A book is a reflection of a social network. More than two years ago, while having only worked briefly together when Jeanne worked at Accenture and consulted at Sun Microsystems, we met for dinner in Boulder, Colorado. There we discovered we were both passionate about how people can use technology to connect to one another around the globe and across generations while also getting work done in more innovative ways. Having faith in each other’s reputations, we decided to write a book and then faced a task that seemed at the time almost as daunting as climbing the Flatiron Mountains we could see from the restaurant.
To climb the mountain of information and stories we needed for this book required that we reach to the edges of our mutual networks. Like mountaineers who rely on agents, guides, and base camp support, we relied on this support system for our journey. The connection agents were the people whose work brought them into contact with many forward-thinking companies interviewed in this book; the guides acted as experts deep within a field who live on the edge of the social Web and gave us a glimpse into the future; and our base camp support was made up of the people who provided us with the tools we needed to make this climb.
We are indebted to the many agents who reached across their own social networks and experiences to guide us toward the companies interviewed in this book. These include Jessica and Dan Parisi of BTS; Kevin Alansky and Patrick Devlin of Blackboard; Doug Sharp, Dan Miller, and Don Duquette of GP Worldwide; Susan Burnett of Yahoo!; Mark Greiner of Workspring; Shelley Rees of JWT; Carole France of Oliver Wyman; David Miller of Duke Corporate Education; Ranjani Iyengar of Hewitt Associates; Izzy Justice of EQ Mentor; Ed Lawler and John Boudreau of USC’s Center for Effective Organizations; Tony Bingham of ASTD; Kevin Oakes of i4CP; Jim Cornehlsen; R. J. Heckman of PDI; David Stein of Rypple; Elliott Masie; Josh Bersin; Judy Issokson; Ashish Goyal of Cisco; Paul Casanova of Sun; DeAnne Aguirre of Booz & Company; Courtney Timmons and Bjorn Billhardt of Enspire Learning; Chris Browning and Randy Emelo of Triple Creek; Dr. Gale Tenen Spak of New Jersey Institute of Technology; Karen Kocher of CIGNA; Peter Norlin of the OD Network; Jennifer Schram of SHRM; Scott Saslow of the Institute for Executive Development; Melyssa Nelson of Executive Networks; Asim Talukdar and Vijay Thadani of NIIT; and dozens of other people who gave us a lead when we asked the question “Who do you know that is doing interesting work using the social Web in HR and learning?”
The process of writing this book forced each of us to learn about emerging technologies and how the world of work is going to change over the next decade. One person we went to over and over again was Charles Beckham, the chief technology officer of Sun Learning Services, who helped us see how the shift in consumer technologies was already being adapted to the workplace. Hal Stern of Sun has one of the most futuristic minds on the planet and helped to edit the opening of chapter 1. Brandon Carson pushed us to think about how games, simulations, and the need for people to connect socially will be the future of the workplace, while Kelly Palmer and Joe Campbell demonstrated how successful these strategies can be while leading groups at Sun. Rick Von Feldt, our business partner, reminded us to identify global examples of innovation in using the social Web for human resources and learning as well as provided valuable input in reading the first draft of this book. Sharon Matthews of eLynx provided insight into the minds of Baby Boomer executives wrestling with the new world of social media. Jennifer Shepherd and Leslee Guardino of Canyon Snow Consulting advise companies on CSR every day, and their thought leadership has been insightful. Diane Hessan of Communispace and Jay Bryant of Live World were both instrumental in showing us how innovations in using social media in consumer marketing were soon to happen in the fields of HR and learning. Thanks as well to the many people who were excited about the book and sent us articles, book recommendations, and links to emerging content, such as Pamela Tate of CAEL, Frank Slovenec of JBK, Jenny Dearborn of Hewlett-Packard, Pat Johnson of ePluribus, Stacy Palestrant of Katzenbach & Partners, Beat Meyer of UBS, and JoAnn Kisling of Sun.
Determined to use the tools of the social Web ourselves, we signed up at BasecampHQ.com to keep track of all critical content and then quickly created our own base camp team. This was led by Lea Deutsch, our amazingly efficient, highly knowledgeable, and hardworking Millennial research assistant. She not only was our window into the world of what Millennials want from employers but also could magically find resources on the Web within seconds. She kept us on track for all our interviews, edited content posted to BasecampHQ.com, and did all this while managing the thousands of details and tasks that go into a project this size. Oliver Dyla set up an external collaboration site for us, and Brenda Roberts assisted with creating the global panel of working professionals. Steve Messer and Curt Hutton conducted our global survey, and Jon Frye helped us analyze the results using SPSS. Terri Walker and Leah Thrush managed schedules and calls at all times of day and night. Without this support team, we would never have finished the climb.
This journey would have been over quite quickly if John Willig, our agent, had not offered solid feedback on our proposal and used his social network to connect us to an interested publisher. We want to sincerely thank our editor, Matt Inman of Harper Collins, who, as a Millennial, added enormous insight into the structure and themes of the book. His thinking had a major impact on the evolution of the book, and he is proof that great talent lives in every generation.
As always, Bob Meister read every word in the book, many times out loud, while Jeanne made changes in real time. Thank you for this and for so much more.
Finally, we started this process as collaborators with a shared vision of how the social Web is changing every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Over the course of the past two years we have used social media to learn a new way of working, learning, and collaborating. We hope you enjoy our journey and that you will visit the book Web site at www.the2020workplace.com.