Articles

Could not generate link to image with ID: Social networking sites are often blocked by corporate IT and upper management.  What do we have to learn?  Are we actually planning our social calendar and losing productivity, or do we need an avenue for internal discovery?

Strengthening social ties 

Sociologist Mark S. Grannovetter published a theory in 1973 (The Strength of Weak Ties)  exploring phenomena of small-scale interactions that yield important large-scale patterns.   In a survey of people that recently changed jobs in the Boston area, he discovered that 55.6% of respondents received the job tip from someone they saw less than twice a month and 27.8% said they saw that person less than once each year.   He concluded that, "it is remarkable that people receive crucial information from individuals whose very existence they have forgotten."   Hmm. The value of social networking. 

Formal Networking for mutual self-interest 

-  Can employee A share information with employee #_____ informally across the "corporate graph"?

According to the McKinsey Quarterly review of Informal Employee Networks ,

"Professionals who want to work horizontally across an organization currently find themselves forced to search though poorly connected organizational silos for the knowledge and collaborators they need. In many companies these matrix and other hybrid organizations have become dysfunctional. The symptoms include endless meetings, phone calls, and e-mail exchanges, as well as confused accountability for results."

Busting the Silos & Creating the Network

Tools to create the network include all the standard collaborative pieces that we've been talking about for the "Interactive Enterprise."  Andrew McAfee  offered his suggestions for the leader in each category:

Collective Success

Much has been written about Google's 20% time for all employees.  At first glance, this would seem that those employees are distracted from the other work.  In practice, Google engineers will spend weekends and time well beyond the 20% of the workweek to develop new products for the company.

As a result, creative engineers and innovators are developing half of Google's new search products out of that 20% time.   

Every company, no matter the size, has large numbers of thinking-intensive and creative employees.  The winners will be the organizations that enable those groups to create more profits by putting their collective mind power to use.