Employee Social Networks as Infrastructure

I just watched the YouTube video “Keynote on Enterprise Social Network Adoption”

By Kai Riemer  at http://youtu.be/aFTfklrEOvA . What struck me the most was his realization that business cases and KPI measurements – stalwarts in many linear rollouts, are not most important drivers in for adoption. Instead, in this 30 minute video he shares his point-of-view and research on how “nudging,” leadership and community management are the keys instead.

About the video: Published on Sep 19, 2012

Captured at the CIO Strategy Summit in Surfers Paradise, at the Gold Coast, Australia on 28 August 2012.

Special Sauce for 2012

Maybe it's the New Year. Maybe it's because I've been recently inspired by a number of great professionals (like AT&T sharing what they are doing with their TSpace or hearing more about LinkedIn and Google+ from IABC and The Exchange). Maybe it's just my dumb optimism. But for sure, I am struck: 2012 is setting up to  be THE transformational year for business communicators. 

Why now? Why not 2010 or 2011 (when it seemed every month there was a new social tool to learn about?) because...

It's clear now a dozen social computing tools have hit their tipping point. Like blogging, wikis, polls, social networking, profile pages, blogs, RSS feeds, bookmarking, and or photo/ video share.  These are all now widely recognized (even by CEOs and HRs). Can you even remember the last time you had to explain what a blog was? 

Secondly, many large companies have deployed these tools, at least many that I have connected with... Sure, adoption can be low and in many cases people don't realize what they do and don't have available to them. But I think that's part of the opportunity for 2012.

Third in 2012 smart businesses are ready to evolve from the organic phase of exploration that has held us for the last two years.  In 2012, businesses need more maturity, more precision in how social tools should be applied.  The trick will be to do it well. 

Now its time for communicators and business analysts to get down to what we are good at: 

- understanding the business

- looking at how work happens through processes

- seeing where & how different stakeholders connect 

The opportunity for 2012 is in helping our businesses bravery redefine how work happens  so that it is more fun, more satisfying and produces better results by applying social media tools.  

  

Take advantage of those "sunny days"

I live in the US on the East Coast and this weekend there is a hurricane warning just days after my first earthquake. I can't help but think of the importance of having things in a ready enough state that if something goes wrong, errrr..., when something goes wrong, or really changes, so that you are best able to cope with the additional stress and things to do. I'm glad my husband and I decided to clean out our basement during a few sunny days this summer-- it won't be so bad when it (probably) gets flooded.


I can see how this same thing kinds happens within my work, too.
There are slower sunny days and you've got to take advantage of them.
They may not feel like "sunny days"-- but I bet you have experienced them.

These “sunny days” are the days that you are waiting, this is the time between when you have prepared for your big changes on your Intranet and when you can get implemented. I am struck by how very much time it takes to implement changes to an enterprise Intranet...after all, it takes time to align visions, to coordinate change requests, to bring different stakeholders together, to get resources and approval to move forward. But, make no doubt about it, these are your "sunny days." And, in the scheme of things, we only get a few of them, so we need to use them as opportunity to prepare.

Stay on the Line…

My phone rang the other night. It was a voice recording from one of my local government representatives. The recording said, “Stay on the line if you would like to be added to a live town hall meeting now in progress.” Of course I stayed on the line… partly because I’m an interested citizen but also because as an Internal Communications person, I just love stuff like this. I was fascinated by how easy it all seemed. All I had to do was stay on the line. My representative took the first five minutes to outline his views and then “went to the phone lines” inviting other citizens to call in and ask a questions. Before the hour long session was over, he took a phone poll asking us to rank the most important issues and reported the results immediately. Sure, there were a few hiccups, but overall, I was really impressed. I’m more educated after this call. I feel more connected to people in my community because of this call. My representative came off as a smart, thoughtful guy. And it wasn’t a big leap for me to imagine the value of this tactic as part of a corporate leadership communication strategy. Imagine, the CEO places a phone call and suddenly has a direct line to employees. How powerful could that be!

Has anyone something like this within their company? I’d love to hear about it...

4 Opportunities for Intranet Managers during an Expansion

I was checking out this list of retailers who plan to expand in 2010 and I started to think about what's sure to happen in each of these companies during their expansions. I came up with 4 things: 
1) New physical locations will start to go up. These can be stores or distribution centers, or manufacturing plants, or call centers, or other service office structures.
2) Their organizations will need more people. New people.
3) Depending on the scale of the expansion, there will probably be some operational growing pains. Or at least a renewed openness to think about how work happens.
4) And from the start, all of the employees at these companies will have a need to understand why the company is growing, how it plans to grow, and what’s happening right now.

See it? It’s all right there. Literately thousands of square feet of opportunity for an Intranet Manager or Information Strategist. How? Let’s unpack each one and brainstorm the possibilites together:

1) New physical locations.
Of course every expansion plan is different, but adding new locations almost always stretches the current support infrastructure. As an Intranet Manager what are the ways you can enable more “self-service” and “peer-to-peer” support for field employees? Can you get out there now and start talking to them, finding out what information they should be able to access on their own? Can you imagine new ways that social networking tools could enable field co-workers help each other more. 

2) More people. New People.
Once in expansion mode your company will need competent current employees (who are solid in the business culture of how things should be done) AND new co-workers (to take on new work in new places). What are some of the ways your Intranet could support both of these groups? For current co-workers, can you use your Intranet to enable volunteering for build-ups? Can it help them document and share knowledge? How can your Intranet help your company identify high-potential co-workers to fast-track?  For new co-workers, where does your Intranet super-charge your onboarding process? And lastly, how today is your Intranet and Internal Information strategies living and teaching your business culture and norms?

3) Operations people that are ready to re-think and scale current work processes.
During times of positive change there is often a new energy—a willingness to say, “whoa, we can’t do it like we did it in the past—we need to scale.” So look for those opportunities to strengthen your relationships with operational, sales, and marketing leaders now. Find out about what changes they have in mind and offer change management and communication support. Point out where you think technology and your Intranet could help them with what they are trying to do to drive sales and support the business.

4) Employees who want to be a part of it – and who may face tough changes ahead.
In my experience, expansion news is one of the top types of content employees want, because to them it is about “Jobs” and "Career Opportunity." What are the possibilities for your Intranet to help your CEO get the word out about the expansion and other business strategies? Can you setup a place on your Intranet for employees to read and see videos of the most recent ground breaking? How can you help new stores become a company-wide celebration?! On the flip side, growth isn't always a celebration. New locations can change distribution routes or organizational setups. Be on the lookout for opportunites to offer support when smart change communication can help. 

What do you think about these 4 opportunities? Do you have any suggestions or ideas to add?
Let me know what you think...