10,000 MILES TO YAMMER (YᾸM’ӘR) - TO TALK VOLUBLY AND LOUDLY

10,000 MILES TO YAMMER

• A culture of functional silos

• How an accident turned into a game changer

• Steering the conversation

• Gaining acceptance

• KaBoom!!

A BRIEF HISTORY• Aristocrat Technologies is a Poker Machine manufacturer

of more than 50 years

• Founded by a dentistry chair manufacturers son in a garage in Australia

• Global employee count is approx: 2200 employees• Global locations: 12 + locations with many regional offices

containing many remote workers

A CULTURE OF FUNCTIONAL SILOS• We all deal with silos. Why is yours special?

• We operate globally • There are 60 years of acquisitions

• This resulted in many operating models and many applications/systems

• These silos have deliverables with little to no visibility of others

• The regions are very competitive • There is generally a lack of enthusiasm to support greater

organisational changes due to regionalisation• Impacts to overall business strategy • Messages became convoluted

HOW AN ACCIDENT BECAME A GAME CHANGER• My role at Aristocrat – The IT Account Manager

• I look after three major business functions• Build stronger relationships between business functions and IT • Use this insight to identify and offer better services and solutions• But there was gap…

• I needed a more holistic view

• Social Media seemed to have the niche for communication

• Cloud sourcing, enthusiasm to share, global reach

• Enterprise 2.0 had the capacity to address the need• The organisation was asking the question “To

Facebook or not to Facebook?”

• And the gates opened…

HOW AN ACCIDENT BECAME A GAME CHANGER• There are a number of options in this space

• Jive SBS - Jive Software, SharePoint 2010 – Microsoft, NewsGator – SharePoint 2010 integration, OraTweet – Oracle, Lotus SameTime Advanced – IBM, SocialText Signals, SocialCast, Co-op

• Originally I was a big fan of Jive SBS

• This fit a more IT centric model with a centrally deployed solution• There were a number of features that fit the longer term business strategy

and addressed our short term needs • I met with other users who raved about uptake and success• It was $$ with a potentially large OCM issue

• I then tried Yammer

• It was free…initially• It had a smaller feature set• It was more social• It was SaaS• It had an invite your colleagues feature

ENTER…

HOW AN ACCIDENT BECAME A GAME CHANGER• We had something viral

• Our free network grew by 100 people in 1 day and just kept going. After 4 days we had 250 people.

• People were excited to have a social platform• They kept inviting more colleagues• BUT, the free version was not a global platform for us

• Now, how do avoid killing it with bureaucracy?

STEERING THE CONVERSATION• In order to proceed with Yammer a business case was

created

• Needless to say there were a lot of questions

• ROI and a lack there of it financially• Will this be a time waster• How will it be regulated• Security of the network• Is it just a fad? Will it die?

• So how does a business case like this survive?

STEERING THE CONVERSATION• Kept the conversation simple

• It’s like Facebook for the organisation• It’s breaking down the existing silos in the business• It has the capability to gage, model and promote our

behaviours• It builds a stronger global corporate community• Senior management has a channel to engage an active

audience• It has the capability to disseminate information in a viral way• You can on-board new staff

• It’s a knowledge base

• It’s private and secure

GAINING ACCEPTANCE• Worked with senior management to sponsor the project

• It was an employee opportunity• Empowerment was key

• Gained further acceptance through asking other senior managers to use the network and spread the word

• Elevator pitched the CEO (literally)

• He joined in a matter of hours• He is now one of the biggest advocates for the use of

Yammer as a global employee communications tool

GAINING ACCEPTANCE• I never accepted “no” as a logical response

• Negativity was curbed with communications strategies around the value proposition

• It was all about culture!

• It’s down to the individuals to make it work• There was only one rule…

• “If you cant say it in front of your boss or the CEO, don’t say it on Yammer”

• The proof was right in front of everyone, on the network

KABOOM!!• Official global launch was on Feb 1, 2011

• Of our 2200 employees 1261 are members of the network

• This grows each day• 3.9 million hits on yammer to date (Australia only)

• We have had 292 unique posters (contributors) to the network (13% of the organisation)

• Peaks of 45 unique posts in a day• Some threads have received up to 74 responses with up to

28 participants

• We have had 4048 unique responses to those posts• Peaks of 134 messages in a day

• Facebook only had a million more hits in that period

QUESTIONS?