There is a lot of confusion about communities within corporations. This confusion blurs the thinking on objectives, on adequate tools etc.
Making a long story short and therefore not going into details, I propose the attached framework for clarification.
The world of communities is divided into 4 quadrants; One barrier is the firewall of the corporation i.e. only corporate members can have access; The second barrier is the specific password required to be allowed access to a specific community. The 4 quadrants are then the following:
IP GENERATION(inside corporations, selective membership): here only coopted or selected experts can work together, this is the realm of "IP creation Communities of Practice" (COPs). These communities use specific rules, specific jargons and specific tools. This quadrant is the one where "next" practices are developed (vs. best practices).
IP LEVERAGE (inside the corporation, accessible to anybody belonging to the corporation): This is the territory of dissemination COPs, of communities of interest, of Knowledge Management documents being made available, of internal folksnomy and tagging. These communities may use other tools, certainly have other jargons and respect other rules.This quadrant is the reservoir for improving productivity, best practice diffusion, etc.
CO CREATION (outside of corporation, selective membership): This is the area of Communities with alumni groups, suppliers, customers, closed social networks, etc.this quadrant allows new forms of experimentation and creation. Again new tools (or other tools configuration) are required, different jargons are used, different rules are observed.
INTERNET BRANDING (outside of corporation, total visibility and availability); this is the territory of open communities of interest, blogs, open social networks, candidate attraction, forums, etc. this quadrant builds the brands of the corporation (volontarily or not). The tools here are often the usual ones of the Internet, the jargon has to be understood by everyone, the rules are the ones of this totally open world.
Please Mention Boostzone Institute - Dominique Turcq if you use this copyrighted tool.
The Economist du 18 novembre a publié un article sur les individus qui deviennent "pro" de leur blog, c'est à dire qu'ils en dégagent suffisamment de revenus pour vivre.
A mon sens l'article est intéressant car il annonce, au delà des "boutiques" de bloggeurs et des exceptions, une des véritables révolutions dans le monde de la presse. Je me demande si les journalistes les plus fiables, donc en principe travaillant dans des journaux ou des magazines leur conférant leur reconnaissance, ne vont pas bientôt, tout en restant salariés des journaux, devenir des sources d'information à part entière mais vendus par appartements. Notamment je pense qu'un nombre important de lecteurs, faisant confiance à tel ou tel journal ou journaliste, est prêt à payer pour accéder aux analyses spécifiques de tel ou tel journaliste. Le modèle même de l'abonnement pourrait ainsi être changé. On s'abonnerait non pas à un journal papier, ni à un journal électronique, mais à un ensemble de blogs, comme on achète désormais de la musique titre par titre, pour recevoir les analyses dont on a le plus besoin.
Among the most important trends affecting our society, one of them is the fact that the generational gaps within corporations is also about cultural and sociological behaviors. It includes the fact that for many young individuals the corporate world is boring and as unattractive as an old b&w tv.
The article below states the issue it in a creative and very positive way. Besides the substance of the article it stresses implications for companies on how to be an employer of choice for young people. Do we understand their language and are we able to speak it, etc. are some of the implications. A good read, and not only if you are above 35...
Young workers are unquestionably tech savvy, but those who prefer instant messaging to direct contact can create issues for older members of an organization. A preference for contact via technology is also problematic in areas like sales. Companies are addressing such issues with training.
text of the article first page (the full one via the link):
Business Basics Instant Messenger Etiquette Tom Van Riper, 08.22.06, 10:00 AM ET
Office communication just isn't what it used to be. For folks over 40, the following instant message may look like nothing more than gobbledygook: "#s look gd… lnch @ 1/ back l8r." But for younger employees, it's just simple shorthand for: "The numbers look good. I'm leaving for lunch at 1 p.m., and I'll be back later."
Instant messaging isn't just a new technology, it's also a new language. One that's especially easy to over rely on, misinterpret and misuse. That goes for co-workers of all ages.
The recent crop of grads, those born in the early 1980s, a.k.a Generation Y, has marched boldly into the adult workforce over the past four years. They've brought with them a set of technological tools that makes fax machines, voice mail and spreadsheet software look positively quaint. They've grown up with scanning, text messaging and Googling, and they're not about to stop once they've hit the working world.
Nor should they. Those skills are big assets when it comes to multi-tasking and productivity. But they're also a nightmare for many of their bosses, those over 35 who understand that while technology is a useful tool, it doesn't replace relationship building as a primary means for doing business. Today's bosses can't understand why their young recruits, for all their brains and technical acumen, hardly ever come over and actually talk to them.
"I hear from clients that [young professionals'] first instinct is to IM rather than walk over to their boss's office. That can be OK for a quick question, but when you're planning something, you need to talk face-to-face," says Steven Rothberg, founder of Collegerecruiter.com, who places recent graduates into corporate jobs.
The tech disparity between 20-somethings and 40-somethings is far greater today than it was 20 years ago, when today's 40-somethings were the young turks. Over 17% of today's workforce is between the ages of 25 and 34, while another 28% is made up of employees 55 and over, Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show.
That breakdown is not much different than in many past years. But what is different is the speed of technological progress since the mid-1990s, from the Internet and e-mail to cell phones and instant messaging. A recent survey by outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison shows that 60% of U.S. corporations acknowledge having workplace tensions among generations.
Ruth Sherman, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based communications consultant whose client roster includes Deloitte, Pfizer and Bank of America, says common complaints about younger workers range from lame handshakes and poor conversational skills to super-casual attire and personal use of company e-mail. Some show up at job interviews in tee shirts. What the Gen Yers don't see, she says, is the meaning and value of gestures and other non-verbal skills that don't come through in a text message.
"My clients are frustrated; a lot of them are throwing up their hands because they can't persuade young people to get it," Sherman says.
Carl Tyler, a veteran of Lotus and IBM who now runs Instant Technologies, an enterprise IM software group, thinks one of the biggest etiquette breaches by Gen Y recruits involves newbies typing paragraph upon paragraph of chat.
"It's a new medium, don't treat it like e-mail," Tyler says.”
In other areas, many major companies are doing their best to train their Gen Y hires in traditional business practices. At Deloitte, the accounting and consulting firm which hires thousands of college grads each year, managers' tweaking of young subordinates' habits sometimes includes reminders to use complete sentences in memos, while Googling a topic doesn't qualify as research, according to human resources executive Stan Smith. He adds, though, that while the Gen Y crowd has shown a wider gap than their predecessors between college life and readiness for the workforce, they do generally show a willingness to learn.
"A lot of them actually do want to be mentored; they respond well to smart adults," Smith says.
Other firms--particularly sales and consulting operations that require a lot of client contact--are also making the effort to adjust their training for the new breed. Big Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and UBS all hold communications classes for new recruits. MetLife this year began a program that sends college interns out on client calls with veteran sales reps, giving them a first hand look at the face-to-face selling process.
MetLife's insurance competitor, The Hartford, emphasizes face-to-face and telephone skills, which they see as lacking in IM-happy recruits. The good news, according to Jim Greising, a vice president for the company's Property & Casualty sales team, is that most recruits are smart, talented and open to learning. Where they differ from their predecessors, he says, is in their requests for more hands on, interactive training. Few have the patience to sit through an eight hour class.
And some newbies, according to Greising, have no problem casually talking to the president of the company the same way they talk to a peer. And while that may ruffle some feathers among the old guard, it's not necessarily all bad.
"It shows they're willing to say what's on their mind," he says.
Is it possible that it's the older workers who will ultimately have to adjust, forced to do away with the personal touch in favor of pure speed and efficiency? After all, the young tech-savvy recruits of today are the company bosses of tomorrow. The answer is yes--and no. While increasingly faster communications are here to stay, face-to-face skills have been a staple for getting business done for too long to think they will ever go out of style altogether.
"There will likely be a happy medium," Sherman says. "If you can't build relationships with people, you can't do business."
Carl Tyler, a veteran of Lotus and IBM and founder of the Web site Instant Technology, recommends the following rules when using instant messaging at work:
Dans la livraison de ce jour de la lettre du Conference Board, un article intéressant sur la façon dont on peut vérifier la sincérité des CV des cadres dirigeants à travers le net. Illustré de quelques scandales récents, cet article illustre l'une des facettes de la notion d'identité sur le net, mais aussi celle de la sincérité. Le net va permettre une très grande transparence du marché du travail, nous en avons ici une illustration des plus concrètes. Quelques Extrait de l'article du Conference Board, plus d'info sur leur site www.conference-board.org: Week of Aug-08-2006 Vol. 3 No. 61
Résumé Fraud Starts at the Top
How to spot red flags on an executive's CV.
By James B. Mintz
A few months ago, the long list of senior executives found to have faked their résumés got a bit longer, when it was reported that RadioShack Corp. president and CEO David Edmondson had not received two degrees he claimed to have earned years ago—in, of all things, theology and psychology. Edmondson soon publicly acknowledged the falsehood and "resigned," but not before causing serious damage to the reputations of his company and his board.
An executive's résumé is not just a personal and private document—it is, or should be, a testament to the honesty and integrity of the entire company.
That—and the potential legal liability if a faked résumé lands the faker in the executive suite—is why it is incumbent on search committees to validate the résumé of every finalist for a senior position. It also behooves every up-and-coming executive to think long and hard before embedding in his CV even a "little white lie" that may later be difficult or impossible to explain—or remove. In the age of Google and archived Web pages, any inconsistency or exaggeration may eventually be brought to light, probably at the least opportune moment.
Finding those fallacies is one of the things we do for a living. Evaluating their seriousness, and what they say about the character and qualifications of the management or board candidate who tells them, is another matter that we'll delve into below.
Needless to say, many of the candidates we check out for board—and "C"-level corporate positions are scrupulously honest in describing their backgrounds. But we find a surprising number who prove to have been presenting themselves falsely for their whole careers—and whose view seems to be "Catch me if you can." Want to know how to spot the red flags in executive résumés? Here are some ways.
NAME CHANGES
...
EDUCATION
The national media in recent years have reported a number of high-profile cases of lying about college degrees in résumés. Among other examples, Kenneth Lonchar resigned as CFO of Veritas Software in 2002, after it was learned that he falsely claimed to have a Stanford MBA. Two weeks later, Bausch & Lomb CEO Ronald Zarrella admitted falsely claiming a New York University MBA.
PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT
Some executives push beyond the limit of hyperbole in describing their role at prior employers. One chief financial officer, for example, described his ex-employer's financial rise but omitted its bankruptcy, as well as charges that this CFO made preferential transfers of assets just before the filing.
OMISSION
We have learned to look in court files when we're checking a résumé; we recently caught a job omitted from an executive's employment history—but revealed in his arrest information sheet! Another type of search—for company press releases—would have revealed one of the more notorious examples of job-omission: Sunbeam's "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap. When The New York Times reported in 2001 that Dunlap had omitted from his CV two executive jobs from which he had been fired, his successor at Sunbeam, Jerry Levin, no doubt spoke for many when he observed, "I find it most unusual that anyone could be hired as a chief executive of a major company without having their background thoroughly checked."
REFERENCES
Beware references in a résumé's Employment History to obscure consulting firms—these can sometimes be traced back to the résumé-writer herself. Understandably reluctant to acknowledge a period during which they were unemployed, some executives create phantom companies to fill gaps in résumés between the last, and the next, actual job.
BOARD MEMBERSHIP
We find that the end dates on a person's board affiliations can be interesting, like the member who turned out to have suddenly resigned from a board after it began investigating an accounting scandal that later engulfed the company.
PROFESSIONAL LICENSING
New York Life Insurance Co. discovered recently that one of its deputy general counsels, ten-year company veteran Michael Watson, had never been admitted to practice law. His previous two employers, both prominent law firms, apparently had never checked his credentials to confirm he was really a lawyer.
You no longer have to visit the local courthouse to check—a few minutes in the New York State Office of Court Administration's Internet directory would have revealed the problem.
INTERESTS
While résumés don't often lie about hobbies, we still sometimes encounter interesting complexities in a résumé's Interests section. In one case, checking out an executive whose résumé said that he collects vintage automobiles revealed online DMV records indicating that his background included a half-dozen speeding tickets.
Why do so many seemingly successful people lie about their backgrounds? Because they started doing it early in their careers—before they became successful—and then couldn't stop. Let's hear from two who got caught:
Coach O'Leary: "Many years ago, as a young, married father... [i]n seeking employment, I prepared a résumé that contained inaccuracies. ... These misstatements were never stricken from my résumé or biographical sketch in later years."
Sandra Baldwin, the first woman to become president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, resigned a day after admitting falsifying her academic credentials: "I should have changed it a long time ago, but once it was published it got paralyzing."
In other words, it takes a good deal of digging to find résumé fraud, because its roots go deep.
And a word of advice for young professionals who aspire to the executive suite: Don't assume that falsehood buried in your résumé will never be caught—will never, one day, blow up in your face. Because, in this age of huge electronic databases where both facts and falsehoods live forever, trust me: Sooner or later, it probably will.
Should any exaggeration on a résumé be grounds for a job candidate's automatic disqualification? That's something every hiring committee must decide for itself. One useful test we would venture to suggest: Does the lie appear to be a conscious and calculated effort to falsify one's past for the specific purpose of deceiving prospective employers? If so, we'd recommend a thumbs-down vote.
Or is the lie an understandable, arguably forgivable, omission apparently aimed at simplifying and clarifying an otherwise complicated personal and/or professional history? If so—and if an otherwise outstanding candidate, when confronted by the truth, acknowledges the error and provides a satisfactory, credible explanation—we'd probably be inclined to keep her candidacy alive.
At the end of the day, it's the hiring committee's decision whether to take or not take a zero-tolerance approach. For the aspiring job candidate or prospective board member, the best advice we can give is: Don't ever put a hiring committee in the position of having to make that choice.
Source: July/August 2006 Across the Board, The Conference Board
Le site Manageurs.com qui regroupe les anciens élèves de HEC, X, Centrale et ENSAE vient de publier dans un email général aux anciens élèves la note suivante:
"Où en est manageurs.com aujourd'hui ?
Le premier réseau commun d’anciens et d’élèves : HEC, Polytechnique, Centrale Paris et ENSAE est maintenant ouvert aux recruteurs potentiels.
A ce jour, sont inscrits sur le portail, 870 entreprises et 1200 professionnels du recrutement et y figurent actuellement 1300 offres.
Depuis janvier 2006, certaines entreprises (dont le nombre va croître fortement tout au long de cette année) chassent déjà les CV et profils déposés sur le site (en clair ou anonyme, à ton choix)."
A priori l'idée, présentée comme une grande nouvelle, n'est pas mauvaise, et elle est probablement inévitable, et Manageurs.com est loin d'être unique, mais elle pose plusieurs questions non triviales:
- Les réseaux vont challenger les entreprises dans leur guerre des talents mais surtout dans leur guerre de la motivation ( la prochaine phase de la guerre). Est ce bon pour l'économie, pour les entreprises, pour les réseaux, pour les individus?
- Beaucoup de réseaux sociaux vont apparaître comme des terrains de chasse (comme si la vie était passée à chercher du boulot!) et donc vont d'une part se transformer en miroirs aux alouettes et surtout d'autre part risquer de passer à côté de l'immense réservoir de valeurs qu'ils représentent par les échanges autres que ceux liés à la recherche d'un emploi.
- Quelle valeur risquent ils alors de représenter pour les individus en dehors des périodes pendant lesquelles ces derniers ne sont pas intéressés à chercher un emploi ou à être chassés et pendant lesquelles ils tiennent surtout a mieux faire leur travail (notion de communautés de pratiques) ou à trouver des partenaires d'affaires? Personnellement je me demande si en insistant aussi lourdement sur la recherche d'emplois les réseaux ne détruisent pas de la valeur plutot que d'en créer.
McKinsey a sorti dans son dernier numéro du McKinsey Quarterly un remarquable article sur l'activité de connection entre les hommes dans l'entreprise et la création d'avantages compétitifs.
Ci dessous les premiers éléments de l'article, ainsi que le lien pour le regarder en entier (Il se peut que vous ayiez à vous enregistrer pour le lire en entier)
Companies are looking for ways to improve the effectiveness of their top talent: workers who interact with others and draw on experience and judgment to solve the deepest business problems. What makes these workers valuable is their ability to work collaboratively, to leverage "relationship capital," and to improvise and improve new solutions within an environment that fosters trust and constant learning. To put these workers to best use, companies must change the way they organize, hatch their strategies, and manage their talent and IT. The levers that managers must pull to get this job done—flattening hierarchies and creating an environment for constant learning—are familiar. But it will be critical to understand exactly what a company must do to use these workers most effectively and how such efforts differ from other kinds of productivity programs.
L'article que vous trouverez (peut être car je ne suis pas sûr qu'il faille un abonnement au site ou non) grâce au lien ci dessous est particulièrement intéressant quand on le regarde en décalage avec la France. Il montre comment une grande quantité de sites aux US sont en train de capitaliser sur les anciens employés des entreprises. L'article est centré sur les retraités mais les sites sont plutôt axés sur tous les anciens employés; Ils sont aussi parfois plutôt spécialisés sur le marché du travail.
L'intérêt est dans le paradoxe de voir les que les Etats Unis, qui ont moins de travailleurs agés que nous, les utilisent beaucoup mieux et de mieux en mieux.
La France y vient, mait tout doucement. Vivement que nous fassions de notre vieillissement un avantage compétitif.
Les articles sur les réseaux et communautés professionnels commencent à fleurir. Récemment dans La Tribune et Les Echos, des pages entières y ont été consacrées. Tant mieux car enfin, même si ces articles passent encore souvent à côté des enjeux de management qui sont impliqués par les réseaux, le lecteur attentif les percevra entre les lignes.
Trois articles récents, dans des revues américaines ou anglaises se hissent un cran plus loin.
Tout d’abord un article dans The Economist du 18 février, à l’intérieur du « Special Report » sur les travailleurs âgés, au titre merveilleusement typique de The Economist : « Turning boomers into boomerangs ». Les boomerangs sont ces anciens employés qui reviennent dans l’entreprise pour y re-travailer à temps plein ou partiel, après avoir accumulé des expériences ailleurs ou parce qu’ils détiennent, bien qu’à la retraite pour certains, des compétences rares. Rien n’est aussi bon qu’une citation:
« …Other firms are polishing their alumni networks. IBM uses its network to recruit retired people for particular projects. Ernst and Young, a professional-services firm, has about 30 000 registered alumni, and about 25% of its “experienced” new recruits are boomerangs (former employees who return after an absence). Helen Walsh, director of the firm’s alumni network(and herself a boomerang), says it is particularly helpful in attracting women back into the workforce…”. La force de cet article est dans le fait qu’il souligne ainsi clairement une partie des bénéfices que peuvent trouver les entreprises à garder le contact avec leurs anciens employés.
Ensuite un article de février dans une revue américaine, Workforce Management, que l’on peut trouver sur www.workforce.com, intitulé «Setting Sites on Retirees ». Il se concentre sur le boom des communautés d’anciens aux Etats Unis et les différents business modèles qui sont en train d’apparaître, tous axés sur des softwares de gestion communautaires et pratiquement tous ayant comme objectifs le marché de l’emploi des seniors. L’approche est intéressante car générée par une revue spécialisée sur le marché de l’emploi mais incomplète car ne faisant qu’ébaucher les bénéfices à recevoir de cette population pour l’entreprise. Le ROI est considéré comme tellement évident que l’article n’en parle pas en tant que tel mais fourmille d’exemples d’entreprises utilisant des anciens.
Enfin, le plus solide, le plus prestigieux et le plus lourd pour la fin, la Harvard Business Review, www.hbr.org, publie dans son numéro de mars, en article vedette, un document « Connect and Develop : Inside Procter and Gamble’s New Model for Innovation ». Le ROI pour P&G est démontré dans le domaine de l’innovation et du management des connaissances en réseaux. Mais ce qui est le plus marquant dans cet article est la démonstration d’une notion que nous défendons chez Boostzone depuis longtemps : la perméabilité. C’est parce que P&G réussit dans le même temps à défendre sa Propriété Intellectuelle et à faire fonctionner au mieux son Intelligence Economique qu’elle transforme ses réseaux d’innovation en une véritable machine à croissance. Le management des connaissances est perméable, c’est à dire qu’il n’hésite pas à chercher partout à l’extérieur, mais il fonctionne comme une diode, les informations internes sont bien préservées. L’article est remarquable quant à la description des méthodes de P&G, la gouvernance du process et les résultats à en attendre. Un vrai bijou.
Le Conference Board, un think tank américain très proche des problématiques de management, a publié récemment une étude sur les « Top 10 challenges 2006 pour les CEOs ».
La liste est intéressante, réalisée à partir d’une étude terrain :
Croissance du CA
Croissance du profit
Exécution de la stratégie
Flexibilité et adaptation au changement
Rétention des clients
Stimulation de la créativité dans l’entreprise
Réputation de l’entreprise
Speed to market
Innovation produit
Amélioration de la productivité
Mais ce qui est particulièrement intéressant est que les outils CMS (Community Management Systems) vont justement permettre de faire la différence entre les entreprises qui savent les utiliser et les autres.
En effet, chacun de ces points peut être accéléré par une utilisation judicieuse des CMS. La liste ci dessous est rapide et à dessein un peu caricaturale mais laisse voir quelles directions peuvent être prises dans ce que j’appelle la révolution par les CMS.
CMS et CRM
CMS et CRM et Communautés internes liées à l’innovation
CMS de gouvernance des comités et gouvernance de gestion de projets
CMS innovation et groupes de projets
CMS et CRM
CMS innovation et groupes de projets, voire groupes de diversité
CMS et CRM et gestion des anciens employés et des candidats
Un bon dossier dans Les Echos de cette semaine sur les réseaux professionnels. Un seul regret, il ne traite des réseaux et communautés pratiquement que comme un instrument de management de la carrière ou du développement des individus. De mon point de vue c'est une myopie, d’ailleurs encore largement partagée. En effet, si un réseau doit évidemment apporter beaucoup à ses membres, dès lors que l'on parle d'un réseau professionnel, il doit aussi apporter à l'entreprise qui le sponsorise. C'est évident pour les réseaux d'anciens, les Communautés de pratiques internes ou externes, les systèmes de Knowledge Management basés sur les hommes. Négliger ce point c'est confirmer que les entreprises ne savent pas voir la valeur des réseaux qui la traversent, et donc non seulement ne savent pas en bénéficier mais, pire, peuvent voir leur substance partir vers ces réseaux quand ils sont considérés par les employés comme des lieux importants de leur expression. Et ces réseaux sont attractifs. Il vaut donc mieux pour les entreprises s'en préoccuper, les suivre, encourager les employés à y participer, bref faire en sorte que la substance qui circule dans les réseaux bénéficie à l’entreprise par une amélioration des compétences de ceux qui les utilisent, voire par une capacité supérieure d’attraction et de rétention des meilleurs éléments.
Parmi les réseaux signalés dans cette série d’articles, tous créés hors du sponsorship des entreprises, signalons www.allquality.org qui est une COP de consultants qualité, www.developpez.com pour des développeurs, deux bons exemples de réseaux professionnels autogérés.
Utiliser les réseaux comme instrument de gestion c’est d’abord les organiser mieux, et de façon libérale (absolument), à l’intérieur de l’entreprise, c’est ensuite avoir l’esprit ouvert et encourageant pour permettre aux employés de participer à des réseaux extérieurs, c’est enfin mettre en place les instruments permettant à l’investissement réseau fait par l’entreprise ou par les employés, sur leur propre temps, de dégager un retour sur investissement.
