IBM-DIGITAL LIFE DISCUSSION ON CORPORATE USE OF SOCIAL COMPUTING TOOLS

Fear of being sued, misinformation and legal liabilities are some reasons why organisations are not adopting Web-based social computing technologies like blogs, wikis and instant messaging.

Seven chief information officers (CIOs) from the public sector, university and industry also voiced their frustrations on the slow adoption of these tools by companies.

Panellist Ravi Sharma of the Nanyang Technological University lamented that the usefulness of these tools has been overlooked.

He said: "Invariably these technologies are linked to productivity because they allow people to communicate with each other quickly and often spontaneously without taking up a lot of time in meetings."

Other CIOs agreed, adding that these technologies would also enhance communication and work with employees as well as business partners.

The panellists were taking part in a roundtable organised by IBM and Digital Life on the future of business collaboration and how Web-based tools like blogs and wikis are used in businesses.

Ms Teresa Lim, managing director IBM Singapore who kicked off the roundtable held at a hotel last week, said that a recent IBM survey of 700 CEOs highlighted their concern for innovation to initiate business growth.

"About 75 per cent said to enable innovation, collaboration between employees is instrumental in surfacing new ideas," she said. But half of these CEOs admit that they are not doing a good job, she added.

They are seriously looking at how they can use the social computing tools like blogs and wikis to spur shared ideas so that new ideas can surface from all ranks, she added.

The first part of the roundtable highlights the fears of organisations, their perceptions and the benefits of social computing. Next week, Digital Life will feature how the panellists highlighted benefits businesses will enjoy with social computing and some ways they can get started in their own organisations.

The session was moderated by Ms Grace Chng, editor of Digital Life.

What are your thoughts on social computing?

Mr Yeo: There is a dichotomy (for me). At home, I've (Instant) Messenger, Google, my list of friends, and you've a set of ongoing conversations (with friends, which) to me is very natural. And then you come to an organisation and they say none of this is allowed.

My view is that the world is changing and talking about collaboration.

How do we move social tools from outside the organisation to inside it? The challenge is that (we have) instruction manuals ...that say all these things are not allowed and nobody can tell you why.

Mr Shaabi: Collaborative tools have been around for a long time like Lotus Notes. It's nothing new. But I agree with Mr Yeo, what he does with collaboration tools at home gives him a better experience than at his work place.

But I also think this experience gap is getting closer (between home and office) because collaboration tools are also getting better today.

Prof Sharma: Today's blogging is akin to the free flow of e-mail or having personal web pages with a portfolio you're proud of (as if you're saying), these are the things I have done, come and search me. But the problem seems to be to convince CIOs and senior managers of the benefits of social computing.

You can tell them that blogging is intuitive, it is an electronic journal that recollects instances, experiences and nuances in context.

Why can't blogging be like golf, used to break the ice, or hanging around the water cooler sharing and exchanging information? This is what I call relational capital. You can't put a dollar value to it, the value is known only when you use it.

Mr Lee: In my observation, technology won't bring about collaboration. People must want to collaborate. We actually have to address corporate values and reward systems.

From your experiences, what do you think are the fears organisations have about introducing collaborative tools like blogs and wikis into the workplace?

Mr Yeo: In a traditional organisation, everything is secretive. If we have all these collaborative tools, there is a fear that certain sensitive elements will be made known (to everyone).

The second fear is accuracy of information. Views may be misconstrued and there would be legal liability.

Then, if the blogs are exposed to the outside world, trade secrets leaked, that would create a lot of controversy.

How do we contain these fears and strike a balance in controls ... the CIOs are caught in a dilemma, who should be held responsible?

The biggest problem I face in organisations is that when I try to set something (one of the social computing tools), there is a certain (computer) port that is blocked. You can't find a good reason for this block.

Collaboration should be spontaneous, that is what blogs are about. When you feel like it, you add something to it, you don't think whether it adds value or not. This is spontaneity, a serendipity form of collaboration.

Harish, Red Hat is a commercial company which uses these Web 2.0 collaborative tools freely. How does the company manage these issues?

Mr Pillay: We've four core values of which accountability and freedom are two, they sort of counter-balance each other. True, there could be trade secrets (revealed in a blog). But who is on the line here if you reveal trade secrets?

I think when people are empowered, they are accountable.

We find in some new Red Hat recruits that they are used to a structured and rigid organisation. They find it hard to adjust, and go through a culture shock because in Red Hat, anyone can do anything they want. So some withdraw.

For government, they've a different view point. They are caught between a social purpose and issues, politics and are iffy about collaboration.

So you try to work around the rules and say you can't do anything. This part has to change. You can put all the tools for collaboration (out there) but you can't force them to do so.

How do you make people collaborate?

Mr Lee: People collaborate in a context. One key challenge is meetings. Key stakeholders are challenging you, it's not right. It's a great waste of time. It takes the stage away from you. Take clarifications, it can be taken offline into an online environment like blogs and wikis where the differences can be resolved.

Mr Chew: In Fairprice we rely on e-mail messages. Send an e-mail and put 100 people on the carbon copy list and shout what you're doing. Put in social computing tools - and e-mail can be used for more important traffic, thus making it more manageable.

There should also be a better way of running meetings versus bringing people into a room. Invariably, the mind is not there 100 per cent of the time. In a virtual meeting you can divide your attention, be more productive.

In Fairprice, we've management meetings with about 20 people. We pull in all these high-paying executives for two to three hours once a week, a pretty expensive proposition.

We have about 200 branches, pull in the branch managers once a month for meetings.

We can save a lot of time and improve productivity if we can set up virtual meetings using these social computing tools.

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