Project submission Foundation in Management eMEP-10- Batch - B

Submitted by Anshul Bahre eMEP-10- 041

Social Organization: An organization where people from various society come together and collaborate their work to help each other or to help the society as a whole. There could be millions of examples of social organization starting from a small temple or guru dwara (a place where Punjabi come from worship) to an organization like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Social organization is one that is collaborative, internally Has an open, honest and transparent culture Thrives with teamwork and constant communication Looks beyond internal organizations and business titles Equips and encourages employees to engage with customers Is hungry for new technology that makes communication with each other and customers more efficient Has a simple social media policy that protects the organization and empowers its people Blends traditional CRM tools w/external social technologies to make for a more relevant consumer brand experience Will invite competitors to their communities Fails with egos Fails with organizational silos Cannot have effective external conversations until having effective internal conversations first

Its very easy for me to say what an effective or ideal social organization should look like. Its much more difficult to make it happen. It requires a firm commitment from senior level management across all business units (marketing, PR, Operations, Engineering, IT, Human Resources, Privacy) and a cultural

transformation that empowers employees of all levels to do what is already a significant part of their DNA to be social. Boundary less Organization: Before we start talking about the boundary LESS let us find out what all are the boundaries of an organization in general: Vertical boundaries between levels in the organizations hierarchy Horizontal boundaries between functional areas External boundaries between the firm and its customers, suppliers, and regulators Geographic boundaries between locations, cultures and markets A normal visual used below will understand the impact of being geographically free in the organization:

Meeting at an organization with in the geographical region

Meeting at an organization with no geographical boundary

There are three kinds of approaches to make an organization boundary less: 1. Barrier-free type of organization 2. Modular type of organization 3. Virtual type of organization

Barrier-free type of organization: An organization of this type poses following characteristics: Higher level of trust and shared interests Shift in philosophy from executive development of organizational development Greater use of teams Flexible, porous organizational boundaries Communication flows and mutually beneficial relationships with internal and external constituencies Advantages Leverages the talents of all employees Enhances cooperation, coordination, and information sharing among functions, divisions, SBUs, and external constituencies Enables a quicker response to market changes through a single-goal focus Can lead to coordinated win-win initiatives with key suppliers, customers, and alliance partners Disadvantages Difficult to overcome political and authority boundaries inside and outside the organization Lacks strong leadership and common vision, which can lead to coordination problems Time-consuming and difficult-to-manage democratic processes Lacks high levels of trust, which can impede performance

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Modular type of organization: Outsources no vital functions, tapping into knowledge and expertise of best in class suppliers but retains strategic control Advantages Directs a firms managerial and technical talent to the most critical activities Maintains full strategic control over most critical activitiescore competencies Achieves best in class performance at each link in the value chain Leverages core competencies by outsourcing with smaller capital commitment Encourages information sharing and accelerates organizational learning Disadvantages Inhibits common vision through reliance on outsiders Diminishes future competitive advantages if critical technologies or other competences are outsourced Increases the difficulty of brining back into the firm activities that now add value due to market shifts May lead to an erosion of cross-functional skills Decreases operational control and potential loss of control over a supplier

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Virtual type of organization: Continually evolving network of independent companies linked together to share skills, costs, and access to one anothers markets

 Suppliers Customers Competitors Each gains from resulting individual and organizational learning May not be permanent Advantages Enables the sharing of costs and skills Enhances access to global markets Increases market responsiveness Creates a best of everything organization since each partner brings core competencies to the alliance Encourages both individual and organizational knowledge sharing and accelerates organizational learning Disadvantages Harder to determine where one company ends and another begins, due to close interdependencies among players Leads to potential loss of operational control among partners Results in loss of strategic control over emerging technology Requires new and difficult-to-acquire managerial skills

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Technology Impact on social networking: From the olden days human have been dependent on the society and network they build on it. People started to help each other and work for other for free way back in the history. When the internet came in picture not everyone have imagined the kind of impact it will bring on the society. Slowly emails gave an opportunity to contact people irrespective of the time and distance and so it all started. In todays society people have moved from a physical hand shake to a computer handshake or virtual handshake per say. I mean to say that social networking via technology has made it easy for human to communicate and help each other.

There are various websites developed now-a-days which gives us platform to communicate and organize the work better. There are various portals where the customer becomes an employee and contribute to the network which in turn help the society. Few of the examples are: 1. Networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter are created by an organization and then got handed over to the customer to collaborate and create the database. Various applications are created by users and share across the portal. 2. Match Making websites like eHormony.com, bahartmarimony.com, jeevansathi.com are also created by a development team and then handed over to the customer. 3. Forms are the place where customer and come discuss the topics of interest Many other similar portals which help society come together and work together for a goal. These cases the goals varies, such as Goals Networking Portal Facebook Linkdin Match Making Classified Jobs eHarmony Bharthmatromony Craigslist.com Seek.com Purpose Brings people closer and help them know each others status Let build the Professional network Let singles meet together A portal for arrange marriage Let people advertise for free for their properties etc Let a person find a job and let an employer advertise a job

One thing which is common in all of the above technological social organizations is that they all need monitoring from a center location as no one should produce harmful or abuse material on the web portals. The technology has changed the way of collaboration in the society. Below figure shows the change:

Yahoo! Answers: Few years back the web portals came up with a concept of Question and Answers. Although it has always been into the portals as FAQs however the dynamic version of it as Q&A has been introduced to the society by the technology. This helps people know the answers to all the questions they have in their minds. A question could be as serious as about the critical health issue or it could be a simple discussion on their relationship problems. Yahoo! Which is a well known portal for various activities majorly known for yahoomail.com and lately have been popular with yahoo search, yahoo shopping, yahoo games, yahoo news etc. Yahoo! Answers (Formerly known as Yahoo! Q & A) is a community-driven question-andanswer (Q&A) site launched by Yahoo! on July 5, 2005 that allows users to both submit questions to be answered and answer questions asked by other users. The site gives members the chance to earn points as a way to encourage participation and is based on Naver's Knowledge iN (Naver is a popular search portal in South Korea, with a market share of over 70%, compared to 2% of Google). Yahoo! Answers is available in 12 languages, but several Asian sites operate a different platform which allows for non-Latin characters. The platform is known as Yahoo! Chiebukuro (Yahoo!?) in Japan, and Yahoo! Knowledge in Korea, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong[citation needed]. An Arabic language Q&A platform called Seen Jeem is available through the Yahoo! subsidiary Maktoob.
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How does the site work? Any question is allowed on Yahoo! Answers, except ones that violate the Yahoo! Answers community guidelines. To encourage good answers, helpful participants are occasionally featured on the Yahoo! Answers Blog. Though the service itself is free, the content of answers are owned by the respective users while Yahoo! maintains a non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide right to publish the information. Chat is explicitly forbidden in the Community Guidelines, although categories like Politics and Religion & Spirituality are mostly opinion. Users may also choose to reveal their Yahoo! Messenger ID on their Answers profile page. In order to open an account a user needs a Yahoo! ID, but can use any name as identification on Yahoo! Answers. A user can be represented by a picture from Yahoo! Avatars or an uploaded picture. When answering a question, a user can perform a Yahoo! or Wikipedia search for research. Questions are initially open to answers for four days. However, the asker can choose to close the question after a minimum of one hour or extend it for a period of up to eight days. To ask a question one has to have a Yahoo! account with a positive score balance of five points or more. The points system is weighted to encourage users to answer questions and to limit spam questions. There are also levels (with point thresholds) which give more site access. Aside from this, points and levels have no real world value, cannot be traded, and serve only to indicate how active a user has been on the site. A notable downside to the points/level side is that it encourages people to answer questions even when they do not have a suitable answer to give, in order to gain points. Users also receive ten

points for contributing the "Best Answer" which is selected by the question's asker or voted on by the community. Contributors often vote for their own answer regardless of its quality or appropriateness. On the other hand, many people ask questions not to gain more knowledge. In addition to points awarded for activity, Yahoo! Answers staff may also award extra points if they are impressed with a user's contributions. The Yahoo! Answers community manager has stated that "power users" who defend the company should be thanked and rewarded. Levels of users and promotions: Every user is eligible for promotions just like any employee is eligible for promotion in a company. In this case it is predefined and the harder to work the better and faster promotion you get. The bigger the level is more the power you get as a user. Below are the levels listed as per the site: Level 0 0 0 1** 0 0 No 0 Level 1 1-249 5 20 10 10 No 25 Level 2 250999 10 40 20 100 Yes 50 Level 3 1,0002,499 15 60 30 100 Yes 75 Level 4 2,5004,999 20 80 40 100 Yes 100 Level 5 5,0009,999 Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited 100 Yes 125 Level 6 10,00024,999 Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited 100 Yes 150 Level 7 25,000+ Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited 100 Yes 200

Score Questions Answers Commentaries Stars Evaluation permission Vote

Members of Yahoo Answers: 1. 2. 3. 4. User who ask question (customer from across the globe) User who give answers (customer from across the globe) Maintenance staff (employees of Yahoo) Site Administrator (employee of Yahoo)

Top Contributor: The point system encourages users to answer as many questions as they possibly can, up to their daily limit. Once a user shows that they are knowledgeable within a specific category they may receive an orange "badge" under the name of their avatar naming them a Top Contributor. The user can then lose this badge if they do not maintain their level and quality of participation. Once a user becomes a "Top Contributor" in any category, the badge appears in all answers, questions, and comments by the user regardless of category. One can be a Top Contributor of maximum 3 categories. List of Top contributors is updated every Monday. Yahoo answers staff has kept conditions of becoming a TC secret. However, many theories among users exist like: User wanting to become a TC must have more than or equal to 12% Best answers. User should be at least on level 2. Although, some first level users with TC Badge have claimed to be seen.

Different Badges on Yahoo Answers: Yahoo! Answers uses badges to help designate the different types of community members participating in the Yahoo! Answers community. Here is a list of the various types of badges currently used in Answers:

A Knowledge Partner badge indicates that a community member is an approved participant in the Knowledge Partner program.

An Official badge indicates that the identity of a community member asking or answering questions on Yahoo! Answers has been verified by a member of the Yahoo! Answers Team. This helps us distinguish our celebrity, professional, and sponsor participants within the Yahoo! Answers community.

The Staff badge displays when members of the Yahoo! Answers Team or other Yahoo! staff members officially ask and answer questions on Yahoo! Answers.

The Top Contributor badge is used to recognize a member of the Answers community who has shown that they are knowledgeable in a particular category. The top contributor badge is dynamic, which means that you earn it or lose it depending on your recent participation in a particular category.

Categories: below are categories listed on which a user can ask question or reply the answers. There are general people as users and there are experts as users. For example in the section of health once a question has been raised, various answers would be provided by different users at the same time an expert on that topic might also reply.

The user who has asked the question would be given a chance to vote the best answer however he or she does not vote then the answers would be open for other users to vote and highest voted would be selected. Once the vote has been selected then no more answers can be given to the same questions. A random profile on the Yahoo! Answers portal:

Managerial Roles: The roles of managers needed for such kind of organizations are: Interpersonal Relationship Skill: o If manager want cooperation from his team or employees, he has to pay attention. Practice empathy and respect the personal values, opinions and ideas of the people he interact with. Listen and respond and offer praises and encouragements when they make progress. By doing that he will enhance their self esteem and build trust. o In this case the manager is a person who provides points and promote users. He has to be careful and understand the user well. His challenge is to understand the dynamics of the group that is responding to the questions. He needs to empathies with the answer and should not take a decision on ground rules. He has to keep the culture deference in mind while reporting an answer or question as abuse or closing it as per the guidelines. Communication Skill: o A manager is the middle person in between the top management level and the team that reports to him. He has to ensure that communication is smooth and conveyed clearly to avoid misinterpretations and dissatisfaction. It's useful to develop your negotiation and customer service skills, especially if you deal with clients. o In this case a manager has to be a very good communicator. There are people sitting at the top management who take the decision of enhancements of the product and many more. These type of organization have customer and the employee same. And the manager need to understand what employees or the customer wants to work on and communicate it clearly to the higher management A Good Planner: o In order for you to achieve long term goals and commit to strategies for substantial earnings, you have to communicate the vision of the company to your subordinates. You break down and clarify the goals that each team or individual has to perform and assign work schedules and strategies.

It also involves thinking and planning out strategies on how to improve quality and also being cost conscious and effective. Having goals and planning out the directions allow for effective time management and saves cost and resources.

Decision Maker: The daily routine of making decisions include determining how to approach an employee who is not performing or lacking progress and how to bring about change to the organization and its team. It is essential that your day to day decision is based on what's important, what's right and not who's right.

Skills required handling loosely connected organization: Efficient participation in today's economy demands high reliance on effective leadership of technical and support teams whose members are scattered across many geographic boundaries. There are unique and distinctive requirements for leadership attention in the virtual project team or remote management situation, where individuals who share responsibilities for common goals reside in geographically dispersed locations. Key findings from both research and best practices across many industries reveal that effective distance leadership includes the typical fundamentals for leading people and managing resources in a traditional office environment. However, difficulties in the traditional environment can be significantly magnified in the virtual or remote situation. Difficulty with communicating; working together; and producing high-quality, on-time results is typically heightened by distance. Effective leaders need to quickly, confidently and competently diagnose such issues and take deliberate actions to keep project team relationships, productivity and outcomes on track. There is even more emphasis on the use of appropriate communications skills to fit the needs of the people and the situation. There are five core categories of effective leadership skills in virtual project team or distancemanagement situations:

 Communicating effectively o Modeling the organization's values and members' ground rules in all communications o Choosing a method of communication that best fits the mutual needs of members and the situation o Applying a communication technology that best fits the needs of the situation o Helping all members apply available communication technology with confidence o Formulating specific objectives and an organized delivery plan for communications o Linking messages to the members' shared purpose, goals and performance contributions to results o Encouraging all members of a conversation to participate fully o Engaging in proactive listening o Verifying team members' understanding of the message and expectations for action o Guiding communications to achieve a positive and constructive outcome o Conducting coaching and feedback in ways that convey respect and support Building community o o o o o o o o o o o Modeling the behaviors expected of all members Maintaining the self-confidence and self-esteem of others Demonstrating respect for all members and their opinions Encouraging all members to participate fully Focusing on the situation, issue or behavior, not on the person Confronting issues with others directly Taking initiative to make things better Keeping confidences Maintaining constructive relationships Keeping commitments Admitting mistakes

Establishing a purpose o Sharing information about the organization's mission, vision, strategies and goals o Clarifying the rationale and intent of strategies and goals o Providing clear expectations for contributions and measurable results o Ensuring that members are involved in decisions that affect their work o Seeking ideas and opinions from all members o Ensuring consideration for the needs of customers in planning work o Using the organization's core values to guide the members' planning, decisions and actions

o Promoting creativity and innovation in undertaking new goals or opportunities o Helping members develop positive approaches to the needs of the organization o Challenging assumptions that may inhibit progress o Demonstrating flexibility in adapting to changes in goals and expectations Leading by example o o o o o o o o o o Linking work contributions to the organization's goals Ensuring that all members know how their contributions affect customers Helping all members understand their roles and responsibilities Emphasizing verifiable goal-setting and the identification of visible contributions Tracking contributions and measurable progress on goals Ensuring that members complete appropriate planning to achieve results Inspiring members to reach or exceed expectations for performance and results Emphasizing the need for goal-directed self-discipline in completing daily work Using performance contributions and results to guide communications and agendas Seeking opportunities to recognize members' contributions to results

Coordinating and collaborating across boundaries o Seeking ways to build teamwork and collaboration across groups and functions o Establishing mutual involvement in situations that cross organizational boundaries o Linking the need for coordination and collaboration to the needs of the organization and its customers o Helping members identify opportunities for improvement in projects and processes that cross organizational boundaries o Helping members plan, coordinate and implement projects and processes across boundaries o Helping members diagnose and solve problems o Helping members track progress in projects and processes across boundaries o Promoting sharing of information in situations of mutual interest o Asking for specific support you will need and what you will do in return o Challenging unnecessary barriers to collaboration across boundaries

Reference: 1. 2. 3. 4. http://answers.yahoo.com/ http://www.qualitydigest.com/sept00/html/teams.html http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Tr-Z/Virtual-Organizations.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Answers

Keep Socializing!!!