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: [email protected] 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:
[email protected] 11