The Rise of the Engaged Enterprise

A pervasive lack of focus is epidemic in today’s workplace, and this shouldn’t come as a surprise. According to the New York Times, the average American worker consumes 34 gigabytes of information and reads 100,000 words in a single day. At the same time, employees are constantly shifting their attention; computer users change windows or check email and other programs an average of 37 times an hour. Multitasking is no longer an art but a norm. 

Distraction is one of the most destructive forces facing businesses today. This lack of engaged focus rapidly erodes a company’s productivity, but it doesn’t limit itself to employees alone. Disengagement has an equally negative impact on key audiences like customers and partners as well.

The Risks of Distraction

Customers: Your customers are confronted with more competing messages, more options and more distractions than ever before. More than 30 billion apps have been installed on mobile devices, where people are spending 94 minutes a day — even more than the 75 minutes they’re spending on the web.

Employees: With additional email overload, internal instant messaging platforms, social media platforms and open work environments, employees are bombarded by distractions throughout the day. When an employee doesn’t remain focused on the job at hand, they find themselves forced to work longer hours, later into the night and on weekends to compensate. This can quickly lead to burn-out and disengagement. Accord to Gallup, 50 percent of employees today are disengaged at work, costing U.S. business US$ 300 billion per year in lost productivity.

Partners: The same distractions tugging at our customers and employees are also impacting our partners. Beyond the obstacles mentioned above, partners are struggling to keep up with the training and products of every OEM they represent. Partners are asked to take training courses, register deals and connect with customers, all while trying to keep their heads afloat. Our partners are suffering from an understandable lack of focus, and companies that become complacent about their partner networks are inviting significant risk.

The Elements of Focus

Having realized the importance of keeping audiences as focused as possible, businesses are making every attempt to achieve focus. When looking at examples where focus is regularly achieved, we find a common set of elements that include:

• A clearly defined goal
• A system of measurable progress leading to that goal
• A notion of status against achieving that goal
• A reward for reaching the goal

The focus concepts of goals, progress, status and reward aren’t novel; they’re often used concepts that appeal to the human psyche (e.g. Frequent Flyer Programs). But today’s games target more digitally sophisticated players and therefore require a more intricate and involved playing field.

Putting Games to Work

Just putting basic elements in front of individuals isn’t enough. Over the past several years, a growing number of businesses have started investing in gamification technologies to bring focus mechanics — goals, progress, status and rewards — into their digital experiences.

Gamification helps businesses engage with customers and motivate employees. By applying the same principles that inspire people to play games to websites and other online experiences, businesses can dramatically increase the size of their audiences, boost customer engagement, drive deeper employee motivation and increase revenues.

In effect, businesses are transforming themselves into “Engaged Enterprises,” a term that refers to leading-edge companies that are successfully engaging every aspect of their organizations into cohesive, collaborative, loyal and focused communities. These companies, such as IBM, Cisco, Jive and Bluewolf, are characterized by highly active, loyal and focused customers, employees and partners and they realize that through the adoption of gamification technology, they can gain a competitive advantage across every spectrum of their businesses.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Records Management: Retention Schedules Take a Back Seat

The records retention schedule’s daily use is in decline. 

I don’t mean to say that your organization shouldn’t have one — far from it. Every organization should have a records retention schedule safely tucked away in the arms (arsenal?) of the Records and Information Management, Legal and Technology departments. However, Typical End User (TEU) doesn’t want it and won’t use it.

So, Records Manager, how will you respond? What’s in your wallet?

Hard Copy Records Management

For hard copy records management (usually remembered during the 4^th and 1^st quarters), a straightforward shopping list of records types and their corresponding retention periods is simple and easy to post on the intranet.

Direct the new TEUs to the link off of the Records department’s main page during the onboarding process (be gentle; they’re not going to remember it later) or to your colleagues during those “Help!” calls always placed to you at 4:55 pm.

Electronic Records Management Minus the Retention Schedule

Electronic records management is trickier. The trifecta of Records and Information Management professionals can always agree to match rules behind e-Records publishing platforms, but what if TEU involvement is required? How best do you encourage TEUs to make retention decisions without reliance on the records retention schedule only?

Let’s play a game. You, Records and Information Management professional, will create a guideline that outlines how your organization’s content becomes a record. First, a few rules:

You can’t:

• defer to the records retention schedule
• discuss legal/regulations/standards
• use records jargon
• rely on the old standby, “but it’s instinctual!”

You can:

• use specific business examples
• use company jargon
• discuss the types of documentation in your company
• mention scope and impact

So, how do you create your deliverable? 

First, leave the Records and Information Manager role behind. Next, disassociate yourself from the traditional definition of a record — weighed against the pace of the typical work day, TEU doesn’t really have time to care in that context. Remember: everyone attended the mandatory Records training and promptly forgot it. You’re creating a new (records-related) Third Place.

Draw on haunting, inspirational sources like this one. This 2012 Motion Graphics Finalist in the Vimeo Awards was created beautifully by Adam Gault, Stefanie Augustine, Chris Villepigue, Carlo Vega and read by Mitch Rapoport. Sure, it’s Speech 101, but remind yourself:

• you’re creating a memorable, but 101 document;
• you’re providing a directive that will encourage TEUs to decide what content becomes a record in less than 5 seconds; and
• most importantly, you’re reminding TEUs of “here” — this organization’s records, this preservation activity, this legacy.

The Gettysburg Address is perfectly suited for such inspiration and this video is deceptively simple. Simple is elegant.

Meanwhile, don’t forget your instruction from Edward Tufte (create depth) and Nancy Duarte (resonate with meaning).

What are the results of this game of logic? Three to five typical business content categories that should in no way map back to functional records series. These categories are different. It’s ok to present the dotted line model — after all, we’re discussing a change of information state — but you should leave that behind with the definition of a record if you can. The categories must be universal because they’re relevant to everyone’s responsibilities. At best, TEUs will remember one in the declaration moment. But one category is all that’s needed, yes? 

Editor's Note: Mimi knows records management. To read more of her thoughts, try Fuzzy Logic for Retention Management: Millington, Funge and Games. 

About the Author

Mimi Dionne is a records and information management project manager and Consultant/Owner of Mimi Dionne Consulting. She is a Certified Records Manager, a Certified Archivist, a Certified Document Imaging Architect, a Certified Information Professional, and a Project Management Professional. She currently resides in Seattle.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com