A Journey In Social Media

Taxonomies Again -- What Behavior Do We Want?

So, if you're following the recent posts, you'll realize we're cruising through another round of the taxonomy debate.

Our team came up with a clever proposal.  Our community didn't exactly take to it as we thought.

Which, of course, resulted in an interesting discussion around "what problem are we trying to solve here?" that was perhaps the most interesting learning from the whole experience.

So Much For Taxonomies

Well, in the last post I was optimistic that we had finally cracked the code here.

We were wrong.

And, in the process of watching what happened, we learned a few things that are probably worth sharing here.

A Breakthrough In Taxonomy?

Sorry, I haven't posted in a while.  Not only have I been busy on other stuff, there hasn't been that much new and exciting to report on our internal initiatives.

User count continues to grow, new communites spring up, new sources of business value are identified and celebrated -- it's all good, there's just nothing really "new" to talk about.

Until now.

Alternative Strategies For Justifying Social Productivity Software

So, as of late, I have been talking to people who are the "gotta justify it" point of their respective journeys.

And I came across one method of justification that just might work for you in your situation, and I wanted to share it.

A Disclaimer

I'm starting to get a lot of interest in these topics, as well as this blog in general.

I don't want to disappoint people, so I thought it might be time for a general purpose disclaimer.

Can Software Make You Smarter?

No, but I think it can make you more successful.

Yesterday, I was talking to our HR group -- an "all-hands" type of thing -- and I wandered into a few interesting areas that I thought important.

One of the things we're noticing on our platform is that people are becoming, well, better people.

An Example Of One Of Our Training Videos

We have this really bright guy as part of the team who's doing "viral videos", trying to help everyone get comfortable with the new platform.

He's getting really good.

As an example, if you want a quick laugh, check out this short clip on "How Do I Log In To EMC ONE?" -- our internal platform.  BTW, that's our #1 question these days ...

He's making an excellent point here.

No, you can't hire him -- he's working for us.

What's Your Organizational IQ?

Now, if that isn't a great opener for a yet-to-be-written pop business book, I don't know what is.

By IQ, I mean "innovation quotient".  How much is innovation embedded in your corporate DNA?

And the answer to this will have a lot to do whether your organization takes this whole E2.0 thing seriously or not.

IT + HR = SM

OK, that's a bizarre title for a blog post.

What's the intepretation?

Simple: IT and HR working together could be a great approach for social media proficiency in larger enterprises.

Hold that cynicism for just a moment while I explain.

Going Outside

Well, if you've been a regular reader of this blog, you'll probably remember one of my "Big Strategies" around all of this, e.g. let's get good at social media behaviors and skills "behind the firewall", and then -- when we venture outside the firewall -- we'll know what the hell we're doing out there.

That time is upon us, and some of the debates around this are interesting.

But, given our internal experience, I think we're well advantaged about how to think about the problem.

Justifying Social Software

It's true that most organizations won't move forward with significant investments without some sort of justification.

And it's also true that the category of "productivity software" is perhaps the most difficult thing to justify.

So, I thought I'd spend this post on the flavors of business value we're seeing from our internal environment.

Graduating Bloggers

As part of this blog, I try to capture "unexpected benefits" associated with our internal social media proficiency effort.

And, in this post, I'll celebrate our "graduating class" of proficient, external corporate bloggers.

Inside, Outside

At the recent Jive meeting, we had two clearly delineated groups there -- people who were focused on outside communities, and  people who were focused on insider communities.

IF you just sat and listened to how the two groups were using the product, what they wanted, etc. you might come away with the impression that there were two distinct use cases with not much commonality.

But, as the meeting progressed, I think these two groups will have more in common over time.

The Big Conversation

I flew out this week for Jive Software's first Customer Advisory Board. 

Yes, there were nice meals and a nice hotel, but what really did it for me was the interaction with the folks from Jive as well as other large enterprises doing similar things with their product.

And, as with any stimulating set of discussions, several ideas and concepts crystallized that I'd like to share here.

Passion: The Secret Ingredient?

We spend a lot of time as a team debating why certain people are getting proficient at social media (or 2.0 behaviors, or whatever you want to call them), and others -- well -- just aren't.

We've studied it from just about every angle I can think of.

But maybe, just maybe, we've stumbled on the quintessential ingredient that makes this stuff work.

Passion.  Maybe it's that simple -- and that hard.

Too Much Information

Well, we're starting to have what I'd call a "good" problem -- too much information being generated on our internal platform.

Our users are telling us that there's so much going on that they don't know where to direct their attention.

And, as a result, we're thinking through different ways to help mitigate the "problem".

Your Best Salesforce: Your Users

As I keep you apprised of our journey here, I want to point out unique, special -- and sometimes surprising -- things that are happening on our internal platform.

Our internal platform, EMC|ONE has been up since last September.  We're at 3,000 registered, named and participating users, and a much larger number of lurkers who've shown up to look around -- often repeatedly.

And we don't need to sell this thing internally anymore.  Our users are doing it for us.

That's cool.

On Conversational Collaboration

Well, I mentioned a few posts ago that my blog had been "discovered" by the E2.0 crowd.

One of the more interesting side effects was that many of my thoughts were pulled apart, analyzed and dissected by some pretty smart people. 

I withstood the blog-based proctology examination and still retained most of my dignity, but one interesting thread that intrigued me was the focus on the "conversational collaboration" model we had embraced.

Leave it to other people to tell you what you were really doing, but -- heck -- they were right.

And I thought it deserved a bit more commentary and introspection.

Organization Roles For Corporate Social Media

Well, now that I'm getting seen a bit more often here in the blogosphere, I guess I have to spend more time sharing what we've learned.

Today's discussion is about how we handled some of the new roles needed for an enterprise-wide rollout of this stuff. 

Your situation might be different, but new things sometimes require new roles to be thought about.

And boy, did we think about this.

Our Day Of Fame?

If you're using TypePad like I am, you probably look at your web hit stats, hopefully on a not-too-obsessive basis.

Well, I usually get 40-60 hits in a day.  On Monday, it went to 250. 

What's up?

I think we got our day of fame, so to speak ...

Progress Is Now Coming In Big Chunks ...

Sometimes, I forget to visit this blog and share with you just how well things are going with our little initiative. 

Let me give you a preview: I'm delighted.  Sure, one set of problems disappear only to reveal the next set of challenges, but I think that's a good problem to have, isn't it?

So let's catch up!

Of Parallel Projects and Compound Wikis

I promised you I'd share all the major twists and turns of our journey here, and we're coming through an interesting interaction between other projects, specific requirements, and corporate interplay.

Setting up the story will take a while, but the outcome is good (I think), and I'm guessing that this sort of issue will frequently pop up in larger enterprises that are considering social media platforms.

The Hosting Problem

So, we've hit a little speed bump in our uber social media journey here, and it has to do with finding a hosting model that works.

Sounds like a little thing, but it's turning out to be a big thing.

And, I'm guessing you'll run into this one as well, so you might want to follow this thread.

We Are Now Corporate Legit

I'd like to say we had a well-defined plan to move from prototype to pilot to early adopters to mainstream, but -- like all things web 2.0-ish -- things happen at their own pace, and -- occasionally -- in ways that you don't expect.

This week, I think we made a phase transition from "interesting project" to "corporate legit".

Let me explain.

Clearspace Alternatives

I don't know if all of you know how blogs work on TypePad, but we all get a stats panel, and we can see where people are coming in.

One of the most popular avenue, not surprisingly, is searches.  And if you click on the link, you can see what people were searching for.

I've gotten more than a few hits on "Clearspace alternatives" or similar, so I thought I'd offer my thoughts on this.

And, no, I'm not getting paid by Jive Software for this ;-)

Here Come The Big Communities

I believe that the ultimate value of social media revolves around a central idea: communities.  Groups of like-minded people sharing information and collaborating in unstructured ways.  For me, that's the mother lode, the jackpot, the singular goal.

When we talk about our social media initiatives, I've brainwashed everyone to talk in terms of communities: community identification, formation, growth, development, management, leverage, etc.

And we're starting to see some proposals for some pretty big and hairy communities start to form.

The Corporate Blogger Conundrum

Part of using social media as a business strategy is using SM techniques (e.g. blogging) to reach customers and influence perspectives.

I am a corporate blogger.  All false modesty aside, I am considered a very successful and influential corporate blogger in our little corner of the market.  If you're interested, see here.

But we're wrestling with some interesting strategic problems as we try to scale corporate blogging, and integrate it better into other things going on.

And, like most things, there are no easy answers.

Learning To Swim

I've written before how I believe that social media success has everything to do with new behaviors, skills, roles, etc. -- it's not so much about the platform and technology (although you DO need a place to do this), it's more about how you use it.

And -- like all behaviors -- we've noticed a certain reticence in the masses to adopt many of these new behaviors.

Sure, we have our early (and vocal) adopters.  But for every one of those, there are literally hundreds who are watching, and not participating.

And we've given a LOT of thought on how to improve the situation.

Private Vs. Public Spaces

One of the things I try to do here is to capture the interesting debates we have over guiding principles associated with our Social Media effort, expose you to the thinking, and recap what we did and why.

My only hope is that you'll get some value from the discussions you're likely to enter into, and might be a bit forewarned as to the various tradeoffs.

We've just crossed the threshold on this discussion, so here's what happened.

We're Cool Now

Sorry for the absence, it's been busy.  There's a lot to talk about.

I gave some consideration around a "big thought" to capture the spirit of where we are now.

I think "coolness" is a good way to describe it. 

We're cool now.

I Guess I Owe You An Update

Just realized it'd been a while since I caught everyone up on how our little journey is going.

There's good news all around -- and a lot more to do.

So, let me catch you up ...

Revolutionary Vs. Evolutionary

I keep kicking myself when I have to learn the same lesson over and over again.

I can get pretty passionate about new ideas and new concepts.  Sometimes, I think they're going to change the world, or at least a significant portion of it.

What I fail to repeatedly grasp is that -- yes, I'm right -- but the pace of change can be so relatively measured that it feels very natural and evolutionary.

And our little social media effort is no exception.

More Lessons Learned

Near as I can figure, our behind-the-firewall social media platform has been up for two months.

And we're starting to see results -- not actually what we expected -- but satisfying and valuable nonetheless.

And, like all experiences, it's starting to change my notions of the value of social media and collaboration, especially in larger settings.

Life is just full of surprises, isn't it?

Warning: Social Engineering Ahead

As we progress along in this journey, one step forward lets you see what the next step might be.

Putting up the behind-the-firewall platform was an important step.  And we've been out and around socializing our new capability to many internal groups here.

And we're finding that perhaps the most daunting thing we face is culture.

I've started to use the term "social engineering" to describe a methodical approach to changing people's attitudes, perceptions and behaviors.

And that's what we're gonna have to do here.

The "Social" in "Social Media"

We are now several weeks into our effort.

And we are spending the majority of our time and effort on behavioral and skills issues.

Having our behind-the-firewall platform available was like a powerful searchlight that illuminated the depths of these issues.

And I'm now frequently thinking that this is more of a social engineering project than anything else.

What The Market Needs ...

So, as I've been looking at various technologies in this arena, I've come away with the distinct impression that there's a huge gap in the market.

I'd like to see that gap plugged.  Maybe even plugged by EMC, in the best-of-all-worlds.

Simply put: today you can by chocolate, and you can buy peanut butter, but no Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are available today.

Of Chargeback Models And Business Outcomes

Reality bites again!

If wer're going to have 35,000 people at EMC using a social media platform, who's going to pay for it?

Remember: it's licenses, hardware and people.

Now, I'm not arguing that it doesn't need to be paid for.

But how it's paid for is turning into an interesting discussion.

Whew -- Things Are Moving (Way Too) Fast

My apologies on not keeping you up-to-date on our progress here.

It's all good.  It's just that it's coming fast and furious now, and I'm struggling to keep ahead of the wave.

Usually, I like to write thoughtful pieces on a particular aspect or issue we've encountered.

Maybe this post is "be careful what you ask for, you just might get it"

What Is Collaboration?

Words matter here.

And I'm starting to notice two distinct modes of thinking as people approach this topic.

You're going to have to pick what's important to you, I think.

Here goes.

Striking The Balance

Social media tools (or collaboration, or email, or ...)

By now, many people at EMC really "get it" that this is the next big thing to propel our company forward.  It changes the way we interact and contribute to EMC's success.

But there's a very hairy debate looming -- and the answer will define not only the future of social media at EMC, but at every company on the planet that attempts this.

And there's no easy answer.

Controlled environment and rollout?  Or an experiment in emergent behaviors?

This is one of the key debates that's emerging in companies deploying social media.

And, I believe, both sides are wrong.