- Support Wikis - Real time updated FAQ's for application support, problem solving and simple howtos. This shouldn't replace formal support and triage documentation but should supplement it.
- Talent/Problem Markets - Offer problems or specific talents/skills online. Staff are rewarded for finding solutions to problems that get results AND for posting problems in the market that then get solved.
- Management Twitter - Setup management to use a twitter like "what am I doing now" tool that keeps status in a central location. Publish to everyone so that the types of problems that managers are working on can be public. Staff know what management is working on and managers can status each other on what's up without having to setup additional meetings. Harvest comments on the "tweets" to improve employee engagement or offer help.
- Newsletter Blogs - We're in the 21st century and the time has come to move away from newsletters and towards the modern equivalent. Just as many companies blog their news, updates, celebrations and upcoming work our newsletter could be a ongoing blog with multiple authors (even if we maintained a single editor to maintain quality).
- Strategic Planning Wiki - Strategic planning for IT often boils down to reviewing the organizational strategic plans and brainstorming the IT internal initiatives and other projects that will support those plans. Open up the brainstorming to EVERYONE including end-users and business participants at every level.
- Strategic Planning Markets - Unlike the talent/problem markets that utilize a Craig's List like structure for procuring help a strategic planning market would work more like the online election markets that are used to solicit people's projections for election outcomes online or equities markets that set price based on supply and demand. Once strategies and tactics are brainstormed the planning market would then open up voting to project which ones would best support and align with the organization's needs.
- Review Board Forums - For chartered groups that review projects, proposals, designs or other instruments that benefit from a widely diverse peer review setup forums where topics or threads can be started for each item to be reviewed. Then comments can be harvested after a known deadline and submitted to the authors for consideration in the final draft.
- Management Blogs - Managers can blog for two purposes. First, to share information on vision, direction, meeting outcomes or other key information that employees are hungry to know and understand. Second, to invite dialogue via blog comments on the information that can happen in a public forum.
Where are you finding success with these tools in your organization?
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2 comments:
I attended a CIO forum at CHIME on just this topic - VERY FEW CIOs reported doing anything with "social networking" sites of any kind. Not surprising - these technologies are clearly those which seem OBVIOUS to a real techie but most people will be late adopters. Isn't it frustrating to be a techie sometimes? Alternately, I am trying to bridge the gap and help our boss develop a blog. As a late adopter, I remain dubious about its usefulness and how many visits the site will get. Does he have the stamina to write regularly and make it interesting? (He says he does). Will people come? That is the question. Ask me in 6 months.
Great post! I love the idea of using wiki for informal FAQ - this is now a goal at our company for 2009. happy new year
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