June 2010

It requires a big leap for many IT executives, but Clay Shirky argues that they must not only guide the integration of social media in the workplace, but help flatten corporate hierarchies that hinder collaboration.

Even in a profession dedicated to implementing and managing change, the next several years are going to be interesting for the CIO. Unlike past revolutions, evolutions and right-sizings, the biggest challenge that CIOs face this time is cultural, not technological or budgetary.

Clay Shirky, a long-time advocate for decentralized communications and decision making in organizations, says the CIO can and should lead efforts to transform hierarchies that impose consistent rules simply for the sake of having consistent rules. The transformation is going to happen anyway, he maintains, and it ultimately will make companies more innovative and resilient. Therefore, CIOs must accelerate the integration of social networking services in the workplace, according to Shirky.

Best known as author of Here Comes Everybody (Penguin Press, 2008), Shirky has a new book out this month: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. He’s also a consultant and Adjunct Professor at New York University's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program. For good measure, he's also a former CTO at Web media and design firm, Site Specific. Smart Enterprise Exchange contributor, Jim Nash, spoke with Shirky about virtual work environments, the CIO's evolving role as a cultural leader, and the need for better ties with the chief marketing officer. Some highlights follow.

Q: What exactly is happening with social media at enterprises today?

A: We’re seeing a classic pattern of consumer tech working its way into enterprise IT.

We know that people have personal experience with Facebook and Twitter and all the other social networking sites out there. They're networking with people globally, and with little effort.

Employees are using social network tools to avoid hierarchies that reward information-hoarding and that too often result in turf battles. The “wisdom of the crowd” is steering corporate culture away from models that can't address workplace realities. This goes all the way back to VisiCalc [spreadsheet program], when corporate accountants brought in PCs to get their work done.

As soon as CEOs see how virtual teams perform, free of most of the operational friction created by command-and-control hierarchy, there'll be no choice but to adopt the tools as they did VisiCalc, PC networking, e-mail and all the other decentralizing steps.

The ultimate face of virtual teams may not — in fact, probably won't — involve the consumer brands of social networking we know today. Instead, there will be a business analog, allowing employees to use standardized apps to create their own, purpose-driven channels to link colleagues, customers, suppliers and partners; that’s how social media will evolve in the enterprise.

Q: Culture is such a difficult — even loaded — concept in business. Shouldn't CIOs be focusing on what they can control: technology and information policy?

A: This won't be a natural shift for CIOs to make. So-called “broom-closet” managers — those primarily focused on maintaining order — will be the most reluctant to adopt virtual work environments and new collaboration tools. They got where they are by locking things down.

Way back in 1995, Xerox Corp. Chief Scientist John Seely Brown wrote about sending an anthropologist from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (which he also directed) to shadow copier-repair techs to find productivity gains. The techs started every day telling war stories — triumphs over seemingly unsolvable problems in the field.

Xerox execs could have handled the situation in many ways, but the company chose to give the technicians walkie-talkies so they could ask the group as a whole for advice and tips and continue the story-telling. The point is that they all got smarter as a result of the open collaboration and knowledge-sharing that the group interaction provided

Q: It is largely uncharted territory for CIOs to direct enterprisewide cultural change. How can they make informed decisions?

A: I'm proposing three phases leading to adoption: First, consumers and employees learn the new technology and bring it into the workplace. That's already happening. Then, businesses make accommodations for it when they realize they can't shut it down. That's becoming more common. Finally, companies see virtual workgroups as a strategic asset and decide to get some value out of them. The final phase is still rare. It can be seen in Motorola, which prides itself in how flat it has ironed its hierarchy.

At each phase, CIOs can form and shape policies and tools that prepare the organization for eventual enterprisewide adoption, minimizing culture shock.

If a company wants more control over this change, it can acquire a complementary company that has already mastered [corporate culture shifts] and graft its culture onto the parent's structure. It also can create a separate unit and set the group up as a virtual work environment before integrating the unit with the parent.

CIOs in most large organizations are intimately familiar with corporate strategy and also have deep knowledge about what every segment of an organization needs in order to act on that strategy. They can make a credible case that a new order is needed and provide the tools to support it.

Q: How do you measure ROI with regard to social media and collaboration?

A: ROI comes up in the absence of any other business case, and this is no exception; ROI is a slippery concept in this context. It's very hard to quantify errors caught before they occur or innovations discovered through inclusive virtual work environments.

But the business case for virtual teaming is clearer. For sales, it will be having a continual presence in the customer's mind. For tech support, it will be a very low cost for very high satisfaction rates; and with R&D, it'll be the open collaboration itself. All of them will contribute to the bottom line, and CIOs will have to work closely with CMOs, and others, to demonstrate this value.

ASK THE EXPERT

Clay Shirky teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, where he researches the interrelated effects of our social and technological networks. He has consulted with a variety of groups working on network design, including Nokia, the BBC, Newscorp, Microsoft, BP, Global Business Network, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Navy, the Libyan government, and Lego. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times (of London), Harvard Business Review, Business 2.0, and Wired.