Anthony J. BradleyYesterday, for the first time, I presented my new Enterprise 2.0 strategy framework to the Federal Aviation Administration at their IT conference in Dallas (BTW, I’ll also be presenting it at the upcoming Gartner Portals, Content, and Collaboration Conference in Orlando 8-10 June 2009).
Afterwards, I met with Bob Tobin, the IT Director of the Air Traffic Office (ATO), the biggest organization within FAA, and he told me that my presentation both inspired him and left him feeling daunted. He sees the incredible potential with social computing but is concerned about making it happen within FAA. He was asking the right questions and had some very good ideas on how to proceed.
He said that he definitely sees change on the horizon. He told me these stories. He was playing a single player “Lord of the Rings” video game with his son and when it was his turn his son was giving him pointers and direction. Bob’s initial response was, “That’s cheating.” His son looked puzzled. When his son plays the game with his friends, one plays while the other 3 (or so) constantly talk him through it with tips and pointers. It is them against the game and Bob remarked they obviously conquered the game much more quickly than he could or faster than any one of them could. It’s a different mentality.
Also, another son is a fan of the “Call of Duty” game and he started interacting on-line in the game with other children from Europe (Ireland and Germany). He said at first they threw jibes at one another but as the Europeans realized he was really good at the game they asked him to join their team and compete against other international teams. As a teenager his child is collaborating internationally to meet shared challenges. Did you? I sure didn’t. Toto, were not in Kansas anymore.
This recreational gaming scenario is completely analogous to an enterprise social workplace. Will your organization be ready when his children are looking for work? Time is running out!
The next big thing in collaboration will not be a technology evolution. It will be a cultural shift. With respect to collaboration, the big question facing Bob Tobin, and leaders in every other established large organization is, “Can we move our culture forward or must we wait for a new generation?
IT support of collaboration, a long fuzzy and amorphous thing, will become more and more clear and a path to competitive advantage.
Category: social solutions Tags: collaboration, culture
3 responses so far ↓
1 Chris Warner March 26, 2009 at 8:57 am
Bob Tobin is spot on. My own 7-year-old inspired me to write about ‘Business User 2.0′ (http://blogs.jackbe.com/2008/02/conundrum-of-business-user-20.html).
I boiled this new wave of user down to ‘tech-savvy, adept at picking up new apps, and lives in a world where everything is available on-demand. I’d say he’s the future of every enterprise.’
2 Pankaj Sharma March 27, 2009 at 5:43 pm
It is amazing how much we can learn from the little kids! We just need to learn, “How to apply that at work?”.
3 Kristi Grigsby April 1, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Really great post. Simple yet powerful. No, Toto, we’re sure not in Kansas anymore! The cultural shift is coming.