Here are some of the work related findings:

• Two out of three users will interrupt a group meeting to communicate with someone else digitally, either by answering email (48%), answering a mobile phone (35%), chatting via IM (28%), updating their status on a social network (12%) or tweeting (9%).
• Relatively few workers disconnect to focus on a task (32%) or during virtual meetings or teleconferences (30%), webcasts (26%) or lunch (12%).
• A majority of workers turn off their devices only when their boss asks them to (85%) or during one-on-one meetings (63%).

Most of the distractions are digital.

• Users reported getting sidetracked in email processing (23%), switching windows to complete tasks (10%), personal online activities such as: Facebook (9%), instant messaging (6%), text messaging (5%) and Web search (3%).
• Multiple devices on the desktop contribute to the problem, with 65% of respondents reporting that they utilize up to three additional monitors and/or mobile devices simultaneously with their main computer screen as they work.

Companies have responded with strategies to limit these distractions.

• 68% of respondents reported that their employers have implemented policies or technologies to minimize distractions, while 73% of end users have adopted self-imposed techniques to help maintain focus.
• The #1 corporate strategy used to discourage digital diversion is blocking access to public social networks such as Facebook and/or other non-business websites (48%).

A related, but different, problem is the difficulty in finding content. Respondents reported that they spend an average of 2-1/2 hours per week trying to find the documents needed in multiple local, corporate and cloud repositories.

• The user’s email inbox is the #1 location searched, with 76% of respondents reporting email as the first place they look. Other locations include the desktop (69%), file server (52%), shared workspace (34%), portable storage device (18%) and/or cloud storage (9%).
• The average user emails two or more documents per day to an average of five people for review, increasing email-based document volume by up to 50 documents per week. The fact that these attachments are stored on multiple local computers complicates the challenge of finding the latest document versions as well as merging feedback from multiple reviewers.

All of this points to a very disorganized workplace. The very tools that are supposed to help us are actually overwhelming us in some cases. The solution starts with a unified strategy for digital communication and requires some smart policies, cultural issues and wise implementation of limited number of technologies. I wrote about this recently (see Taking Control of Our Knowledge Consumption and Our Social Presence). I quoted Nick Carr whose new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains address this issue, “companies need to challenge the assumption that employees should always be available. Some people do their best work when they’re disconnected, and companies should create a work culture that encourages it.” It sounds like they need to actually force many people to disconnect.

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There was another interesting finding that relates more to the focus of this blog. Forrester found that, “advocacy correlates with work technology attitudes and behaviors in North America. This means employees who are optimistic about technology and well-equipped with information and communications technology (ICT) are more likely to be net advocates than those who are not.”

So what can companies do to improve their employees’ advocacy? Josh Bernoff addresses this in his post, How many of your employees love your products? (And why it matters). He suggests that you could empower people. In fact workers who use social media are among the most positive. 48% would strongly recommend a company’s products and services and only 22% were detractors, for a net score of 26% — among the highest of the groups they surveyed.

So get employees engaged in social media both on the Web and within the enterprise. This encouragement to be engaged in product discussions should have a positive impact on what employees will say. It shows that the company trusts them. Part of this is providing the technology that enables these discussions and the policy that permits the use of this technology in an open way. Restrictions will only promote resentment. I was pleased to receive a review copy of this report and there is much more within it to help formulate policies to promote employee advocacy.

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Forrester said that many companies are hesitant to engage customers in co-creation because they are unsure how customer willingness and do not have a strategy. In the Forrester report, US Consumers Are Willing Co-creators, Douglas Williams outlines conditions for co-creation engagement. I was pleased to receive a review copy.

The majority of willing participants will help with most products but expect some type of incentive, which is only fair. There is wide spread interest across a variety of industries. The top two industries in terms of willing participation are personal computers (76%) and TV (75%) following by consumer packaged goods. This third place finishers has gotten some of the most press.

Thirty percent will only help their favorite brands and these are probably the strongest helpers. Time commitment is an issue for even these strong advocates so it needs to be manageable. The report suggests that if a company already directly communicates with certain consumers via social media, it makes sense to target fans or frequent visitors for co-creation. I would agree and all the more reason to use social media to promote your brand.

The report recommends product strategists begin by targeting consumers who they are already engaging with the brand. They should also recognize that participation will be stronger if the interaction is appealing from the consumer’s point of view, in terms of the topic, incentive, and time commitment. These seem to be the important variables to consider.

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The survey was taken by 789 AIIM members between May 11 and May 26, 2009. Over half of organizations studied are now considering enterprise 2.0 to be “important” or “very important” to their business goals and success. Only 17% admitted that they have no idea what it is, compared to 40% at the start of 2008. However, only 25% of organizations are actually doing anything about it – but that is up from 12% in the previous survey. The numbers are lower than the Toby Ward study but the trend is the same.

This study found that Knowledge-sharing, collaboration and responsiveness are considered the biggest drivers. Lack of understanding, corporate culture and cost are the biggest impediments. IT departments are by far the strongest users, with 68% using Enterprise 2.0. In contrast, only 6% of organizations are using it throughout the business. This is interesting as the Toby Ward study that IT was one of the biggest obstacles. It might reflect a different audience mix with the organization in the two studies.

I was interested to find that 71% agree that it’s easier to locate “knowledge” on the Web than it is to find it on internal systems. This is actually a big improvement over what I found in the past few years. Taking a cue from Andrew McAfee I would ask every audience that I presented to on enterprise 2.0 this question. Would all those who find it easier to find information on their corporate intranet than the Web raise their hand. No one every did this for me and Andy reported the same results at the time.

More work needs to be done in the governance area as only 30% of companies have policies on blogs, forums and social networks, compared to 88% who have policies for email. I think that such policies are useful. On the other hand, the study found that while almost all companies would not dream of sending out un-approved press releases or web pages, less than 1 in 5 have any sign-off procedures for blogs and forums. I think these sign-off policies are counter-productive and good general policy guidelines reduce the need for any sign-offs.

There is much more including a lot of detail on personal use of social media by the participants. I recommend looking at the complete study. It adds to the growing body of research supporting the emergence of enterprise 2.0, at least in terms of tool adoption.

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