While the Leverage Software platform supports Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), most communities hosted on the platform do not implement this feature as community content seldom requires such security. But when you have a community of members whose focus is information security that's a whole different story.
The team at (ISC) 2 [the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, Inc.] recently launched InterSeC, a community for information security professionals. When a few members questioned why the site was not SSL the InterSeC community manager opened the question up to the entire community. Using the Polls feature, members could vote on whether the site should or should not implement SSL. After the poll was opened a Scheduled Message invited all registered community members to weigh in. One of the most active polls in this community confirmed that 71% of respondents believed that the site should be SSL. And one week after the poll was closed the change to the community was implemented. Empowering the members of a community helps to build a stronger community. Ultimately a community belongs to the members and the more influence members feel they have the more loyal they tend to be. Kudos to the team at (ISC)2 for empowering their members right from the start.
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I'm not certain how this might be used in a business application but I know someone will figure that out soon enough. In the meantime, I want to introduce you to Xtranormal.
Xtranormal promotes their product with the tagline: If you can type, you can make movies. It reminds me of the ads that said you can be an artist if you draw Sparky. I never drew Sparky, but I have tried Xtranormal and I think it is fun. I'll warn you, don't get started unless you have at least an hour to try it...
You start by selecting the characters and a location for your movie. The options are limited in the free version but it certainly offers enough to be creative. Then, just like the tagline says you start typing the script for your characters. You can easily insert movements, like this or even this one. You can select the camera angles or let the cool Magicam option select the shots for you. So if you'd like to see what the results look like, click on the video and see this text as a movie. Or, visit the Xtranormal site and and check it out yourself.
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I start this post with a big WELCOME to the first Leverage Labs community members. It is really wonderful to see every one of you here. I look forward to watching this community grow and I welcome any feedback you wish to share.
When I started this blog the idea was to share solutions that I had picked up while building communities with Leverage Software clients. To be honest, all of these ideas came from the challenges and inspiration laid before me by those clients. Having worked with many of you, I know that Leverage Labs is filled with great minds with many wonderful ideas. As a public service I will occasionally be sharing some of your great ideas with the rest of the Leverage Labs community. I will start the series with the MontaVista Meld community.
We all know that members make a community and the Meld community uses their front page to promote their members. In addition to using a widget to present the images of the latest members to visit, the Meld home page features a Developer Spotlight section. Each month a different Meld community member is featured in this space. In addition to their image and a short bio there is a quote from the member sharing details on how they use the Meld community. The community promotes the member who is promoting the community – brilliant! This page also provides a link to a running list of all previous Developer Spotlights; simply click on the "Developer Spotlight" headline and you go to a wiki page that presents all of the previous members spotlighted.
For another great idea from the Meld community check Jeff’s post on using Twitterfeed to promote your community via Twitter.
I know that many of our members have used some very creative solutions to help grow their communities. Is there something in your community that might help other communities succeed? Please tell me about it and I will be happy to feature it in this blog. Or better yet, post those great ideas to the What Works group right here in Leverage Labs.
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 There's an old adage which reads "there are only two industries which refer to their customers as users." While we'll leave one of those industries to its own devices, we try our best not to contribute to the use of the word "user" in our own industry.
When we're working together in the office on, say, a new feature -- even if it's in the absolute earliest stages, a thread of a thread of a thread of an idea -- we really will try to force ourselves to use any word but "user." Members, customers, employees, managers -- all of these are okay. But users? No way.
Is this ridiculous? Yes, probably. Do I think it's important anyway? Yes, I really do.
We make SOCIAL software, and SOCIAL software is all about PEOPLE, not USERS. And PEOPLE are amazing. PEOPLE can do anything. PEOPLE create. PEOPLE share. PEOPLE talk, dance, think, flirt, love, sing, worry, fight. PEOPLE discover cures, write books, land on the moon, and spill coffee on their laps. PEOPLE join online communities in order to provide feedback, share ideas, and meet and talk with other PEOPLE.
Some PEOPLE -- particularly SMART PEOPLE, in my opinion -- decide to create online communities for other PEOPLE. Sometimes those PEOPLE become our CUSTOMERS. And those PEOPLE? Well, we just love those PEOPLE.
But USERS? I'm not sure what users do. But that's okay, because we're not really building tools for users.
Does this use of words really matter? I have been in software development for a number of years, and I really think it does. Because software development is about the day-to-day -- it's about the hundreds upon hundreds of discussions that lead up to a new feature. And if everyone on the team uses a set of words -- well, somehow, somewhere, those words will seep into what you're building.
Here's a completely simple example. When we first added a wiki to our platform, we created a page which lists all the wikis within a community. And, initially, that page contained the title of the wiki and the date it was last updated. And that page was FINE. It was DONE. Nobody needed to do anything more with that page. Ship the software and head home for the weekend, right?
But. Well, hmmmmm. That page. You know that page? Yeah, that one. Something's missing. That page, it needs something, doesn't it? Just...something. And everyone thought...yeah. What's wrong with this perfectly reasonable page? Any USER could see what to do with that page. USERS should be able to figure out that they should click a LINK. But we had been using the word PEOPLE for so long...well, we decided to ALSO add the photographs of the ten people who had most recently updated that wiki. Because while USERS might be happy to just click a link, for some reason as PEOPLE we thought it might be interesting to show WHO was actively creating this wiki. 
Does this feature provide significant value? To be honest, I'm not sure. Shoot, maybe those photos just get in the way of some of our community members.
But that's okay. It's just the way we think. When we created a visual community tool, it became the PEOPLE map. When we built a set of RSS widgets, they included photographs of the PEOPLE who created the information those widgets displayed. And I'm pretty sure that the next features we add to our platform will more than likely have some aspect of PEOPLE interwoven through them, somehow.
We just like thinking and talking about how PEOPLE use our system, and what kind of online community real PEOPLE would enjoy using the most. And I think, little by little, those words will seep into our product, and hopefully make it a lot more valuable to our customers.
Sorry, users. We just think people are way more interesting.
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 It is official - on Wednesday, September 9th, we starting inviting our clients to join the Leverage Labs community. When Leverage Labs first started several years ago it was simply a few web pages explaining our widget toolkit. Slowly, Labs expanded to offer more information on how to customize a Leverage community and it was recently moved onto the Leverage platform itself. Leverage Labs was always envisioned to be a place where community managers using Leverage Software could connect with each other and members of the Leverage team to share ideas, best practices, and real-world experiences to make their communities successful. Today, that original plan moves one step closer to reality by making those connections possible. While hosted by Leverage Software, ultimately this online community belongs to its members; our clients. Please don't hesitate to let me know how we can make it even better for you. Welcome to the Leverage Labs Community!
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I can't believe so much time passed since my last post. I may have been away for some of that time but I'll admit that is no excuse...
 During my blog hiatus I had a great opportunity to visit a client team in Brazil. If you are like most of my friends and co-workers you may have conjured up a mental picture of me walking along the beach in Ipanema, dancing the streets in a feathered headdress, perhaps sipping a tropical cocktail from a glass with an umbrella, or maybe I am exploring the wilds of the Amazon rain forest. While Brazil brings to mind such exotic images unfortunately my trip would not include those, but I did learn that Brazil is home to more. For example, I just learned that the Brazilian Air Force is working on Laser Travel!
My trip took me to Sao Paulo; the largest city in Brazil, and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. I grew up around New York City but that did not prepare me for flying into Sao Paulo. It seemed that the buildings went on for as far as one could see - looking more like a geological formation than a city. It was amazing considering that just a few hours earlier as we had crossed the Equator (a first for me) and flew above the Amazon in the middle of the night there was not a single light - no usual signs of people below.
I read that Paulistanos (the people of the city of Sao Paulo) had a unique casual formality and until one experienced this it was hard to explain. During my very brief visit I found that standard business attire was more formal than what I usually see in San Francisco yet all business conversations seemed to be on a first name basis. Coworkers seemed to treat each other more like friends occasionally sharing a hug or kiss at the end of the work day. People would share greetings when they boarded or exited an elevator whether they knew you or not. As a true monolingual American I always responded "Hello" or "Bye' and without missing a beat they would reply to me in English. In fact, several people apologized to me for not being able to speak English, and this apology was usually in English. At least before my 3-day visit was up I was able to say Good Day (Bom Dia) and Thank You (Obrigado) in Portuguese.
During this trip I also had the opportunity to see a team using the Leverage Labs online documentation first-hand. Teams of developers were challenged to customize their own community sandbox sites. Standing in the back of the room I watched as each team moved through the different sections of the wiki looking for the information they needed. They each took different routes but I was pleased to see that the documentation was working for them in solving the challenges set for them. Truth be told, this exercise did point out one piece of information the wiki lacked but we were quickly able to get that addressed. [Please don't be shy to let us know if there is information you would like to see added or updated.]
Looking back at my trip I never did have a tropical drink with an umbrella, but I did have a dark beer (Xingu) that was like none I have ever enjoyed before. I didn't explore the Amazon, but flying over it gave me a new found respect for the treasure that it is. And while I did not dance on the streets in a feathered headdress, I did walk the streets with locals who helped me really understand the people of Brazil. Yes, I want to return to Brazil to see and enjoy the more exotic side of this country but I was pleasantly surprised when what I expected to be just another quick trip to a big city offered a rich experience of a different culture...
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I was recently asked by a customer who's implementing an Employee Social Network to speak with stakeholders in her company about how the new online community could contribute to, or improve upon their current Knowledge Management initiatives.
I love opportunities to speak on this topic, because to some degree this is my personal story about why I became passionate about social technologies. Because I’ve spent most of my career working in Consulting and Client Services roles, effectively managing knowledge and intellectual capital has always been critical to the success of my teams. However despite our best efforts, the teams I worked on were never really able to leverage the knowledge and expertise that we had inside of our organization.
I personally tried to solve the problem in many different ways – technology, process, rewards and incentives – but never really achieved the results we needed. We ended up solving the same problems over and over again. And truth be told, collectively I’m sure that we made the same mistakes many times. When we were successful in locating the knowledge and expertise that we needed, it was rarely easy to find, or it took a lot of extra effort for someone to capture (which is precisely why it usually didn’t happen).
In my case, we were finally able to "crack the code" when we implemented an Internal Social Network. Since that time, I've worked with many large enterprises to help them achieve similar results, and I've learned a lot along the way.
So here is my personal Top 5 list of best practices for leveraging Employee Social Networks to achieve Knowledge Management success. I'd love to hear about lessons that others have learned on this topic, so please let me know if you have any other ideas to contribute.
Create a discovery system that encourages "ambient learning"
Traditional KM methods rely on connecting people with knowledge or
expertise that they are searching for. Today, successful companies are using
social networks to improve on these methods by broadcasting activity
occurring in the community that creates opportunities for “ambient
learning” and discovery. People become smarter just by being in the
community.
Eliminate barriers to participation.
The biggest single challenge for most companies in achieving KM success is getting widespread buy-in and contributions from employees. Regardless of rewards, incentives or penalties, many people simply will not actively contribute if they see this as extra work that they need to do. These same people are almost always willing to share information or assist their colleagues when asked, but these one-to-one interactions do not add to a company’s knowledge-base. Successful companies today are using social networking tools (including status updates, micro-blogging, group discussions, group chat) that allow for members to easily share their knowledge and expertise with other members of the community without adding to their workload. Each of these contributions and conversations is visible to the entire community, and contributes to a company’s knowledge-base.
Stop connecting your systems and start connecting your people.
Many companies have made heavy technology investments in systems and tools that have resulted in a proliferation of islands of information that are not leveraged outside of a department or functional area. Integrating these systems or transforming the data as a way to provide broader access and use is a complex and expensive proposition that rarely delivers the intended value. A better way to harness this knowledge is to provide a “social layer” on top of these systems that allows people who are familiar with the information to share what’s most valuable with the rest of the community.
Avoid too much filtering or structuring – silos are still silos.
Many companies that implement social technologies for collaboration or knowledge management fall into the trap of imposing too much structure on content, or filtering information that they think people need to know. In most cases the result of this taxonomy is a large number of sparsely populated wiki pages or a proliferation of groups with little or no activity. In other cases, content may be created according to the pre-defined structure, but limited to just these categories. Filtering the content almost always results in silos of information or knowledge. A better way is to let the community decide what content to contribute and what to consume.
Recognize and reward top contributors – from direct managers all the way to the CEO.
Rewards and incentives to encourage participation and contributions are the cornerstone of any KM program. Because social networking relies on public conversations and interactions as a way of mining an organization’s expertise, it provides much greater visibility into the contributions and exchanges of ideas and information. The most successful companies are taking advantage of this visibility to figure out who their top performers and experts are (and many times the results are surprising), and to publicly acknowledge and reward these contributions. When the CEO of of one of our clients joined a conversation in the Employee Social Network and thanked people for their contributions, he elicited this response: “I can’t think of another company where the CEO has this much contact with employees. It’s great to work for this company!”
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Here is a video we made about the types of members you're likely to encounter in an online community. The idea behind it is to provide some useful information about social networking in a brisk, entertaining format. Not too deep, but not throwaway, either -- I hope! Meant to help community members get oriented, and/or community managers build participation.
We're planning to make a series of videos like this, so I would love to hear:
- Your reactions to/comments on this one
- Your ideas or suggestions for future videos
The volume is a little low -- turn up your speakers if you can! Thanks to Chuck for his excellent cinematography.
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I spent most of last week at the National Sales Meeting for one of the top 3 hospitality organizations worldwide and found it interesting once again how rapidly the social networking industry is accelerating and how there is a case for community in nearly every business scenario today.
At the conference, I was speaking to the team about the value around social networking for their clients. The purpose here was to position their sales team as more consultative sales people – no longer do they want to sell just a product, which many believe has become a commodity where you end up fighting the “lowest price” battle all day. Instead, how can you truly add value to your client these days by understanding their goals and their pain points? How can you go from being viewed as “just a vendor” to a trusted strategic partner? How can you position your organization to provide such value that it doesn’t matter how much your product actually costs (well, within reason) because your client is absolutely terrified to do business without you? How do you prevent the below from ever happening again?
In 2009, it’s clear that companies are fighting for a bigger slice of a smaller pie, and they have to do this by combining forces with other organizations to form strong strategic partnerships. Not partnerships that look nice on the "Partner" tab on a website; not loosely-affiliated partnerships that add a sliver of credibility in a few cases here and there; partnerships that help you actually win more deals.
It was interesting (and exciting!) to see how a company and an industry that are self-proclaimed “late adopters” to technology could totally see the value in our solution and in social networking in general. In a sales process that is traditionally boxed in by the lowest possible price and feature offerings that are nearly identical with every brand, companies like this one are placing themselves ahead of the game as they recognize the strategic advantage the idea of social networking can bring to help them close more business in an uncertain economy.
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 Leverage Software CEO, Mike Walsh, talked tools, techniques and processes for discovering information last week at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Dallas.
Your typical PowerPoint presentation? Not so much. After a 7 am back-and-forth and still in bed texting session with Mike last Tuesday morning, we decided on the topic of Discovery and Ambient Awareness. Mike then used copy paper and a sharpie to convey his thoughts and ideas while flying from San Francisco to Dallas last Wednesday. Photos of these thoughts were used to finalize the deck. Check out the presentation, Discovery & Ambient Awareness: Be a Kid Again!
samhiggins: RT @vedo: "be like a kid [again] through filtered discovery" @mwalsh #IMS09
agardina: @danishaw Music is a constant inspiration for me - Pandora gets me through the day! #ims09
TheRecruiterGuy: Discussion turns towards avoiding or embracing an echo chamber when filtering your influence sources. #ims09
hoovers: @jmctigue Amen -- I've come out strong against multitasking many times. E.g. http://is.gd/IdfE ( expand ) -- #ims09
justinlevy: I love that @mwalsh hand wrote his presentation then took pics and is using that for his slide deck. Definitely different & cool #ims09
TheRecruiterGuy: @mwalsh says Family Guy is most inspiring TV show for him (creatively speaking) - liking this guy more and more, LOL #ims09
agardina: Great discovery channels (via @mwalsh): kids (creativity!), colleagues, Twitter, Family Guy (?!) #ims09 Where do you find inspiration?
aaronstrout: Getting a kick out of the fact that @MWalsh's slides are all hand drawn. Adds a level of creativity/personal touch. #ims09
samhiggins: #ims09 @mwalsh Discussing the problem of multitasking with social media: Juggling a 20 balls and not accomplishing anything - GTD anyone?
TheRecruiterGuy: Boss stating his EE's do too much multi-tasking... is multi-tasking really this issue or is it inability to project manage? #ims09
agardina: What does everyone here think about multitasking? I usually have one major focus, but always have Twitter & email running. #ims09
morate: Mike Walsh, Leverage Software, encourages us to be like kids...low noise, few influencers. Love that thought. #IMS09
vedo: Your community helps you discover information you didn't know you needed [paraphrased] @mwalsh #IMS09
JohnJohansen: Question:
How to balance minimizing sources of info w/ discovery of new
information? Does this put you in the echo chamber? Discuss #IMS09
wesley83: Looking at an all hand written Power Point presentation. This is a rarity. #ims09
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