Recently at Doculabs, we’ve seen a jump in consulting engagements focused on enabling collaboration on a global basis. In addition to their geographic diversity, global organizations face some unique challenges: inconsistent processes, different regulations, and usually a broad portfolio of tools used to accomplish similar functions.
But the most significant challenge is cultural, particularly when the client is trying to enable collaboration. Simply put, collaboration requires contributors and consumers. We know that often only a small subset of individuals are active contributors to forums such as wikis or blogs (knowledgebases), but when that number drops to below 1 or 2 percent, you’ve got a problem. The same is true with expertise profiles. Sure, the IT guys can load all of the “address book” information from the HR system, but when the contextual information remains blank – such as skills, areas of interest, project participation history – same problem.
A funny thing happened at one of our global clients in the consumer goods industry. We were asked to diagnose why there was such low adoption of an expertise portal that had been functional for over a year. We took a sampling of 300 people from a broad range of functions and departments. Less than 15 percent had taken the time to complete their individual profiles on the expertise portal. We then checked on LinkedIn, and found that just over 30 percent of THESE SAME INDIVIDUALs had very rich descriptions of their backgrounds available in the public cloud for the rest of the world to see.
So what motivates someone to invest the time on the public forum, while not on the internal corporate system? Heck, why not just abandon the internal expertise portal project and just use LinkedIn? At least you’d have some background material on 30 percent of the users!
Back to culture. In many organizations, our “personal equity” comes from WHO we know, rather than WHAT we know. For example, your manager asks you about historical quality metrics for a product released in 1995. You respond, “I know, we can ask Tony in the service department; he used to work in engineering around that time.” Bingo, that’s why they pay you the big bucks. Tony does the same, often referring people to you when asked about your discipline. Self-preservation. Can we codify this sequence of events and replace this process with a system? Sure we can, but what’s broken? Nothing, for the individuals involved. And as individuals, we have no motivation to change. Yet as a collective organization, there are many benefits. This example is even more applicable in cultures outside North America, where social networking ties are very strong and take years to foster – which has clear implications for the global organization.
On the positive side, many individuals around the globe are excited about working with peers from other cultures and geographies. The new enabling tools make the prospect of collaboration even more achievable. Clearly, finding the right use cases with motivated contributors is critical. Prioritizing geographies where acceptance is likely and social networks are formed more dynamically is also prudent.
Ultimately, few of us know how global systems like these in the collaboration space are going to shake out. But the “consumer-led” innovation occurring in the public domain offers many insightful clues for corporate initiatives and deserves a close look on the part of corporations looking to make use of collaboration tools on a global basis.
James Watson, Jr. PhD can be reached at 312-881-1620, jwatson@doculabs.com, or tweet me @jameswatsonjr
#Collaboration #ElectronicRecordsManagement #global