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Webinar overview

Social intranets provide tools for dispersed teams to collaborate online, but without strong people management practices a team can’t get the full benefits.

In this webinar we’ll hear about the practical and honest rules of thumb for managing globally dispersed teams and then we’ll look at real-world examples of how teams can use social intranet features to collaborate effectively.

Presenter: Professor of international business

Presenting on the rules of thumb for effectively managing remote teams will be Dr. Kent Glenzer, Professor in Organizational Behavior and Development at the Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS).

Kent has spent several decades working in international development and nonprofit management, has travelled and lived globally and most recently was the Director of Learning, Evaluation and Accountability at Oxfam America, an international nonprofit focused on finding lasting solutions to poverty, hunger and social injustice.

You can connect with Kent on LinkedIn.

Co-host: International facilitation expert

This webinar will be co-hosted by Nancy White, a consultant to businesses and international nonprofits and co-author of the book “Digital Habits: Stewarding Technology for Communities.” Nancy brings a critical perspective based on her extensive experience as a facilitator for both online and in-person groups around the world.

Nancy is a “technology steward, designer and builder of online interaction spaces (events, teams, learning groups)” with extensive work with “web 2.0” tools. She specializes in facilitation of distributed work, learning and community groups (presenter, writer, teacher, coach, facilitator, rapporteur).

You can connect with Nancy on Twitter.

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This is a special addition to our regular Social Intranet Summit Webinar series, which usually takes place the third Wednesday of each month at 10:00am Pacific. Sign up for our newsletter to hear about future webinars.

The winners were unveiled at the 2011 Social Intranet Summit. Today, we’re pleased to announce the winners to the world.

Best-looking intranet

Winner: WATG, Newport Beach, California

Who they are: Renowned destination design firm WATG has designed some of the world’s most famous hotels and resorts, from The Atlantis in the Bahamas to the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

Why they won: Just like their projects, WATG’s ThoughtFarmer installation is well-designed. It employs a neat, minimalist aesthetic that complements the stunning photography.

Honorable Mention: Fortis Business Media, Nashville, Tennessee

Who they are: Fortis produces newsletters, videos, software, books, and directories to attorneys, human resources professionals, and other business executives.

Why they won: The name of Fortis’s intranet, “The Pub”, rolls right off the tongue so that users have incorporated its usage into the office vernacular — and it’s also a play on their core business of publishing. The look and feel is comfortable and inviting, taking design cues from an old English pub.

Most Innovative intranet

Winner: KWL Consulting Engineers, Vancouver, Canada

Who they are: Kerr Wood Leidal specializes in water engineering for municipal infrastructure and resource development. They are employee-owned and strive to maintain an open, collaborative environment.

Why they won: Like many firms, KWL periodically refreshes the mobile phones of employees. Using ThoughtFarmer, they held an open auction for dozens of smart phones and raised money for charity. They created a page for each phone, then let employees submit their bids by using ThoughtFarmer’s commenting features. The highest bid submitted before the deadline was the winner. In the words of Jonathan Funk, the intranet project manager, “In the end, we found a great new way to use our ThoughtFarmer intranet and raised $4230 for the Ronald McDonald House charity.”

Honorable Mention: Farm Bureau Bank, San Antonio, TX

Who they are: Farm Bureau Bank offers its banking services to members of the Farm Bureau, a U.S.-wide organization that strives to build strong, prosperous agricultural communities.

Why they won: Farm Bureau Bank created a “Shout-Outs” section on their ThoughtFarmer intranet. It’s a place where employees can publicly thank (or “shout-out”) a fellow employee or even a department for assisting with work-related issues. This kind of public recognition enhances employee engagement, which is a critical function of FBB’s ThoughtFarmer intranet.

Best Collaboration on an intranet

Winner: ACRONYM Games, Burnaby, BC, Canada

Who they are: ACRONYM Games in Vancouver designs popular video game titles like Family Guy Online, Wipeout The Game, and Monkey Island.

Why they won: Prior to publishing a game, ACRONYM does “smut and copyright reviews” to make sure the game’s assets comply with the appropriate standards. Prior to ThoughtFarmer, they were forced to do this via lengthy and confusing email chains. Now it’s done entirely in ThoughtFarmer using image galleries, commenting and version control.

Honorable Mention: Design Continuum, Boston, MA

Who they are: Continuum is a global design innovation firm. They design services, brand experiences and products. Some of their best-known innovations include the Reebok Pump, the Swiffer Sweeper and Pampers Pull-ups.

Why they won: Continuum has made extensive use of ThoughtFarmer’s custom profile fields to help them locate experts. Their employee profiles capture employees’ skills and attributes, from visas held to languages spoken to social style. According to Brendan Mullen, Continuum’s IT Director, “If I’m looking for a French-speaking PHP expert with a current visa for China, I can do that with a few clicks. In an organization with offices on 3 continents, that’s huge.”

Winner of the iPad Draw

All entrants were automatically entered in a draw for a new iPad 2. We were amused that the name we drew meant that our shipping charge would be almost as much as the iPad itself! Congratulations to our client DFDL Mekong in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Look for the next ThoughtFarmer Best Intranet Competition in late 2012!

On Wednesday, February 1st at 8:30 AM Pacific / 11:30 AM Eastern join ThoughtFarmer Analytics Lead Bryan Robertson for the webinar.

Gathering good web analytics can be tough, especially  for social intranets. Intranet Statistics, an intranet-specific web analytics package developed by the team in Vancouver, comes with every installation of ThoughtFarmer and provides highly detailed data about intranet usage.

In this webinar learn how to select the right data, assess it in the right way, and go from being a “reporting squirrel” to an “analysis ninja.”

• Topic: Using Intranet Statistics to Improve Your ThoughtFarmer Intranet
• Time: Wed, Feb 1st, 8:30am Pacific / 11:30am Eastern / 4:30pm UK
• Length: 45 minutes
• Host: Chris McGrath, ThoughtFarmer Co-Founder
  
• Presenter: Bryan Robertson, Analytics Lead
• Registration link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/951185760

Register now (free)

You can view a video of last month’s Client Webinar, “Using the ThoughtFarmer Integration Kit (TIK)”, on the ThoughtFarmer Helpdesk website. The ThoughtFarmer Client Webinar series is the first Wednesday of each month.

Did you miss the webinar? No problem – we have a full recording.

In this webinar Andy Jankowski, Founder of Enterprise Strategies and Global Director at the Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF), combines current Positive Psychology research with his many years of experience working with intranets to explore the link between intranets and employee happiness.

Andy’s presentation was inspired by Tony Hsieh’s best selling Delivering Happiness Book and Jenn Lim’s groundbreaking Delivering Happiness Movement, and is a live repeat of his popular session from the 2011 Social Intranet Summit.

Follow ThoughtFarmer on Twitter or subscribe to our newsletter to learn about upcoming webinars, white papers and other nifty material on social intranets and employee engagement.

[sniplet marketing]

Andy’s presentation is a live repeat of his popular session from the 2011 Social Intranet Summit.

Extract of the presentation

Inspired by Tony Hsieh’s best selling, Delivering Happiness Book and Jenn Lim’s groundbreaking Delivering Happiness Movement, Andy combines current Positive Psychology research with his many years of experience working with intranets to explore the link between intranets and employee happiness.

Register now (free)

Hear about Andy’s presentation topic in his own words:

For a little more info about the webinar see the slideshow from Andy’s presentation at the Social Intranet Summit:

The Social Intranet Summit Webinar series is every third Wednesday of each month at 10:00am Pacific. Sign up for our newsletter to hear about future webinars.

Listen to Shel Holtz’s podcast on content curation for internal and external audiences.

We do apologize for not having the webinar recording as promised. We are working diligently to address the issue that ruined the audio recording for this webinar so we can ensure all our future webinars are recorded and available after the shows.

Upcoming webinars & events

Follow ThoughtFarmer on Twitter to hear about upcoming webinars, case studies and other social intranet material, including the upcoming January 18th webinar with Andy Jankowski on The Science Linking Intranets to Happiness.

The webinars with Shel and Andy are part of our Social Intranet Summit Webinar series: The third Wednesday of every month we provide an online live repeat of a session from the 2011 Social Intranet Summit in Vancouver (SISV).

On Tuesday, December 13th at 10:00 AM Pacific join ThoughtFarmer and Shel Holtz, Principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, for a truly helpful webinar: Surviving your intranet’s content crisis: content curation on the social intranet.

Shel’s presentation is a live repeat of his keynote speech from the 2011 Social Intranet Summit.

Extract of the presentation:

There’s no shortage of talk about content curation on the web, but it has a place on your intranet, as well. With search functions suffering on many intranets, well curated content can make a huge difference in the value of the intranet. Employees who take the time to curate both internal and external content based on topics they care about can make it easier for their colleagues to find great content, spark more collaboration, and drive use of other internal social tools. In this session, Shel Holtz will dig into the content curation trend and explore some ways it can be applied to internal communications and employees’ day-to-day online activities.

Register now (free)

The Social Intranet Summit Webinar series is every third Wednesday of each month at 10:00am Pacific (this particular webinar is a slight exception to this recurring schedule).

Jeff Pennal, ThoughtFarmer Software Developer

ThoughtFarmer clients are getting excited about the new possibilities offered by the ThoughtFarmer Integration Kit (TIK), our new advanced suite of customization tools that allows even more ways to extend your intranet’s functionality. This month’s Client Webinar will provide a detailed look at how the TIK is set up and how to use it: Using the ThoughtFarmer Integration Kit (TIK).

On Wednesday, December 7th at 10:00 AM Pacific / 1:00 PM Eastern join ThoughtFarmer Software Developer Jeff Pennal for the webinar.

The TIK allows intranet managers to move information into and out of ThoughtFarmer, enhance ThoughtFarmer with new functionality by embedding your code into page templates, create dashboards showing content from external systems, provide single-sign on to services that provide a remote authentication API, and more.

• Topic: Using the ThoughtFarmer Integration Kit (TIK)
• Time: Wed Dec 7th, 10:00am Pacific / 1:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm UK
• Length: 45 minutes
• Host: Chris McGrath, ThoughtFarmer Co-Founder
  
• Presenter: Jeff Pennal, Software Developer
• Registration link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/638109041

Register now (free)

See this short video demo to get a sense of the opportunities for integration that the TIK offers:

Last month’s Client Webinar, “Getting the Most Out of ThoughtFarmer 5.0”, is now available online. The ThoughtFarmer Client Webinar series is the first Wednesday of each month.

A few brave souls joined us for the first session of the day and I thank them for their attendance, attention, and participation (both in person and on twitter…)

The presentation was theoretical in orientation. And highly metaphorical. My part of the presentation (I will let Thomas write about his own perspectives on his blog) provided an entry point into thinking about urban planning through New York’s Greenwich Village, the battle between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs in the 1950′s and 1960′s, and the book that resulted from that battle; The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It was in this book that Jacobs took aim at the high modernist, “rational,” technocratic central planners of her time, who wished to engineer away the mess and slums of cities with their urban renewal efforts and concrete reveries.

In that book, Jacobs argues that thriving cities thrive because of their complexity, disorder and messiness not because of their pristine order and engineered efficiency. And while modernist architecture and large-scale centrally planned civic efforts fell mostly out of favour in the 1970′s and onwards (unless you’re in northern China in cities like Ordos today), my argument is that their principles and spirit found a happy home in a less material yet no less psychologically crushing environment; information technology.

Information technology and the systems of records that we’ve been building inside of organizations ever since the 1970’s have been bastions of modernist architectural design thought. The automation and digitization of the workforce and its corresponding mechanical metaphors, images, and language run rampant inside our institutions even to this day. They are embedded in our systems and therefore our thinking.

But this is changing. Slowly but surely, the mess and complexity is starting to be understood and not feared. It’s a slow road and has many long years ahead as people leave behind their metaphorical “organization as machine” thinking. But I do believe it is happening.

Others believe it’s happening too. Dave Gray of Dachis Group has written extensively about this with his Connected Company efforts. It was his blog post in February 2011 that prompted me to get off my ass and finally put some of my thoughts down into a small burst of 3 blog posts on the subject. And that, plus some ongoing emails and conversations with Thomas turned into the presentation today.

So what’s Dave’s preferred metaphor for the organization, if not the machine? Well, it’s a complex system. And what better complex system to choose than a city.

My question is simple: if we are going to think about our organizations as cities, what can we learn from people who “design” cities for a living? Those “designers” are called planners and their profession is planning. Who are they? What do they do? How do they plan?

As I’ve found out through my readings and conversations, planning has a rich history – a 200 year old history dating back to the Enlightenment. Based on the definitions of planning and the types of problems that planners try to solve (often “wicked problems” in nature and form), I believe we have a great deal to learn from them.

Fundamentally, planning can be defined as a forward looking activity, one that takes what we know and turns it into action in a rational manner. And for most planners, their work is in the public domain; civic government, public sector activities – different aspects of society or public life where their knowledge, decisions, actions, and rationality play out. For social business professionals, our domain is the organization. While that sounds neat and tidy, the lines are blurring there and enterprise social software is playing a role. Customer feedback, internal collaboration and communication, not to mention the involvement of partners in the decision making processes mean that social business’s landscape is varied and increasingly expanding.

My pitch, while not elevator quality by a long shot, is as follows:

Knowledge (be it scientific, technical, and other forms) and its connection to the future through action, decision making, and the processes and practices whereby
we arrive at what we consider to be “rational” for our new fangled social businesses is at the core of the value proposition of the systems of engagement, of enterprise social software.

And if the Enterprise 2.0 conference attendees thought they were there to buy software, they were perhaps only half right. The value of that software, it’s purpose, is the reconfiguration of social relations, the way people work, and the way people create value and meaning inside organizations.

And the practice of social transformation is planning.

The audience of our talk were all planners. They just didn’t know it yet.

Due to this unawareness, I believe that the lack of planning theory in the Enterprise social software field represents a huge intellectual blindspot. One that I hope to contribute to shining a light on some more in the future.

The thoughts that I wished to share with the conference were appreciative in nature – that is, they were primarily used in order to, in planning historian John Friedman’s words, “construct a satisfying image of the world, pursued primarily for the world view it opens up.” If Gareth Morgan was to re-write Images of the Organization, or at least update it today, I hope he’d include a chapter on “Organization as City” (as an aside, I know I could do without the chapter “Organization as Game” which is another blog post in the making…).

After Thomas provided his ideas that had been informed by his background reading and schooling in planning and public policy thought, I wrapped up with a few references to some ideas that really resonate with me:

The differences of space and place, well articulated by Paul Dourish in his 2001 book on the philosophical aspects of software Where the Action Is, is one which borrows quite obviously from planning and architecture. Space is geometric in nature, place is experiential and social. So how do we great great places in our software? This is still a key question in UX that needs work to be done.

Networks vs. hierarchies – Christopher Alexander and his 1965 essay The City is Not a Tree is worth re-reading. As of course, is Alexander’s Pattern Language.

Dave Snowden‘s concept of safe-fail vs. fail-safe and the lightweight, low-cost urban traffic and street-scape interventions of people like Janet Sadik-Khan in New York is another one that I think we can learn from in our complex social software systems.

And finally, wherever we are thinking about the future, utopian visions aren’t far behind. We fall in love with our models and visions of the city from the air, when really we should be designing from the street level. Mind the Platonic Fold! How do we ensure that we don’t get too enamoured with our models and static representations of clearly dynamic, evolving, and changing social systems?

How this translates back into social software, its design, and our processes for integrating it with our day to day lives inside of organizations – that’s a work in progress. I’m a firm believer in the value of theory, not just for theory’s sake. I believe that through better understanding these concepts, we can have an impact on our technologies and our thinking.

(the E2conf braintrust enjoying some amazing Malaysian food – thanks Sameer, Suzie, and Megan for making it happen)

For now, it’s food for thought, a provocation, one that will get conversation flowing. I’m looking forward to many more conversations and conferences that lie ahead on this topic.

Deane Barker

This Wednesday, November 16th, at 10:00am Pacific, join ThoughtFarmer and Deane Barker, Content Management Practice Director at Blend Interactive, for an insightful webinar: Overcoming the Fear: What C-Level Execs are Afraid of When it Comes to Social Intranets.

Deane’s presentation is a live repeat of his session (one of the most highly rated) from the 2011 Social Intranet Summit.

Extract of the presentation

Let’s face it, the biggest hurdle to overcome with a social intranet is often pure fear. The C-level can be hopelessly gunshy about employees displaying the slightest about of intranet-sanctioned social humanity. The idea of a social network behind the firewall wakes them up in a cold sweat at night. Where did this fear come from? And can it be overcome?

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Hear about Deane’s presentation topic in his own words:

For a little more info about the webinar see the slideshow from Deane’s presentation at the Social Intranet Summit: