Socialization will be key

With the coming of the next generation Internet it is apparent, at least to me, that the key to making this whole thing work is the concept of Socialization. I think that this term will become more and more important and we will see it cropping up more and more.

The best way to look at Socialization is through an example. In big business Socialization is the way you get things done. In this scenario we have John sitting in his office when he gets a phone call from one of his field offices. The caller explains a problem that they are having in that field office and asks John if he can help come up with a solution. John agrees to study the problem and get back to the caller.

John now walks down the hall to Bob's office and Tom's office and asks them to join him in his office to discuss the problem call he just received. They all head for John's office where he draws out the problem on his white board. The three of them have a preliminary discussion and then go off to study the options and agree to meet back in John's office in an hour.

An hour goes by and they meet back in John's office and discuss their findings. John takes the input from Bob and Tom and along with his own work to create a solution to the problem. John then calls the field office and explains the solution that he has come up with and how to implement it.

The sceanrio is common place in most major corporations. We are an "Office Centric" business society. The "Office Centric" model has been around for years and has been refined, optimized, and somewhat perfected. It is the way business gets things done.

Now take a look at what is happening to the business environment and you will see the following starting to happen. There is a big move underway for large companies to send people home to work. There are good reasons from the large corporation's standpoint; there are tax incentives from the federal government and there are significant savings in real estate that can be had from consolidating office space.

While big business has bought into the cost savings and has started sending people home to work they have not considered what it has done to the Socialization aspect of getting business done. When you send people home you break the "Office Centric" model. All the time spent over the years to make this model work has now been sacrificed in the name of cost savings.

Now don't get me wrong I am all in favor of cost savings it's part of the way businesses stay in business. What I am advocating is fixing the Socialization model so that it supports the way businesses want to conduct business. There needs to be a re-examination of the Socialization models necessary to support the new way of doing business and it's not just people working from home. It's people who are mobile all the time and don't come into an office very often.

There have been a lot new terms that have sprung up to descibe the new modes of handling these scenarios; mobile workers, hoteling to name a few. For the last few years people have been trying to solve these problems by throwing technology at it. And there has been limited success. Although technology is part of the solution to take full advantage of technology the underlying process and procedures that govern the current "Office Centric" Socialization model needs to be addressed.

When you are in the office there are certain base level services that you get automatically based on the premise that you are in the office. They are; administrative (stationary supplies, someone to answer the phone, some place to get buisiness correspondence/packages and send), Security (people are not allowed in uless they belong), Human Resources (benefits questions and resolve problems), Information Security/Compliance (business information is protected), Technology (computers, networks, peripherals like color printers), the water cooler.

It is easy to overlook the base level services listed above becasue you have been getting them for so long that they are transparent. You don't even know that they are there unless someone takes them away. When they are removed you would surely notice it.

When you remove people from the office and send them home you are in essence removing all of those basel level services that they were so use to getting. It is not apparent at first but, once they try to get things done from home they quickly realize that things are missing.

So now that we have identified the problem how do we fix it? Initially it is not a technology problem. The problem is to figure out how to be able to supply those base level services listed above in the new environment. This is an exercise in process and policy which needs the attention of the groups that offer the base level services. You need to meet with HR, Administration, procurement, compliance, information security. In theses meetings there needs to be discussion on how the current policies and procedures can be modified and update to reflect the new Socialization models that are evolving.

Once the Socialization model is addressed it will be easier to step back and figure out where to plug in technology to support the new policies and procedures. It should be obvious that one of the keys to this new Socialization model will be communications and collaboration and that is where the next generation Internet will shine.