Making the Case for Social Media Inside the
Organizationby Connie Crosby
@conniecrosby Crosby Group Consulting
Knowledge Workers Toronto#kwTO
June 20, 2012
Where is Enterprise 2.0 today?
• 2 years ago we were primarily talking about adding in tools/applications such as blogs, wikis, and Twitter-like microblogs such as Yammer to the intranet.
• Today we are seeing a race to create/implement full-on social layers to the intranet or social intranet platforms e.g. Jive, Speechbobble,ThoughtFarmer and others.
• Yammer is now a full-blown social platform and there are rumours of Microsoft planning to purchase it to fill the gap in their offerings.
• The Enterprise 2.0 conference is taking place in Boston as we speak. Follow #e20 on Twitter.
What are the challenges in making the business case for
social?
Challenges (1)• history of being an entertainment
tool
• keeping people engaged
• privacy issues
• investment in people needed, too (e.g. training, support)
• cost to implement higher than expected
• unmoderated; loss of control
• general business case issues, eg. ROI, addressing risks, business use “Why”
Challenges (2)• reputational issues - for both
individuals and the organizational culture
• “just don’t get it”
• who is going to pay for it?
• “free” tools are not free
• engagement/creation of content - does the 1:9:90 rule apply? (i.e. 1% create content, 9% comment, 90% only read)
• information overload
• is the business case based on the reality of the organisational culture?
Ambivalence
FearDistrust
ParanoiaInsecurity
Skepticism
BARRIERS
Will social create a sharing culture?
1. The right tools will make us collaborative.
2. Collaboration is inherently a good thing.
3. Collaborating takes extra time.
4. People naturally will/will not collaborate.
5. People instinctively know how to collaborate.
5 Myths of Collaboration
Gartner - Press release June 3, 2011http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?
id=1711814
Some invalid assumptions
• The purpose of collaboration is obvious
• Bigger is better
• Build it and they will come
• The real value in collaboration is connecting people to content
Source: Sara Roberts, Roberts Golden Consulting, Inc. & Margaret Schweer, Tammy Ericson & Associates
at Enterprise 2.0 2012 - notes by V. Mary Abraham http://aboveandbeyondkm.com/2012/06/building-intelligent-organizations-e2conf.html
• Sharing knowledge is always voluntary. No one can ever be forced.
• We share knowledge when we have the right audience, that motivates us and creates the right context.
• Social software alone is not the solution to the old problems of knowledge management.
Source: T-systems Multimedia Systemshttp://www.slideshare.net/TSystemsMMS/enterprise-20-knowledge-management-people-at-the-center
Here’s what T-systems says:
Building the
business case
Marketing / Communications
• Communicating from the top down
• Getting staff on board
• Keeping a wide-spread team (such as sales) on message
Human Resources
• Recruiting
• Employee on-boarding
• Training
• Employee work satisfaction
• Retention
Library / Research
• Current awareness
• Aggregation of resources - internal & external
• Shared work / research space
Professional Development
• connecting with colleagues, mentors, experts
• attending seminars at different times, in different locations (webinars)
• learning on demand
• finding support from peers
Knowledge Management
• encourages culture of sharing / collaboration
• retaining content / knowledge (outside of email)
• making tacit knowledge explicit
• sharing knowledge for succession purposes
Enterprise-wide
• space in which to develop policy
• record and maintain quickly changing procedures
• engage everyone
• and: how can you “do more with less”??
And more:• crisis/emergency communications
(internal & external)
• customer service - co-ordinating issue resolution
• communicating & recognizing staff success stories
• crowd sourcing (if big enough staff
• research - mining content for major topics/themes of interest; providing real-time info on these themes
• library - social layer in the catalogue providing reviews, tagging, ratings, recommendations
T-systems says:
• It is no longer about storing knowledge...
• but about knowledge just in time
• this happens in formal networks
• ...and even more in informal networks
Social tools
• Crossing boundaries between employees
• Crossing boundaries between organizations
• Crossing boundaries between organizations and their clients or stakeholders
• Crossing boundaries among clients and stakeholders to create communities
Social media is people!
• Connect
• Communicate
• Share
• Collaborate
• Learn
http://www.socialsignal.com/cartoonused under Creative Commons
“Idle chatter” is how:
• staff learn to use the tools
• tacit knowledge is transferred
• teams are reinforced
• staff are engaged
Recommended Reading
www.gartner.com/thesocialorganization
The Social Organizationby Anthony J. Bradley & Mark P. McDonaldHarvard Business Review Press, 2011
Recommended Reading
www.charleneli.com/openleadership
Open Leadershipby Charlene LiJossey-Bass, 2010
Recommended Reading
http://www.russlinden.com/html/books_videos.htm
Leading Across Boundariesby Russ LindenJossey-Bass, 2010
Recommended Reading
Business Cases for Info Prosby Ulla de StrickerInformation Today, Inc., 2008
http://www.destricker.com/en/books.html
Effective Blogging for Librariesby Connie CrosbyThe Tech Set series,Neal-Schuman Publishinghttp://www.neal-schuman.com/ebl
Connie CrosbyCrosby Group Consulting
http://[email protected]
@conniecrosby@crosbygroup416-919-6719
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Thank you!
Image Credits
• “Podcamp Montreal 2008 71” (Jay Moonah) by Eva Blue - Flickr - used under Creative Commons - http://www.flickr.com/photos/evablue/2875304911/
• successful business woman on laptop by Search Engine People - Flickr - used under Creative Commons - http://www.flickr.com/photos/sepblog/3941048713/
• “A lot of networking going on..” by Jacob Bøtter - Flickr - used under Creative Commons - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakecaptive/15792280/
