1. White Paper IT Spring So this application is your friend?Some provocative thoughts about the democratization of the usercommunity and innovative use of social media. If youre in a positionof providing value to users and if some of our ideas resonate with you,then we can only suggest you take the plunge and put some of theminto action. Like us, youll benefit from being early adopters. Join therevolution on Twitter at #ITSpring ! Rick Mans and Mark Smalley, 4 August 2011 1

2. IntroductionIn the beginning there was IT A short history of the user IT relationshipStockholm syndrome How people rationalize uncomfortable situationsGoing steady Relationships between users and their applicationsAre all applications created equal? A useful classificationApplication emotional development The next step beyond functionality real usabilityThe users are revolting Democratising the users and toppling the IT dictators!Information management How to get more out of ITSocial as design principle Dont treat social media as an afterthoughtApplication socialization Another way of looking at your application portfolioSo... Whats next?Authors 2

3. IntroductionAfter having written IT is from Flatland,Business is from Spaceland, a paper thatexplored the troubled relationship betweenbusiness people and IT people, Mark Smalleysgaze has wandered off in the direction of therelationship between users (What a strangeword, users. What other kind of users arethere? Only drug addicts?) and applications.From a cool analytical perspective therelationship is just about input and output butstep back a bit and take another look from an emotional viewpoint.What do you see? A relationship that varies from hate and loathing tolove and addiction. Thats right: users. Now add the social mediadimension. Rick Mans has co-authored this paper from his point ofview as social media evangelist, contributing innovative ways ofengaging users. This paper shares some stimulating new insights intothe relationship between users and IT and how judicious use of socialmedia could take it to a higher level.In the beginning there was ITIT users have had a rough ride. Ever since the introduction of IT sixtiesodd years ago, IT departments have been acting like divine beings,telling the users what was good for them. For the first twenty years orso, IT boffins were treated as incomprehensible but brilliant scientistswho were treated with the same deference as doctors used to be. Yesdoctor, no doctor. But then the inevitable happened and cracks startedto appear. Projects failed to deliver. Costs rocketed. Functionalitydidnt function. IT fell from its pedestal and became a fallen angel,retreating into a Just tell us what you want position, with the implicitmessage and then its your fault when it goes wrong. 3

4. Stockholm syndromeUsers (unlike IT) are regular people and regular people tend to adaptto uncomfortable situations. People need defense mechanisms in orderto survive. Ever felt happy with an application when youve completeda longish transaction without it having crashed and losing your data?Yep, thats the Stockholm syndrome: a paradoxical psychologicalphenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positivefeelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of thedanger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack ofabuse from their captors as an act of kindness. I think of someapplications as benevolent dictators. Youre obliged to use them andthey direct your actions in a polite but firm way: Please re-enter yourdata. Including the data that it could have but hasnt bothered tosave for you.Going steadyAnother human trait is to give things human attributes. So letsanthropomorphize a bit. Can applications be happy, grumpy,authoritative, lazy, reliable, fickly, cruel, stupid, intuitive, responsive,sexy? Sure they can. Think about it. Now weve elevated applicationsto a near human level, lets develop a relationship with them. Yourrelationship with an application will probably go through a lifecyclesomething like this. Anticipation youre looking forward to getting the app or being authorized to use it Disappointment Too high expectations Resignation Guess youd better get used to it Acclimatization Its not that bad after all Frustration Its habits are annoying me more and more Alienation The thrill has goneSeeing as all relationships seem to come with a best before date, itllprobably end up ugly.So now weve established that users have a relationship with apps,why not formalize it by liking and friending the app? Or disliking orunfriending? And why not tweet your app? Post cool pics on your appswall. 4

5. Are all applications created equal?Whereas all men are created equal, some applications are more equalthan others. A useful way of looking at applications is using a transportmetaphor. Trains, Buses, Cars and Scooters. Trains are for masstransport. They only go from A to B and the timetables dont changethat often. You wouldnt think of customizing them to individual need.And theyre there for years. Buses are also for mass transport but aremore flexible. Cars are in a different ball park altogether. I doubtwhether youve felt much attachment for a train or a bus but for a carits a personal statement. And youre willing to spend an irrationalamount of money for a status symbol. Finally, the Scooter. A cheapthrowaway item for short distances. You can categorize your ownapplications pretty easily. SAP surely cant anything other than a train,whereas the apps on your smartphone are probably scooters. Aninfrastructural hub to connect all of these kinds of applicationstogether completes the metaphor. Looking at apps this way make iteasier to clarify and justify different behavior and relationships peoplehave with respect to their applications.Referring to the ASL Process Framework for Application Management,the transport metaphor can be used during Application PortfolioManagement (top right of the model).Looking at applicationsfrom these perspectivesmake it easier todetermine appropriateand policies for releasecalendars, changemanagement etc.These differingperspectives also justifywhy a policy for a trainapplication differs fromthe policy for a scooterapp. 5

6. Application emotional developmentSomething that most people have forgotten, of never knew is thatcomputer used to be a job description, not a collection of wires anddisks. You could ask these people to compute things for you, whichthey did, in a very human way. However the human part was lost intranslation when things got automated.Traditional application development tends to be very functional. Likeseats in German cars. You can almost hear them saying Sit uprighton this firm seat, it is good for your back. It maybe be functional butits not the experience Im looking for. I dont feel engaged. The nextstep in application development is that applications move on fromaloof and unresponsive beings to becoming more social apps. Appsthat friend you, send you tweets, tweet about you. And unfriend you Outlook: I feel abused. Or a printer driver that unfriends youbecause you ignore the ink replenishment warning. Apps will be onFacebook and Twitter. The more traditional business apps will probablyjust want to be on LinkedIn. So when are IT folk going to get aroundto building apps that appeal to the emotional side of people?The users are revoltingBack to the users. Theres something in the air. The youngergenerations of users have completely different and irreverent opinionsabout IT. ITs just there to be used. Smartphones, iPads and appsare just expected to work within the corporate IT environment. Youdont dictate which pen I use to write a note, so why are you takingsuch an interest in my apps? Bring your own IT is quick becomingthe norm. Not for public transport train and bus applications ofcourse. Back to the users. Theres an undercurrent of discontent aboutthe current IT regime and social media has made this painfullytransparent. Even if a dictators benevolent, hes still a dictator. Userswant to be recognized as somebody whos in a relationship with anapplication, either out of their free volition or because theirorganizations require them to use it. And they want a say in therelationship. So give them the vote. And dont fiddle with the ballotboxes they want transparency. Just like we had the Prague Spring in1968 and the Arab Spring in 2011, 2012 well could see the IT Spring.Liberate the users! Topple the IT dictators! Banish them to SiliconValley (where theyll probably try to govern in exile). 6

7. Information managementManaging information from a business perspective has always been achallenge. How do you help people to get as much out of informationsystems as theyre supposed to? How do you ensure data quality? Howdo you discover what improvements will make a bottom-line differenceto the business? How do you manage change and transition? How caninformation help innovate your business strategy? And how on earthare you going to do this with democratized users?Now the user is used to create his own information stream either byconnecting with his peers online, or by subscribing on informationstreams from organizations or systems. For example, you can followthe Tower Bridge in London online to see which boats are causing thebridge to open. Or you can monitor somebodys washing machine thattweets when it is starting and finishing a load.One of the problems with traditional information management was thatundoubtedly clever but splendidly isolated business analysts andinformation managers tended to think up what was good for businessdepartments.Reminiscent of the old dictatorial IT attitude, but now from within thebusiness itself. Just as democracy isnt the best way of governing for avery immature population, maybe this used to be the least bad way ofgetting things done. But now the user community is increasingly ITsavvy and connected, its no longer acceptable. The users simply haveto be strongly involved in the decision making.How could using social media help you improve the way you executeInformation Management? A few goals to start focusing on: - Engaging your users - Getting raw feedback (be prepared for a shock) - Informing users when there are incidents or outages - Generating ideas for improvement - Improving relationship with clients who use your apps - Increase the productivity and happiness of the users by letting them the apps use that are best for them. 7

8. The BiSL Process Framework describes the responsibilities that userorganizations have with respect to managing information and ITservices from a demand perspective. The following paragraphs denotethe main areas in BiSL to which social media can contribute.In addition to using traditional channels, social media can be used toengage users and gather input for various processes, includingDemand management, Specify information requirements, Review andtesting, Business data management.Another important aspect of user engagement is keeping the usersinformed about the progress of calls, changes, releases, outages etc.This will mainly affect the way the processes Change management,Transition management and End user support are implemented.We note the emergence of a new process design principle: include useof social media. 8

9. Social as design principleOpen architectures, service orientation and cloud are things you keepin mind while designing your solution and or your applications.However the social dimension is almost always forgotten and at best isadded as an afterthought or introduced as a separate silo.Treating it is a design principle will help you in designing a differentkind of solution. Providing you with the advantage that the socialtransformation is coming from the start of the design, instead of afterthe introduction. This helps you and your organization to move thetraditional enterprise to a more social business.Applying social as a design principle is going beyond being great onFacebook, Twitter and Linkedin. It is a fundamental change in howbusinesses are organized and interact with their stakeholders. Shiftingfrom thinking about social as an add-on towards seeing social as thestarting point for every design will lead to considerable benefits.If you start designing your processes and application as social bydefault youll see that solutions are likely to become more flexible andconnected. It will create more value than in the traditional siloapproach and it will connect the dots between people, processes andsystems. Social is not only about human interaction but also about theinteraction between humans and systems. Friending your ERP systemand get status updates on your social platform has already becomereality. 9

10. Application socializationEarlier on in this paper we tookat look at applications using atransport metaphor. Lets takeanother view, also using fourviewpoints. First the Sweetheartapplications. Like Gmail. Verypopular. Lots of updates.Removing this app would causea revolution. Next the Janitor.Word is a good example. Somepeople like it but most areindifferent. Sure, it would beinconvenient if it was replacedby something else but mostusers wouldnt botherprotesting. Third the Celebrity. Google+ is an excellent example of acelebrity app. People follow it with great interest but arent quite surewhat its actual value is. If it disappears off the horizon people wontworry, therell be another sexy star rising before long. Finally theStepmother app. That old legacy green screen application. Nobodylikes using it but they have to. Replacing this app would make peoplesbusiness lives a lot easier. Of course theres a price tag ondecommissioning or replacing applications but how often is the socialvalue taken into consideration?Just like with the transport metaphor, these perspectives can providevaluable insights to be taken into consideration during ApplicationPortfolio Management.So...Whats next? Well, our main goal was to share our thoughts about thedemocratization of the user community and innovative use of socialmedia. If youre in a position of providing value to users and if some ofour ideas resonate with you, then we can only suggest you take theplunge and put some of them into action. Like us, youll benefit frombeing early adopters. Join the revolution on Twitter at #ITSpring ! 10

11. AuthorsRick Mans is Capgeminis Social Media Strategist, working on the socialmedia strategy for the Capgemini Group and working for national andinternational cases for many (Fortune 500) clients.Nowadays he lives and loves social media, helpingpeople and enterprises in using social media in a waythat adds value for them. He also gives guest lecturesat several universities to make students aware of theimpact social media will have on their life in generaland on enterprises in particular in the near and not sonear future. He mostly blogs about social media andthe way people and enterprises could interact andcollaborate, and has great interest in anything digital, especially whenit impact behavior. Is he a geek? Well yes. A geek with a social lifethough. Even one with a wife and a young son, whos first Englishwords were Social media.Contact: rick.mans@capgemini.com Mark Smalley is employed as an IT Management Consultant by Capgemini in the Netherlands and also works for the not-for-profit ASL BiSL Foundation, where he is Director of International Affairs, promoting best practices in management of information systems around the globe. He writes and speaks on applicationmanagement and related topics (ASL, BiSL, IT Governance, BusinessIT Alignment) on a regular basis and has reached out to severalthousand people in more than ten countries in four continents. Helectures in Brussels, Hangzhou and Rotterdam and contributes to EXINcertification material. Marks other personas include Blind Monk, CYO,IT Paradigmologist, IT Management Philosopher and Stand-up ITConsultant.Contact: mark.smalley@aslbislfoundation.org 11