify what is valuable and what is not extremely difficult.

So it seems to me that instead of debating whether the way that Gen Y works, or what they expect from the organization and whether they should be accommodated, we should start discussing how much, with new technologies, ways of working, and the ability for people to get work done outside of both the office and the standard 9-5 schedule, we can let employees decide how best to get the job done, and how much we need standard processes, activities and oversight.  Only when we have that debate will we actually begin to see some value from these new processes that are being proposed by employees, Gen Y included. 

A quick intro

As an introductory post I decided I should explain why I wanted to write a blog, the answer being: mostly just for myself, so I could mull things over. 

 

See, I spend a lot of time in the trenches of information and knowledge management I don't always take the time to think about the larger principles.  And I don't always take the time to rant about the themes that I don't agree with in the field.  So really this is just a personal exercise.  

Of course if anyone wants to take the time to actually read my blog that's great too.  And if you want to argue with me that's even better.  Because ideas don't have much value if no one challenges them.  So thanks in advance for disagreeing with me.