Thanks for visiting MME2: Monday Morning Enterprise 2.0…my weekly foray into exploring professional and personal topics on the tip of my mind. And don’t be confused by the “morning” branding when posts don’t appear until Monday afternoon. I promise that I was working on it on Monday morning, and at the point I post the article I am sure it will still be Monday morning somewhere.

From @TheBrycesWrite:

When we “Get It!”

As a self-proclaimed evangelist of the benefits of working transparently and collaborating in an open and connected environment, I am fascinated by stories of when people “got it.” When their understanding shift from “what a waste of time” to “this could be a game changer!”

Just last week I had the privilege of meeting with a Sr. VP here at Lilly to talk about some of the work I am doing trying to improve the adoption of and capabilities available for Enterprise 2.0- type objectives. He was already a proponent of finding improved methods for innovation and collaboration, but recent events in Haiti provided a real-life experience to strengthen his belief. You see he had family down in Haiti at the time of the earthquake, and he tried using traditional channels (government, media, etc.) to get up to date information and figure out courses of action to help them out, but wasn’t getting the information nor the results he wanted. Then he and his family turned to posting questions on Facebook, and in short order they were pointed to helpful information that helped contribute to ensuring his family members were safe. Now this wasn’t a work related incident, but he was adept enough to see how the network effects of a highly-populated social network could expedite knowledge and information to an individual faster than any of the traditional communication mediums we primarily make use of today.

My “got it” moment isn’t nearly as poetic and seems trivial in comparison…but it certainly worked for me. Last April on Sunday at the Masters Tournament Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson (both recently accused of “cheating,” although in drastically different ways) were trailing the leaders by a few strokes and were paired together! Tiger and Phil playing together in the final round of the Masters! And we were driving home from Cincinnati during the front-nine of that historic telecast! I informed my wife that she would be driving and I would be following leaderboards / blogs on my mobile during the trip – try finding golf on free radio some day. I was immediately frustrated because those resources were out of synch and I could tell they were at least 10-15 minutes behind the real action, or the blog would be 3 holes behind the leaderboard. I had a Twitter account but I rarely used it at that point…and for some reason on this trip I decided to check it out and search for some Masters-related posts…mostly because the slow blogs weren’t doing it for me. I started following about 15-20 people (mostly golf news outlets and some LPGA players tweeting while watching)…and immediately my involvement switched from frustrated to engaged in the experience. The best part was having real golfers tweeting about each shot from their personal perspective as they watched – describing Phil’s consecutive birdies, Tiger’s eagle on #8, Phil’s crazy recovery shot from the woods on #9, the two of them electrifying the golf course with a barrage of red numbers – tweeters saying “I don’t have that shot!” or “The leaders are stunned by the buzz of the crowd 5 holes ahead of them”.  And I was able to feel the emotion of it in real-time by reading tweets. I’ve been addicted to Twitter as a news/conversation source for live events ever since. Although my wife and kids in the car had a hard time relating to why I was practically jumping out of my seat just by reading short blurbs on a Blackberry.

Now how do I translate that story into getting why taking time to “share” can work in the enterprise as well? Having a Twitter-like environment within our firewall (Litter = Lilly Twitter) has provided similar experiences during internal conferences where many users are attending and posting to the backchannel (I wasn’t jumping out of my seat, but I think you get the point). I likely would have been skeptical of participating in such a backchannel had my Masters / Twitter day not served as a “Gateway Drug” to trying to replicate that experience in my work life. Today, considering myself a full convert since I’m now working on this stuff as a full-time job, my life and work experiences are enhanced because I can relate my conclusions / emotions / questions with other people. I’m more engaged in those events and those outcomes than ever before, because of a connection to the people doing the same.

So let’s see, I’ve used “Got It!” moments to realize benefits to speedy discovery, knowledge retrieval and engagement. Anyone out there looking to improve those aspects of your life and/or work? What have been your “Got It!” moments?

Getting Real with E2.0 – My best example from the week of people using E2.0 to generate value in the work environment:

For the last couple of months I have been experience significant performance issues with my work laptop. After running for only a few hours things would start going haywire and either I would have to reboot a couple times per day or it would just decide to reboot for me with no warning. I’ve been through memory upgrades, re-imaged hard drives, swapped out laptop “shells”, switching which browsers I use regularly, you name it, trying to get to the bottom of the issue with no success.

I had heard rumors that our diligent IT organization was working on a fix for the issue, but hadn’t seen any publications of when / if it would become available. Thanks to keeping up with Litter and a helpful peer posting that the patch was available in our software request system, I have installed it and so far things are much improved. Without the tool or the person’s willingness to share, I may have gone days or weeks without knowing that the patch was available, wasting who knows how many more hours in lost productivity waiting for multiple reboots per day. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that by writing this I haven’t jinxed the solution and I am now beyond the worst of my issues.

Top 3 Reads of the Week:

1. Flexible Access: Impact of Interruptions caused by Enterprise 2.0 Technologies – Kathleen Culver:  I always like staying grounded and avoid pretending that what I work on is the nirvana of all things work. That’s why I like this post as a reminder. But like anything, I wouldn’t use this as an argument against involving yourself in E2.0 capabilities just like I wouldn’t use it as an argument to avoid email or instant messaging. Just a reminder that prioritization and discipline are important in how you work regardless of the communication mediums that surround you.
2. Don’t Lose Yards in the E20 Super Bowl – Susan Scrupski: In honor of the Super Bowl this is an entertaining post with some valuable E20 traps thrown in for good measure. Although I have to admit I would have used “Face-Mask” to describe slide 15!
3. What Can Facebook and Twitter Teach Us About Developing Knowledge Communities – Robert Coates:  This wasn’t written this week, but I discovered it this week, so that counts. Point #3 particularly resonates with me as people tell me about how the implementation must be targeted at specific business processes in order to work. I don’t disagree with that point, but I also don’t want to lose the creative value of people that have a flexible and capable platform to make it work for their needs without prescribing to them how it must be used. I trust in the smarts and creativity of the people that work here to discover innovative use cases.

Tweets of the Week:

1. @20Community: “Get ready for Monday Morning Enterprise 2.0 by Bryce Williams #e2adoption http://su.pr/5Wmg5T” – Thanks! I come up with an idea and write a post about it, and all of a sudden it’s being advertised. There goes that Twitter thing again.
2. @humanfireplace: “If you don’t have time to read Enterprise2.0 and how it’s reshaping our business, listen to this short podcast: http://bit.ly/5H8ab2” – I certainly recommend the book but realize not everyone has time to read every book somebody else recommends. This could be a good resource to reference as an evangelist.
3. @20Adoption: “1st of a 4-part webinar series Slide deck now online: http://bit.ly/dA9Jxe #acweb1” – As a member of the Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Council, this was a cool event because I got to hear some friends do a bang up presentation and at the same time see some great conversation on Twitter about the event as well. Nice job team!

From @GolfinBP:

Sports Minute:

This is the ultimate sports week for me being a huge Colts fan and Super Bowl XLIV (that’s #SB44 for the Roman Numeral impaired) quickly approaching. I was lucky enough (Thanks Toni!) to attend both home AFC Championship games (New England 2007, New York Jets 2010). I am actually more excited about this Super Bowl than when the Colts one their first (as the Indianapolis Colts) 3 years ago. That season the big pinnacle moment was the AFC Championship game when Peyton and the Colts finally overcame their painful losses against Tom Brady’s Patriots. Because of the significance and exciting nature of that win over New England, the Super Bowl vs. Chicago almost felt like a consolation game (sorry Bears fans, it was just how it felt). That and the fact that I had a 4 week old baby boy and a 21 month old daughter at the time. Things were still a bit fuzzy for us with the lack of sleep, all the diapers and all the puking. The kids weren’t easy either.

But now the Colts are where they are supposed to be. When Polian initiated ColtsGate…which I still hole-heartedly support as the right decision as I wrote (sort of) in my blog post…it became Super Bowl or bust for the fans. And now they are here, 60 minutes from earning another Super Bowl trophy that will hopefully be the pinnacle of the playoff run and one that I’ll be rested enough to remember this time!

TV Minute:

As if this week wasn’t exciting enough with the approaching Super Bowl, but ABC decided to premiere the FINAL SEASON of the most addicting television series I have ever watched…LOST. I’m not going to get into the business of trying to predict what will happen, but I will be living up every minute of it…and if anyone tries to talk to me or make noise during any of the episodes, I’ll be rewinding, pausing, cranking up the volume until they get the hint! I won’t miss a word, a reveal or an explanation as to what every mystery, weird happening or relationship twist meant throughout the entire arc of the show. And I know DVR is great, but I am not taking any chances and waiting until the next day to watch. If I have to stay up until 2AM to see the full episode, I will.

I get excited when new TV content is available for my favorite shows, but I also dread it. My 4 DVR tuners will be recording about 10 hours of television on Monday and Tuesday evenings alone (24, House, HIMYM, Big Bang, Two and a Half Men, Heroes, LOST, LOST, LOST, American Idol). That’s a plethora of entertainment and a burden on my mind at the same time. This is going to be another week of little sleep because I dare not watch that stuff while my kids are still awake. Plus, I have to watch every minute of NFL Network coverage of the Colts media day on Tuesday!  Oof.

Top 3 Reads of the Week: (all Colts/NFL related in celebration of Super Bowl week)

1. Tuesday Morning Quaterback – Gregg Easterbrook from ESPN: My favorite part was the analysis of how Jack Bauer from 24 must be at least 60 years old by now.
2. NFL Hangover – DJ Gallo from ESPN: My favorite article every week with the quotes / pictures at the bottom. Laugh out loud funny.
3. Jim Irsay turned team plagued by instability into model franchise – Mike Chappell from IndyStar: The Colts are lucky to have 3 people to look up to when stepping back to admire the consistent success they have had: Manning, Polian and Irsay.

Tweets of the Week:

1. @NFLfootballinfo: “All Decade team: QBs-Manning,Brady. RBs-Alexander,Lewis, James,Tomlinson. WRs-Harrison,Holt,Moss,Owens” – The triplets live again! QB Peyton Manning, RB Edgerrin James, WR Marvin Harrison. Only Peyton remains on the team this year, but a testament to the sustained excellence of the Colts for the last 10 seasons AND their ability to replace top-level talent to remain competitive.
2. @MoveTheSticks: “Haven’t seen one play of the pro bowl. My 2 year old son requested a mickey mouse clubhouse marathon and I obliged. No brainer.” – Been there, done that. “It’s the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse! Come inside, it’s fun inside!” The recent obsession though is Chuggington.
3. @stewartcink: “Packing up for my trip to Northern Trust Open tomorrow. Should I give my ‘new’ lob wedge a try? http://twitpic.com/10rj6s” – I can’t believe the fuss over 20 year old clubs because of the shape of the grooves. Just hit the ball and get it in the hole! If Phil and Stewart want to play a club built 20 years ago with all the “advances” in golf technology…why are people whining that they have an unfair advantage? “Boss, I think if I downgrade my poorly performing laptop to Windows 3.1 I’ll start running circles around everyone else here!”