Recently in Social Networks Category

#csnf - AXA Case Study

By
Adam Tinworth
 on June 8, 2009 11:40 AM | | Comments (0)
How do you launch social media in a company where every second of an employee's day is timed? That's the challenge Sonia Carter, head of online internal communications at AXA UK is talking about.

Intensive Customer Experience (love the name, so much room for innuendo...) training courses created great motivation, which wasn't sustained in the office, because too many other people hadn't done the course, and it was business as usual for them. one of senior management asked for "a blog" - was that what he meant? Did he mean that? Or a forum? Or a wiki? How can 12,000 people use a blog effectively?

So they decide to create an online community instead: OurSpace. Distinct separation between opinion/discussion space and the intranet which is the "hard facts", including visual cues in the design. Used a vBulletin forum. Guest hosts lead discussions on particular topics. The CEO as guest host melted the system.

  • 6 weeks to launch
  • £4k to launch, then another £6k for a nice design later
  • vBulletin for forums, Wordpress for OurIdeas - heavily customised
  • You need to hide from/ignore/bribe IT, Security, Risk, Compliance, etc...
Majority of discussion is work-related. Fewer examples of best practice and success stories, more question answering. Using blogs for ideas, which people can discuss and vote on.

Site was promoted during training event, and followed up with e-mail invite. Simple acceptable use policy means little is inappropriate. Only 2 breaches so far in 18 months, one of which lead to a disciplinary. Not bad, given that there are 12,000 people.

#csnf - Managing the Modern Employee

By
Adam Tinworth
 on June 8, 2009 10:16 AM | | Comments (0)
Robert Johnson, strategic consultant at the Central Office of Information, knew nothing about social networking when he took on the talk.

60s: people told what to do without explanation
70s & 80s: more communication and buy-in
90s: Corporation as friend, expectation of employees as innovators. Blame-free, supportive culture. 

We have baby boomers, GenX and Generation Y in the workplace at the same time. Three different sets of people with different needs and aspirations - but the general shift is from telling people what to do to a collaborative environment.

Lots of detail on Johnson's speech - hopefully the slides will be up after the event, because there's more than I can capture here. The summary is that the GenYers with their need for engagement are more prevalent than ever before. People are happier, more productive and more likely to stay if they have good relationships - so you can't ignore the new social tools. But implementing is a complex, many-layered thing, particularly at the social rather than technological level.

Key points:

  • Recognise that sharing and learning are valued
  • Seek out information for yourself
  • Bee a good networker
  • Support others
  • be inclusive
  • Be sensitive to commercial boundaries
  • Use tech to add value
  • Consider their work/life balance.

Niall Cook on Corporate Social Networking

By
Adam Tinworth
 on June 8, 2009 9:51 AM | | Comments (0)
Niall Cook has started his talk with a challenge to preconceptions about social networking in corporates. It's not a case of buying something with Enterprise 2.0 on the box and thinking it will work. It won't. 

Why

Any innovation in history usually is based around a technology that has been around for a while, but it requires a perfect political. social, technological storm to make it work.

The credit crunch is what is making it work. The "R" of ROI doesn't need to be much if the "I" is very small. You don't need to spend millions to get something that works. Our existing internal systems don't work. E-mail is overloaded. Intranets aren't working either. They're not collaboration tools, they're publishing tools and nobody's interested. The more social stuff is the only place that traffic will be holding up.

There's a shift from CEO as God to CEO as guide. And employees don't want command and control any more - they want managed engagement. The research says that if you're employees aren't engaged, they're creative negative value for your company. 

The workplace and the business are changing. It's more mobile, and more information-focused. The expectation of the workforce is greater than ever. They don't go "I'm at work now, I'm quite happy working in this structured, clunky system and then go home and use Facebook." They won't put up with the old-fashioned stuff any more. There's a shift in the psychological contract between employer and employee.

Digital natives are entering workforce - they don't care what impact their technology choices have on the business. Technology is part of their culture and they won't leave it at the door. 

Continue reading Niall Cook on Corporate Social Networking.

Niche Social Networks

By
Adam Tinworth
 on November 3, 2008 6:17 PM | | Comments (0)
The author of the other talk I was really sad to miss at Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin, Lee Bryant of Headshift, has now published his slides over on the firm's blog.

Here they are:
Niche Social Networks FTW!
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: purpose meaning)
Although the presentation gives some good examples of niche social networks in use, I like Lee's analysis of the value of Facebook against niches, which makes a nice riposte to last week's BBC story:

I remain convinced that intimacy and common purpose are more in line with the culture of the internet than mega-malls like Facebook, where funders are more interested in achieving a ridiculous $15bn valuation for the company than in changing peoples' lives for the better.
And the rights tools can improve people's working lives, just as much as they can their personal lives...

Ease Up On Facebook Blocks?

By
Adam Tinworth
 on October 30, 2008 9:25 AM | | Comments (0)
Facebook on the iPhone

So much for the idea that businesses should be using Facebook-like news feeds. Auntie Beeb thinks we should be using Facebook itself:

And while more work-specific systems, such as LinkedIn or bespoke in-house software tended to be used for work matters, the likes of Facebook, Bebo and MySpace still had a place, said Peter Bradwell, a Demos researcher and the report's author.
"Banning Facebook and the like goes against the grain of how people want to interact. Often people are friends with colleagues through these networks and it is how some develop their relationships."

Of course, as one would expect, this is a horribly shallow rendering of a much more complex report, which you can snag from the Demos site. 

UPDATE: Alan at Broadstuff highlights some of the problems with this argument.
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