Great tips in this post for conversations to encourage leaders to engage in enterprise social media.
Category: Collaboration
NAB Case Study: Australian Sharepoint Conference – April 2013
When social tools go viral – Yammer, social media, Facebook – CIO
S.O.C.I.A.L
This study includes analysis of a NAB case study. A great conclusion:
Most notable however is that this network shows an elaborate and more pronounced idea-generation practice than we have observed in other networks. A closer look at the content of these conversations reveals the benefit for the corporation when viewed from an organisational learning perspective. For example, in more than a quarter of all instances employees brainstorm matters of corporate strategy, work philosophy, working conditions and sustainability. Furthermore, people engage in dis- cussions about their immediate work processes, exchanging ideas that can be influenced and implemented by the employees themselves. Interestingly, there are also a number of conversations about improvements to or developments of new products and other customer-related issues. Finally, people discuss ideas for personal (skills) development and workplace learning.
S.O.C.I.A.L
This study includes analysis of a NAB case study. A great conclusion:
Most notable however is that this network shows an elaborate and more pronounced idea-generation practice than we have observed in other networks. A closer look at the content of these conversations reveals the benefit for the corporation when viewed from an organisational learning perspective. For example, in more than a quarter of all instances employees brainstorm matters of corporate strategy, work philosophy, working conditions and sustainability. Furthermore, people engage in dis- cussions about their immediate work processes, exchanging ideas that can be influenced and implemented by the employees themselves. Interestingly, there are also a number of conversations about improvements to or developments of new products and other customer-related issues. Finally, people discuss ideas for personal (skills) development and workplace learning.
Your customers are collaborating
Many businesses panic at the thought that their customers might start to collaborate. Often the concern arises because their business models are based around atomizing customers to diffuse their power, lack of transparency or arbitrary differences in value. Some times the concern can be as simple as having to watch customers discover ways to create value with your product or service with little power in that conversation.
Strong businesses embrace collaboration with and between their customers. It is going to happen and it will drive real value. The tools to enable your customers to collaborate are everywhere around your business. Social media makes the buyers of your product more obvious to each other. The many other services of the Internet makes every business well aware of the increased transparency and pressure on arbitrary rules or processes. At its most basic customers write reviews, share information about your business and answer service queries of other customers
At its most powerful, your customers should be the heart of your process of value creation. How can they share their insights with you? How can they guide your roadmaps, customer experiences and innovation? How can they help each other to maximize the value from use of your products and services? How can they become advocates for a business that delivers greater value by engaging their views?
Collaboration is already happening in your customer base. Start leveraging that value. If you are not involved, you are just not a part of the conversation.
Change: Evolution or Revolution?
If you are not paying attention, change is going to feel like a revolution – my guest post on the Yammer blog
IDC profiles NAB’s use of social collaboration tools
IDC profiles NAB’s use of social collaboration tools
Plural
Community is plural – Robert Safian (via “What I’ve Learned” in Fastcompany)
Community is plural. Culture is plural. Collaboration is plural. Purpose is plural. Talent is plural. Career is plural. Customer experience is plural.
No matter how much we would like to unite each of these in a single approach they remain as diverse as life, as diverse as the humans who come together to make each happen.
We love to simplify. The easiest simplification is an abstraction. From a stereotype to an 80:20 rule to a segment to an average, we lose something in the translation of a human activity into that abstraction. We lose its rich and diverse humanity. Remember this each time you would like people to fit in convenient boxes or to behave in predictable ways. They won’t.
Work with the overlaps and the alignments. Leverage the diversity to maximise engagement. Deaverage your numbers. Plan for options, opt-ins and opt-outs. Deliver richer outcomes by designing for a wider range of purpose and people. Most of all be open to be surprised. Accept the human diversity in people, customer and community.
We all know there is an economic benefit to simplification. Just make sure you are not missing an economic benefit of the diverse and the marginal. Your biggest threat is probably where you are not looking because you cannot see beyond the average.
Embrace the chaos. Embrace the plural. Your experience will be richer for it.