And Now The Real Work Begins ...

So, if you're following the story so far, we've launched our internal platform as a "phase one" of a general approach to increasing social media proficiency at EMC.

There's been some successes already, to be sure, but now it's clear that the real work has only now just begun.

The Good News

All sorts of people are jumping on the platform, which has been live for about two weeks.

We've seen dozens of community proposals, most of which are pretty cool.  There are some new voices in the internal blogosphere, which is very welcome.

People are finding each other in unique and non-intuitive ways.  The platform is connecting people and ideas in ways that we could only hope for.

But, despite some early wins, it's clear that there's a bunch more work that lies ahead of us.

Tactical Challenges

We have more than a few people who bounce around a bit once they "discover" the platform.  They ask questions that have already been answered.  They fail to read the docs.  They get frustrated, and post aggressive or assertive questions that are a bit inappropriate.

Part of social media skills is learning how to size up an environment when you're new to it.  Just like you wouldn't go barging into a party and start acting inappropriately, the same statement applies to any social media platform.

On one hand, it's good that we're teaching people this important yet subtle social media behavior.  On the other hand, it's a lot of work to patiently respond to each and every party-crasher that shows up.

I hope that over time the community starts helping out in this regard.  But if we don't stay on top of it -- at least during the first few weeks/months -- we won't have an inviting, friendly space that encourages people to participate.

We also have a small problem with inappropriate discussions.  Sure, it's great to start a new discussion, but we see people launching off into all sorts of dimensions for which there are no good answers, and often little practical business value.

My thinking is that this sort of thing ends up frustrating people.  It frustrates the question-asker, since they're looking for someone to patiently explain that which very often cannot be easily explained.  And it frustrates the readers, since it's obvious that the platform is supposed to meet the needs of the users.

I'm hopeful that this is mostly a maturity thing, and that over time, people realize what's useful to chat about, and what isn't.  We'll see.

A third problem is arising in community building.  We get these great proposals for new communities, we approve them, we create the space, and then ... well, nothing.  The people who took the time to create the proposal aren't following through with the basic steps of building their communities.

I don't know whether its because they don't know what to do, or got busy, or somehow think that communities spontaneously generate around a topic.  I'm looking for a full-time community coach to help with this problem, because it'll be a killer unless we surmount it.

And There Are A Few Strategic Challenges Looming

I think about communities in terms of business value to EMC.  It's easy for me to look at a community proposal and assign it a rough weighting in terms of overall impact to EMC's business model.

We're getting lots of proposals in the mid-to-lower levels in terms of business value.  Each community has intrinsic value, and -- since the incremental cost of a new community is near to zero -- one school of thought is the more the merrier.

But, at the same time, we're not seeing proposals for high-value communities come through.  And I'm not quite sure why this is, but I better figure it out sooner than later.

Is it too much work?  Do the people involved feel uncomfortable with the idea?  Is there not enough ownership and sponsorship?  Have we made it too hard?  Are there not enough role models around?  Am I just too damn impatient?

I just don't know yet. 

But I do know that the overall business impact of social media rests on the formation of high-value communities.  And if we're not seeing those, well, there's a problem with the whole strategy.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to spend some time digging into this area, and I'll let you know what I find.

The Ending Is Just The Beginning

It's be easy to say "well, we've got our Clearspace platform up and running, so we're done". 

Nothing could be farther than the truth.  Getting the platform up and running only enabled us to discover where the real work might lie, and it's turning out to be a considerable effort.

I suppose that's what makes all of this so darn interesting ...

Comments

[Garrett Dimon]

I can't speak for everyone, but with our community, we're doing a lot of preparation before we dive in and just start posting.

We're trying to take a fairly structured approach to how we get it rolling, and are hoping to see some real activity pretty soon.

I think it's important not to dismiss inactivity in a community in its first couple of weeks. Give it some time, and I'm willing to bet you'll see some of them really take off.

I'm also really curious what kind of communities you would consider high-value? Or, alternatively, do you have any ideas why the proposals have been along the lines they currently are?

[Chuck Hollis]

Thanks for the encouragement to be patient. It is note something that comes easily to me.

From my perspective, the high-value communities are the ones where customers would want to eventually engage.

Topics that are interesting only to EMC are useful, to be sure. But I'm keeping a special eye on those that I believe our customers and prospects would find interesting.