For those of us who believe in connection, conversation, and collaboration, 2024 was both joyful and heartbreaking. There were tantalizing signs that people would come together and create new, joyful possibilities and too many indications that the mechanistic, controlling, and hierarchical orientation is still limiting what is possible. At the heart of it all is
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The enterprise collaboration technology market has changed significantly since I was IDC’s first social software market analyst in 2007. On the external/customer side, large social networks gobbled up the market, which reverted to a renewed emphasis on advertising vs engagement as social network operators squeezed out more revenue and profits. On the internal side, Microsoft
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Lack of accountability in the workplace is often framed as the responsibility of individuals or managers. It is seen as something created by bad actors; employees who are particularly toxic or manipulative. While there are no doubt plenty of people who are manipulative, they do not behave that way in a vacuum. The behavior persists
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The Language of Engagement is a communication style that invites response, collaboration, and different perspectives. It is common in education, non-profits, and therapy but used much less frequently in work and business environments. In fact, many best practices in corporate communications, leadership development, and business schools discourage it in favor of declarative language that makes
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Most executives do not think about the strategic cost of data, yet it is creating significant operational costs and adding immense friction for employees across organizations. With the move toward SaaS solutions that allow employees and departments to adopt software without centralized IT oversight, the quantity of organizational data has exploded. In the Marketing space,
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The value of knowledge work in the age of AI will force a reckoning; a reckoning in how we work but more fundamentally in how we understand and account for value. Today, our systems are based on the assumption that production = value. We value creating software more than we value caring for children. We
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Joyful workplaces are not generally strategic goals for senior executives. Engaged maybe. Efficient definitely… but joyful? Executives would do well to reconsider. At first blush, joy seems like a nice to have but it is actually a strategic strength; for employees it is compelling, addictive, and stress-reducing. For organizations, it is a driver of efficiency,
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We gathered 20 digital and collaborative workplace strategists to discuss the findings and recommendations included in our Hybrid Work Executive Brief. We also wanted to hear their perspectives and experiences on solutions that increase the effectiveness of hybrid work. These experts included individuals across sectors and in different roles and resulted in a rich and
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The office of the future is a community center that mashes up space with services and makes a variety of collaborative behaviors easy in ways that make employees’ lives better rather than more complicated. Do that and employees will return again and again because it gives them more than it costs.
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Fostering culture change relies on understanding the individuals you hope to change and personas are a valuable starting point. Personas are an important tool used by strategists and product designers and are critical to understanding the people we are trying to engage. However, how these profiles are framed has a significant impact on the success
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