A Journey In Social Media

The Last Post

Life is a journey, isn't it?

Back in August 2007, I started sharing with you how I and a few others embarked on a journey to transform our company into a 2.0-savvy enterprise.

Now, almost two years later, it's almost time for me to move on to another role at my company.

But before I close off this chapter, I wanted to share a few final thoughts with everyone.

Respecting Control

As we make our journey forward, we're getting more recognition, as well as encountering a few new learnings.

As a recent example, yesterday I got an email from someone who attended a recent IDC conference, and EMC's external EMC Community Network (ECN) went up on the big screen as an example of "good" corporate external social media.

All of that is great, but what's more interesting to me are the new learnings along the way.  And I'd like to share one today.

Jive's 3.0 Release

No, I am not a paid endorser for Jive Software.

Neither EMC nor myself receive any special considerations for what we say about them.  And, behind the scenes, we beat them up as badly as we beat up all of our other technology vendors.

No, it's just that we really, really like what they're doing.

And Jive's recent 3.0 release -- now Social Business Software -- reflects that thinking

Social People and The Big Conversation

Sometimes you get things right.  Whether you're smart, or lucky, or a bit of both -- it should be a moment for rejoicing since it doesn't happen as often as you'd like :-)

It's struck me that when we put our overall corporate social media strategy together, there were two big themes: encouraging social media skills and applying them to ever-wider conversations.

Looks like that was the right thing to do ...

Understanding Corporate Twitter

Yesterday was an all-day learning experience. 

I was taking time off, but wanted to spend a whole day getting to understand the dynamics of microblogging (specifically Twitter) with my corporate social media hat on.

I had previously spent time searching Twitter and other microblogging sites, and had signed up for a few, but had never really dove into the deep end, so to speak.  Well, I finally did.

It was an eye-opener, to put it mildly.

Two Approaches To Proficiency

By now, you've probably figured out that I'm not all that involved in the day-to-day of EMC's social media efforts.  I mean, I still know what's going on, I'm just usually the spectator these days.

That's good.  Frankly speaking, I wouldn't want to be the bottleneck in something so important.  At some point, you have to get out of the way, and let things take on a life of their own.

Thought I'd share with you two interesting developments on how we're improving our overall proficiency -- one formal, one informal.

We Just Keep Cruising Along

Sorry I haven't updated everyone in a while -- no big news, just a steady stream of good things happening.

All of this 2.0 stuff is now so ingrained in everything we do as a company, it's getting harder to pull out one big thing, or another. 

Extending The Discussion

I love blogging. Your sweat and you write and you post -- and every so often you get the chance to have a detailed conversation with someone you'd never ordinarily engage with.

Such is the case today -- I came to work and found myself scrolling through a multi-page thoughtful comment from John Tropea. 

Rather than responding with another multi-page comment, I decided to put the discussion in a post, and respond (hopefully) conversationally.

When Your Corporate Social Platform Becomes Mission Critical

Life is full of learning experiences, and we had one yesterday.

A minor patch to our environment exposed underlying database corruption, which resulted in our internal social platform being unavailable for almost a full business day. 

The backups?  They were corrupt as well.

Thanks to the exceptional effort of everyone involved, nothing significant was really lost.

Sure, there are lessons to be learned on proper support practices for important applications (and our social platform is now one of those), but there are other lessons to be learned as well.

A Big Upgrade

At the end of last week, we upgraded to Clearspace 2.5x.  Wow!

We have a plethora of cool new features, and a spiffy new skinning as well.  I wanted to share a screen shot with you, simply because it came out so gorgeous.

Congrats to Jamie, Len and the rest of the team who sweated all the gory details (not to be shared here!), and gave us such a wonderful social platform to use!

(click for expanded view)

Giving Back, And A Request For Help

Hi everyone!

We've been asked over and over again for some sort of white paper overview on our whole social media proficiency experience.

Well, I've finally taken the time to write one. 

It's not perfect, but maybe you could help to make it better?

Those Who Talk vs. Those Who Do

Sorry, I need to get something off my chest. 

And I may alienate a portion of the community in doing so. 

But -- well -- something needs to be said.

A Really Open Conversation

I said that I'd share with you various stories as we learn to use our social media capabilities in new and interesting ways.

Well, one of those situations are upon us now.  And, truth be told, we're handling it pretty well.

You see, we're using our internal platform to help communicate less-than-positive news internally.

An Object Lesson On The Value Of Social Media Proficiency

I still see many companies out there furiously searching for the magical "ROI" that will create the case for investing in social media proficiency.

Cynically, though, the very fact that they're looking for an ROI silver bullet that will somehow magically convince naysayers and other risk-adverse types is an oxymoron in itself, IMHO.

So, let me share the news.  Today, we used our social media machine to accomplish something big and visible that we just couldn't have done any other way. 

Convergence with the 1.0 World

As we move along in our journey, I'm pleased to share with you the harder questions we have to wrestle with, how we're making our decisions, and how it all turns out -- for better or worse.

No one has written the definitive book on this stuff (yet!), so we all should feel free to use our best collective judgment in deciding to go one way or another. 

And now, we're getting to a very interesting discussion on this whole "2.0 vs. 1.0" thing.

I don't have any answers yet, but it's turning out to be interesting, to say the least.

It's Always Been Here -- Hasn't It?

Had the experience of meeting a relatively new employee at EMC the other day -- she had been here for less than a year.

I mentioned that I was sorta involved in our internal and external proficiency efforts, including the EMC|ONE platform, and I came away with some new insights that were a bit surprising.

Tough Times Accelerate Cultural Change?

No surprise, it looks like we're headed for a sustained period of tough economic times.

The hurricane has blown through, metaphorically speaking.  Now it's many long months of cleanup and getting back to normal, or maybe redefining what "normal" might be.

But there might be a silver lining to this economic storm.

The "Social" In Social Computing

Something very interesting and unusual happened on the internal platform last week.

I wasn't paying close attention (busy with other things) so I almost missed it.

I can't really describe the business value in quantitative terms, but I know it was very important and very cool.  I just can't measure it, though.

New Learnings Begin

First, let me apologize for not contributing to this blog for quite some time.

One reason is that -- well -- it all was going pretty well.  Another reason is that I got very engaged in other unrelated pursuits.

But -- we're back -- and we now are encountering new kinds of problems as we move outside the firewall.

Does It Make Sense To Have A Corporate Presence On (insert name of popular social platform here)?

I promised you I'd share with you the interesting aspects of our journey.

And I think I've got another one.

The good news: we've got lots and lots of people across the company who are intrigued and passionate about this whole web 2.0 thing -- and are starting to realize that conversations will be king.

The challenging part -- we're seeing the same sort of question being asked over and over again.

Reactions to Clearspace 2.5

Well, the big news today is that Jive launched the latest version of Clearspace 2.5

And -- if anything -- I feel vindicated that we picked the right product and the right company when we got started on this a year or so ago.

Now, I haven't done any hands-on yet, but here's what I can see so far:

Moving Outside The Firewall

In my last post, I offered up the analogy that our journey was like an airplane trip, and -- at least for our internal effort -- we were at cruising altitude.

I was a bit premature.  Now we're about to land, and connect onward to another leg of our journey -- going outside of the firewall.  There'll be a bit of chaos as we get off one flight, and on to the next ...

And it's going to be nice to get back to cruising altitude soon ...

Life At 35,000 Feet

This whole subject of social media proficiency and enterprise 2.0 begs for analogies, so let me try a new one on you:

Getting good at this stuff is like an airplane trip.

At the outset of an airplane journey, it's all hassle.  Finding the right flight, getting to the airport, dealing with security, disposing of all your liquids, taking off your shoes -- awful stuff.  At the gate, it's lousy food, no seats, delays and weather, airplanes full of cranky people -- none of it fun.

Eventually, it's time for takeoff.  Lots of rumbling, vibrations and strange noises.  If you've never flown before, you look around and wonder "is all of this normal?".

Finally, you break through the clouds.  The captain turns off the seat belt sign.  Everyone relaxes and settles in.  Drinks are served.  You're on your way.

Well, we're pretty much at that stage in our journey.  We're at cruising altitude.

Before You Go Social, Consider Content

In my travels and discussions on this topic, we often get into an exploration of the interplay between social software (interactions between people) and enterprise content management (the stuff we all use).

And I've come to the viewpoint that many people are considering bypassing an important step in their evolution and proficiency. 

Whether intentional or not, it deserves some exploration.

A Humbling Experience

You know, you go through life thinking you've got some stuff figured out, and -- one day -- you get "schooled" in a very shocking (and beneficial) manner.

I had just such an experience today.

I have seen the future of corporate social media in a way that I did not believe was possible.

I saw it working in ways that I thought were many years away.

And I'm going to have to re-evaluate a few things as a result.

Finally, Product Communities?

I got into this whole social media proficiency thing about a year ago.

My goal? 

Transform how my company (EMC) does business using social techniques.

I am of the belief that communities are perhaps the most valuable social media construct.  And, if one is to think like a corporate strategist, the highest value comes from communities that are aligned with a company's core value propositions.

At its core, EMC is a product and technology company. 

So, of course, one of my early goals were broad, powerful product communities that stretched outside the corporate firewalls.

And -- here we are -- almost a year later -- and we're finally starting to see a grass-roots groundswell in this direction.

So, in the spirit of sharing with others who are trying to do the same thing for their companies, I think it's worth a discussion of just what took so long ...

Action and Reaction

Sorry about not keeping up here -- I'm saving the posts here for interesting questions and/or challenges we come across in our journey.

And a few weeks ago, we stumbled into another one.

And it's going to be interesting ...

Ruminations On Justification

I've been spending more time than usual thinking about the value we're getting from our internal platform -- how best to describe it, can we get any more, etc.

And, slowly, I'm starting to build a mental framework for what we're seeing here.

Community Development Is Hard Work

So, as we progress along, we still aren't forming "vibrant communities" around business-oriented topics as well as I'd like.

That's for a variety of reasons, but one big one stands out -- it's hard work.

And bridging this gap is turning out to be important.

In Pursuit Of Process Change

I was discussing with one of our execs the progress we'd been making on social media proficiency internally.

And he asked a great question that made me think:

"So, has anyone fundamentally changed their work processes because of the platform?"

And I realized this is the next frontier on what's turning out to be a large-scale social engineering project.

Jeopardy Aftermath

I think you've figured out by now that I really like what Jive Software is doing in this social productivity software space.  Nobody's perfect, but they're still on top, in my book.

And -- at Jive -- there's nobody as fun and creative as Sam Lawrence.  If you aren't following his blog, you should.

Sam created a uniquely Sam-ish marketing event recently: a Jeopardy-like panel with noted luminaries, including my favorite Jeremiah Owyang, another must-follow visionary in this space.

I wasn't able to participate, but an incredible list of questions was created that I found fascinating.  I also realized I had some specific points of view on many of them. 

Matter of fact, I felt compelled to respond to most of them ... ;-)

So, not to hijack anyone's thoughts, but I thought it would be interesting to cull out a few, and offer up my personal thoughts, based on our experiences here.

A Big Leap Forward?

Sorry I haven't been so active on this blog lately.

Why?  Well, it's all going pretty well -- no news is good news, right?

Both quantitatively and qualitatively, the platform continues to grow, and grow, and grow.

But recently, a new initiative got kicked off that's poised to take our company's social media proficiency into a much higher gear.

And it's just a bit scary ...

Mobile Productivity

I'm writing this post from my BlackBerry as II sit waitbing for my plane to depart. The future of social software is most definitely mobile.

Social Software: Freestanding or Layered?

Had an interesting phone interview the other day, and we got into the topic above, which I found interesting.

We both agreed that we were going to see far more social software in the enterprise in the coming years.  The question was more about architecture -- would these software packages be purchased and deployed as free-standing entities, or would they be thought more in terms of a "layer" over something else already in the enterprise.

And, if you're aspiring to be a social media proficiency practitioner (as I am) -- or a vendor that's selling to people like me -- the answer might matter to you.

More on "Going Outside"

Well, we've had our internal platform for a while, and we're more than ready to go outside and start having external conversations (beyond our growing blogging corps, that is).

I wrote a while back about how we're preparing to "go outside" in a thoughtful way.

Lately, though, we've added some thinking to our overall approach that might be useful to you as well.

Building Your Blogging Corps

Most of these posts have been around how we're rolling out the platform, getting communities to form, justifying, and so on.

And, as I was thinking about things the other day, I realized I hadn't exposed all of you to another major theme of what we've been working on -- building a corps of proficient, outside-the-firewall bloggers doing so on behalf of the corporation.

And, once again, I think we've hit upon a pretty good approach -- one that I don't see being employed too much by other companies.

So -- let me share.

A Cross Post From My Other Blog

I actually got started on this blogging thing by writing about the company I work for: EMC.

As corporate blogs go, it's generally well-regarded.  I get the freedom to write about just about anything I find interesting (within certain common sense boundaries), and -- as a result -- I am told it is one of the more influential blogs in our little corner of the industry.

A lot of you are interested in this "E2.0" topic because, well, you're interested.

But mainline IT organizations are starting to get really interested about this stuff as well.

And, if you' d like to see it through their eyes, check out this.

Taking The Next Big Step

Well, I've decided that we're at a bit of an inflection point here.

We've exceeded all of our initial expectations. 

We've created far more value than we had any right to expect.

And now, I think it's time to step back, and think a bit around "where do we go from here?"

Getting The Mindset Right

Found this great post over at Infovark that captures the essence of what makes these social media proficiency projects so hard.

Now, if you're a classical-type person, how would you react to the chart at the bottom?

Worth a quick read ...

Requests From The Community

So, along the way, I've gotten on some email distros of people who are trying to do pretty much the same thing we're doing here.

I thought I'd share the recent traffic -- if you're interested ...