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https://www.facebook.com/ seems to open fine, but https://www.facebook.com/messages is throwing an error.

I’m frustrated with the recommendation engine in YouTube, and yet also frustrated with the advertising and lack of video controls in Facebook. This is the workaround I discovered using this chrome extension:

Is it just me, or does Sami Outalbali, in Netflix’s Sex Education, look like a young Brown Billy Bob Thorton?

I mean I know that the haircut has something to do with it, and if you have never seen Fargo, then maybe he doesn’t look like Billy Bob in other movies, but still the resemblance is uncanny. Not exactly doppelgänger, but still very similar.

先週4人の宇宙旅行者が宇宙に行きました。

そしてこういう画像がソーシャルメディアに投稿されました。 たくさんの人がスタートラックのユニフォームと似てるとかコメントありました。

特に赤いユニフォームが強くないと言う冗談が多かった。 スタートレックのテレビ番組の中に、もし4人が惑星を尋ねようとして大抵レッドシャツの人が無事に戻ってこなかったことが多かったからだ。

あるコメントが「著作問題あるんじゃないかなぁ」と書かれて、「 どうせ無視するだろ」 と別のコメントがあった。 そしてちょっと気にはなったけど「なんで日本はたまにそういう誰も被害がない時、 そういう小さいルールを無視できないのかな」と思ってちょっとGoogleで検索してみました。 そしてAmazonAssistantが以外の商品の紹介してくれようとしました😅：

We are one of the world’s YOUNG & DYNAMIC techno management company that helps enterprises connecting the dots for digital solutions. Our NextGen development strategy and pragmatic approach creates innovative solutions to bring changes that touches lives.

Link

Much of the messaging was geared towards first time collaborative intranet admins & corporate comms folks on the ThoughtFarmer platform.

One of the classic moments for me was when someone in the audience asked the presenter (Sean Biehle of MedData) if they just let anyone contribute anything?

To which he answered “well we keep a tight control on our intranet home page and our corporate-comms blogs, but outside of that, teams are free to engage and whatever communication they like, of course following our code of standards. Brought me back….

The whole summit, felt a little like a single-track for new users at an old JiveWorld conference.

Speaking of tracks, there were at least three groups of people from small credit unions or banks from British Columbia and Oklahoma that I know of. In the future they might want to have a speaker who can discuss the successful implementation of a collaborative Intranet in a financial organization. Similarly there was one community manager from a municipal police department in BC, and a two-person team from a small city in Alberta the could benefit from hearing how similar government organizations set up collaborative intranets.

2ToLead gave a powerful presentation on the functional coexistence of a SharePoint / ThoughtFarmer combined Intranet. They also discussed some of the out-of-the-box search adapters ThoughtFarmer offers including the one for Office365.

In Chuck Gose’s and Kristin Hancock’s talk on not “Commsplaining”, they  helped comms people become more self-aware in communicating to elicit better responses from the organizations. Kristen gave one example of creating bridges with IT teams. If I were to add anything to their talk, I think I would add that corporate comms folks are often graduates of English or journalism at university, and hold themselves to a high standard in writing. But when you are trying to evangelize workers to blog more, you need to tone down the rhetoric about following style guides / standards etc. which are irrelevant to people like engineers.

The summit included a few opportunities to change gears and stop talking shop. One was an inspirational talk by Julie Angus and her adventures rowing across the Atlantic, another was our trip up Cypress Mountain and meeting with the owls and bears. And then it was finished off with a happy hour at an intimate bar with great food – and music volume not too loud to continue talking a little shop or really anything. I’m having a little flashback to the Final Night Party at JiveWorld15, where you really couldn’t hear a thing.

Blaine Kyllo gave an excellent talk on how creating quality knowledge articles inside your intranet can help reduce the costs of running a help desk, because agents can get answers faster. With general knowledge workers it is hard to prove that the ROI on spending a little bit more time dumping knowledge into a company-wide knowledge base can actually be huge. However most call centers can tell you exactly how many dollars it costs to answer each phone call, so any measure to cut the cost can immediately be seen.

During the only live demo of the summit, Trevor Allen showed us FormFlow. There were some standard use cases, like ordering business cards etc.. I understand there are similar products for other intranet platforms out there, however I think that ThoughtFarmer’s price point, and ease-of-use make it an attractive option. The 80-20 rule definitely applies, it is a simple workflow application that will definitely meet 80% of the workflow needs of most organizations.

The highlight for me was Chris McGrath’s talk on chat bots. Despite the current state of most chatbots being very hokey information collection systems with a simple chat like interface and little actual value to the user (my take, not his), the vision down the road is more like an Alexa or Google Assistant natural language conversation with your Enterprise systems which would include your collaborative intranet. But even today his company, Tangowork’s product can provide useful information discovery today across multiple chat interfaces (Slack, Skype for biz and many others).

I look forward to the day when I can talk to my intranet on the drive to work and say “Tell me what the top 10 liked blog posts are from the last 7 days” or “Read to me the 2nd last blog post from the CEO” so I can stay up to date on news without it eating into my most productive work hours.

To: Cesare Borgia <cesare.borgia@…> From: Niccolò Machiavelli <niccolo.machiavelli@…>

 Dear Cesare, 

I miss the good old Italian Renaissance — the politicking, the conniving, the murder of reputations, and, yes, of actual people at times. But what a happy coincidence that we both reincarnated into the age of caffeine vendors, politically correct thinking and smartphones! Speaking of the latter, I see on Linkedin that you’re currently a mid-level manager of a mobile media company. I was saddened, Signor Borgia, by the news that you had to take such a humble position, but I’m confident that you’ll soon be moving back to greatness.

In order to bring that about, you must not, (as I’m sure you already know) fall for this soft-headed nonsense about collaboration and greater transparency we hear so much about. Remember: 

Secrets can make us strong!

If a question comes up about how to solve a certain issue at work. You might be tempted by all the “silo-breaking” nonsense floating around in this goofy century to ask a question in your company’s Q&A Intranet site or Slack with the idea that it will get broadcast to a large net of people, allowing for the most effective method of getting attention of an SME (subject matter expert). Maybe you’re being told that your posted-question will benefit others with the same question in the future, helping them to find their answer faster, and make your organization more efficient and competitive on a whole. 

Yes the ROI of collaboration is considerable, but don’t be put off by this! Be grateful, instead, that the business accounting is taking a long time to capture and reflect those benefits. There’s a good chance, therefore, this “contribution” will, at least for the next couple of years, not even get recognized. In most organizations, therefore, it’s a way better plan to “ask” (with your voice) around for who might have the answer and then ask them directly. The advantage of this is, you might get the answer faster (reading/writing can be such a hassle). But also you will now be one of the select few with this knowledge. You can then become an SME on the topic and the next time someone has the question, they won’t be able to get it easily without coming to you. Having people walk up to your desk and ask you questions can greatly improve your reputation as “someone with answers”. If the person asking you is in direct competition with you, you can take your time giving them the answer, ensuring your competitive advantage over them and also forcing them to accrue a “social debt” with you for passing the knowledge onto them. Again, don’t waste that opportunity by posting the knowledge on your Jive or SharePoint Intranet. If someone else tries to document this knowledge, remind them that you are the SME and it needs to be vetted with you first. If they ask again, tell them it will be included in the “new” knowledgebase system you are bringing online next quarter.

You can easily see that this logic doesn’t only apply to Q&A. In many organizations people are tempted to “work out loud” by blogging about their work to give transparency into what they do, to act as sort of a micro-marketing campaign of their achievements as well as education to their peers. I’m confident that you’re not doing this, but if, under the influence of some naïve ideal, you are, stop it!

Again, these blog posts can only serve to empower your competitors (co-workers or competing teams) and allow them to copy or even take credit for your work. A better strategy is to never blog, but rather blackbox yourself, in the meantime compiling all your work achievements into a PowerPoint deck which you can use to impress people with all your achievements at the end of the quarter. 

Next my friend, project management should be siloed!

Similar to blogging, you should consider making your JIRA projects private so prying eyes cannot peek at your projects. Or better yet, just do project management in a spreadsheet that cannot even be seen by anyone you don’t explicitly share it with. Remember, sometimes your fiercest competitors are on the same team. In the meantime keep reading the blog posts and status updates of your co-workers, so when a competing team updates JIRA with “enter the QA phase of a datamart” make sure to add a bullet point on your PowerPoint which says “Enterprise Insights Datamart Go Live” making you appear to be ahead of the trend.

Won’t this negatively affect my organization you ask?

Yes, it most certainly will. But, like watering down the soup in a popular restaurant, despite costing you customers long term, it will increase profits in the short term! There will be some collateral damage on your way to greatness. Your knowledge-hoarding will make “you” more valuable and help you to get more recognition in the subsequent years. And then you can use your enhanced status to encourage “other people” to collaborate.

What about remote and overseas workers you ask?

Won’t they suffer if our HQ makes less use of collaborative systems?

Don’t bother yourself with such questions! The fact you’re at HQ means that you can benefit from the greatest amount of tribal knowledge being very close by. If these distant workers ask about collaboration, encourage them to collaborate, so you can once again follow all their progress, and take credit for their achievements if necessary.

If you follow these steps, while continuing to give lip-service to collaboration and “breaking down silos” this will ensure your rise to corporate greatness!

Regards,

“Nick” Machiavelli 

But seriously folks

I once read in a self-help book that taking a serious look at the pay-offs of bad habits helps expose them to the sunlight and help see how alternative behaviours would make more sense. Storytelling in organizations nowadays tends to only focus on the advantages of positive traits we are trying to embody. However when we fail to understand why we tend to return to negative traits, it makes change that much more difficult. I believe that only after we take a serious look at the payoffs of negative traits – can we get back to the business of Breaking Down The Barriers of Silo Mentality, and truly achieving a collaborative culture.