Join Me at a Free Webinar on Keeping a Team Connected in a Distributed Workplace

June 16, 2009 at 10:45 am · Filed under Communities, Culture, Distributed Work, Management, Tips for Tough Times, Webinar, Work Design, social networks

Please join me and my partner in crime Charlie Grantham, along with Eric Bensley of Citrix Online, and James Hilliard of BNet next Wednesday, June 24, for a free one-hour webinar called “Keeping Your Team Connected in a Distributed Workplace.”

The webinar is sponsored by  Citrix Online We’re very grateful for their continuing support of our research and ideas.

Again, the webinar will be on June 24, at 11 AM Pacific/2 PM Eastern. Register here.

We hope you’ll join us. We’re going to be talking mostly about the leadership and interpersonal principles for keeping members of a distributed team connected with each other, their tasks, and the company.

Technology & Industry Disruption: VC Fred Wilson Speaks at Google

June 3, 2009 at 5:23 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, Management, Web 2.0, government 2.0, productivity, social media

While Jim Ware’s recent post reminded us about  Keeping Technology in Perspective listening to long term venture capitalist Fred Wilson speaking at Google about “Disruption” indicates  technology change will continue, demanding that we as  individuals, organizations and industries adapt.

Wilson’s Union Square Ventures current investments include Tumblr, Feedburner, Boxee, Twitter and Etsy. He blogs at www.avc.com and sought feedback on his Google talk before delivering.

Fred Wilson’s “Disruption Talk” begins  with the media industry, the changes to which we’ve all watched and experienced as online and empowered individuals have emerged as driving forces and taken power from large institutions.

He proceeds to outline the industries seen as targets for future “disruption”:  Consumer Finance, Education, Energy,  Health Care and Government.

The presentation is an hour but  recommended viewing if you are interested in what’s next.

How does your view of what’s ahead in technology and the industries to be “disrupted” jibe with Fred Wilson’s?  Please share your reactions.

Big Ideas for Social Influence Marketing

May 25, 2009 at 11:22 pm · Filed under Change Management, Collaboration, Collective intelligence, Culture, Management, Web 2.0, social media, social networks, social tools

At the Razorfish 9th Annual Client Summit, I presented five big ideas for social influence marketing. These were ideas that I felt would matter in the next two years. The audience for the presentation was 600 senior marketers but the ideas I emphasized have relevance to all decision makers within an organization. Here’s the presentation with the five ideas. Let me know what you think.

Here’s Another Workplace Futures Conference Worth Considering

May 13, 2009 at 12:34 pm · Filed under Economic Development, Management, Technology Management, Work Design

I’d like to encourage anyone interested in the future of work to consider attending the Worktech(tm)09 Conference in New York City on May 20. It’s being held at the Time and Life Building at 1271 Avenue of the Americas.

Our across-the-pond colleague and fellow futurist/author Phillip Ross, CEO of Cordless Group in the U.K., is behind Worktech, which has been held annually for the last several years. He’s an expert on the impact of new technologies on work and the workplace - and a very dynamic speaker.

Dan Johnson, head of global CRE Workplace planning for Accenture, and a member of our Workplace Innovation and Performance Network, will also be a speaker. He’ll be describing Accenture’s new workplace strategy and highlighting a case study from Accenture’s Tokyo operations.

There’s lots more in both speakers and networking opportunities.

You can register for the conference here, and download a pdf brochure about the agenda and speakers here.

Unfortunately New York is too far away from the west coast for me to get there, but I’d love to hear about the program from any of you who do attend. It looks like a terrific contemporary review of what’s happening in the workplace (and beyond) right now.

For a greener office, engage your employees

May 11, 2009 at 7:40 am · Filed under Culture, Management, greenIT

Companies around the world are scrambling to save money to survive the recession, but a lot of them are missing out on a key area. According to Hugh Jones, Solutions Director at Carbon Trust, “Many companies think of energy as a fixed overhead but saving energy is actually one of the easiest ways to reduce costs. Simply by switching machines off after use, or turning the heating down in warm weather, organisations can make real savings on their energy bill.”

Carbon Trust did a survey among UK employees and found that a substantial majority (87%) think that they should do their own part in cutting costs, while 78% are ready and willing to do so by being more energy efficient. What made them so eager to help? About half of them point to the bad economy as their main motivator.

Managements could have capitalized on this prevailing sentiment, and yet many have been failing to do so. Over half (55%) of employees said they were never given them any advice on being more energy efficient around the workplace (which they would have followed gladly). Among those who were given advice, 42% said it had made them more energy efficient. Beware, though. If you’re going to implement an energy initiative, there’s a sense of fairness that employers need to uphold. Two-thirds (67%) of those surveyed felt that while they’d like to help personally, it’s important that their colleagues do their part as well.

In the US, wasted energy in offices present a huge problem. The 2009 PC Energy Report found that almost half of US employees who use computers do not turn them off after work. This translates to $2.8 billion wasted annually for 108 million idle PCs, not to mention the millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Imagine the savings if this was properly addressed.

Book Review: Clara Shih’s “The Facebook Era”

April 29, 2009 at 10:58 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, Management, Networks + Networking, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web Apps, productivity, social media, social networks

Subtitled  “Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff” the book is a must read, and especially useful as a primer for those still needing to understand the fundamental changes in doing business as the Internet has matured  from Web 1.0 to:

“an entirely new level with Web 3.0- an era that is entirely about innovation and collaboration.”     (Foreword page ix)                        

An excellent overview of the book, in author  Clara Shih’s  own words,  is in 2 parts at the Entrepreneur’s Journeys blog .   Not surprizingly the book’s home page is on Facebook and 24 x 5 star Amazon reviews indicate the book’s value.

The book section titles– starting with “A Brief History of Social Media’ through “Transforming the Way We Do Business’ to “Your Step-By-Step Guide to Using Facebook for Business”–  reveal the key themes.  Reflecting the author’s hands on experience as the developer of FaceConnector and head of Enterprise Social Networking Alliances and Product Strategy for Salesforce, the book is filled with lived experiences of companies using social networking to “build better products, reach new audiences and sell more stuff.”

If there are gaps in the book they reflect the state of the industry. For example, “The ROI of Social” is addressed in half a page (205) beginning:

“Understandably, a large number of you are focused on ROI and  might feel frustrated that there has been no clear quantifiable data around ROI”

and concludes suggesting;

“ROI will become much more quantifiable  and standardized”.

Have you read “The Facebook Era?”  What did you take away?

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Transforming the Workplace at SCAN Health

April 19, 2009 at 3:04 pm · Filed under Distributed Work, Management, Work Design, productivity

<this is a cross-post from the Future of Work blog>

On April 2 Charlie Grantham, Diane Coles, and I delivered a presentation at the IFMA Industries Forum held in Vancouver, British Columbia.