Community Casebook

Company Twitter

In  "BT Richard's" post, as previously mentioned, he discusses examples of Internal and External social media use and wonders if a better approach couldn't be found to provide more of a One Stop Shopping (my words) experience.

They've developed an internal version of Twitter, but employees also use the real Twitter (external in reach), including his team!  What do they do with it? Well, the use Grouptweet, ideal because they are in large a remote workforce! In Richard's words they "can bond and share on an on-going basis." He is sure it will have a "positive effect on team dynamics". They also use  Twhirl, a desktop client that makes for more of an email experience. I beam when I read, "I think this is a really good example of how the intranet has become more than just web pages behind a firewall."

BT also launched a full enterprise social network and is intelligently incorporating/integrating content from Twitter and Blogs... so that a profile can truly reflect the person and their thought contributions. Not sure how these integations relate to the complaint of multiple versions (internal/external), but I'll let you know after I speak with him and find out!

"Crowdsourcing Turns Business on its Head"

A colleague sent me a link today to a great article about crowdsourcing for innovation. "Crowdsourcing" is more or less a Web 2.0 kind of terminology- at least I've heard it used most by community companies building ROI arguments for social networks. To be sure about it, I checked the ultimate collaborative glossary.

"Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call... The term has become popular with business authors and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals."

We'll follow this notion and case studies/examples as we go forth with Community Casebook. Here's one interesting example from a shoe company, RYZ, whose CEO, Rob Langstaff, who used to lead Adidas, admits, according to the article, "that giving consumers control is humbling — and risky. But, he says, 'it's almost less risky to have most talented actors on your stage than to try to do it yourself.'"

Another expert in the article, MIT professor Eric von Hippel, an "expert in innovation management," indicates this is "the biggest paradigm shift in innovation since the Industrial Revolution... For a couple hundred years or so, manufacturers have been really imperfect at understanding people's needs. Now people get to decide what they want for themselves."

I supposed if the right technology is in place to allow for truly efficient and creative online crowdsourcing techniques, and the community also facilitates employee interactions to process suggestions and pass them through the internal network of the organization efficiently, from marketing to product development and beyond, the customers won't only decide what they want for themselves- they might also actually GET it! And therein, money- and loyal customers- will be made.

Social Networking meet Recruiting- what to know

LinkedIn's biggest asset is arguably the data it has about, and the access it provides to, some 23 million professionals.  This allows for targeted advertising, as well as targeted recruiting. With the launch of LinkedIn Recruiter back in March, companies with corproate staffing licenses can search from nearly all of the 23 million- person database to source for matches to job opportunities.  While there is no guarantee the owner of a LinkedIn profile will reply and accept connection to discuss an opportunity, a recruiter is far more likely to connect through LinkedIn's InMail system boasting a 60% open rate.  Clearly, this far exceeds quality, contact and exposure with traditional career sights and sourcing methodologies.

LinkedIn's Company Insider adds another interesting and compelling aspect to the job search process. It shows a prospective candidate, or a recruiter, the path of connection between a person, a job, and a company. If you are looking for a job and find a posting on LinkedIn, you can then see who you know that has contacts the company and a route of connectivity to find out more about the opportunity... The same is true for a recruiter that may be interested in a candidate; he or she can see the best path of connectivity to make a connection through a shared social network on LinkedIn. Taleo announced in June an integration with LinkedIn for its SMB ATS solution, and we are sure to see a trend towards ATS vendors seeking this integration to optimize their social networking took sets. 

A bevy of companies are entertaining solutions with both LinkedIn and Facebook, Facebook reaching a considerably larger audience, and LinkedIn serving the professional set with arguably more business-minded tools.

Banning Access to Social Networks?

It seems that 40%-50% of businesses currently ban access to social networking sites like Facebook, even access to professional networking sites like LinkedIn.  Is the control worth the risk? Is it possible you might loose employees that may not appreciate corporate social media policies?

Surveyed employees have definitely stated a strong preference for connectivity and networking in their business lives.  Some 70%-80% feel social connectivity is essential, even critical, at work.

Today I read that a recent survey of 1000 European office workers revealed:

• 39% of 18 to 24 year-olds would consider leaving if they were not allowed to access sites like Facebook and YouTube
• A further 21%indicated that they would feel ‘annoyed’ by such a ban
• The problem is less acute with 25 to 65 year-olds, of whom just 16 per cent would consider leaving and 13 per cent would be annoyed

By the way, it points out, in Canada, 90% of 18-34 year-olds use Facebook – that's 9 million people! The article then asked, "Can you imagine the results in North America?".  The stats I've read are not quite as high but remain strongly compelling.

I look at this and sense a communications preference and a shift in communications trends. What about embracing it and using it to your advantage? What about a company Facebook and LinkedIn strategy, and integration of a company Social Network drive engagement and retention, while gaining some of the recruiting, marketing and productivity advantages that social networks can offer?

Or, is it easier to ban access, proceed with business as usual...  To quote that infamous TV Dr., "Well, how's that working for you?"

Sophisticated Solutions

Let's look at a particularly impressive, sophisticated solution:

Agile Commons is a community online, publicly available at www.agilecommons.org, that serves a user-community of those who work with the Agile software development methodology.  In effect, it is a learning and collaboration center, with multiple layers of community participation.

Multi-layer, Multi-Function Community: viewed on the top navigation bar, the community offers a Rally Community for Rally Software employees, customer and partners within the overall Agile Commons community, as well as a learning center through Agile University, and members area for registered "Agilistas".

• Member Level Permissions: every member is served content to match the level of access based on membership type.  In some cases, one may be able to view but not comment. In other cases, content view may be restricted and viewers' pages may be populated only by permissioned content and activities.
• Customer Service: alleviating call load by offering a community-driven knowledge base and peer to peer support, with participation by agile employees as well as Agile customers and partners.
• One Stop Shopping for networking, learning and sharing in Agile Commons!

Case Studies- Connecting Professional Expertise

Let's look at a few more case studies of note with regard to the importance of connecting professional expertise for learning and development competitive advantage, as well as for ensuring productivity and best practices in the workplace.

While the client names must remain confidential, a focus on purpose, features and functionality tells us plenty:

• A professional organization launched a SaaS community (software as a service, alleviating IT integration and hosting costs and limitations) to support the connection, social-networking style, of professionals in the financial/accounting field. The community allows them to discuss new and pertinent topics, upload documents for collaboration, comment together to evaluate and interpret new laws and rulings, and to share and learn from best practices. (more below)

• In another professional organization example, an environmental design organization serving environmentally compliant companies launched a community to facilitate collaboration and education, as well as evaluation of and learning from best practices for the environmental packaging and design industry.  Practitioners can talk about issues, educate one another, learn, and create awareness, upload and discuss design files and other creative content, as well as connect with peers social-networking style.

Where you place your money...

According to a recent article sent my way, Ed Moran, a Deloitte consultant, recently did a study of more than 100 businesses with online communities. Apparently, many sites failed to gain important traction (usership), despite investments in flashy technology.

"Thirty-five percent of the online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members – 6% of these businesses spent over $1 million on their community projects. “A disturbingly high number of these sites fail,” Moran tells us... about 30% of the businesses Deloitte studied have only one part-time worker in charge of their communities. Most other businesses put a single marketing pro [but not necessarily community pro] in charge of their sites."

The article cites that potential blunders include "a tendency to get seduced by bells and whistles and blow their online-community budget on technology," a failure to put someone experienced in charge of the project, and a tendency to monitor meaningless metrics such as number of site visits vs. Google rankings or inbound links.

From a marketing standpoint, I would add that community activity, content value, contributions, time spent on the community or company website (as linked to from the community), increase in average sales dollar value, valuable customer insights, and even customer peer-to-peer support are measurable and valuable through thoughtful analysis.

From an HR standpoint, community activity, content value, contributions, and time spent on the community are all quite valuable from a soft-ROI perspective, and increase in applications/recruits, increase in retention and new business referrals all through the community have quantifiable and powerful ROI implications (as referenced in postings throughout this site).

 

Article from the Belfast Telegraph

Source: Bellfast Telegraph

"... too many of us in this part of the world think bricks-and-mortar first and internet second, if at all. The problem has been outlined in stark detail by the research company Gartner (www.gartner.com). Its recent survey, conducted in 18 countries, identified a failure to engage with the phenomenon of social networking — even though it has the potential to increase savings and improve productivity. So what kind of things can social networking help with?

Take the PR company Edelman (www.edelman.com). It recently revealed that it had managed to take 1% off its bottom line merely by using social networks as a recruitment tool. The recruits they managed to take on were a better ‘fit’ with the company, too...

Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0... more than just collaborative content...

These ideas are lifted from a whitepaper/profile by Matthew D. Lees, Vice President and Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group, about "Building Blocks for Customer Community and Collaboration".

"Web 2.0 world is demonstrated by its non-hierarchical information architecture. Data structures in the Web 1.0 (and earlier) worlds exemplify hierarchical constructs, with their comfortably fixed directories and well-defined taxonomies. Web 2.0, on the other hand, emphasizes flat systems, where personal and group (folksonimic) tagging reigns."

It isn’t just about the information. The idea of a social networking platform supports the creation and organic growth and content flow of social networks among members... which facilitates the management of members, content, contributions, knowledge sharing and content collaboration. (In my view, it puts people at the center of content management.)

"Ideally, members have a considerable amount of control over how, whether, and with whom their profile information is shared. Member permissions can be set at multiple points, giving both community administrators and [permissioned users] ample control over who has access to what within those areas."

More about a unique approach

... and then I promise to get back to the case studies...

I read an interesting analyst report today assessing HiveLive's place in the complex and broad metaverse of white label community and social networking companies. Here's a little bit of info, some highlights, and a bit more detailed reading is below. You can download the complete report on HiveLive's website.

"HiveLive’s LiveConnect is one of the most creatively designed and original community platforms we’ve seen. A hosted system with a building-block approach, it gives both users and administrators wide-ranging flexibility to create unique spaces for collaboration and communication inside and outside your organization..."

LiveConnect’s building blocks, called “Hives,” can be configured to support conventional social applications (such as discussion boards, blogs, polls, and so on) as well as custom community applications... to meet exact needs...differentiates LiveConnect from other platforms."

LiveConnect users have created Hives to be media archives, idea centers, file exchanges, software marketplaces, and more [announcements, contact lists, polls, idea centers, research libraries, content libraries, video libraries, book lists, file exchanges, photo galleries, meeting agendas/minutes, marketplaces].

LiveConnect strengths are in its [Hive construct,] social networking and member management (and permissioning) system, its straightforward integration of widgets (such as YouTube videos, Google Calendars, and Flickr slideshows), and its easy-to-use thumbs-up / thumbs-down rating system.

... It looks and feels different, and it is. This is largely due to HiveLive’s approach to de-sign, which focuses on users (and the relationships among them) and information, not technology."