Description

Europe faces a major
demographic challenge! According to OECD, demographic projections are
uncertain, but on middle-of-the-road assumptions, the ratio of people
over 65 to those between 20 and 64 could double between now and the
middle of the century. And in some countries, such as Italy and Spain,
this ageing will be much stronger. The situation is similar in most
developed countries due to the combined effect of the lowering of the
birth rate and the “boomers” reaching retirement age. The phenomenon
will be reaching the emerging economies within a few years as was
discussed during the eSangathan Mumbai
conference.

The
shift from an industrial society to a knowledge society, as well as the
extension of the individual lifespan in healthy conditions, and the
increasing role of ICT in the work process are a set of factors
enabling people to work longer in good conditions. It will be a
personal choice for some people, and a necessity for others. The real
question remains: how to increase the percentage of aged workers
(55-64) included into the labour market?

This was exactly the purpose of the
eSangathan project!

The
project focussed on two particular segments, of this 55-64 population:
one consisting of employees about to retire in the corporate world, and
the other being people willing to be further involved into the labour
market as entrepreneurs. eSangathan analysed
the situation based on two pilots: one in a major Indian corporation,
Mahindra & Mahindra and one at regional level in the Öresund region
in Sweden and Denmark.

ICT
played a major role in the project and in the life of the pilot
members. Indeed, the consortium made the “a priori” assumption, based
on previous experiences, that Collaborative Working Environments (CWE)
could represent a well adapted solution to improve working conditions
and offer a better work-life balance to the ageing workers. The
consortium members will be happy to share with you the results of these
experimentations during the conference.

eSangathan
was also eager to innovate in the field of tools and methods used to
reach the social goals of the project. We all know that the Nordic
countries are the “best in class” in Europe with regard to the
employment of the “seniors”; so, we knew we would learn from our
Swedish, Danish and Dutch partners. So will you when attending the
conference. You will discover how we shifted from a hierarchical
management approach to a heterarchical one.

The
inclusion of the ageing workforce into the labour market becomes a hot
topic in all the countries where their employment rate is low. Indeed,
15 countries out of 27 do not reach the strategic objective of 50%
employment rate for the 55-64 population segment. This brings Europe at
44,7% of employment rate at the end of 2007. The employment rate varies
from 28,3% (Malta) to 70% (Sweden).

Despite
the recent research led by IRDES saying that 31% (The Netherlands) to
67% (Spain) of the 50-64 workers say they want to retire as soon as
possible, one can assume that the working life of the Europeans will be
longer in the future. This economical and social reality has been a key
concern of the eSangathan team. It results in a set of recommendations and proposals which will be presented in the
eSangathan White Paper.

The White Paper will be presented and made available during the conference!

You want to know more or share opinion: contact us at event@esangathan.eu
or visit us at www.esangathan.eu

Register the conference at http://www.esangathan-conference.eu/registration.asp

This will enforce the HTTPS:// protocol for your URLs, even if you typed HTTP://.

This is a great feature, because we have seen users which contacts lists have been hacked, when using for example public wifi connexions.

Google solves the problem offering this security feature, and we advise you to immediately check this option for all your domains. But it is only available for premium and education Google Apps editions.

For those who are running Google Apps free edition, we recommend you to type yourself your URLs as HTTPS, and keep them like this in your bookmarks. All the following navigation through the Google Apps services will remain HTTPS. You can also use the firefox add-on, Better GMail 2, to enforce specifically GMail.

PS: keep in mind that if you invite an external user to your domain, this enforcement will not be active. This external user will be available to use HTTP URLs. We hope Google will enforce this very soon also.

What are the links between e-management, web 2.0 and corporate governance? They are in the fact that it is more and more clear every day that participatory tools and collaborative working environments are changing drastically the human interactions within corporations, and impacting first the organization and the management. For the benefit of the corporation itself, thanks to the raise of a new level of collective intelligence, and a new standard of productivity.

The use of participatory technologies in the company is changing radically relationships between individuals. Breacking top-down hierarchies, we are moving to a Network Centric Management, where the supervisor will no longer base its legitimacy on its authority to direct the work of others, but where he’ll be at the same time coordinator, moderator, advisor and arbitrator of his teams and employees.

Lying, incompetence and other bad habits of a lot of deviated organizations that can be more easily concealed in an authoritarian management, will be unveiled in broad daylight in a participatory management imposed by the use of this new tools.

The introduction of these technologies in the enterprise, and even within the extended enterprise (customers, partners and subcontractors), will change this things, it is inevitable. Why? Because in the same way, when intranets arrived in the companies, they were sometimes promoted by the hierarchy, but most often they were growing from the grassroots, under the radar, because the need was too strong to prevent people to deploy them. People wanted to publish information without constraints. But a few years later, IT people succeeded to master this freedom, and intranets became again a hierarchical organization for content production. So the intranets were at the beginning a cultural revolution in most of our businesses, but at the end the impact in terms of management finally was very weak.

It’s totally different with the participatory web, where the questioning of management is complete, and hence the organization of the enterprise itself. That is why we can replace the previous-decade-words “e-management” with “Management 2.0″, and “e-organization” with “Enterprise 2.0″.. Not to be hype with a « 2.0 » acronym, but because the prefix “e-” hasn’t been disruptive for organizations and management. The “2.0″ prefix by contrast illustrates this qualitative and fundamental leap that we can no longer go back.

The Enterprise 2.0 will be a cross-organization, where information will flow seamlessly and securely, and where the creativity of everyone will be unleashed giving to everybody the opportunity to write, to say, to show, to talk, to share, to discuss, to participate, and ultimately to build together.

Other virtues will then appear as a result of these liberation, such as individual and collective efficiency, increased productivity, quality improvment and transparency.

Business leaders, from large and small organizations, that will anticipate the first these new usages, both within and outside their company, will be the first to reap the real benefits of this new corporate governance. It is necessary to invest massively, to train and support users, from the assistant to the CEO, because adopting these practices doesn’t happen overnight.

This is not about learning to use a software and pushing buttons. This is about thinking and acting differently, working differently, establishing different relationships, and this will not be done in a day, but in several months. It’s why the change must start as soon as possible in order to reap the benefits as soon as possible as well.

We must all commit ourselves to evangelize. We are on a fertile ground, because we are not at this disruption level only thanks to the technology. We are facing the convergence of two fundamental factors: (1) technology, and (2) the changing usages due to the Internet being here now for many years.

Most of the technologies of the Web 2.0 have nothing revolutionary, and some of them exist for over a decade! But they have spread this recent years very quickly because human beings were ready to receive and exploit them.

We’ve reached the limits of our actual organizations, and it is not possible to gain in daily productivity continuing to use the same tools (files, emails, and legacy systems) with the same organizations, because this tools are not anymore helping to improve these organizations. They are even creating more and more disorganization, and people are a lot more conscious of this now.

This is why we are in the good momentum, because the consciousness and the demand exist. We must therefore push both managers and users to be trained to these new usages, in order to implode the traditional business models and managements, and usher them in a new era of corporate governance, an era where individual, its efficiency, creativity, and its relationship to the team and the corporation, will be at the very heart of economics and social growth the next few years, for the benefit of all.

Miguel Membrado (May 1st, 2008)

Identificateurs Technorati : Enterprise 2.0, Management 2.0, Corporate Governance, Governance

I explain why our companies must move as quickly as possible to this new step, necessary to simply exceed the limits where are stuck their current organizations.

Without adopting the concepts of Enterprise 2.0 as soon as possible, our organizations will be unable to present a new quantum leap in terms of individual and collective productivity, because traditional information systems, and the organizations and management methods being associated become brakes, even a disorganization factor in many cases.

Only a real disruption in the organisation, that of the Enterprise 2.0, allow today to restore rationality and optimization in the daily work of individuals and teams for their benefit and that of enterprises.

(the lecture had been filmed, the video arrives in a few days with more details on my words)

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Technorati tags: Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Collaboration, Participation, Productivity, Disruption

Slides’ text:
Slide 1: Kimind Consulting Kimind Consulting Towards Enterprise 2.0 – Strategy, Consulting & Coaching The Enterprise 2.0 Miguel Membrado Founder & CEO membrado@kimind.com Phone: +1 650 352 3372

Slide 2: 20 years of evolutionConsulting Kimind in CWE Kimind Consulting massive adoption Informational Dimension Heterarchical Web 2.0 (Participatory) Real Time Organizational Dimension Wikis Blogs Kimind Quadrant Web-based workspaces Traditional Collaborative Solutions (Lotus, Microsoft, …) Hierarchical Structured Unstructured © 2006-2008, Miguel Membrado – Kimind Consulting low adoption (knowledge)

Slide 3: Towards Enterprise 2.0 Kimind Consulting Kimind Consulting What is Enterprise 2.0  Evolution in organization, management and methodologies  8 technical pillars: wiki + blog + search + social bookmarking +  customized home pages + RSS + social networks For which benefits  Individual and collective productivity growth  Better: competitiveness and innovation ; collective intelligence ;  talent and customer loyalty Five Key concepts  The end of the e-mail/file era  Participation Age  Simplicity  Extended Organizations  Radical transparency 

Slide 4: A Disruption in the Daily Work Kimind Consulting Kimind Consulting e-Mail Internet Explorer MSOffice Local and Shared Files Traditional Daily Work Organization Inter-personal collaboration ; disorganization ; saturation ; waste ; redundancy ; information loss ; inefficiency ; complexity ; high costs ; … HOW TO BE MORE PRODUCTIVE? WE HAVE REACHED A LIMIT! IMPOSSIBLE TO GO BEYOND WITHOUT A DISRUPTION… FireFox (open source) RSS Feeds Online Office Wiki Webmail/Chat Blog New Daily Work Organization rationalization ; organization ; team collaboration ; information repositories ; accumulation ; productivity ; simplicity ; low costs ; remote working ; …

Slide 5: Rationalization & Kimind Consulting Optimization Kimind Consulting BEFORE: Production+ e-Mail + attachments MS Office Local & Shared Files Communication+ Storage AFTER: Collaborative Production Wiki Interactive Communication Blog Collaborative Watch Social Bookmarking Collaborative Office Automation Online Office Information Consumption Customized Home Pages RSS Feeds & Monitoring Interpersonal Communication & alerts Webmail + Chat Socialization + social directories Enterprise Social Networks

Slide 6: HOW TO EVOLVE Kimind Consulting Kimind Consulting Informational Dimension Heterarchical (Participatory) Management Evolution Organizational Dimension Your organization tomorrow Kimind Quadrant IS Evolution Your organization today Hierarchical Structured Unstructured © 2006-2008, Miguel Membrado – Kimind (knowledge)

Slide 7: Conclusion Kimind Consulting Kimind Consulting A new step in terms of individual and collective  productivity is now possible By adopting Web 2.0 new usages for the Enterprise  Corporation Feedbacks from large accounts  exist for a few years The end of Microsoft supremacy on the desktop  Don’t be late to evolve  The change must be done TODAY…  … because there is a learning curve  … because your competitors will do it also 

San Francisco, March 26 2008

Netcipia, a Web 2.0 company founded in 2006 by Bruno de Beauregard and Miguel Membrado (former co-founders of Mayetic) in Palo Alto, has
launched the new version of its free online participative platform.

This new version boasts advanced wiki-type functionalities that place Netcipia amongst the 10 top wiki platforms worldwide in terms of features and ergonomics.

Better yet! The first Web 2.0 service to offer both free and unlimited wikis and blogs within a single interface, Netcipia innovates again by enabling its users to charge for the online content they provide.

Netcipia place owners can charge for their content by offering:

• Weekly, monthly or yearly subscriptions giving access to the entire Netcipia Place.
• Fee-based access to specific pages within the Place.
• Time-limited access to the Place.

Whereas historically, advertisement has been the only way for users to earn some income for the content they provide, Netcipia
now enables every professional or expert-amateur to use the power of
Web 2.0 to build, expand and manage participative communities as well
as charge for valuable content. In exchange for this service, there are not fixed costs: Netcipia will only charge a percentage for every transaction.

Consultants, teachers, gardeners, architects have already begun using
their Netcipia participative communities as a lucrative business tool,
using one or several of the three payment models available.

However, Netcipia can still be used free of charge to create one or several wiki/blog communities.

Netcipia therefore offers a Win/Win proposition:
Users can benefit from the Netcipia platform free-of charge to build
their community and offer their content worldwide, until they are able
to generate some income by monetizing their content through the use of
the Netcipia Online Expertise Monetization Platform.

• Simplicity: everything is clear and fluid. It is the strength of Google to arrive with a very simple interface to produce things quite complex. One user, even a beginner, will understand quickly how it works. Apart from the problem of always having to create pages and link them with each other, which is not always easy to understand the first time.

• Minimalism: the counterpart of simplicity, but the balance is in Google Sites. For power users it is of
  course a pain, but for 90% of users in an enterprise, it will be quite substantial. Each feature in Google Sites displays just the options they need, not more, not less. So, in fact, even a power user can adapt himself his requirements to use successfuly Google Site. And unlike other products too minimalist and, in fact, impossible to use (Zoho Wiki for example), Google Sites is the perfect start point. So it is a real know-how at Google and a true example to follow.

• Types of pages: QuickPlace had created this concept for web workspaces in 1998, we had improved it in 2000 with mayeticVillage, JotSpot had invented it in wikis in 2005, and the Google Sites produced it to my greatest pleasure (and that of its Users ;-)). It is clear that in a workspace, web pages should be typed according to the content created or the application focused. Google has done it by allowing
  you to select for each new page if it will be a normal page, or a dashboard page, or a mini-database page, or a mini-file manager, or a mini-blog (annouvements…).

• Mini-database: Google calls it a “list” type of page. It offers predefined types of lists, but in fact everything is customizable as a small database, where you can create fields, associate types, default values (check box, dropdown list, etc. .. .) and so on. It works really well, and there was also something already invented by QuickPlace few years ago, and adopted then by mayeticVillage.

• Integration of gadgets: (gadgets are the Google equivalent of widgets) any page may contain gadgets. This can range from a simple weather gadget to the display of his pwn calendar, or a Google Docs documents, or a spreadsheet, etc…. So you can produce composite pages, and actually begin to replicate what is possible to do with MS Office and OLE objects on a PC workstation. So you can display a Spreadsheet into a page that has been created in Google Sites, in the middle of any regular text. BUT … These objects are only in visualization mode, therefore no change in the gadget is possible. We must start the calendar application for example to create an event. And on the other hand some apps like spreadsheed seems impose to be first published, which is a very limited thing, since only documents visible to the general public would be publishable. Surprising, but we hope that Google will correct this very quickly.

• Display in two columns: this is a little thing, but very practical, to be capable of displaying 2 columns of content in a page. But it is very convenient, and it makes much more readable text, especially on very large screens as they are done now.

So Google Sites is a real step forward for Google Apps, on the one hand because Google Sites becomes the main anchor of any project. Any project in a company using Google Apps will create its Google Site repository for all the information and the documents of the project, and will serve of control tower for all the information created beside (Spreadsheet, Presenter, …). And using Google Docs (the equivalent of MS Word) will be very limited, since the majority of textual information will be produced in Google Sites directly.

Another big limit raised anyway:

• Nothing is exportable, and therefore all the work done in a Site is not transferable to another Site. A real headache, especially if we began to set lists. Google should at least create the concept of template Site, as well as put in place a genuine function of export / import data from one Site to another. Otherwise it is not possible to capitalize on his work, and for professional use and large-scale companies it could be a real problem.

Identificateurs Technorati : Google Sites, Google Apps, Google, Wiki, Enterprise 2.0