A new project was started earlier this month with the running title "A Million Penguins". An experiment in social networking and collaboration, the project is attempting to apply the concept of open source codes to a more...creative...endeavor.  I thought I should add this to my blog because it really does push the limits with what you can do with communities in your enterprise.  Sometimes, effective communications and collaborations does not necessarily mean directional information flow and process.  It can also mean that a shared and accessible workspace can effectively bring together a large number of people to communicate and collaborate towards a defined goal. 

 

In the example above, that goal is the creation of a Wiki novel.  People can add content to the site, and therefore move along the creation of the novel.  Can this type of approach lead to a continuous plot?  Deep character development?  Engaging story?  Well, we'll find out at the end of the project.  But how does this apply to an enterprise?  Content creation does not always require process.  Sure, market content and approval processes need to exist within your enterprise, but what about internal content?  For example, could you drive the creation of new GTMs and business plans through global collaboration on an internal wiki?  What about defining the communications framework for a global field by asking the field to delineate the framework for themselves?

 

The possibilities are endless when you bring social networking principles into the fold of tools you use to communicate.

So before we get any further into communications, let's talk a little about communities.  What exactly is a community and why should you care?  Detailing and defining your organizational communities is probably the first thing you need to do prior to tackling the issues that plague communications in an enterprise organization.  According to Wikipedia, a community is defined as:

 

A community usually refers to a group who interact and share certain things as a group, and can refer to various groups of people...sharing an environment. [In] human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of adhesion. *edited for context

 

What does this mean for you?  It means you need to identify your communities of interest, as each community is a defined audience with which you are communicating.  Now, how you go about identifying and defining your communities can be a difficult issue on its own.  However, there are a large number of tools at your disposal and you may not even realize that they're there.  How you organize and describe your people within the individual divisions and departments that make up your company is one of the most essential tools to define your communities.  In essence, they provide an implementation of standard taxonomies that you can leverage to profile your people.  By profiling people on a standard set of metadata descriptors, you create the ability to segment and define your communities in an effective and business-relevant manner.  One of these metadata descriptors is their email identity.  So now, you've killed two birds with one stone:  You've defined an audience of communication and vehicles to deliver your content.

 

 

So, I've decided to start my very own blog.  I've had trouble getting to this point, mostly because I'm not sure what I have to say to the world, nor do I really think it can add any value to the plethora of content inundating your screen at any given time.  And so I realized that this blog is really meant for myself.  You can take or leave whatever you may find within my pages, but at least I put it out there.  I've decided that the theme of this blog, and hence the title, is about communications.  Not that I have any level of expertise, nor do I have decades of experiences, but I *can* articulate what it is that I see out in the world (particularly, in the business world).  As a consultant, I've dealt with a great number of issues that can arise in a large company.  One of the major themes that projects surface is the inability to communicate.  Sure, it's easy to email and manage a portal of content, but REALLY communicating is a difficult task.  Balancing the world of spam and overload with the effectiveness of content delivery is a delicate thing, and swinging that balance in either direction can decrease the productivity of your organization dramatically.  And so here, I'll deliver my pieces of insight, whether grand or grandiose, and hopefully, you'll find something of interest to help your organization communicate, Point-to-Point, to deliver your Point.