NOBO Business Benefits

With reference to Peter Gloor's book "Swarm Creativity", NOBO can be considered as a virtual community of practice working in an ecosystem of connected communities of practice. There are three types of virtual community of practice but it is the collaborative innovation network (COIN) that delivers the primary business benefits.

"Members of COINS self-organise as cyberteams, teams that connect people through the Internet - enabling them to work together more easily by communicating not through hierarchies, but directly with each other. The individuals in COINs are highly motivated, working together toward a common goal - not because of orders from their superiors (although they may be brought together in that way), but because they share the same goal and are convinced of their common cause."

The business benefits to NOBO that embrace the concept of COINs are substantial;

• Organisations are more innovative and more collaborative
• Organisations are more agile
• Infuse external knowledge into the organisation
• Uncover hidden business opportunities
• Release synergies
• Reduce costs and cut time to market
• Help organisations locate their experts and reward hidden contributors
• Lead to more secure, transparent organisations.

"COINs will be the foundation of virtual teamworking for tomorrow's increasingly virtual global enterprises. Innovation is crucial to the long-term success of an organisation, and COINs are the best engines to drive innovation."

NOBO Culture

More than anything else, NOBO is about developing a culture of participation devoted to passionate expression of ideas, implementation of a shared vision, and ongoing improvement. The rewards are huge, leading to sustainable, profitable business.

But within large organisations cultural change is not easy. It requires commitment from everyone. Steve Benton and Melissa Giovagnoli in their book "The Wisdom Network" identify numerous ways to adjust attitudes thereby promoting a culture of participation. Here is a selection of their ideas;

1. Judge ideas on their merit rather than on their place of origin - Most companies believe that they judge ideas on their merits, but they often labour under subtle prejudices of which they're not aware. It takes a conscious effort to evaluate new ideas without favouritism, politics, or biases getting in the way.

2. Accept reasonable failure - Wisdom networks thrive when people feel free to float all types of ideas and proposed concepts, in addition to what they deliver. Wisdom networks draw tremendous energy from one successful idea, even if nine others fail before that success.

3. Foster a participatory climate where networking is a way of life - Without this attitude, people are often reluctant to share information or ideas, are a bit cynical toward management, and find the thought of contributing to communities of practice or other knowledge exchanges anathema.

4. Establish a mentoring culture - Every organisation has people who mentor others, but not every one possesses a mentoring responsibility that permeates the culture. With a mentoring culture, the most experienced naturally embrace the knowledge-sharing role and derive satisfaction from helping others to grow and succeed.

5. Embrace an alliance mentality toward external groups - Some organisations are natural partners, establishing relationships with key suppliers and vendors that contribute to a shared vision and common values, each encouraging growth in local business communities.

6. Recognise that knowledge exchanges generate a superior Return On Investment - When a sufficient number of people are excited about working on pet projects that are also important to the business - and when they see how such contributions will benefit the company and their careers - the system springs to life.

7. Recruit people who know how to share, not only people who know what to do - In years past, companies generally hired for experience and expertise first, and for attitude second (or not at all). Fortunately, we are seeing a shift in this philosophy as organisations recognise that communication, teamwork, and helping others are critical qualities in a knowledge-centric world.

NOBO culture is about organisations realising that one brilliant individual may not be as valuable as several highly competent employees who excel in mentoring, communicating, and other forms of knowledge sharing.

NOBO Business Drivers

This blog explores global business drivers for NOBO. In essence there are four aspects to be considered;

Transparency - An old force with new power is rising in business, one that has far-reaching implications for most everyone. Firms that embrace this force and harness its power will thrive. Those which ignore or oppose it will suffer. The force is transparency. People and institutions that interact with firms are gaining unprecedented access to all sorts of information about corporate behaviour, operations, and performance. Armed with new tools to find information about matters that affect their interests, stakeholders now scrutinize the firm as never before, inform others, and organize collective responses. The corporation is becoming naked. Corporations have no choice but to rethink their values and bahaviours - for the better.
( Extract from "The Naked Corporation" by Don Tapscott and David Ticoll )

Emerging Technology - Within a decade, the major population centres of the planet will be saturated wuth trillions of microchips, some of them tiny computers, many of them capable of communicating with each other. Some of these devices will be telephones...some devices will read barcodes and send and receive messages to radio-frequency identity tags. Some will furnish wireless, always-on Internet connections and will contain global positioning devices. As a result, large numbers of people in industrial nations will have a device with them most of the time that will enable them to link objects, places, and people to online content and processes. Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power, new ways to organize their interactions and exchanges just in time and just in place. Tomorrow's fortunes will be made by the businesses that find a way to profit from these changes, and yesterday's fortunes are already being lost by businesses that don't understand them.
( Extract from "Smart mobs: The Next Social Revolution" by Howard Rheingold )

A New World of Organizations - The Internet allows even the smallest of companies to have a global presence and contract for work anywhere in the world. There is a variety of digitally enabled business networks for marketing, locating materials and resources, and expanding distribution, all providing value for their participants. There are also social networks, political networks, professional networks, and networks for communities and enthusiasts - all purposeful, all providing value for their participants. The centre is moving. It is moving out from corporate hubs to more diffuse and distributed webs of business relationships and alliances spreading across the globe.
( Extract from "The Future of Knowledge" by Verna Allee )

Sustainability - Globalisation, the knowledge economy, technology, deregulation, e-business, sustainabililty and accountability - this is the new business reality. How companies respond to these challenges and opportunities will determine whether they succeed in the early years of the new millennium. Business has had a profound impact on the environment. There is hardly a CEO that does not recognise that our rivers, air, forests and oceans are under severe threat. There are also many company executives that see their own survival and prosperity linked to solving some of these pressing environmental and social problems. A new business paradigm is emerging where trade-offs between environment, community and business interests is no longer sustainable. Corporate environmental and social performance is now seen as an important business issue that needs to be evaluated against other competing strategic decisions.
( Extract from "Sustainability: The new business reality" by PricewaterhouseCoopers )

NOBO Business Challenges

The nature of contemporary business poses certain challenges to NOBO knowledge workers organising for productivity and prosperity. With reference to "The Wisdom Network" by Steve Benton and Melissa Giovagnoli I believe the following are the key NOBO business challenges;

• A higher degree of integration -Different backgrounds, cultures, races, sexes, experience levels, or any difference among people provides the atmosphere for innovation to thrive. When too much like-mindedness is prevalent, new thoughts are hard to come by.
• The need for speed - A results-focused world often requires compromises to get work done faster, cheaper, and more cost effectively. This may mean resources are allocated to direct, short-term ways of making or saving money rather than to the less-direct, longer-term effects of social entrepreneurship.
• Quality - When communities form around topics focused on clear business goals, information turns to knowledge, and knowledge that is acted upon turns to wisdom. When communities form around topics that are not in any way connected, organizational wisdom cannot flourish.
• The shortage of skills - NOBO communities are hampered by individuals who are stubborn, egotistical, and unwilling or unable to work well with others. They may be brilliant, but they keep that brilliance confined in their heads or share it on a limited basis.
• Changing technology - The Internet and its technologies are evolving rapidly causing many interesting problems for enterprises trying to implement social software technologies. To succeed NOBO should take stock of how they implement these technologies and develop a plan to manage constant changes with users acting as co-developers.

Social Computing

This blog describes the seventh and last step in the NOBO Virtuous Circle. It takes a look at how thriving alliances leads to social computing.

Social computing is the key enabling tool for NOBO knowledge workers and their alliances. It includes technologies such as social networks, wikis and blogs. These technologies support social interaction and communication. The tool heralds a new age whereby building and maintaining online business relationships can enhance productivity and prosperity across the globe.

Social computing is principally about people but there are four perspectives which help to define the essence of the concept;

• Web as platform - The web is transforming the business landscape. It allows even the smallest of companies to have a global presence and contract for work anywhere in the world. Business is moving. It is moving out from large organisations to more diverse and distributed webs of business relationships. Tim O'Reilly provides a good overview of Web 2.0
• Collective Intelligence - O'Reilly says an essential part of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence, turning the web into "a kind of global brain". Collective intelligence promises to transform the traditional business ecosystem into a NOBO ecosystem: an ecosystem embracing emotional intelligence, social responsibility and sustainability. However there are many forms of collective intelligence and correspondingly, many "tribes" of its practitioners. This is an abbreviated overview by George Por.
• No formal hierarchy - Web 2.0 is about people and Enterprise 2.0 will be less about less top-down structure and more about structure developed freely through lower-level interactions, say Harvard Business School Associate Professor Andrew McAfee and Socialtext CEO Ross Mayfield. Low-level interactions create pattern and order enabled by Web 2.0 technologies.
• Online Community - The quality of community in tomorrow's wired world is an important concern says Howard Rheingold, a veteran of online comminity. "In order for a virtual community to succeed, the software must have a usable human interface". Equally significant, O'Reilly asserts trusting users as co-developers of social software has become a core competency of Web 2.0.

It is important to stress again social computing is a very powerful tool for knowledge workers in the 21st century. Rheingold observes "Intelligent and democratic leadership is desperately needed at this historical moment, while the situation is still somewhat fluid". It is a significant opportunity for leaders especially pioneering leaders as communities of practice.

My next blog will consider the business challenges facing knowledge workers organising for productivity and prosperity across the globe.

Alliances

This blog describes the sixth step in the NOBO Virtuous Circle. It considers how knowledge workers in value networks build alliances.

The Internet enables knowledge workers to consider alliances as a new kind if strategy opportunity. The value proposition of an alliance is collaboration for a common good. "Participants form a community that designs or makes useful things, creates and shares knowledge, or simply has fun together" writes Don Tapscott et al in the book "Digital Capital:Harnessing the Power of Business Webs". Alliances represent not the usual commercial sense of the word but more sharing and development of collective intelligence.

How do you guide these alliances? This article by Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott and William M. Snyder describes seven principles on cultivating communities of practice:

• Design for evolution - because communities of practice are organic, designing them is more a matter of shepherding their evolution than creating them from scratch.
• Open a dialogue between inside and outside perspectives - effective community design is built on the collective experience of community members.
• Invite different levels of participation - people participate in communities for different reasons—some because the community directly provides value, some for the personal connection, and others for the opportunity to improve their skills.
• Develop both public and private community spaces - dynamic communities are rich with connections that happen both in the public places of the community—meetings, Web site—and the private space—the one-on-one networking of community members.
• Focus on value - rather than attempting to determine their expected value in advance, communities need to create events, activities, and relationships that help their potential value emerge and enable them to discover new ways to harvest it.
• Combine familiarity and excitement - lively communities combine both familiar and exciting events so community members can develop the relationships they need to be well connected as well as generate the excitement they need to be fully engaged.
• Create a rhythm for the community - the rhythm of the community is the strongest indicator of its aliveness.

The next blog describes the seventh and final step in the NOBO Virtuous Circle. It takes a look at how thriving alliances leads to social computing.

Increasing prosperity through Value Networks

This blog describes the fifth step in the NOBO Vituous Circle. It examines how knowledge workers can increase prosperity through value networks.

"The emerging knowledge economy and networked world of enterprise have the potential for dramatically increasing economic and social prsoperity in a much different way than we have experienced in the past" writes Verna Allee in her book "The Future of Knowledge". Allee asserts that by viewing an enterprise as a value network brings greater understanding of the web of relationships that generate both tangible and intangible value. The bigger the network of knowledge workers...the greater that value is to the knowledge workers themselves.

For NOBO what might this value be? Etienne Wenger in his book "Cultivating Communities of Practice" tables the benefits for individual community members and for the organisation as a whole. Individual long-term benefits include:

• forum for expanding skills and expertise
• network for keeping abreast of a field
• enhanced professional reputation
• increased marketability and employability
• strong sense of professional identity.

Organisation long-term benefits include:

• knowledge-based alliances
• emergence of unplanned capabilities
• capacity to develop new strategic options
• ability to foresee technological developments
• ability to take advantage of emerging market opportunities.

The next blog describes step six of the NOBO Vituous Circle. It considers how knowledge workers in value networks build alliances as a new kind of strategy opportunity.