October 14, 2011
Social Business @IBM
Michael Bazigos, PhD
Strategy and Change Executive
IBM Workforce Learning and Development Strategy
Presented to the Leading Edge Consortium conference of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, “The Virtual
Workforce: Designing, Leading, and Optimizing” in Louisville, KY, USA on October 14, 2011. Without the speaker’s
accompanying remarks, this document is an incomplete representation of the presentation.
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Objectives
1. Describe at least one application of social networking with
proven business value.
2. Identify at least one potential use of a social network
approach to a challenge or opportunity in your organization,
or your client's.
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Agenda
 Introduction and scope
 Case example 1: Social innovation network
 Case example 2: Social learning network
 Case example 3: Social onboarding
 Metrics
 Discussion
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Source: www.somecards.com
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Social tools have enabled people to share content in many places.
This presentation will focus on the internal applications.
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
Files
Activities
Profiles Blogs
Communities
Bookmarks
Wikis
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What motivates social network participation?
 

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2 nodes = 1
potential connection
Metcalfe’s Law
on the value of
networks
5 nodes = 10
potential
n(n-1) connections
____
2
where n = number
of “nodes” (read
people) 12 nodes = 66
potential
(proportional to n2 asymptotically) connections
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
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Let’s look at
Metcalfe calculation
for 541 potential
connections:
146,070
… but that does not
include the
connections’
connections
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What is the network value for 400,000 people?
Can be huge, but takes three things…
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1. It takes technology.
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2. It takes people.
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3. It takes time.
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Network
schmetwork.
Show me the
money!
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Case 1:
Social Innovation Network
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On the WorldJam 2004 homepage, users could
WorldJam 2004 choose from a selection of six forums -- each
moderated by three senior leaders
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IDEA FROM WORLD JAM
INVENTION
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Case 2: Social learning networks
Born 1768 Born 1993 Born 2001
~ 500,000 articles 62,000 articles 19 million articles in 270
languages, 3.8 million in
CLOSED 2009 English *
15.4 million registered
users, including 82,000
* As of 10/5/2011 active contributors *
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All well and good…
but how do you
build it inside a
company?
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Social in Action:
Enabling instant learning and collaboration
COMMUNITIES
BLOGS AND WIKIS
BLENDED EVENTS
SOCIAL SOLUTIONS INFORMAL LEARNING
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IBM's Informal Learning Exchange
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Informal Learning - Business Value
Environments that encompass social and informal capabilities
can deliver both more efficient and more effective learning with
improved impacts on the business
Benefits:
 Reduce training costs by leveraging employees to produce
and deliver personalized learning content that is both relevant and
timely.
 Improve return-on-learning investment by compressing the time to
competence needed by business-critical workforces
 Create a more nimble workforce, capable of responding faster to marketplace
and customer change
 Content is rated and filtered through those who know best - the users, it is more
likely to produce successful results
 Time to competence is significantly improved as learning experiences are
tailored to employees' needs
 Learners are driven by personal needs and interests, resulting in much higher
knowledge retention and transfer rates
 Enterprise, Business and user generated content can be found at the point of
need
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 Model is applicable for growth and major markets © 2011 IBM Corporation

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Expanding the classroom, and more…
 Sellers follow IBM leaders & competition
via Twitter and Linked-In and internal
channels
 New joiners become productive faster;
increase belonging
 Client teams solve problems and
innovate socially
 Technical leaders find mentors during
live-chats
 Boundaries to learning removed
Social Learning is enabling IBM’s Talent strategy
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He looks
confused…
let’s make
What’s that contact
blip?
Looks like another pre-
arrival IBM nube
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My name is Ilya Tulei, recent graduate from Georgia
Case 3: Social onboarding Tech. I'm currently in Atlanta, but will be living in Raleigh
for six months starting in September (this will be my
training period). My first assignment after Raleigh will be
in Chicago in Technical Sales. I'm really excited about the
Connecting pre-arrival via “Soon 2 B opportunity! I came on board because I like IBM's
direction and was instantly drawn to the caliber of people
Blue” that I met.
 Introductions are warm, Hi Jason,
encouraging, and many people My name is Ben, and it looks like I'll be working with you in Victoria.
are welcoming others I'm a student at UBC, in Vancouver, Canada, and I will be working at
IBM Victoria doing QA as well. This is my first co-op work term, so
 Discussion forums are started i'm pretty excited to start work. I'm studying computer science as a
second degree, having completed a degree in psychology at the
based on location and start date University of Victoria.
 People who are moving are See you next week!
reassured by others
Hi Folks,
My name is Liu Dekuan, I was a technical manager in DataDirect
Networks Inc. (DDN) Beijing Office., I am living in Beijing. And I will
be an Assoc Architect with IBM (China) Company Limited Beijing
… as I get closer to my starting date, I am Branch in September. It is very excited to join the blue family. I need
very impressed with the way that IBM to give my work to other people in DDN before came on board.
handles the on-boarding process and all Thanks for the opportunity to introduce myself . : )
the information that they send out to new
employees even before they start. I am
really starting to feel as though I am part of
the team now.
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Other ideas…
INTERNAL HR APPLICATIONS INTERNAL FINANCE APPLICATIONS
 Onboarding – community of same entry class,  Collaboration across departments such as
sharing relevant newbie info, connecting buddies corporate finance, accounting, sales, investor
and mentors relations, budgeting, operations and customer
 Employee and Leadership Development, service
Manager and Leader communications and  Collaboration between the geographically spread
interactions, coaching and feedback finance teams
 Job search and deployment  Collaboration supported by:
 Connecting to HR Partners, Information, Policies, – Communities of hot topics (implication of new
Expertise accounting norms) / problem areas (working
 Employee and Manager Self Serve capital issues)/ projects (raising foreign
 Contributes to Performance and Succession exchange/debt/equity)
Mgmt by making social networks and – Knowledge and best practice sharing
contributions transparent – Expertise location
 HR Operations  Improved effectiveness of project management
 Informal and Social Learning
A view of the future Since 2002
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Okay fine. But if
I’m going to take a chance
on this social network thing,
there had better be metrics!
NO metrics, NO dice!
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Metrics: Social Learning Dashboard
List of
learning
assets
Regions
Specific web pages
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Return on Contribution (ROC) is the ratio of the benefit divided by
the cost
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Dogear ROC
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ROC: Other social applications
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You know so little. Yet, you built
such a slick presentation – how
did you do it?
Why, I did it entirely
using social media!
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Roger that… the
presentation was
built entirely with
social media
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Our contributors
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Acknowledgements and sources
 Space age photos: http://ufoseries.com/
 Inspiration for their use: Olivier Blanchard, “Basics of Social Media ROI”
http://www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-blanchard-basics-of-social-media-roi
 Slide sharke extraordinaire: Amy Gomez, PhD, amylgomez@gmail.com
 BM Learning Exchange (ILX)
– Ian Bird, IBM, Center for Advanced Learning ian.bird@uk.ibm.com
– Laurie Miller, IBM, Center for Advanced Learning llmiller@us.ibm.com
 Soon 2 B Blue
– Laurie Miller, IBM, Center for Advanced Learning llmiller@us.ibm.com
 Learning dashboard and comments on learning in the network age
– Gordon Fuller, IBM, Center for Advanced Learning gordon.fuller@us.ibm.com
 Return on Contribution
– Muller, M.J., Freyne, J., Dugan, C., Millen, D.R., & Thom-Santelli, J. (2009). Return On Contribution (ROC):
A metric for enterprise social software. Proceedings of ECSCW, Springer, Vienna, Austria, 2009. Retrived
via
http://domino.research.ibm.com/cambridge/research.nsf/58bac2a2a6b05a1285256b30005b3953/ca244c1cd
63c41ef852576b30059b39e!OpenDocument
– Slideshare presentation by Muller et al.: http://www.slideshare.net/traincroft/return-on-contribution-roc-ecscw-
2009-muller-et-al-1982880
– Chris Sparshott presentation on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/sparkbouy/evolution-of-social-
software-in-ibm
 Social Business
– Steve Gray, IBM, Global Business Services grays@us.ibm.com
– Jennifer Okimoto, IBM, Global Business Services jennifer.okimoto@us.ibm.com
 Social Innovation Networks (Jams and ThinkPlace)
– Michael Bazigos, PhD, IBM, Workforce Learning and Development Strategy mnb12@columbia.edu
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What’s she got in
mind?
They’ve been sitting and listening for
too long… we’ve got to do something
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Michael N. Bazigos, PhD
mnb12@columbia.edu
www.bazigos.com
Connect with me on :
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bazigos
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