2.0 Opportunity Framework – A Model for Consultants

The following is a rough sketch of a framework I began developing months back attempting to explain and rationalize the different types of opportunities available to a consultant or consultancy in the “2.0” space. I thought I might subject it GovLoop’s collective critique both her and on my blog in the hopes of starting some real interesting debate or finding traction enough to fully develop the ideas herein. Please feel free to comment and suggest improvements. COCM as used in the this entry refers to Cross Organizational Change Management, a particular specialty of our organization within the Vector Research Center.

2.0 Opportunity Framework
Each region represents a different type of behavior, each with its own form of output. Section 1 encompasses the individual’s contribution of work or the representation of his or her personal experience, knowledge, and other insights to some medium that chronicles it. Section 1 behaviors result in the content populating a collaborative suite – wiki content, comments, attachments, etc. Section 2 contains the collective or organizational behavior emerging from the aggregation and interplay of Section 1 behaviors. Its characteristics are underlying, intangible, and are encompassed by the information that describes collaboration suite usage. Section 3 represents behaviors undertaken to influence other actors either in an enabling or inhibitive way. In the context of web 2.0 based collaboration, Section 3 behaviors may include selection of collaboration software, policies on use and content, manipulations of the physical environment in which actors behave, etc.

The overlapping regions represent that one type of behavior may provoke, impact, leverage or take into account one or both of the other types.

Opportunities abound in all areas described but depend increasingly on a finer touch to drive intended results within the “overlaps”. Examples to follow.

Section 1 Overview
Section 1 of the 2.0 Opportunity Framework encompasses the individual’s contribution of work or the representation of his or her personal experience, knowlegde, and other insights to some shared medium that chronicles it. The degree to which the medium is shared, whether only within a company, for instance, or to the entire global community of internet users may vary, but the essential difference between Section 1 behaviors and those one undertakes otherwise in the course of contributing to some endeavor lies in the knowledge and intent that one’s contribution be subject to the effects of the collective community sharing the medium. Collective effects may take the form of comments on a blog, subsequent alterations by another user of one’s wiki content, etc., and are themselves Section 1 behaviors as each represents some other individual within the community’s contribution of work, experience, knowledge, or other insight.

Section 1 behaviors result in the content populating a collaborative suite – wiki content, comments, attachments, etc.

Section 1 Opportunities
Note: Opportunities are a mix of ideas, some that presume the target audience employs some 2.0, shared medium, others assume the very opposite.

General Opportunities
•Become a resilient org – neither snow, nor sleet, nor Michigan driver competency…
◦Snow day policy – why let it be an issue except for interactions requiring in-person contact (collaborative authoring should not)?
•Blogs as tools for corporate branding and public relations
•Blogs may become a prerequisite for maintaining credibility as a thought leader or value added service provider
◦Gone could be the days of press releases; soon are the days of “no blog, no sale”
•H/R practices
◦Especially organizing company events
•Leverage collective effects outside the organization by sponsoring online challenges to solve tricky questions or contribute most innovative ideas in a field of our specialty, e.g. COCM.
◦Get their experts to do your thinking for you…(__Google 10 to the 100th Prize)_

COCM Opportunities
•Stakeholder analysis – improve and streamline by allowing org’s to self identify those involved (1), rather than prescribe the constituents of a stakeholder “community” before process analysis
◦”whereisgeorge.com” dollar bill tracker; attach solicitation to some token that travels according to the aspect of the network you hope to examine.
■Tokens
■A part in a supply chain
■A document
■A policy
■A transaction
•Communications
◦Replace or enhance traditional communications efforts with blogging
◦Use instant polling to measure the effectiveness of communications materials
•Readiness and Measurement
◦Use instant polling to measure readiness for change
◦Develop technique for online polling and processing of qualitative or open-ended responses in a social medium
Section 1 Questions•What aspects of current 2.0 technologies make individuals or corporations hesitant to rely on remote collaboration? Can we determine them and assist designers of collaboration software in addressing them?
•Where are the disruptions of traditional functions being rendered obsolete by their 2.0 descendant already inevitable or underway?
◦Media – Detroit News –> Extensions to company media

Section 2 Overview
Unlike Section 1 and Section 3 behaviors, Section 2 behaviors outside of the intersecting areas do not include those acts consciously willed by an individual actor. They are aggregate behaviors, trends and patterns eminent only at the “macro level” of examining an organization, community, or other social network. They are no less organic and efficacious for being emergent but are not encapsulated in any single act undertaken consciously. Even those behaviors undertaken with the sole purpose of altering collective organizational behavior belong beyond the threshold of one of the other sections and, thus, in one of the intersections among them.

In a sense then, Section 2 behaviors can be considered “the way things are” in terms of collective behavior, not what one wishes or wills them to be or could make them be through his/her actions alone.

Section 2 Opportunities
Note: Opportunities are a mix of ideas, some that presume the target audience employs some 2.0, shared medium, others assume the very opposite.

General Opportunities
•Inform Strategic Planning
◦Help companies “locate” themselves within their industry’s network, or identify their position within their trade landscape. (Power in Economic Networks; Valdis Krebs)
•Does 2.0 allow us to quantify and more scientifically address aspects of an organization’s “culture”?
•Measuring stakeholder exposure
◦ECSS – “Everybody knows this will affect so-and-so”; put data and method behind or contrary to those assumptions
•Along the way build a baseline database of characteristics of successful topologies in respective industries or sectors. (A la BST) (2)
◦Manufacturing
◦Regulatory
◦Etc
•Assess vulnerabilities in an organization’s social network
◦http://www.thenetworkthinker.com/2008/07/single-point-of-failure.html
COCM Opportunities
•Measure collaboration as evidence of integration in a major change initiative
◦ECSS equation “how not to” example
•Anticipate certain changes before they happen like loss of knowledebase, based on social network topology
Section 2 Questions•Does an ability to generate a meaningful analysis of Section 2 behaviors help us deal with the problem of freeriders?
◦Can we identify their location in the collaborative network?
•Similarly, does a meaningful depiction of Section 2 behaviors, i.e. the organization’s social network, help us prevent members of an organization charged with collaborations external to the organization from self-imposed isolation or separation from the greater organization. (Jack’s DLA, Chrysler examples)
•What metrics or qualities or relationship types would be most useful and instructive in a depiction of an org’s social topology?

Section 3 Overview
Section 3 represents behaviors undertaken to influence other actors either in an enabling or inhibitive way. In the context of web 2.0 based collaboration, Section 3 behaviors may include selection of collaboration software, policies on use and content, manipulations of the physical environment in which actors behave, etc. The establishment of formal, structured workflows may also be included as Section 3 behaviors.

Because Section 3 behaviors intend consciously to affect behaviors in the other sections, I’ve adopted the convention of placing the 3 first in the notation representing intersections between Section 3 behaviors and behaviors in any of the other sections, e.g. 3∩1. Placing the “3” first is to imply the intended direction of causation, i.e. in 3∩1 to identify that the design behavior is intended to alter contribution behavior.

Section 3∩1 Opportunities
Note: Opportunities are a mix of ideas, some that presume the target audience employs some 2.0, shared medium, others assume the very opposite.

General Opportunities
•Design and execute “nudges” meant to encourage more contribution by more individuals (or the right individuals)
◦Conduct workshops much like teaming retreats centered instead on activities that identify the potential of 2.0 technologies in fun, engaging ways.
◦Example: point and ranking systems on some social networking sites
■Can something similar be constructed to measure and reward collaborative behaviors, e.g. points for contributing substantively to a peer review conducted on a wiki?
•Advise on policies meant to keep contributions constructive without inhibiting creativity
COCM Opportunities
Section 3∩2 Opportunities
Note: Opportunities are a mix of ideas, some that presume the target audience employs some 2.0, shared medium, others assume the very opposite.

General Opportunities
•Propose Strategic Initiatives
◦Identify the means to alter an organization’s position in an economic network to a more empowered, more significant one
•Identify tensions arising from the overlay of formal workflows on an emergent network that prefers different paths
•Compare network structures vis a vis organizational structures to identify opportunities to “nudge” collaboration or culture – think filling structural holes
COCM Opportunities
•We should be able to identify The Tipping Point’s “The Power of Three” roles and target their involvement in change management.
•Assess org fitness for 2.0 technologies
Section 3∩(1∩2) Opportunities
Note: Opportunities are a mix of ideas, some that presume the target audience employs some 2.0, shared medium, others assume the very opposite.

General Opportunities
•Baseline an organization’s social network before major change and evaluate measures intended to affect it afterward
COCM Opportunities
•Trace a pilot change through 2.0 technologies to paint the change landscape within the organization
•Design better LP Networks to suit needs of clients, based on an understanding or depiction of their social network topology
◦Fill structural holes
•Build a better status quo OV-4; combine formal workflows, org structure, and organizational behavior (relationships) into a unified perspective on the company
◦Automate its generation to the greatest extent possible
Sections 3, 3∩1, 3∩2, 3∩(1∩2) Questions•Are any facets of the designed environment irrelevant to collaborative contributions?
•Are there patterns of conflict or destructive behavior apparent when individual contributions clash? Can we coach or inform better strategies for resolving collaborative conflict or restoring efforts to constructive?