1) Enterprise social tools allow dispersed work teams to stay connected and collaborate virtually through asynchronous and broadcast communication methods like Yammer and by working out loud.
2) Social tools improve knowledge management by enabling rapid access to expertise and information from coworkers through questions and sharing of resources, as opposed to traditional systems that are difficult to search.
3) While social tools can grow organically, planning and governance are important to achieve business goals and ensure rules and leadership guide appropriate use.
32. Give people a way
to stay in the loop
How do we allow people who
are not co-located the ability to
remain connected?
Hint: It’s not just about
technology
38. Summary of Story 1
• Bring dispersed workers together virtually
• Build the foundation for “continuing
conversations”
• Value: Remain engaged with your immediate
and wider team
• How:
• Asynchronous, broadcast tools
• By Working Out Loud
52. Collaborate
or Work
Alone
KM
System
Has anyone
ever worked
with Product X
in situation Y?
@Sue did
last year
@Bill
was the
tech
lead on
that
Here’s a
link to
the spec,
call me if
you have
questions
Just what
I need to
solve this
53. Summary of Story 2
• What’s in the KM system is not always easy to find
• Not all the good stuff gets into the KM system
• Social tools make this fast and easy to do
Value: Rapid access to the information I need from
the people who know.
60. Let’s look at why it’s NOT fb
ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo
Used with permission from: Alan Lepofsky - VP & Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
62. The Value of Planning & Governance
How can you get ready for Enterprise Social?
63. If we build it, they will come…
• Don’t over-think this
• Don’t over plan
• Don’t put in too many rules
• Don’t kill it before it starts
64. Have we learned NOTHING, people?
• The SharePoint Wild-
West was a mess.
• Let’s not do this all
over again!
65. Not to discount YOUR success
Yammer can grow virally on it’s
own
66. Don’t kill it, but plan and be ready!
•What is your business purpose?
•What are your use-cases for the application of social
•What are your terms of service and governance
rules?
•Who is going to enforce the rules and set the tone?
•How will you engage your leadership?
Value: Achieve a business focused result
https://about.yammer.com/success/
There are many obstacles that get in the way of ‘frictionless collaboration’
Our environment is fragmented: we keep stuff on the C or X drive, in email, in SharePoint and now, in Yammer
What tool do I use – should I create a blog or a wiki in SharePoint, or use Yammer
Yammer can store files, what do I do about that?
I’m excited about the change that is just ahead.
Microsoft is creating an environment of much more ‘frictionless’ collab
Is this what we’re talking about for enterprise social?
NO: This is personal social, and as far as companies are involved it falls under part of digital marketing
The part in common is that we are using virtual networks of people to share information
How do ENTERPRISES use these social tools?
A brand, an organization is engaging with their customers on social media
Sell you something directly
Engage more fully with their product
But… engagement is really a synonym for “getting you to buy more, at some point”
Finding potential candidates to hire…
Finding who’s who at your target customers
LinkedIn excels at these tasks
It’s been six months since these two friends met up… How’s the conversation go?
Hey man, how are you?
Good, good! You?
Oh yeah, good – Busy!
Yeah, me too – really busy!
So, what’s new?
Awe, not much, how about you?
You know, same old same-old…
I’ve learned an interesting lesson from being part of the SharePoint community and being on Facebook.
Many of us are on FB, but I think this experience is a bit different from most people…
I have a fairly large community of people who I consider to be friends, but whom I only see occasionally.
Some I see 5, 6 times a year, others only once or twice, and some even less often.
That I was working on a project in Vancouver
Who I spent time with at SharePoint Saturday New York
That my daughter graduated from University
Seb, you’re looking good!
You were out for a good 10 days there with that cold…
Yeah, feeling ton’s better.
Hey, I see you’ve been travelling to Vancouver a whole lot. Do you like it? I was thinking of heading out there on a vacation with the family… Congrats on your daughter’s grad – you must be proud… and hey, your eye looks great, can’t tell you had that problem
We have a foundation for conversation that picks up from FB as if it never left off…
Why does facebook add so much value to these situations?
AND: How does this apply to the enterprise?
We are not physically close to each other
Even if we’re not a continent apart, we are not necessarily close enough to see each other every day, or even every week
We have something in-common that brings us together…
It can be family, it can be military unit, it can be sports club… but we have something.
For me, it’s the SharePoint community
We care about each other and about what’s happening in the lives of others.
So, that’s Facebook… the question is how do similar tools translate to the enterprise?
I work on a team where people are located across the country from each other, or are on-site at clients
In your org it can be different reasons: different branches. Departments in other provinces or countries
Or even just a large building where you don’t actually interact face-to-face that much
Solving problems for customers (or balancing the books, or making sales, or whatever your cause may be)
We work together – we want to succeed and we are engaged with each other (or, at least, we want to be)
Being dispersed, yet needing to work together in some ways presents a problem… a problem that’s’ not addressed by email and instant message
Let’s look at our modes of communication
Email – Narrow: Discussions are lost, no one else has visibility
Lync – Narrow: same as email (but immediate and synchronous
Webinar/Conf call: Broad reach, but usually mostly one-way
Social – Tools like yammer allow for asynchronous, broad communication
The thing that’s new that social tools bring is to broaden communication.
The stuff you post is highly visible, searchable, and available to be interacted with…
But the tools to enable this are just TECHNOLOGY
It leads to a new way of working.
Implementing a new technology will not, alone, provide value.
There needs to be a cultural shift in the way people work together.
It’s called “Working out Loud”
Definition of WOL is that your work is visible to others – they can see what you’ve done and how you’ve done it.
In many ways, SharePoint enables this side of things
The bigger, trickier, culture changing component is narrating your work.
The essential ingredient is “In order to help others”. It’s not about your lunch, or what you think of your boss.
It’s info that can potentially help another person
Making your work visible - Fundamental
Making your work better – others see it and provide feedback
Leading with generosity – Contribute, it’s not about self promotion
Building a social network – Expand your interactions beyond peers and immediate reports/supervisors
Making it all purposeful – Having a goal in mind helps prevent this from becoming a time-suck
Bring the team together virtually…
We know what we’re all working on.
We can offer help when needed
We feel comfortable asking for help
The boss is aware of her team, and doesn’t require as much status update work
Before my next story, I want to take a detour into Microsoft’s messaging about the social enterprise
Jack Welch: If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.
You have a difficult problem to solve
With your team, and individually, you come up with some really great ideas…
Compile and deliver an awesome result
And, it gets files for future reference and re-use
I mean… it goes into a KM system of some type
We’ll come back to this at the end.
Another quick detour from the stories…
Is it facebook for the enterprise
It LOOKS pretty darn close!
There are companies that have been virally infected with the free version of Yammer. It just grew on its own, and it has been successful. But this is not the same as enterprise success.
Downside: “Don’t mention Yammer” story
SharePoint and Yammer are better together
SharePoint is good at document management with metadata and workflow and policy and permissions
And SharePoint has contact lists and calendars and task lists
Yammer doesn’t do any of that
SharePoint is not great at discussions, forums, microblogging, easy communication
Realize it’s a cyclical process, not a destination.
Careful planning and planning to execute is important
Capacity to DELIVER new ideas on rapid cycles
ENGAGE people at multiple levels
From, pretty good, but with obstacles.
To “Frictionless” collaboration