Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know

The tenth and final post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series concludes with “Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know”. 

The "High Five" Challenges in Leadership:

Challenge #1 — Cracking the Big Nut: Unlocking the Power of Your TalentChallenge #2 — Learning to Let Go and to Trust

...Trust is highly integrated with interdependence when employees require support from one another. This dynamic where I help you and you help me is rooted in reciprocity and is strengthened or weakened depending on the limitations of skill, time, or control that individuals have. Irrespective, if employees understand that each exchange needs to be a mutually satisfying exchange where respect and open transparent communication is shared, trust will strengthen between organizational ties and networks across the organization. When power behaviors are rewarded in an organizational culture, the implications to creating healthy trusting and collaborative cultures are impacted.

Challenge #3 — Ensuring Goal Clarity and Vision Visibility AlignmentChallenge #4 — Having the Courage to Shape ConsequencesChallenge #5 — Harnessing Social Power

If you are in a managerial/leadership role, what are the common kinds of challenges you face on a regular basis? How do deal with these challenges? How does knowing the "High Five" help you become a better leader?

If not, what are the most common mistakes your leaders make when dealing with other employees?  What recommendations can you make to help them become better leaders? How does knowing the "High Five" challenges help you on your journey to becoming a leader in your company?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:

PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know

Innovation Conforms to Patterns - Study

A study of innovation reveals that it tends to conform to several patterns. By studying and understanding these patterns, it may be possible to deliver innovation on a more consistent and predictable basis, and to harness the creative capabilities of employees, suppliers, distributors, partners and customers.

• Subtraction or Reduction: removing one or more elements from the product or process. The natural tendency is to want to increase the features of a product or service. However, this can lead to feature bloat, a product which is confusing to the end consumer and spiraling costs. The element removed may be:
• undesirable, such as the alcohol in beer or the caffeine in coffee, or
• revolutionary, such as the speakers in a Sony Walkman, or
• replaced by something already in the environment, such as removing the legs from a baby's chair and clipping it directly to the table, or
• simply result in a more affordable product, such as the removal of travel agents, tickets, free food and drink, seat reservations and customer care from Ryanair.
• Multiplication: adding one or more copies of an element or attribute of the product or service. For example,
• adding additional blades and changing the angle of the blades in the Gilette razor, or
• adding additional tray to a CD player to produce an automated CD changer.

• Division: Divide the product or process into one or more separately usable, often modular, components. This is common with electronic goods. For example,
• the separation of turntables, speakers and amplifiers into separate components. This modularisation of home entertainment units has meant that new devices, such as MP3 players are more easily integrated into existing equipment.
• Task Unification: assigning new tasks to existing elements of a product, often combining the function of one element into another. For example,
• getting the defrosting wires in a windshield to act as the radio antenna, orusing a iPhone to control other household devices.
• Attribution Dependency Change: creating or removing dependencies between the product/process and its environment. For example,
• splitting unisex razors into masculine and feminine razors.

Source: Strategic Coffee - http://strategiccoffee.chriscfox.com/2010/01/innovation-templates.html

Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

The ninth post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World”.

Some companies gave up on [Second Life] (SL), others learned and revamped, and a select few actually got it right the first time. In the past 5 years, we have learned a great deal about what works and what does not work in SL. Learning insights include the following:

• Virtual worlds are about interaction and engagement. 
• Events drive traffic.
• In-world staff are better than bots.
• Second Life offers unprecedented room for innovation.
• Community experience is crucial

Some Tips on How to Successfully get started in Second Life:

• Set a clear vision in your organization to embrace new virtual world capabilities:
• Increase your employees’ collaboration, project management skills, and their sense of fun in the workplace.
• It is imperative to develop, early on, clear goals and objectives with effective and relevant performance metrics. Start simple, gain some success, and build momentum.
• Evaluate and experiment with virtual world experiences to learn.
• The best way to optimize learning is to develop a learning lab or a pilot to interact online with external customers or recruits. As the numerous case studies have shown, learning labs and pilots are effective in SL. Having relevant performance metrics and reporting approaches to gain further executive support is also a key success factor.
• Develop a collaboration competency. Collaboration competency is necessary in order to leverage virtual worlds solutions. This is the ability to collaboratively solve problems of mutual interest and work toward win-win outcomes. True collaboration requires the development of leadership behaviors that work in a virtual world. The leadership behaviors include the following:
• The ability to develop rapid trust with people that you may never have physically interacted with.
• Ensure your SL strategy is integrated into your Web 2.0, social mediated, and knowledge management strategies.
• Develop collaborative work spaces to gather knowledge, express ideas, and concerns and share collective know- how. There are a variety of solutions that support collaborative knowledge generation activities:
• Web conferencing solutions (e.g., WebEx, Live Meeting)
• Document creation collaboration solutions (e.g., Atlassian, Confluence Social Text, IBM Lotus Connections, Igloo, Jive, Microsoft SharePoint)
• Start small, yet think big!
• A small and tightly focused project with clearly defined goals and objectives is usually the best way to get started. Suitable application areas for getting started include the following:
• Recruiting islands— such islands offer an effective means of attracting users, particularly web-savvy and technically skilled talent (Gen X and Y).

Source: Pages 152, 154-157


Does your company use virtual worlds?  If so,  how does your company utilize this newer technology?  What kind of benefits does it reap from using VWs?

If not, how can your business benefit from using VWs in the future?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:

PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know

Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 8 – Everyone Has a Stake

The eighth post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 8 – Everyone Has a Stake”.

Collaboration in the workplace is as important to free enterprise as competition in the marketplace. The spirit of win-win cannot survive in an environment of stiff competition. For collaboration to flourish, win-win needs to be a mature operating practice, and the systems have to support it. The recruiting system, the on- boarding system, the training and educational systems system, the strategic and operational planning systems, the communication systems, the budgeting system, the information system, the compensation system— all have to be based on the principle of win-win.

So how many organizations have got this deep collaboration systemic organizational DNA tapestry right? Many do not— but increasingly many do. 

This chapter includes in-depth case studies on Molson Coors, MTS Allstream, and Research in Motion (RIM). Listed below are the lessons learned from these cases:

Molson Coors:

• Early objectives are key, and success should be measured.
• Speak to, not at, an audience.
• Social media success can be iterative.

MTS Allstream - The Idea Factory

• IT development
• Budget challenges. 
• Executive support 
• User- friendly design
• Outcomes

RIM 

• Executive leadership and accountability are key.
• Lead with leading practices.
• Drive adoption rapidly.

Source: Pages 123, 127, 130-131, 134-135

Does your company have a collaboration strategy? If so,  is it successful? How did employees adopt  a collaborative mindset?

If not, how can your company benefit from developing and implementing a collaboration strategy?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:

PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know

Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

The seventh post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 7 – The People Know Best”.  Today's successful businesses have taken steps to becoming more customer-centric, more social, and more agile to keep up with the fast-paced internet trends.  One of the case studies examined in this chapter is the use of viral internet memes to successfully launch a marketing campaign:

One the most spontaneous viral- creating events must be the so- called Crasher Squirrel. In 2009, a vacationing couple were enjoying an amazing vista in a particularly picturesque part of western Canada. The moment was so special that the couple wanted it to last for eternity. They decided to take their own picture with a beautiful background of a lake surrounded with near-perfect mountains. To achieve their snapshot of time, the recent groom carefully balanced his camera on a rock and scurried back to be with his beautiful bride as the self-timer counted down. Three, two, one...say cheese, and the shutter snapped.  

Excited to see if they had captured the moment, they looked at the LCD screen to view the photo. To their surprise, there were three faces, not two, in the picture. Th e third face belonged to a gray squirrel that scampered into camera view while the groom was taking his place.

Once the Banff/Lake Louise Tourist Office knew about the picture, they decided to act quickly and decisively. After securing the rights to the picture, they took the bold decision to make Crasher the focus of the very successful media campaign.

Could or would your organization jump on a social media opportunity? Is your organization agile enough to capture the moment?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:

PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know

Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

The sixth post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 6 – Any Place, Anytime”. Using 
Cisco’s marketing collaterals on telepresence,  the language was reworked in order to reflect statements on the value of virtualization.  These statements form benefits to communicate the value proposition to achieve a competitive advantage:

• The new way of working. Today you face greater business demands and a more competitive marketplace. You must continually find new ways to be agile and increase speed to market while reducing costs. Effective communication and collaboration are critical. The ability to engage immediately across geographies with employees, suppliers, and customers is a must to sustain competitive advantage.
• Virtualization for everyone, everywhere.
• Do more with less. 
• Transform your organization.
• Drive competitive advantage.
• Be greener and improve quality of life.
• Build a collaboration strategy.
• Powering the new way of working. Virtualization powers the new way of working. Learn how you can empower teams to collaborate like never before, transforming your organization by leveraging collaboration and social approaches; your world will simply get better.

By further consolidating, these key benefits have core communication messages for leaders to consider in positioning the value of virtualization with their employees. We have filtered these down to these virtual value propositions:

• Create new ways of working. Increase your connections with your coworkers and customers and reduce your time to market, increase your agility, and reduce your costs.
• Accelerate decision making.
• Innovate across the value chain.
• Scale resources.
• Support the environment by going green. 
• Create the foundation for the new world of work. By going virtual you can power the new world to attract, develop, and retain your talent.

Has your company integrated any of these tips during its virtualization process, if so, how has it benefited your business?  If not, which of these tips would you want to integrate into your business and why?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:

PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know

Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

The fifth post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 5 – Making Sense of Virtual Worlds”. Although it may seem like all Virtual worlds (VWs) are games, they’re not. World of Warcraft, Farmville, and other popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have taken the world by storm, but nongame VWs, like Second Life and Project X, are only starting to come out of its shell.

In Business Goes Virtual, we have provided four laws to be successful in VWs.

Law #1: Virtual Worlds Are Not Games

The first assumption that businesses often make is that VWs are games. This is a wrong assumption. The right answer is that VWs are a new, rich media communication channel. While the market for nongame VWs is still relatively emergent compared to MMOGs, VWs are a rapidly growing new market segment. Based on our research preparing for this book, businesses need to start planning an online presence in VWs in order to create interactive community experiences so that they can learn how to exploit new ways of communicating with customers, suppliers, and employees in rich, virtually immersive environments.

Virtual worlds are powerful as they have tremendous online reach and can easily bring together large groups of simultaneous players in a fast- paced online environment; they can provide an interesting capability for the future of organizations. MMORPGs represent a growing business that, according to the Tower Group, will reach 40 million people and generated over $9 billion in revenue by 2010.

Virtual worlds present the next frontier for customer and employee interactions. Organizations need to start preparing now for these new methods of communication, or they will lose talent and customer segments who desire this form of customer interaction experience.

Law #2: Experience Must Be Relevant to Solve a Business Need and Create Value

Law #3: Each Avatar Is a Real Person

Law #4: A Virtual World Experience Is a New Branding Opportunity

Are you a part of a VW? How do you think it will disrupt the market when it becomes more popular in the future?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:

PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know