Final Report

By Martina S. BACH, Miguel MEMBRADO, Marie-France

KOULOUMDJIAN, Nicole TURBÉ-SUETENS and Mandar VARTAK

eSangathan is a FP6 EU-funded project with the following consortium :

DISTANCE EXPERT Project Coordinator

Contact: Nicole TURBÉ-SUETENS
AGEPROOF
Contact: Marianne ZIEKEMEYER
COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL
Contact: Leif Bloch RASMUSSEN
FOLKUNIVERSITETET
Contact: Martina Sophia BACH
MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA Limited
Contact: Mandar VARTAK
NETCIPIA
Contact: Miguel MEMBRADO
TECHMAHINDRA Limited
Contact: Chitresh MARKANDA

www.esangathan.eu

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
WHAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS DOCUMENT ................................................................ 3
1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................... ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
2. OBJECTIVE .............................................................. ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
3. INTEGRATED ROADMAP ............................................... ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
3.1 OVERALL ROADMAP AS MOVEMENTS IN SOCIAL LEARNING SPACE ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
3.1.1 Social Learning Space Erreur ! Signet non défini.
3.1.2 Inquiring Systems in a Knowledge Based Society Erreur ! Signet non défini.
4. POTENTIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE SOCIAL LEARNING SPACE .... ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
4.1 MOVEMENT AT THE STRUCTURED/HIERARCHY-UNSTRUCTURED/HETERARCHICAL BOUNDARY ERREUR !
SIGNET NON DEFINI.
4.2 MOVEMENT AT THE STRUCTURED/HIERARCHICAL-UNSTRUCTURED/HIERARCHICAL BOUNDARY ERREUR !
SIGNET NON DEFINI.
4.3 MOVEMENT AT THE UNSTRUCTURED/HIERARCHICAL-STRUCTURED/HETERARCHICAL BOUNDARY ERREUR !
SIGNET NON DEFINI.
4.4 MOVEMENT AT THE STRUCTURED/HETERARCHICAL-CHAOTIC BOUNDARY ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
4.5 MOVEMENTS IN CHAOS ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
4.6 USE OF MOVEMENTS IN SOCIAL LEARNING SPACE IN PRACTICE ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
5. CONCLUSION ............................................................ ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.
6. REFERENCE DOCUMENTS ............................................. ERREUR ! SIGNET NON DEFINI.

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WHAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS DOCUMENT
When it comes to the final report of a project, the most important are the findings resulting
from the work. There were three major work-related topics in the eSangathan project:
• The collaborative working environments (CWE) and the learning curves
• The heterogeneous pilot in Öresund
• The corporate pilot in Mahindra & Mahindra

The key findings are very clearly expressed in a crisp and concrete way in the report.

To summarize one could say that time is a very important factor that should not be
underestimated. The learning curves are very explicit; there is time needed between the
moment a product, a technique or a methodology is understood and the moment it becomes part
of the usage. Motivation must be kept high and this is the role of the management team. One of
the specificity of working with aged workers, even very skilled ones, is that you have to pay
more attention because they will not speak-up spontaneously if they feel lost. In the case of
eSangathan the language barrier between the pilot members of different nationalities did also
exist and induced more difficulties than expected.

At the end, the major finding is the fact that aged workers are not resistant to ICT; to the
contrary, once they have become confident that they can become knowledgeable about it; they
become curious and want to find our more about and are open to discover new tools. It is a
question of pace and matching their concrete needs and experience. The conclusion is also that
they don’t need specific devices because they are aged; one just needs to customise their
environment to make them feel comfortable. By the way; this is valid for any worker, but is not
frequently done.

All the same tools have been used for the dissemination of the project and the White Paper.
They will remain available in the format of a wiki to become an interactive document.

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1. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF ESANGATHAN

1.1 THE PURPOSE OF ESANGATHAN

The main objective of the eSangathan project is to study how innovative approaches based on an
intensive use of ICT, particularly collaborative working environment or CWE, can generate ideas
or perhaps models to answer the urgent European situation made out of low employment of
older workers, shortage of critical skills and decline of birth rate in several countries. It is
noticeable that the social and cultural attitude towards ageing workforce differs according to
national social and economic history. Differences do also exist depending on the geographies. As
an example, in the Indian structured economy, where the business organisations compare with
the Western organisations, aged workers are respected and can have the opportunity to continue
to work after retirement age if they wish so.

Based on those facts, 3 major observations have inspired the eSangathan project:

• The level of employment of 50+ workers. It is far too low in Europe. According to
Eurostat, the average level of employment of the 55-64 segment of workers is 44,7% in
the EU-27 with a span going from 29,7% in Poland (Malta is even lower) to 70% in Sweden.
The target set by the Lisbon and the i2010 strategy is 50% by 2010. Everybody knows this
target will not be reached.

• The evolution of the information society. Nowadays ICT is available, affordable and
becomes easier to use for the people who are not ICT-specialists. According to Internet
World Stats, 48,1% of the Europeans are connected. This rate is increasing everyday
which means that one can really rely upon the use of ICT for proposing advanced
employment schemes. ICT can definitely play an "inclusion" role for aged workers while
offering a better work/life balance. Especially when it comes to knowledge workers
which is the segment eSangathan has concentrated on.

• The existence of different social models across the world in other geographies. They
should play an inspirational role for Europe.
The role of the project has been to find out if those assumptions were making sense, how they
could be implemented, which were the risks of failure, how far an how much ICT was an enabler
and which lessons could be learned from the two pilots that have been implemented.

1.1.1 ESANGATHAN WORKING ASSUMPTIONS

The work done during two years was based on the few following key assumptions:

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 • The first one was the "a priori" point of view that ICT, and more particularly CWE, should
be able to play an important and positive role for the inclusion of aged workers in the
labour market

• The second was the view that the existing social model in India could be imported,
adapted and implemented in Europe
And the idea was that the combination of those two assumptions could offer an attractive and
useful solution to increase the number of active aged workers in Europe.
To verify and validate the assumptions, the eSangathan team has implemented two pilots. Each
pilot had a very specific profile.

1.1.2 ESANGATHAN WORKING METHOD

The life of the project has been divided in four 6-months periods corresponding to well-defined
milestones.

1.1.2.1 The first period from October 1, 2006 till March 31, 2007

This is the period during which the members of the consortium have become a team using
common tools with a sharp learning curve for most of the team members. It is also the period
during which an agreement has been reached on the roadmaps and the methodological tools to
be used for the pilots. The communication actions were launched and an agreement was
reached on the way the pilots would be implemented and managed.

1.1.2.2 The second period from April 1, 2007 till September 30, 2007

This period was twofold because of a cumulative action on the pilot selection process in the
three countries: Sweden and Denmark for the Oresund pilot and in Mahindra & Mahindra for the
Indian pilot. At the same time the selected members of the pilots started thier learning curve in
the usage of collaborative working environments (CWE) : Basecamp for the Oresund pilot and
MS/SharePoint for the M&M pilot. During that same period the blogs were introduced in the
consortium to replace the traditional website approach. VoIP and chat became widely used by
most of the team members as well as by some of the pilot members; mainly by using Skype.

The profile of the two pilots was voluntarily totally different in order to test and validate the
use of CWE in both contexts:

• The Oresund pilot was composed of individuals coming from very different places and
situations with a common interest in getting more and better ICT-literate with the hope
that this would be a recognised advantage on the labour market. All of them were 55+
and willing to reposition themselves professionally.

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 • The M&M pilot was different; it was a corporate pilot. All the members do pretence to
one or another division of the M&M group and they have a corporate culture. The pilot
became the opportunity to spread the use of CWE to populations who were not yet
familiar with those tools
A long time was devoted to the selection process, the team building process and the first steps
on the CWE learning curve.

1.1.2.3 The third period from October 1, 2007 till March 31, 2008

This was a terribly busy period where the pilots were at work and where a lot of attention was
paid to the learning path and the inclusion factors. The outside world was also moving fast with
new Web 2.0 tools becoming more and more popular and stable. We introduced a social
bookmarking system in addition to the blogs as well as the RSS feeds. The name of eSangathan
had already gained a good visibility on Google and other search engines and the team started to
participate to meetings and deliver presentations.

Time was also dedicated to prepare the fourth period for the evaluation of the pilots.

1.1.2.4 The fourth period from April 1, 2008 till September 30, 2008

This was an exciting period! Both pilots were evaluated and the whole team learned from this
evaluation process which was twofold:

• on the one side the evaluation in both pilots by the project leaders of the pilots

• on the other side from a CWE usage point of view thanks to an in-depth analysis of all the
statistics. A detailed report is available online.
Further, the project has organised two international conferences where a lot of interest was
raised thanks to the unique approach chosen by eSangathan: considering the ICT could be an
inclusion factor for active aged workers.
The first conference was held in Mumbai (India) on April 17, 2008 and the material is available
on the eSangathan dissemination wiki.

The second conference was held in Brussels (Belgium) on September 18, 2008 and the material is
available on the eSangathan dissemination wiki.

It is also during this last period of the project that the team started to use the wiki technology.

To conclude, the eSangathan consortium has the feeling to have reached the goal that was set at
the beginning of the project. Findings can be found here, in this final report of the project and
recommendations are available in the White paper issued by the project.

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2. CWE FINDINGS IN A HETEROGENEOUS TEAM – THE ÖRESUND PILOT

The following chapter aims to give the reader a clear and crisp picture of how CWE has been
working for the ageing workforce in the European Pilot, aiming from hierarchical structural
thinking towards self-organizing complex heterarchical thinking when working with themes of
importance. The aim for a hierarchical structural thinking and action is closely related to the
participative dimension in the development of Web 2.0 trends on the Internet and suggests that
collaborative and participative tools are in fact changing and improving the way people organize
themselves virtually and how this can contribute in sharing and creating knowledge.

2.1 THE EUROPEAN PILOT IN ÖRESUND

Folkuniversitetet in Sweden has been responsible for the work with the European Pilot and the
premises in Landskrona was used in order to carry out physical meetings, and also support with
computers and internet access for the pilot members who was in need for this.

Folkuniversitetet is an adult educational association that offers a wide range of adult education
all over Sweden. It is an association of five foundations: the extra-mural departments attached
to the Universities of Stockholm, Uppsala, Göteborg, Lund and Umeå. The close connections to
the universities allow the organisation to provide, through lectures, study circles and seminars,
information about the latest developments in research. Folkuniversitetet also engage academic
staff in offering university-level courses in a wide range of subjects and is independent of all
political, religious and trade union interests.

European Pilot was in an early stage of the project progress re-named Öresund Pilot Group. This
because all consortium members during the project management board kick-off meeting found
the target group Swedes and Danes in the region Öresund more interesting to study since this
region statues interesting examples from a European Union perspective.

The objectives for the Öresund Pilot were to establish the pilot, create an effective pilot
identity and communication mechanisms inside and outside the pilot, use and refine roadmaps,
train pilot members in professional ICT working environment and measure the results of the
pilot.

During the first six months of eSangathan, project management put emphasis on learning the
consortium’s CWE MayeticVillage and the synchronous tool Skype in order to get a clear view and
hands-on practice on how CWE can be deployed. This was done in parallel with formulating the
prerequisites for joining the pilot and recruiting aged knowledge workers from both Sweden and
Denmark.

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The prerequisites for joining:
• 45+
• Swedish or Danish citizen
• Basic English language skills
• Basic computer- and Internet skills
• Open minded to non-traditional and self-organizing heterarchical methods for social
innovation
• Motivation for learning and use of CWE
• Motivation for sharing knowledge and experience with others
• Willingness to return or stay longer on the labour market

2.1.1 RECRUITING METHODS

Initially, Folkuniversitetet started dealing with the internal networks in the organization, with
focus on people working in the south of Sweden – Skane. This took place right after kick-off
meeting in Copenhagen, October 2006 through e-mailing, FU Intranet, FU website and ordinary
phone calls to people who might be interested in joining the group. As project manager for the
Öresund Pilot Group and responsible for the pilot, Martina S Bach recruited some participants
from her own business network. In early January, press releases to local papers were published
and this gave the recruiting process a real boost which also gave the majority of pilot members.

Since the European Pilot became an Öresund Pilot on an early stage of the project, the
recruiting process became a joint venture between Folkuniversitetet in Sweden and Copenhagen
Business School (CBS) in Denmark. Leif Bloch Rasmussen from CBS recruited aged workers from
his own business network and also discovered the organization “Seniors without Boarders” (SUG)
in Denmark, which gave additional people to the list of presumptive participants. In the end of
the recruiting process, Folkuniversitetet held a presentation on “Arbetstorget” in Lund – a labour
market project supported by EU, with Folkuniversitetet in Lund as project responsible. This
presentation resulted in several requests to join the pilot.

It should be noted that it is was not possible to have people assigned to the pilot through local
employment agencies, as this would require a full time educational plan for each participant. In
Sweden and Denmark, unemployed aged workers are placed in different labour market programs
and only through mandatory participation they get financial compensation from the
unemployment benefit fund. This means that unemployed aged workers prioritise those
programs before participation in a project like eSangathan since we do not pay for participation.

In the end of March 2007 we had around 35 presumptive pilot members with various background
and age. Thus, one must keep in mind that all our pilot members joined on a voluntary basis and
represented a well distributed mix of retired, un-employed, employed and self-employed aged
workers and it also turned out to be a rather high-educated group with former teachers,
engineers, PhD’s. MBA’s etc. 70% of these where between 55+ and 65+ and represented a very
active group of people with interest and commitments in many different areas, such as NGO

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work etc. In mid June we had a final list of participants representing 22 of the above
presumptive.

Already in May, questionnaires where distributed among pilot members in order to map different
skills. The matrix for evaluation criteria of ICT skills Hard skills/competences (OECD & Euro stat)
and the matrix for evaluation criteria of ICT skills Soft skills/Cross curriculum Competencies
(CCC) were applied. After collection and analysis of these questionnaires, we could in general
state that most of them where fairly high-rated when it came to hard skills. Concerning Internet
skills the pilot members seemed to master basic use of Internet fairly well. Summing up soft
skills competencies in this group, participants have in general good self-esteem. The group
seems to be good at acquiring information using ICT but have harder times in evaluating,
handling and integrating information using ICT.

2.1.2 FALL-OUTS

During the first couple of months (March-April) we had a turbulent time in the project. It was
rather difficult to know who was in and who was out, due to several reasons. Around 60% of the
group was still working - employed or self-employed. This limited us in finding suitable dates and
time where as many as possible could join the meetings. Furthermore, as people joined this
project on a totally voluntary basis without any economical compensation, we had to be flexible
in many ways. Yet, it was crucial that all members attended the meeting, because without the
face-to-face dialogue with project managers, it would be very hard to learn and understand the
methods applied in this project. Especially, Team Syntegrity sessions presuppose that all
members actively and democratically take part of formulation of themes, themes auction etc. In
all, eighteen people left the project within the first couple of months. Some because they got
job along the way and wanted to focus on this instead of the project. Others said that they
found the integrated roadmap and tools far too abstract to cope with.

We also lost people who had great ambitions with this venture in the beginning, but after a
while realized that active participation was a prerequisite for membership. An experience
gained in this process was that highly motivated people stay put and develops greater interest in
CWE and social innovation while others not so motivated tend to fall out quite fast. This can be
called logical reduction and could be considered as a healthy output for an experimental project
like this. The integrated roadmap requires inquiring thinking and spontaneous curiosity in order
to cope with wicked problems and complexity. Thus, this can be viewed as a result in itself. Yet
in a recruiting process like this it is difficult to separate honestly motivated people from others
without seeing them in action, showing up for meetings, taking part of dialogues etc.

2.1.3 THE INTEGRATED ROADMAP

The kick-off meeting was held in the end of March 2007 by presenting the eSangathan project
and the tools for navigating the integrated roadmap.

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The tools applied in the Öresund Pilot:

2.1.3.1 Communication:

Narratives - telling ones story

Socratic Dialogue - philosophical practice through the search for a common statement

2.1.3.2 Collaboration:

Team Syntegrity – self-organizing and democratical tool for indentifying themes of

importance/topics

2.1.3.3 Social innovation:

Social Learning Curve – knowledge scanning and identification of where the knowledge gaps can
be found in a specific topic

2.1.3.4 Business Modelling

A variety of Business Plans (we did not commit to reach the level of writing business plan, yet if
pilot members were very ambitious and fast in their way of elaborating on the topics, this should
be an option to them).

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2.1.3.5 The integrated roadmap:

Parallel with this we introduced the CWE Basecamp – a fairly simple virtual collaboration
platform, and this was done by displaying training videos from Basecamp website. In each
physical meeting, which where held approximately once a month, we had a session devoted for
questions around the use of the CWE.

2.2 FROM A HETEROGENEOUS TEAM TOWARDS A HOMOGENEOUS ONE

Already from the starting point, we realized the importance of putting much effort in the
creation of a group identity for this pilot. Therefore, we put emphasis on social aspects through
narrative practice and Socratic Dialogue. The initial Team Syntegrity-sessions aiming at
identifying 12 themes of importance (the topics that pilot members should elaborate on in CWE),
also had social aspects involved since the tools is fairly much about arguing for the issues that
are important to oneself. Evidently, self-organization demands a high rate of human
communication and interaction.

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It should also be mentioned that practically all themes of importance identified through Team
Syntegrity was about sustainable development – such as sustainable energy, ecological and
collective resources, ages across boarders, social economics and social co-operation etc. In fact,
CWE was also mentioned as a tool for reaching sustainable development.

2.2.1 BARRIERS TO GET OVER

Starting out with such a heterogeneous and mixed group, we quite soon depicted several barriers
to overcome in order to create a strong group identity that stood united in tackling their jointly
defined themes of importance.
• Language difficulties – even if people in general understand the language on the
other side of the Öresund (the water between Denmark and Sweden in the Öresund
Region) fairly well in daily small-talk, it is different when you present abstract and
complex tools.
• Difference in motivation – after a couple of months in the pilot we recognised that
the motivation for some participants truly elaborate on the themes of importance was
not generally high. Some pilot members seemed to attend the meeting more out of
curiosity than of really wanting to collaborate and make a difference.
• Social differences – here we depicted different aspects of relational, cultural and
emotional distances, which we was not surprised by since we recruited with the aim
on heterogeneity in order to secure different perspectives on the themes of
importance.

Yet, smaller groups were formed after a couple of physical meetings and people who enjoyed
each other’s company also focused on themes of importance where these people could be found.
Originally, we planned only a few face-to-face meetings in order to introduce and train pilot
members in tools like Team Syntegrity, Socratic Dialogue, Narratives, Social Learning Curve and
CWE. Although, we discovered quite soon that this was not enough additional meeting were
held, both from initiatives from project management and pilot members. This was problematical
from the point of view that some pilot members had difficulties in being away from
work/family/NGO-work during day-time. And since more than 30% of the pilot group where
represented by aged workers from Denmark, we could not locate this after-work time. We had
to consider travel time from Denmark to Sweden since most of the meetings were located at
Folkuniversitetet premises in Landskrona, Sweden.

2.3 THE SUPPORTING ROLE OF CWE

The CWE, in our case Basecamp should play the role of supporting collaboration on themes of
importance among pilot members. The main idea was that tools for communication,
collaboration and social innovation should be taught face-to-face and then carried out through
Basecamp on a virtual basis.

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Project Management only used Basecamp for communication with the Öresund Pilot Group and
had so done exclusively since the beginning of May 2007. This worked out good since pilot
members often asked follow-up questions on the CWE rather than using project management e-
mail or cell phone.

During the summer months June and July, two Basecamp workshop sessions were held at
Folkuniversitetet in Landskrona in order to give pilot members an opportunity to exclusively
elaborate and try-out the CWE without any disturbances from trying to grasp tools from the
integrated roadmap. Only a few showed up to the first workshop, yet the second one attracted
the majority of the pilot group.

The learning curve for pilot members on CWE was around six months. So was the learning curve
for project management who also didn’t know of CWE before the start of eSangathan. This
limitation on CWE-skills from the management side played a certain role and will be further
elaborate on under key findings. Pilot members expressed their curiosity on learning CWE, but
they felt as if there never was enough time to sit in front of the computer fully testing it out
since they also were eager on understanding the methodology for social innovation. Although,
some of them where very active, really trying to get feedback and action in between physical
meetings. User statistics shows that interaction on Basecamp was mostly about posting messages
and commenting on existing messages from project management or other pilot members. And it
was quite clear that virtual activity always increased after face-to-face meetings in the pilot.

2.4 KEY FINDINGS IN THE PILOT

• You need strong CWE-leadership in order to be able to support the learning and
adaption process among pilot members and this means that management also need
excellent skills in CWE and understanding of differences that come to attentions when
working on a virtual basis (social, lingual, cultural, emotional, technical etc.)
• A more intensive kick-off/introduction of all tools including CWE is necessary and you
should include a workshop in CWE during this introduction so that participants can get
a hands-on feeling and understanding of the virtual tools already from the start.
• Using tools for social innovation combined with CWE one can move a group from
hierarchical power-based discussions towards inquiring dialogue as the integrated
roadmap suggests.
• We can undoubtedly see a mind-shifting from hierarchical structural thinking to self-
organizing complex heterarchical thinking when applying these tools from an inquiring
system perspective. Nevertheless, you need to take into account time and patience –
paradigm shifts are not made on a short term basis.
• You need clear cut goals and expectations in order to succeed with CWE
implementation. The Öresund Pilot worked with a lot of different tools and
sometimes pilot members were confused on whether to spend time on learning tools
for communication, collaboration and social innovation or CWE activities. Yet,
without understanding the tools for social innovation, actions on CWE would have
been most unlikely.

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• It is extremely important to communicate the methodology in a consistent way. There
are two options – either you create a common vocabulary for all tools or you put
emphasis on the differences in perspectives of each tool. Our recommendation would
be the latter one since you then don’t risk losing the complexity of each tool. In the
last case there is a need for border crossing objects that make one pause, think and
change perspective. Even in CWE, a totally new vocabulary unfolds for aged workers.
This language is not self-evident, nor is terms like themes of importance, ‘prejects’
or common statements.

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3. CWE FINDINGS IN CORPORATE TEAM - MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA PILOT

3.1 THE M&M PILOT

The eSangathan project started on October 1, 2006. On 1st April 2007, a pilot implementation of
a collaborative working environment for ageing workforce started in India at Mahindra &
Mahindra Group, one of the top 10 industrial houses in India.

The key objective of the project is to see how innovative approaches based on use of ICT
(Information and Communication Technology) and more specifically CWE (Collaborative Working
Environments) can generate new ideas, models and work environments for e-Inclusion of Ageing
Workforce.

Tech Mahindra, a leading provider of IT solutions and Services Company, has created Web 2.0
collaborative portal with technical support for the pilot members. The collaborative solution is
hosted and managed by Mahindra & Mahindra Corporation, helping the retiree experts and
serving people 1 to perform regular business activities and contributing knowledge to the
organization.

The M&M pilot comprised of 10 retiree experts with more than 100 serving people spanning in
different sectors including automotive sector, Information Technology Sector, Sytech Sector and
specialty Business Sector. 80% of the retiree experts are between 59-65 years old, youngest
member is 59 and oldest member is 70 years old. The criterion used for section of retiree
experts was location of work, age of retiree, number of family members, past grade at work
place, type of work (process/design /solution /Consultancy oriented) and computer proficiency.

3.2 ESKILLS ASSESSMENT

After the establishment of M&M pilot Indian team established a test for retiree experts to
evaluate their Hard and Soft skills. The data has been gathered by taking notes, filling-up
questionnaire and in some cases by audio recordings on tape. On the basis of collected data EU
Skill Matrix was created based on hard skills 2 and soft skills 3 of retiree experts.

1
Serving People - employees who are working with the organization under retiree experts
2
Matrix for evaluation Criterion of ICT Skill’s Hard Skills/competences (OECD & Eurostat)
e-Europe, ICT Skills Monitoring Group, Synthesis Report, 2002
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/18/37620123.pdf
3
National Council for Competence Report 1999 and CCP/DeSeCo – Sweden & Denmark

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3.3 CWE IMPLEMENTATION

3.3.1 ESTABLISHING THE CWE INFRASTRUCTURE

Mahindra & Mahindra had Microsoft SharePoint 2003 for Knowledge management initiative, even
before eSangathan. Knowledge Management initiative was in process of migrating to Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server 2007. This has become a natural choice for Mahindra Pilot of
eSangathan project, to have the same infrastructure along with Microsoft Office Communication
Server for instant messaging. Further on, Netcipia Place has been added for collaborating with
seniors from Öresund Pilot.

3.3.2 IDENTIFICATION OF THE USER GROUP

The Mahindra Pilot is spread across various sectors of M&M group and composed of ten retiree
experts. The total strength of the pilot is more than one hundred (100) members, inclusive of
serving members, retiree experts.

The retiree experts have undergone user selection process, with the following criterion:
• Retirees who have retired or on verge of retirement from M&M or other organizations
now serving contracts with M&M.
• Driven by Corporate IT and M&M HR as an initiative.
• Criterion: Place of work, age of retiree, type of work, computer proficiency.

The retiree experts of various sectors were profiled based on the following:
• Usability Engineering team has come with basic questionnaire to understand the
retiree both personal and professional qualities,
• Hard and Soft Skills - Technology exposure questions in order to measure Soft and
Hard Skills of Individuals [OECD & Eurostat - Community survey on ICT usage 4 ].
• The retiree experts were profiled into three classifications, namely
o YES-YES – Advanced user with good ICT skill set, for example a user with all basic
ICT skills including computer programming
o SO-SO – User with medium level in ICT skill set, for example the user has basic
skills along with CWE skills like use of Instant Messaging, Search or Wikipedia
o NO-NO Users – Basic user with minimum ICT skill set, for example the user having
general computing skills and not having CWE skills.

4
Computer and Internet users’ skills for carrying out selected activities (2005) - EU-25,
Source: Eurostat, Community survey on ICT usage in households and by individuals

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3.3.3 CUSTOMIZATION OF THE CWE

Based on the profiling and business needs, the CWE has been customized to retiree expert’s
expectations, along with Web 2.0 features on M&M portal, instant messaging and offline access.
Tech Mahindra’s User Interaction Design group (UIDG) designed the User Interface templates for
the retiree experts and developer implemented it into the Share Point .The CWE portal
integrated with Mahindra Connect - a Knowledge Management initiative, has features such as
document management with workflow & version management, search, discussions, blogs, wikis,
calendar, project planning, tasks & contacts management, instant messaging and offline access
of eSangathan portal. Information Architecting was carried out and a four-level exchange
communities were created.
• Level 1 - Community/Site for Retiree Expert and his team,
• Level 2 - eSangathan – To promote knowledge exchange among Pilot members,
• Level 3 - Mahindra Intranet - eSangathan – To promote knowledge exchange between
Pilot members and any Mahindra & Mahindra employee
• Level 4 - Netcipia place – To promote knowledge exchange between Oresund Pilot
and Mahindra Pilot

3.3.4 TRAINING OF THE USER GROUP

Subsequently, the end users - both retiree experts and serving members were trained on CWE
platform. The training course on CWE structured for 3 to 5 days depending upon the availability
of Retiree Experts, had Basic, Medium and Advanced levels. For pilot members based out of
Mumbai is conducted at the offices of corresponding retiree experts at M&M and at Tech
Mahindra premises for people based out of Pune.

The users were provided with PCs and with exercises for getting hands-on experiences of using
collaborative working environment. Some of the retiree experts preferred training to be tuned
to their needs, bringing in their business scenarios with serving members.

3.3.5 MONITORING THE USAGE

Indian Pilot of eSangathan comprises of 10 communities, where the usage statistics such as
number of users, requests, total number of users, referrers, destination pages, search queries
and search results was provided by the Microsoft Share Point. The statistics were gathered on
monthly basis for different CWE tools at various levels.

A consolidated report is prepared based on number of users and total usage of features used by
the pilot members. Following are the analysis to be extracted from the data collection:
• Number of users participated in various communities.
• Frequency and duration of usage of collaborative workplace.
• Time of the usage.

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 • Extent to which the teams use the CWE
Based on the statistics, technical team would identify features that are not being used by the
pilot members and organize necessary training to promote the feature with its advantages and
sample scenarios.

3.3.6 RESOLUTION OF ISSUES

The support team of the eSangathan - Mahindra pilot has been solving issues in relation to the
usage of the CWE feature, data migration needs to CWE, access issues such as provision of access
to new members, restricted access, new sub community sites, coordinating with fellow members
for sharing of knowledge and establish links to retiree experts of different group of companies
and pilot members.

3.3.7 TRACKING THE USER FEEDBACK AND EXPECTATIONS

The Mahindra Pilot conducted the survey of satisfaction to find out the usages, in terms of
frequency and duration of usage of the collaborative workplace, time (of the day) of the usage,
Usage of synchronous collaboration features and Usage of asynchronous collaboration features.
The feedback of pilot members was collected using a questionnaire related to personal
information, professional situation, computer skills, frequency of use of CWE environment,
suggestions for improvements in CWE etc.

3.3.8 TEAM SYNTEGRITY SESSION

Mahindra Pilot conducted Team Syntegrity session, aimed to

• integrate set of people who seek to compress their divided views into a united
message,
• Provoke discussions with arguments and counter-arguments between participants
Mahindra Pilot has invited all the retiree experts but only five retiree experts participated in this
session, started with the introduction of various retiree experts. Then the retiree experts were
given a brief about the session and its importance.

The participants has come up with fifty Statements of Importance (SI) and based on voting the
SIs were shortlisted to the following:
• Capture, sharing of knowledge & experience of seniors / others
• Access online anywhere
• Enhancing capabilities of retired persons through use of it
• Provide safety, security & support to seniors through it and deployment of support
resources.
The methodology opted for session was appreciated by all the retiree experts.

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3.4 KEY OBSERVATIONS AND FINDINGS

3.4.1 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

• Secured collaborative working environment that is accessible on intranet and internet

have enabled people to overcome the initial apprehensions of sharing information
• Designing CWE with an integrated Knowledge management strategy has helped in
reaching the mass.
• Speed and Availability of Infrastructure such as Broadband, PC, and PC Accessories
are important factors in CWE implementation.
• Encouraging members to learn by doing of CWE tools usage and be a participative
member
• eSangathan platform has opened new channels of communication for Retiree Experts
and organization’s knowledge capacities. Pilot members feel that they can utilize
larger pool of people with multi-facet knowledge for advices on key information that
could help them in finding quicker solutions to problems.
• CWE features must be implemented at steady pace from basic features to advance
features based on individual learning capability. The User Interface must be less
complex and more users friendly.
• Adequate training of CWE for retiree experts and serving persons is required to make
them comfortable in using CWE.
• Enhance the technology in terms of integrating email and file upload System in CWE,
enablement of CWE on mobile and integration of CWE with existing M&M Management
information system (MIS).
• The existing CWE must be continuing for long period of time. Also make uses of CWE
mandatory for all other M&M employees.
• Make Human Resource policy more flexible which can suits the retired employees.
• CWE tool must be implemented for capturing and sharing of knowledge & experience
of seniors.
• Positioning of CWE within organizational information hierarchy at various levels like
“Inter-department, Intra-department, Companies, Sectors and Group” levels.

3.4.2 CWE FEATURE USAGE

• Document Management feature of CWE highest which includes drawings, pictures,

engineering standards
• Pilot members has used restricted library for publishing budgets and confidential
documents
• Use of Blogs for sharing technical news and publish comments
• Use of Wiki for publication of technical documentation
• Bookmarking and cross-linking with Enterprise site and Internet
• Use of Search for searching Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), documents, drawings,
news, presentations, standards etc.

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 • CWE improved the productivity of users with help of project plan tool to track
business activities and tasks assigned to individuals and helped the retirees to
enhance the communications skills with the help of corporate Blogs, Discussions and
Wikis
• Usage of Wikis for collection of Technical data: Pilot members co-authored wikis to
publish technical information and articles of general and team specific nature.
• CWE tool is used for publishing circulars / notice using announcement feature Pilot
members found CWE tool very useful for instant announcements like news, bulletin
boards, events, customer visits, meetings etc.

3.5 HARD AND SOFT SKILLS OF RETIREE EXPERTS

The highlight the importance of the process of identifying people identifying people, profiling
them, customizing the CWE to suit their business needs, training them, providing adequate
support and troubleshooting. Following are typical instances of three types of retirees:
• YES-YES User - This user is very advanced, would like to design the system / community
site on his own way. He would require no marketing for using CWE, rather he promotes.
• SO-SO User – wants to formulate and streamline processes, trying to find areas to utilize
the benefits of CWE.
• NO-NO User – requires more training, training based on their business requirements and
handholding wherever necessary. There is a need of providing instances of success stories
/ benefits derived by other Retiree experts and their community site while using
eSangathan platform.

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 Figure: Increase in hard skills of retiree experts

The above chart gives a perspective on the improvement of CWE by typical Yes-Yes, So-So and
No-No users. The measurement starts from 1st of October 2007 and up to Starting of Aug 2008,
which includes Questionnaire, User-Surveys and also usage-extracts from CWE system. There is a
clear indication of improvement in usage of CWE by the retiree experts after eSangathan
implementation; however the difference in level of competence between the types of users
remained.

3.6 VARIATIONS/DROP-OUTS

Indian pilot observed variations / dropouts of people leaving the pilot / organization for various
reasons.

3.6.1 SOCIAL REASONS

Retiree expert wanted to spend all the time with family so they choose to discontinue their
services with the M&M.

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3.6.2 BUSINESS DYNAMICS

Retiree expert has assumed change of responsibility in M&M during pilot period so they could not
continue after initial period

3.6.3 WORK REASONS

Some of the pilot members have centralized team, they preferred for physical meeting as they
work on same building, and their frequent inspection centric travel could not allow them to
participate in eSangathan.

3.7 KEY CONCLUSIONS

Based on the experiences from Mahindra pilot in India, we have the following conclusions and
recommendations for a successful CWE implementation for e-Inclusive Ageing Workforce.

3.8 CONCLUSIONS

Following are the key conclusions and adoptions by the pilot:

3.8.1 BASED ON BENEFITS

• Both Qualitative and Quantitative measures shows that “business benefits” is the
ultimate motivator of adoption of CWE. The pilot members have adopted to share
documents, drawing across the team at multiple locations. Thus avoiding the inability
to email system send files more than 10 MB size.
• “ICT & CWE Friendliness” aids to better adoption of CWE
• Flexibility in Customization of CWE environment as per Retiree Experts requirements
are important for implementation success
•
• The multiple features provided in a portal could be confusing for at least some users.
Therefore, a limited number of features having focus on specific user requirements
would be more helpful. Handholding during the initial phase is very important.
• Based on People
• Participation of members from Senior Management in CWE set as a role model for the
team members to adopt in performing day-to-day business activities. However,
working with younger employees would create a pull for ageing workforce towards
using the CWE.
• Need to share common interest areas, help others – is a key motivator for Retiree
Experts

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 • “Custom Training” is important for successful CWE usage
• Extendibility of platform securely beyond office premises such as Customer, supplier
or Home premises, is a key requirement of CWE
• Exposure, usage, experience of ICT/CWE are the best way to enhance Hard & Soft
skillsKey Recommendations
The main objective is to implement a true Enterprise 2.0/3.0 global strategy for Mahindra &
Mahindra, at all the levels, and for every project, to insure 100% productivity and extensive
Knowledge management.

3.8.2 IMPLEMENTATION

• Experience & Knowledge management are important for an Organization. Systems

needs to be designed with a lot of care taking into account what, how much, who,
how it is shared. This will deliver efficiencies and lead to large productivity gains.
• Enablement of CWE to accessing anywhere has immense benefit for a retiree expert,
for example, hassle free CWE access from home, office, customer and supplier
premises along with access on mobile. The solution need to be designed to enable
tasks that are most appropriate in a remote working environment.
• Enhancing Capabilities of Retired Persons via adequate and custom training is an
important enabler. Also, organization should have defined processes for acquiring
post-retirement skills.
• Integrate business critical systems with CWE that can provoke discussions and
knowledge sharing.
• Piece meal approach in introducing CWE features at multiple stages based on the skill
set of pilot members.
• Constant review of CWE usage and identify training needs on the frequency utilization
of CWE feature and publish CWE reports to encourage usage among pilot members.
• Provide dedicated technical support team for trouble shooting specific needs of pilot
members.
• Providing Safety and Security at corporate level to Retiree Experts with use of IT and
other support systems.

3.8.3 CORPORATE STRATEGY

• Human Resources department to encourage and draw policies to enable Retiree

Experts to enable him/her skills for post retirement works
• HR – to review policies to provide flexible working environments for Retiree Experts in
terms of remunerations, designations, participating in social activities and facilitate
CWE system for both professional and personal services.
• Contracts offered to Retiree Experts should offer flexibility for Intellectual Property
Rights - IPR creation and usage
•

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 • Training – Adequate Training processes to be developed that would improve both hard
and soft skills of Retiree Experts
• Knowledge Management – KM processes to undergo changes to be more and more
participative, interactive and organic

3.8.4 INTERACTION MEDIUM

3.8.4.1 Internal people:

• Once in a while, pilot members preferred physical meeting of people for more
effective that emails/phone calls or CWE.
• Senior Management mandate important for CWE adoption, having seniors as role
models helps to take enhance the skills of pilot members and capture knowledge
more effectively.
• Email notification is a widely preferred option while using CWE

3.8.4.2 External people:

• Conferences – most effective way tool for dissemination and Panel discussion are most
effective tool for developing / debating concepts and build consensus.
• Blogging site - www.eSangathan.in, wasn’t popular in India for non-eSangathan
members to contribute as a blog or to publish a page
• Dissemination via “Word of Mouth” most effective form of Communication

3.8.4.3 In General:

• Motivation is most important factor for a Retiree expert to explore and learn CWE
• Retiree Experts view Public Wikis, blogs, newsletter as a powerful tool for
Dissemination. They ran some of these for their communities and interest groups
• eSangathan Mahindra Pilot encourages Indian Corporations to implement CWE
platform for Retiree Experts for benefit of corporations and for Retiree Experts
themselves.

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4. COLLABORATIVE WORKING ENVIRONMENTS IN ESANGATHAN

When we specified this project three years ago, we came out of a period where CWE switched
from heavy and complex proprietary software clients to the online collaboration web-based
services available in self-service. It was important for the self-usage by the users of these
solutions, even if the rate of adoption in enterprises were not yet there. Of course we
incorporated into our work this type of solution, with a twofold objective:
• to serve as single information and document repository for the consortium and all its
members and to facilitate the remote work (6 countries)
• to serve the pilots if they had not already a solution to assess how their members
would adopt and change their practices of working with these new platforms.
It was also planned to have a synchronous online collaboration (chat, VoIP, conference call), and
it is Skype which was chosen.

But a new phenomenon emerged brutally in 2005 and catch up with us early in the project in
September 2006, the Web 2.0. It was clear that this has affected our initial choices, and that it
has been necessary to change very quickly our choices under the risk of being overtaken.

That is what the consortium has made, based on the few members who had already adopted this
new wave, and allowing themselves to work with the tools and uses the most up to date, and
making final results of our work relevant and timely in relation to current and future
developments in these fields.

We will detail in the two sub-chapters that follow how this was done and what are the major
challenges for active ageing workforces.

4.1 TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION SINCE TWO YEARS

The Web 2.0 had its first manifestation in the consumer area through the massive expansion of
the phenomenon of blogs. Started in 2003, the growth of the blogosphere began to accelerate
tremendously in 2005, where the number of blogs doubling every six months.

It seemed essential to quickly integrate this new use in eSangathan experience to see what the
possible adoption curve was. In fact the first use in eSangathan of blog software was not just for
blogging, but to achieve the official website of eSangathan.

In the original proposal, mayeticVillage, the collaborative work tool, had also been positioned
for this task, since it had the capacity. But it is also what most blog platforms have enabled very
quickly, with the addition of the concept of "page" to which of "posts". It then became clear
from the first month of work on eSangathan that the new way to create our own website was

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rather to use such a modern platform, giving at the same time the possibility of considering a
website much more dynamic by adding as soon as possible the blog dimension.

This was done in the second month with the choice of WordPress platform. In addition, the
Project Coordination Team adopted very quickly the blog user experience, and the site was
transformed immediately in both institutional website and blog news. We also decided to create
an identical structure by country, from the same tool.

So we went entirely in the new era of Web 2.0, from the first month of work, which of course
could not be anticipated when preparing the European application. It also shows how fast we
need in these areas to change of path.

The second step was the establishment of a management infrastructure to store bookmarks,
collaboratively, as it was of course necessary to keep track of all news published on the subjects
of our work, and these news are published on the internet for the huge majority of them. The
first idea which was to store these URLs and comments in workspaces or blogs was not very
effective for this type of information and we kept looking for something else.

The example of Digg and social bookmarking tools like www.del.icio.us may be the best solution,
and we chose Pligg open source software as infrastructure, to accommodate ourselves and be
independent of a potential supplier. Pligg has been deployed on our servers, and is used to
manage a standalone collaborative bookmarking solution, open not only to members of the
consortium but anyone interested in these subjects of our area. Two social bookmarking website
are currently available, www.watch.esangathan.eu for English language people and
veille.esangathan.fr for French language people.

Very soon a need for compilation of books and associated readings became apparent. Several
solutions were also possible; we finally went towards the use of WordPress again (the blog
infrastructure) to manage reading files as their constitution, WordPress allowing a multi-
categories classification for each page (www.library.esangathan.eu).

The use of personalized home pages has also been promoted, in order to make effective
monitoring of different sources of information which began to become more numerous. NetVibes
has been chosen, providing also very good RSS reader module.

Then, as the deliverables were written, and as new collaborative and participatory usages
spread among consortium members, it became obvious at one point that the traditional
collaborative writing, from Word files exchanged by e-mail for revisions and comments, was
outdated and lacking in efficiency. The idea of using a wiki to co-write online and obtain real-
time feedback from other members of the consortium became obvious the second year, and it
was naturally when we needed to wrote D031 deliverable dedicated to the analysis of
collaborative practice that we decided to take the plunge and write this deliverable 100% in
wiki mode.

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Netcipia was chosen as the wiki platform, and the writing of the deliverable was produced in
until his final delivery. It was a successful try, and the same principle was subsequently adopted
for a number of other final deliverables. Even the announcement of the public release of the
White Paper and the deliverable about eSangathan dissemination work introduced not only the
traditional PDF format, static, but also the wiki format, allowing any future reader can continue
to interact with authors.

Finally, the needs to publish all content produced during eSangathan project became more and
more important. WordPress already covered part of need in terms of publication of textual and
graphical content, but there must also be able to publish our deliverables, our slideshows,
videos, etc ... Two options were available to us, or publish our information in the original format
or in PDF, requiring our readers to have the necessary applications installed on their computers,
or use online services allowing anyone to consult our production from a simple standard Internet
browser. We chose this second solution and decided to use the best services for each type of
source available in the Web 2.0 ecosystem:
• SlideShare.net for the dissemination of PowerPoint files, using its widget to publish
the slideshow directly in our blogs
• Scribd.com to publish Office files or PDF files directly in a format readable on the
screen
• Google Video to publish online video lectures of our conference days, so that
everyone can consult freely and enjoy the many experts who have been cast.
This last point about how to publish to the world what eSangathan produced is very important.
With our choices, everything is available 100% from a simple Internet browser (Internet explorer,
Firefox, etc…) on any platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. ...).

eSangathan is on this dimension also a very innovative project, and the adoption curve of all
these usages has been made in less than two years, with 95% of the team having never used such
tools before.

Here is the time-line of the deployed and adopted services during both years:

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4.2 REAL NEEDS OF ACTIVE AGEING WORKFORCE

Relating the use of all these tools by people described as "active ageing workers" the statement
after two years of work, both among members of the consortium as members of the pilots, is
that there has been no particular problems of adoption, or at least no particular problems
different from those usually encountered by everybody adopting these tools.

At the kick-off of eSangathan, Marianne Ziekemeyer, ageing expert from eSangathan, focused
our attention on the need to take into account an important set of criteria to address CWE usage
by older people.

Two dimensions were introduced, the first one on the technical aspects:
• few text, no extra information
• many graphics & visuals
• good overview
• letter sizes
• thematic entrances
• No blue or dark backgrounds
The second one in social aspects:
• login
• reputation
• trust
• relationship
• knowledge sharing
It happens that on the whole, all these requirements are found in the Web 2.0, both from a
technical point of view as a social point of view. It is clear that trends in the market taken by
our information society is to make our interfaces and our practices compatible with all the
people, not just young people.

Except for impaired people who are beginning to have health problems and therefore require
specific equipments (sight problems, hearing problems, motor problems, etc. ...), the two years
of work lead us to the conclusion that there is no need to address specifically the ageing
workforces and develop interfaces or specific usages for them, if in the meantime the market
evolution continues in the direction of making our interfaces and our practices adapted to the
general public.

We believe that this is the key of the Web 2.0 success. Web 2.0 has not been built from a set of
innovative marketers imposing their ideas and solutions. It was built from the release of the
usages made possible thanks to recent technological advances (connectivity, storage space and
rich user interface), and it has been the market, so the users, who led innovation.

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We must not forget that most services now used by hundreds of millions of people needed only a
few weeks of working for the initial launch. Innovation has not been technological; it has been in
the new relationship that has been developed with the consumers, with the people directly,
whether young, middle or older. Among all these people, regardless of age, there were people
with no knowledge of the computing universe; they have put forward the ease of use and
response to their daily need of exchange and socialization, shared equally by older people.

Another recent phenomenon is interesting, even if we don’t have knowledge of recent statistics
on the subject. It is clear in recent months that the number of grandparents buying computers in
our Western societies is in clear progress, with the purpose to be in daily contact with their
children or grandchildren. We believe that this is a tipping point where those generations who
previously thought they can not address the computing universe, do quite naturally, the uses
being transmitted through the family and social usage. We look forward to seeing out the first
studies on the topic to come corroborate these findings.

It is therefore clear that there are no particular needs expressed by aging workforces; if not
precisely to better share their knowledge with younger generations and to have tools allowing
them socialization.

However as we’ll see in the chapter dedicated to the findings, we are not saying that is nothing
to do to improve CWE usages and adoption. But as we’ll see the recommendations to be issued
will be valid whatever the generations.

4.3 ESANGATHAN ICT FINDINGS (MM)

The work we conducted during these two years drove us to two major findings:
• The first is that it is perfectly clear today that the CWE must form the basis for a new
way of working and can be adopted by all generations, including active ageing
workforces, with no particular difficulty but following the recommendations below
which are valid whatever the generations are.
• The second is that the full adoption of a CWE can be concluded only through its usage
in real cases, with well defined and clear objectives and under the most appropriate
training conditions. The CWE is a work facilitator, an accelerator of productivity and
capitalization of corporate knowledge, but do not replace the necessary
organizational objectives to define and achieve.

This second point focuses on the fact that a CWE does not establish by itself a better
relationship management within a group if no common objectives are correctly implemented and
managed.

CWE may even be perceived as an obstacle incomprehensible to cross, pushing the rejection as
we saw it with several members of the Öresund pilots in the initial stages.

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But if the project in which the CWE is used is properly animated, the CWE increase the
efficiency by enabling a number of positive conditions previously inaccessible, such as remote
working, virtual team management, asynchronous work, knowledge capitalization, activity
sharing, individual and collective productivity greatly increased, etc … All details are provided in
the D031: “CWE uses and best practices”.

Some important recommendations for good usage and deployment can be focus here as findings
to help in the adoption by the users. These recommendations are directly collected from pilot
usage feedbacks:
• Focus first on participation than on collaboration. A modern CWE must allow
comments at all levels to promote participation among all players and first made
contact or discussion, in a light collaborative mode. The strong collaboration does
happen then, around concrete tasks and missions, often in small groups. The project
blogs and news are ideal for this.
• Hold regular face to face meetings. Indeed these meetings serve as an accelerator
for virtual links, as evidenced by the significant increase of virtual activity after each
meeting.
• Rely on the virtuous cycle “I want to share my knowledge” of aged people,
because the more they share and they get recognition and visibility, the more they
want to share again.
• Build multi-generational teams to create motivation and disseminating good
practices, this is the best way. The phenomenon of learning by « imitation » is
essential in these new tools and usages. It is watching what the others are doing that
we often learn as much. Intergenerational teams allow accelerating this phenomenon
and the qualities of different generations will allow the whole group to move forward.
• Ensure that managers and leaders are the first to adopt new usages. Because if
they did not, they will not grow or defend the need for other team members to do it.
Managers must be evangelists for new usages, to pursuing the needs and their
associated benefits.
• Take into account that the learning curve is longest for seniors than for young
people. But at the same time the great experience of the seniors make understand
more quickly the benefits in terms of individual and collective productivity that
emerge from these new usages. This is a good balance.
• Promote participatory management, with responsibility and autonomy delegated to
the team members, and establishing necessary trusted relations
• Monitor activity in order to detect and anticipate potential problems and
bottlenecks, and then intervene and motivate people to solve them.
With this set of recommendations and these rethink ideas about active ageing workers, it is clear
that it is becoming quite natural for people to use CWE for their daily work, as any other person
younger. The difficulties are substantially the same regardless of generations, weaknesses and
strengths balanced respectively.

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5. DISSEMINATION STRATEGY

As we told one year ago, dissemination is key in any EU-funded project and certainly in support
actions. Support actions are a vehicle to communicate the EU-strategy to the outside world and
market with practical illustrations of the declared objectives in the work programme.
Dissemination is the forerunner action of the exploitation that the consortium members will be
able to implement. It is a way to inform and mobilise institutional bodies with well prepared
arguments and to prepare the market; it enables to look for, find and consolidate active
stakeholders and is the starting point for the concrete actions once the project funding is over.
The consortium had adopted the following dissemination and communication strategy:
• The first year was the time to choose and implements the dissemination tools and
make sure each member of the consortium gets thru the learning curve in order to
master the tools and to be able to rapidly adopt new ones if they appear to be better
adapted to the needs of eSangathan. In fact, the permanent evolution of the Web 2.0
based tools did stimulate the team to go for new adoptions and constantly improve
the learning curve. By the way, at the end of the project all the team members
(consortium and pilots) are familiar with the new Web 2.0 environment.
• The second year was characterised by actions within the defined strategy with the
aim to
o Exchange as much as possible with the external world thanks to the blogs, the
social bookmarking systems and the RSS feeds
o Consolidate the SIGs in the countries which have implemented such an interest
group
o Increase the number of national stakeholders thanks to lobby actions
o Exchange as much as possible with other EU-funded projects (IST, ESF, etc.)
o Organise the two planned conferences in Mumbai (India) and Brussels (Belgium)
o Gather the content for the White Paper

This has all been done and implemented and the best way to be convinced and learn about the
work done in the eSangathan project is to walk into the dissemination wiki which will remain
online. It contains all our presentations, publications and references.

We are convinced that the best way to tell you what we have done and learned is not to make
long descriptions; but to send you, the reader, directly to the tools that we have been
implementing and using.

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6. CONCLUSION

The general conclusion is that eSangathan has reached most of the announced goals. In some
fields like technological usages update, adaptable methodologies implemented all along the line
as well as the online and interactive dissemination process, the goals were overreached. And,
what is more, based on the experience gained during the project some further initiatives may be
launched. The work initiated with the pilots was only a starting point.

The findings of the project have been highlighted in this report which is a summary of more
detailed reports which are publicly available.

So, at this point, it is more interesting to look at the future and take into account some of the
plans mentioned by consortium members:

• In Denmark, CBS mentions it will support the following actions:

o Use the methodologies and tools in eSangathan as a basis for bringing seniors into
a project on B4B (Business for Business) between Denmark and South-East Africa
o The eSangathan Öresund Pilot team formed on social economics consultancy
o A new NGO composed of former union chairmen, employees and shop stewards
o Support the continuation of the wiki replacing Newsletter 9 of eSangathan

• In Sweden, from a pilot member perspective, the following future work is taking place or
is planned:
o Two Swedish and one Danish pilot member has jointly registered a consultancy
firm in eSangathan methods for innovations in social economy
o Two Danish pilot members implemented a CWE in the NGO: Seniors without
boarders in Denmark.
o One pilot member (Master Mariner) from Sweden implemented CWE as tool for
initiating export/import between Sweden and Angola
o Martina Bach, who led the work, will keep on networking on the topics in Sweden
and incorporate tools, findings and good practices into her own consultancy firm.

• In India, the experience gained by the Mahindra & Mahindra team enables the local
project manager to make some recommendations to corporations willing to follow the
same path:
o At top level, corporate should design/create CWE with an integrated Knowledge
management strategy. With this all employees/retirees would become familiar
with CWE while sharing knowledge within team and across teams/departments.
o In order to prepare Retirees for post retirement work & social life, Human
Resource Department (HRD) should encourage Retiree Experts to enhance their
Hard and Soft skills. This is possible if there are adequate training processes in

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 place to monitor and develop Hard and Soft Skills of employees and Retirees
consistently.
o HRD must introduce policy on flexible working environments and allow
participation of Retiree Expert in social, personal and professional activities.
While doing so, HRD also needs introduce localized physical safety/security
information and tools within CWE for Retiree Experts.
• In France, Distance Expert is already involved in a new working group on the
intergenerational relationship in organisations together with Netcipia-UK which now
operates in France under the brand name of Kimind. The two companies have decided to
maintain the websites in English and in French as well as the social bookmarking system
which was started during the eSangathan project. Capitalisation will be done in the
format of a specific consulting offering for both firms. During the last year of the project
both firms have been active lobbyists and the publication of the “France Numérique
2012” report as well as all the new laws in preparation do open an appropriate window
for more actions.

So, one can now say that the time that was invested in this topic thanks to the EU-funding is
leading to new business opportunities which do match present market needs.

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