bK Playbook Final

7/27/2019 bK Playbook Final

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Enterprise Collaboration Playbook

HOW TO USE ENTERPRISE SOCIAL SOFTWARETO CHANGE THE WAY YOU DO BUSINESS


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Enterprise Collaboration Playbook | blueKiwi 2012

2Table of Contents

The blueKiwi Enterprise

Collaboration PlaybookAbout this playbook ........................................................... 1

Why enterprise social networks?............................................................................................2

Theres a new way of doing business.....................................................................................3

Solving common business challenges ...................................................................................4

Features and benefits .............................................................................................................5

New technologies supersede the old .....................................................................................6

A history of enterprise social networks .................................................................................7

Social business success stories: BASF ..................................................................................8

Social business success stories: Burberry .............................................................................9

Social business success stories: Alcatel-Lucent .................................................................10

How we connect ............................................................... 11Weak ties are the key ............................................................................................................12

What comes after weak ties .................................................................................................13

Tying it all together ...............................................................................................................14

Automating tie creation ........................................................................................................15

A collaborative culture ..................................................... 16Creating a social environment .............................................................................................17

Make collaboration a top company value ............................................................................18

Start collaborating ................................................................................................................19

Getting started with an ESN ............................................. 20Setting social business goals ...............................................................................................21

Transitioning to a new cor porate culture.............................................................................22

Consider transitioning requirements ...................................................................................23

Using your new ESN ..............................................................................................................24

More ESN features ................................................................................................................25Make the mostof your ESN ..................................................................................................26

Define your strategy .............................................................................................................27

Set your schedule and get started .......................................................................................28

Overcoming obstacles ...........................................................................................................29

Overcoming obstacles - more ...............................................................................................30

Building an ESN business case ......................................... 31Return on value cost vs. benefits .........................................................................................32

Social Network Analysis (SNA).............................................................................................33

Using return on value to map out benefits ..........................................................................34

What CEOs need to hear .......................................................................................................35

Benefit: improved sales and marketing ...............................................................................36

Benefit: foster innovation .....................................................................................................37Benefit: optimise company talent ........................................................................................38

Benefit: manage exception handling ...................................................................................39

Return on productivity ..........................................................................................................40

France Post case study ..................................................... 41

Allianz case study ............................................................ 42

Manufacturingcase study ................................................ 43

About blueKiwi................................................................. 44Why chooseblueKiwi?...........................................................................................................45

How to buy blueKiwi .............................................................................................................46

Footnotes ......................................................................... 47


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1About this playbook

About this

playbookWelcome to the Enterprise Collaboration Software Playbook. If youre

considering launching an enterprise social network for your company,

youre in the right place. As you know, in the technology game theres a

lot of hype to play through, and this certainly is true for social business

software.

Social platforms come in many shapes and sizes. There are different

types of platforms available for different uses. Some will help you

accelerate your business, nurture innovation, and build strong

relationships inside and outside your organisation. But not all will make

sense for your needs. So how do you find the one with the best fit?

Start here.

We cut through the hype to show you what really works. Specifically

designed for those involved in the buying process, our playbook provides

an overview of the benefits of enterprise social network software; the

psychology behind interpersonal networking and collaboration; how

to create an effective collaborative environment; how to establish a

successful enterprise social network; how to build a powerful business

case for implementing social network software, and finally how blueKiwi

specifically can help you reach your business goals.

Weve done the latest research and weve pulled together this

one-stop playbook to help you best integrate an enterprise

social network into your business.

Social software enables people to

rendezvous, connect, and collaborate

through computer-mediated

communication and to form online

communities. In the case of enterprisesocial network software, it is adopted

for use by a business and not for

personal use.1


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2Why enterprise social networks?

Why enterprise

social networks?

In this chapter well answer some basic questions about enterprise

social software, one of the most-talked about technologies to hit

the enterprise in the last decade. Where did it come from? What

can it do? And how can it help your company or organisation?

Japan after the 2011 earthquake

Social collaboration saves the day. On March 11, 2011, a devastating

earthquake struck Japan, interrupting the countrys transportation

infrastructure. In Tokyo, thousands of people were left stranded, facing

difficult choices: Wait until the transportation systems starts working,

walk home, or find a roof for the night.2

The people of Tokyo responded. Government agencies, companies,

and even individuals opened their homes to strangers. And a group of

Japanese software developers came together on the Web to publicise the

availability of shelter with an interactive map of Tokyo.

Twitter connects Japan. Using Twitter as their principal communication

mechanism, the map was populated in a few hours with details on the

temporary shelters. By midnight, over 180,000 people had accessed the

map, and many stranded commuters were eventually spared the ordeal of

spending a night out in the cold. 3

What happened in Tokyo was not an isolated event. From the uprisings

in Egypt to the capture of Osama Bin Laden, collaborative technologies

have been used to share important information and inform the global

community.

Chapter 1


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3

Theres a new wayof doing business

The evolution of social business. Over the past 10 years, a new breed

of social and collaborative technologies has emerged in the workplace,

enabling businesses to solve exceedingly complex problems.

These new applications bring together an organisations diverse skills,

perspectives, and problem solving approaches in a way that uniquely

benefits the business. Built on a platform where information and ideas are

visible and shared across a corporate community, these applications are

innovative by nature. With them, businesses are able to communicate and

collaborate in new ways, design better solutions, and innovate with fresh

ideas and product offerings.

Collaboration is critical. Business is more complicated than ever.

Companies are connected 24/7 and for many, the workday extends past

the typical business hours as critical business communication continues

after hours and into the weekends. Collaboration among employees

across regions, countries, and even continents is not just the normal

operating environment for large multi-nationals, its also become the

status quo for many small companies too.

Why enterprise social networks?


Staying ahead of the curve. The promise of enterprise social software

is that it can enable organisations to meet the world of non-stop

business and effectively communicate, collaborate, and innovate in

new ways, thereby paving the way to a new organisational culture,

where companies can respond quickly, stay ahead of the market, and

out-compete their rivals.

Customers

Partners

HumanResources

Marketing

Sales

EnterpriseSocial Network


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4

Solving commonbusiness challenges

Exceptions, the unanticipated issues that require timely

resolution to maintain competitive business performance

occur in every organisation.4


How to succeed with social business.Where social business successes

have occurred, the organisations focused on specific operational pain

points. That is to say, business processes or activities where the promise

of enterprise social software could make a difference. Operational pain

points were also easier to get management buy-in, as they were often hot

topics within the company and widely acknowledged as a problem.

Start with business exceptions. One of the most common pain points

is the exception. Within todays typical company or organisation,

employees regularly encounter non-routine issues, which break the

standard processes. While standard processes are well documented,

knowing how to handle a problem outside their scope is not.

The same goes for crisis situations, which are non-routine by

definition. Knowing how and when to respond is critical. The wrong

or haphazard response can have devastating effects (remember the BP

Gulf of Mexico oil spill).

One-off solutions dont scale. These process exceptions slow the

effectiveness of operations and negatively impact business performance

as a whole. With exceptions, employees spend a great deal of time trying

to fix problems or find answers and often this work is duplicated over and

over, because the one-off solution isnt shared. It is a wasted opportunity

to capture and take advantage of important institutional knowledge.

Collective knowledge accelerates problem resolution. Because

exceptions negatively impact business operations, they are an excellent

fit for an enterprise social network, which can capitalise on their

common elements. Employees can use their organisations collective

knowledge, share information across organisational boundaries, and

accelerate exception resolution. Even more importantly, eliminating

the negative impact of exceptions can positively impact organisations

operating metrics.



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Features andbenefits

What does enterprise social software do? We define enterprise social

network technologies as platforms or software applications that are

usually web-based and enable large groups of people to:

Collaborate across the organisation, fostering more effective commu-nication among isolated groups for greater cross-pollination of ideas

Engage in one-to-many or many-to-many conversations

Share information across a select group of people or share informa-

tion globally, like across a company Access archived or persistent content and institutional knowledge.

Whether organised in a predefined structure, like a wiki, or found

via search

How can it help your organisation? In terms of benefits, the

technology and tools inherent in enterprise social networks can help

organisations to:

Quickly identify expertise

Initiate cross-department and cross-boundary communications

Act as a collective, institutional memory

Connect and harness distributed knowledge

Become a catalyst for innovation, uncovering new opportunities and

bringing new ideas together

Shorten business cycles and projects through better collaboration



Top 3 measurable benefits

1. Increasing speed toknowledge access

2. Reducing communication costs

3. Increasing speed to accessinternal experts

Results from their 5th annual social tools and technologies survey

Source: McKinsey Global Institute, 2011


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New technologiessupersede the old


The old guard of business collaboration is inefficient and outdated. Email,

intranets, or more traditional knowledge management tools are not based

in social business technologies and therefore do not offer some of the

powerful benefits that enterprise social networks do.

Email. In business, email functions as a personal productivity tool,

providing one-to-one interactions. Andrew McAfee, in his Enterprise 2.0

book, describes email as a Channel, designed to keep communications

1-on-1, or private between the sender and receiver.5

By comparison, with an enterprise social network the group can view

information shared. Information is visible, can be easily consulted,

and can be acted upon. And the sharing of information can be used to

dramatically reduce redundant work, improve employee efficiency, and

increase productivity.

Company intranets. Intranets were designed to disseminate informationto an organisation not share or generate information among a group.

Adding content to a company intranet is often restricted to just a few

company employees.

By contrast, an enterprise social network is accessible to all.No special

skills are required to share information. Unlike traditional corporate

intranets, enterprise social networks can also be used to discuss problems

on the fly, find relevant knowledge, and get answers to questions.

Knowledge Management Solutions. Knowledge Management solutions

(KMs) are used to capture and transfer existing knowledge. Although they

can improve business performance by facilitating information sharing and

retaining intellectual capital, they often become repositories of outdated

information because KM solutions have not historically been incorporated

into daily work activities.6

By comparison, enterprise social software enables organisations to

not only capture knowledge, but also to create knowledge. Integrated

into the daily workflow, they support f ree-form collaboration, enabling

employees to connect across departments or teams. Collaboration is

driven by the desire to simplify how an employee does his or her job,

making all potential resources accessible. In addition, because enterprise

social networks dont enforce a set workflow, they create an environment

of innovation, where new ideas and perspectives can come together.



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A history of enterprisesocial networks

Whats different about them, and key to their collaborative

roots, is that Web 2.0 sites and applications become more

valuable to each member as they attract more members.9

The birth of Enterprise 2.0. Today, we refer to them as enterprise social

networks, private social networks, or social business applicationsbut

they all evolved from the concept of Enterprise 2.0, a phrase coined in

2006 by Andrew McAfee, author of the book, Enterprise 2.0.

What is Enterprise 2.0? McAfee defines Enterprise 2.0 as the use of

emergent social software platforms by businesses or organisations

in pursuit of their goals.7 These platforms, where information can

conceivably be visible and accessible to all employees in a company,

include collaborative technologies born from some of the most influential

applications of the last decade, including Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube,

Twitter, Google search, and Blogger.

The roots of Enterprise 2.0. The term Enterprise 2.0 evolved from

Web 2.0, which was introduced by Tim OReilly in 2005 to describe the

changes we were seeing to sites and applications on the Web. Unlike

their predecessors, Web 2.0 sites and applications all incorporated three

basic ideas into their design and functionality: they were free and easy

platforms for communication and interaction; they lacked an imposed

structure; and they incorporated mechanisms to let structure emerge

organically.8


How are Web 2.0 sites different? The process of users connecting,

sharing, and exchanging information is at their core, whether its

multimedia, personal updates, facts, opinions, or page ranking of

search results based on value perceived by users. And Web 2.0 sites and

applications were (and are) enormously popular. Today, Web 2.0 sites

account for roughly 40 of the top 50 sites according to the website ranking

company, Alexa.

The emergence of the enterprise social network. In 2006, the

technologies behind Web 2.0 sites and applications such as blogging,

social streams, wikis, and file/multimedia sharing began to appear in

collaborative applications designed specifically for a business, or as

McAfee describes, for Enterprise 2.0 use.



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Social businesssuccess stories

Collaboration changes everything. Social business applications create

communities that share common objectives: the success of the company

as a whole, the success of a team or departments business objectives,

or the evolution of corporate cultural and standard business process

through the use of new and innovative communication tools. Interestingly

enough, all this can and has occurred without senior management

intervention, or the need for internal or external consultants.

Profile BASF. BASF is a large multi-national chemical company based

in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany. They employee more than 109,000

people scattered across 390 production sites. In 2011, their annual sales

topped 73.4 billion euros.

Their collaboration problem. With such a large and distributed workforce,

BASF needed a platform that could bring workers together, establish

a common working culture, and improve the flow of information and

communications across the globe. Their goal was to find a solution that

would help them eliminate their existing communication structure of

hierarchies and teams and enable them to evolve to a network of formal

and informal communities.10


The solution. Their pilot project began in 2009 and then launched to

the entire company in 2010, using a well-developed communications

strategy, including webinars, demos, and other learning events. BASF has

successfully grown their network voluntarily, adding more than 28,00 0

registered users in the last 18 months.11

Solution highlights and benefits. Today, their network features more

than 2,300 spaces (communities) organised by expertise, interest,

projects, and service engagements.

How has it made them more productive?12

Helps employees find experts and potential stakeholders

Increases the value of knowledge through sharing

Boosts efficiency through open communication across the

organisation

Facilitates online collaboration of teams and communities

Reduces email by transferring conversation to a common platform

Provides a familiar working environment for Facebook Generation



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Profile Burberry. Burberry is an international luxury fashion goods

purveyor founded in the mid-1800s and headquartered in London,

England. The well known company employs over 6,600 people spread

across 200 locations. In 2011, their annual sales were $1.5 billion dollars.

Their collaboration problem. It was twofold - their dispersed workforce

needed a way to communicate effectively and they also wanted to create

a seamless digital customer experience across all brand touch points

from start to finish - from both a business and a technology standpoint.

From in-house collaboration, to a social CRM program, to social branding,

marketing, to an online presence, they wanted an integrated digital

Burberry World.13


The solution. Burberry calls it one of the fastest programs theyve

deployed. Named Burberry Community, their enterprise social network

technology connected the globally dispersed employees and created a

wildly successful and consistent customer experience, using CRM, IM, and

a social networking platform. Adoption across the company was energised

by their young workforce, since over 70% of Burberrys workers are under

30, making the move to an enterprise social network faster and easier.14

Solution highlights and benefits. Better connectivity and collaboration

have resulted in a 21% increase in profit (Q4 2011), driven mostly, the

media notes, by their social business efforts.15

How has it made them more productive?

Presents an accessible face to customers - with over 10 million

Facebook fans

Allows real-time online conversations between customers and

employees Creates a user-centric community for sharing information about the

company and spreading word-of-mouth recommendations about itsproducts



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Profile Alcatel-Lucent. With 80,000 employees, this international

telecommunications company is based in Paris, France. In 2010, their

annual revenues were just shy of 16 billion euros.

Their collaboration problem. Alcatel-Lucent has always had a progressive

approach to business. They have used social technologies like blogs,

forums, and wikis since 2008; however, all the tools were separate and

there was no overall strategy for their use. This resulted in duplicateidentities, content that fell into silos, and information that was difficult to

access or find since it was spread across too many platforms.16

The solution. To let employees directly interface with the CEO, they

created Ask@Ben. Next, they introduced an enterprise microblog to link

workers across the globe. As employees became comfortable with these

technologies, they added more features, including comments and ratings

capabilities without filtration. They also incorporated external touch

points through blogs, YouTube, and Twitter to connect with the outside

world. Internally, they developed a plan to consolidate their disparate social

business strategy by measuring their progress to see what was working.17

Solution highlights and benefits. Alcatel-Lucent rolled out a beta version

of their enterprise social network in late 2009. As of July 2010, there were

20,000 registered users (about 25% of their employees were engaged

within the first three months), with approximately 200-400 coming on

board each day. Now, over 60,000 employees have profiles and a full 25%

are actively using the software. Six percent contribute, which is higher

than consumer social media but lower than the activity level at some

enterprises.18

Their careful study of what worked and what didnt helped them develop a

solution that has worked well. They supported this plan with a strong staff

and have achieved great results, without the high overhead that you might

expect would be needed to manage a project of this scope.

How has it made them more productive?

Reduces overhead associated with meeting travel expenses and time

Eliminates duplication of information caused by various redundantplatforms

Encourages a collaborative environment supported by employees

specifically assigned to nurture this company value



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How weconnect

The science of collaboration is fascinating stuff. In this

chapter we explore psychology, sociology, and business theory

to discover just how people connect and the major impact it

can have on your business.

Developing a network. Now that youve seen the importance and the

history of enterprise social network software, well take a broader view

and investigate our relationships as human beings. To truly understand

how to collaborate effectively with these new technologies, its important

to look at the way we make connections with other people. While you may

think you already know what makes us click, read onwhat you find will

surprise you.

The ties the limitand the secret. In 1973, Stanford professor Mark

Granovetter published a groundbreaking paper in the American Journal of

Sociologythat focused on the various types of connections we form with

each other. Rooted in social theory, The Strength of Weak Ties, premise

was thiswe maintain strong and weak ties with other people. Our strong

ties represent relationships with those closest to us, whereas our weak

ties represent our interactions with acquaintances. In order to maximise

the power of collaboration, you might think we would tap our strong ties

to generate the most collective wisdom. However, Granovetter argues the

opposite. Instead, he maintains, the magic lies in our weak ties.19

How we connect

Chapter 2


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Weak tiesare the key

This is true of our professional relationships as well. Strong ties do

not bring large networks together in the way that weak ties can. Since

each weak alliance has its own set of strong ties, connecting two groups

together through a weak tie opens up exponentially more information-

sharing opportunities. By virtue of this new connection, we are then

weakly connected with all of the strong ties in our weak ties network.

(Hows that for tying up your tongue?)

Strong ties provide benefits. Strong ties are important in their own right.

They cultivate their own sets of ideas and exchange of information within

their network. However, strong ties lack a crucial component of effective

collaborationthey do not provide the opportunity to expand beyond

their small group because so many of the relationships within them are

redundantpeople within these groups have similar strong ties.

Weak ties provide even greater benefits. When seeking innovation, its

the bridge between groups thats key. This becomes especially evident

within a company or organisation, where the exchange of accurate up-

to-date information is critical, and the influx of new ideas provides the

lifeblood for change.

Bridges help solve problems, gather

information, and import unfamiliar

ideas. They enable work to be

accomplished more quickly and more

effectively. The ideal network for aknowledge worker probably consists

of a core of strong ties and a large

periphery of weak ones.

Andrew McAfee

Enterprise 2.0

How we connect

How we connect


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What comesafter weak ties

Potential ties provide opportunity. Beyond strong and weak ties lies

another valuable source of connections the potential ties, which are

those that we will make down the road. They represent a treasure trove

of good advice and resourcesa virtually unlimited source of information

waiting to be tapped. The number of potential ties is even larger because

there are always more people we dont know than people we do know.

And then there are no ties. The last tie group in the equation is None.These are the people with whom well never form connections. For now,

these ties represent virtually all of the worlds population. As technology

evolves, who knows? Maybe well have the opportunity to connect. Its our

own brains management of billions of relationships that will need to

keep pace.

No weak tie connections means no collaboration. If we dont connect

weak ties, our ability to spread information loses steam. Where there are

holes, and groups or networks of workers remain untethered, we miss

great opportunities. Granovetter says, ...Social systems lacking in weak

ties will be fragmented and incoherent. New ideas will spread slowly,

scientific endeavors will be handicapped, and subgroups separated by...

geography or other characteristics will have difficulty reaching a modus

vivendi [way of living].20

Filling the holes between networks. University of Chicago Professor

Ronald Burts influential book Structural Holesreinforced this idea. He

called structural holes, a separation between non-redundant contacts...

[those that do not] lead to the same people, and so provide the same

information benefits.21 There is unlimited potential in spanning a hole

to bring together two networks, but it can be difficult to motivate people

to do so. According to McAfee, they need to be both well positioned and

motivated typically a rare combination.22 So, many times holes remain.Since these gaps essentially block the flow of information, they can prove

highly detrimental to an organisation.

How we connect

How we connect


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Tying it alltogether

Enterprise social networks are built for connecting workers

at any tie strength, and offer unique benef its to the

collaboration process

How to connect employees and teams through enterprise social

networks. We know how to connect workers with strong t ies, both through

traditional face-to-face interactions as well as through technological

channels and platforms. In fact, enterprise social network features like

activity streams, micro-blogging, and wikis serve this category well. But

how do you connect workers whove never metthe critical component

in the secret weapon of connecting weak ties? This is where enterprise

social networks are highly effective tools.23

Time to innovate and grow. Implementing an enterprise social network

provides endless opportunities for innovation and growth, helping to

solve longstanding and vexing challenges around knowledge capture and

sharing, locat[e] expertise, open up innovation processes, and harness the

wisdom of crowds, notes McAfee in his blog The Business Impact of IT.

And its a lot of fun.

How to build powerful collaboration. Like Facebook or LinkedIn, the

social networking sites we use for our personal and professional lives,

enterprise social networks can build powerful collaboration in a number

of ways: 24

Maintain thousands of weak ties

Aggregate related posts for ease of information-gathering

Provide search capabilities and therefore make it easy to findinformation and locate strong and weak ties; they can also convertpotential ties to actual ones

Display contact information as well as other background content

Make it exceedingly easy to post (distribute) and also consume avariety of information, either through status updates, photos,

videos, hyperlinks to other s ites, longer notes, or more, includingredirects to more content

Add an emotional element through media like photos, video,

and audio

Can be accessed via mobile devices, which are starting to replacecomputers as the primary way to go online

Make interactions more engaging and even fun by blending bothpersonal and professional content

How we connect

How we connect


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Automatingtie creation

1st generation automation. When enterprise social networks first

appeared, they included automated methods allowing coworkers to meet

and connect. Built on the words or short descriptions attached to user

profiles (also known as tags) employees could search for and find one

another based on the same or similar tags.

Then the enterprise social network would make suggestions the

application would recommend people with whom to connect and spacesto join based on similar interests, or tags.

Bringing employees closer together. This technology has done an

incredible job of connecting employees who otherwise would never

have met. As a result, its helped to unite employees spread over

multiple locations and time zones, which is particularly critical for large

international corporations.

Whats happening now and in the future.The current generation of

enterprise social networks includes even more advanced, real-time, and

business relevant ways to connect employees.

Social recommendation engines. Often referred to as social

recommendation engines, this sophisticated technology is able to track

patterns across the enterprise social network as it mines all kinds of

business relevant communications, activities, discussions, wikis, andmuch more. In real-time, the social recommendation engine is looking for

ways to connect workers based on what they are doing, talking about, or

interested in.

And it works! Social recommendation engines can magically bring two

people together through recommendations, when they are working on

the same or similar topic but based in different locations. Imagine how

much time that can save the employeesand the company as a wholeas

redundant work is eliminated.

How we connect

How we connect


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In this chapter we explore how to grow an enterprise social

network. Well cover minimising resistance to change, how

valuing and trusting employees improves collaboration, and

ways to encourage collaboration within your organisation.

A collaborativeculture

Handling change. To create a culture that will embrace an enterprise

social network, it is important to address the process of change, build an

environment that welcomes collaboration, and then continually reinforce

the value of collaboration.

Overcoming our aversion to change. Change is hard and group adoption

of new technology can be a long and arduous process. It may not catch on

like the wildfire you envisionedso set your expectations to settle in for abit. It might take months, even years to gain traction. Stick with itwhen

you change your collaboration culture, the rewards are worth it.

Eradicate resistance. Even though enterprise social network technology

is superior to its predecessors (and certainly much better than having

no collaboration technology at all), people are psychologically disposed

to resist adoption. They need to believe that the benefits of the new

technology will far outweigh the time and effort that their learning

curve entails. In fact, studies show that the perceived value of the new

technology must be at least nine times greater than the perceived value of

their current tools in order to motivate them to make a change.25 Not an

easy sell for anyone marketing new technology.

Breaking the status quo. There are several reasons for this thought

process. Behavioral Economist Richard Thaler attributes it to the

endowment effect, where we value things in our possession more than

we value a substitute that is potentially in our possession.26 Similarly,

McAfee adds, the status quo bias directs our preferences. Plus, we need

to give up something now for a benefit that we may not see for some time,

the benefit is not guaranteed, and it is subjectiveall reasons for us to

stay right where we are, as Harvard Business School Marketing ProfessorJohn Gourville notes.27

Eliminating email. Since email is the primary incumbent collaboration

technology, it remains the biggest competitor to an enterprise social

network. McAfee describes this challenge: Consider how high this sets

the bar. Email is freeform, multimedia (especially with attachments)

WYSIWYG, easy to learn and use, platform-independent, social, and

friendly to mouse clickers and keyboard-shortcutters alike.28 Pretty

hard to compete with, right? Well it is still a one-to-one or one-to-many

channel (as we described in Chapter 1), and as such lacks the powerful

collaborative capabilities native to an enterprise social network.

A collaborative culture

Chapter 3


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With an enterprise social network, all contributors must feel free

to share their voices. Only then can the medium work its magic.Creating a socialenvironment

Social business needs a trusting and valued atmosphere.While weve

underscored the benefits of enterprise social networks, for this growth

to take place in an organisation, we must set the stage by defining first

what an organisation needs to become a social business. Before the tools

are even in place, an enterprise needs to cultivate and encourage an

environment where employees are foremost collaborative and feel free to

share their ideas and work in an open and team-oriented culture.29

Create an environment to support all kinds of users. Since each person

will relate to a different spot along the introvert-extrovert continuum,

his or her need to interact with others in order to generate ideas and

creativity will vary accordingly. However, in all human endeavors, we

benefit from the constant exchange of information. Once the environment

is ripe for collaboration, the applications help it happen.




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Make collaboration atop company value

Attracting collaborative people. First, youll need to prime your

people. One of the most important places to start is with your human

resources (HR) team. As they make new hires, they should be seeking out

collaborative qualities in these prospects.

Trusting and valuing your people. Next, you need to show your people

the love. We are accustomed to top-down, unilateral forms of leadership

when it comes to business. Enterprise social networks enlist a completelydifferent model. They rely on a true democracy, where each employee is

encouraged to contribute and let his voice be heard by the group.30 From

this organic growth comes great cross-pollination and other benefits of

collaboration that would not be possible otherwise. By connecting weak

ties and delivering innovative filtering and recommendation capabilities,

we increase our ability to harness massive amounts of information and

innovation.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs explains their approach this way:

In a hiring process that is legion across business-school campuses,

candidates interview with as many as 60 senior members of the firm.

Rejection by just one scuttles an interviewees candidacy. The interviews

are clearly not about intelligence or focus; GMAT scores and university

grades attest to these traits. The interviews are purely and simply about

whether the candidates talent, drive, and ambition are married to a

willingness to work collaboratively with others.31

Empower employees. Therefore, it is imperative to provide an

environment of trust and appreciation, empowering employees to

engage with and embrace your new enterprise social network so that

your business can enjoy a collaboration environment that is easy to

search and navigate, capture and spread knowledge, provide high-quality

answers to important questions, and increase both the number and

strength of ties among people.32 When you foster an environment where

employees feel secure and valued, they will collaborate in ways youvenever dreamed of.




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19

Startcollaborating

Eight specific ways to start collaborating. When youre ready to kick off

or roll out your enterprise social network project, these eight ideas will

help get your group connected.

1. Dont limit your pilot program to one or two communities. If you

limit it to just a few, you might miss that wildly successful team or

department group. Keep in mind that the value of business social

networking is proportional to the number of people involved.

2. Recruit your Champions. You will need a Community Manager

dedicated to your project. Choose people that will be enthusiastic

about the programs potential and who arent afraid to try new things

or to use new technology.

3. Include an influential senior person. If you dont hold the budget,

involve the person who does. If thats not possible, engage a senior

person who can make things happen.

4. Pilot around specific business goals. A real-world scenario allows

you to see how the software performs under real use. Think about

creating a group that can solve problems or exceptions.

5. Set-up local, virtual, a nd cross-department groups.Let people

participate spontaneously in a variety of groups with different

business objectives (simple or complex ones).

6. Populate some initial content and people. Users learn by example so

make sure theres something new on the home page every single day

(items, polls, ideas, or more) as well as new people to connect with.

This will encourage them to return daily.

7. Set up email notifications. Email notifications help ease the

transition to the new platform. Use them automatically to notify the

community when an action occurs, like the posting of new comments

or a shared file. When you kick off your enterprise social network,

they help keep online conversations flowing and drive repeat traffic

to the pilot.

8. Promote, launch, and follow up. Send several email communications

to your pilot participants to get them excited. Host an event to launch

the pilot. Schedule and follow through with progress reviews, as they

help to keep your new enterprise social network moving along.




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20

In this chapter we address how to get started with an

enterprise social network (ESN)--the features youll need,

creating a winning strategy, and overcoming objections.Getting startedwith an ESN

Set your goals. Like any new business strategy, we begin with identifying

goals. What do you want to accomplish with your enterprise social

network? Most importantly is everyone, including upper management,

on the same page?

Building collaboration across an organisation. Sometimes different

departments or teams within an organisation can have competing

business goals. For instance, the financial team that needs to keep costslow may be in direct conflict with the product engineering team that

needs to meet a tight product deadline. These are mutually exclusive

goals, so collaborating across departments can be tricky.33

Once your organisations goals are aligned, the full force of enterprise

social software can be brought to bear. So make sure you sync up

objectives among different groups before you get started. And even

more important, make sure you have goals that you can accomplish

and measure. Nebulous goals like enhanced communication and

collaboration can set you up for failure. By comparison, with well-defined

business goals, you can easily track the impact of an enterprise social

network on your business.34

Remember, there are several important objectives that a soc ial business

strategy can accomplish:35

Cross-silo collaboration: Fosters more effective communicationamong isolated groups for greater cross-pollination of ideas

Archive institutional memory and amass collective knowledge:Bring together all your organizations great ideas, employee brainpower, documents, communications, and other ideas in one an easily

accessible format Handle business exceptions with ease. Exceptions become a

thing of the past since every exception and its solution is docu-mented, searchable, and easily found by all participants

Identify emerging opportunities: With more heads in the game itseasier to find the opportunitiesand issueson the horizon

Locate expertise: Identify the person or people best equipped toprovide the right answers

Getting started with an ESN

Chapter 4


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21Getting started with an ESN

Setting socialbusiness goals

The biggest determinants, by far, of whether you will be

successful at social business are leadership and culture.

Charlene Li, Founder of the Altimeter Group

Here are some thought-starters for your social business goals:

1. Do you want to facilitate communications among employees in

different offices?

2. Do you have silos or closed communication paths within your own

organisation that you would like to take down?

3. Do you want to harness collaboration for stronger innovation?

4. Would you like to capture the answers to exceptions so that they no

longer tie up time and resources?

5. Are you interested in speeding up your employee onboarding process?

If youd like, take a moment and write down your goals.



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Transitioning to a newcorporate culture

As with any transition, youll hit some bumps in the road. Hang on!

They are temporary roadblocks and once youve built your new system

of communication and collaboration, you can move ahead of the

competition.

Here are some strategies to consider as you decide how to integrate your

enterprise social network: 36

Turn off the old communication system: If you have another collabo-ration tool that is out-of-date and out-of-mind, you can shut it down

cold turkey. Have group or team leaders transition to the enterprise

social network first and work there moving forward. For instance,they can elect to only share information and respond to employee

questions via the enterprise social network.

Dispatch your believers: Send out your most vehement early adoptersof the technology your Champions (more about them in a minute)

to continually educate and motivate your group or department.

Integrate with your environment: Integrate the enterprise socialnetwork directly with your existing software or, if you do not have anytools in place, just implement it directly.

Make it easy to collaborate: For employees to jump onboard, make iteasy to move to the new application by incorporating the enterprisesocial network into everyones daily workflow.



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Consider transitioningrequirements

Some questions for you:

1. Are you able to transition from your current collaboration tool

immediately?

2. Will you need to integrate your new enterprise social network with

other applications?

3. List some Champions that can evangelise the system for the entire

organisation.

4. Think of ways to encourage people to use the enterprise social

network in their daily workflow, like recognition for posts.

If youd like, take a moment and write down some thoughts on how your

organisation can get started.



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Using yournew ESN

If youre connecting ties of any strength, then the core

features of an enterprise social network can help.

What features do I use? Enterprise social networks include a variety of

different features to help you achieve your business goals. Heres a quick

review of the core features youll work with and how they can help.

Activity Streams. Foster real-time communication and provide a forum for

answering questions. If you are connecting weak ties, activity streams do

a great job in establishing these connections. Since they maintain large

numbers of weak ties, its easy for a user to communicate with thousandsof people and post different types of updates. Theyre also useful for

finding potential ties.

Wikis are especially helpful for document collaboration because they

eliminate the closed-channel, back-and-forth of email and the confusion

of trying to work with multiple, rapidly changing versions.

Microblogs. When employees use these to share information, thoughts,

and opinions, they help identify expertise and facilitate communication.

Microblogs are also great ways to communicate with large groups of

people and their viral nature makes them good incubators for weak tie

building.

Public and Private Spaces. These are the communities you create to

enable your employees, as well as customers and partners, to share

information. Create as many as you need to support your business

objectives. Set security (open or closed) based on the overall community

objectives.

Messaging. Share information with one or more enterprise network

members. Messages can go across your network and are not associatedwith a single community. Use messaging instead of email to group all

relevant communications together in your enterprise social network.


What featuresdo I use?

wikis

Public &privatespaces

Messaging

Microblogs

Activitystreams


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More ESNfeatures

Expand the use of your enterprise social network. These features build

on the core foundation. They will help you take your collaboration to the

next level.

Content sharing. Use your enterprise social network to share content and

work collaboratively. Upload documents, videos, presentations, links, and

much more. Use version control to keep up with the latest changes. Post

notes to your content, add comments, tags, or whatever you need to make

it more accessible to your social workplace. You can even organise it into

folders to make it easy to find.

Integrations with existing tools. Enterprise social networks succeed

when they become part of employees daily workflow. As needed, make

sure you integrate your enterprise social network with other key company

business applications.

Surveys. Use surveys to get quick and relevant feedback on almost

anything. These can be done within a team community, across the

company as a whole, to your customer community, or to just a selectgroup of customers.

Tasks. These are particularly useful for project-based communities but

they can be applied anywhere. Use tasks to assign work, track milestones,

and manage work from end-to-end.

Ideation. Enterprise social networks create an environment where

ideas can germinate. Share a contribution as an idea. Ask your team or

community for feedback. If accepted, track your idea through its initial

phase to final implementation.

Mobility. Stay connected and up-to-date wherever you are with the mobile

version of your enterprise social network. For employees on the road, a

mobile app version of the enterprise social network is critical to keeping

them in the loop.


Surveys

Mobility

Existingtoolintegration

Ideation

Contentsharing

Tasks


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Make the mostof your ESN

Enterprise social networks allow executives to realise

the dream of creating an up-to-the-minute repository of

everything an organisation knows.

Andrew McAfee

Some questions for you.

1. Take a moment to review the two pages covering ESN features. Which

would help you achieve long term goals? How?

2. What features will you use to share information across your

organisation and in public communities?

If youd like, take a moment and write down some thoughts on how your

organisation can get started.



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Define yourstrategy

Lets launch! There are several strategies you can use to integrate your

enterprise social network into your corporate culture. First, youll need

to make sure that your companys values reflect the importance of social

businessand that you communicate this to everyone. Then you can

support adoption with incentives and policies.

Communicate. Scream it from the mountaintop! If your employees dont

know that there is a new technology in town then they cannot use it. Getthe word out that you are starting an enterprise social network and that

you will be providing the support needed to get it off the ground. Clearly

state the goal so that your organisation embraces it and makes it its own.

Educate. Give your employees good reason to adopt the technology. As we

discussed earlier, there may be a knee-jerk resistance to taking on new

work. When you make a strong case that cites their increased efficiency,

realisation of operational goals, or achievement of financial goals, they

will be motivated to use it. Remember to organise and provide excellent

training.

Evangelise. Identify and organise your Champions, or your believersthe

early adopters who can get started right away. These are the people that

will advocate for setting up an enterprise social network. No matter where

they live in the business organisation, these people can be powerful

agents of change. Typically, they are Generation Y, the Millenials, or

the Facebook Generation that has already reached a level of comfort

working with social platforms in their personal lives and are very tech

savvy. When you support this group and make it their mission to convertthe non-believers, you are on your way to energising the entire group.37

Reward. Reward those who make the switch either with prizes or other

incentives and offer continual encouragement. Conversely, you can

change behavior by monitoring use or only posting information within the

new platform.38 When your upper management team regularly and visibly

participates, it sends a powerful message to the entire organisation, so

make sure that they are posting content and using the new technology as

their primary communications effort.



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Set your scheduleand get started

Timeline. Youll also need to set a timeline. While its not a hard and fast

rule, it can give you a clearer picture of how youll implement the program.

And you can always adjust as you move along.

Some good advice to consider a s you deploy :39

Change is good. Understand and accept that you will lose somecontrol as new voices emerge.

Stubborn people do exist. Be ready for managers (and employees) toresist implementation.

Top down support is a must. Make sure you have the executivessupport.

Pilot projects are a great beginning. Stay focused on concise,measurable goals and work to achieve them.

Go past projects to also include other activity. Cast a wide net withyour pilot project. Dont just include a few teams or groups.

Focus on culture, not technology.Your new enterprise social

network will facilitate change, but the change must occur in yourorganisation. Build an open culture, dont encourage closed towers oruse allow information to be used as currency.

A plan should be taking shape. Hopefully, its all beginning to gel in your

mind. Next well talk about the obstacles you may have to hurdle.

Use this area to jot down your ideas on timeline, when to start, who to

include, etc.



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Overcomingobstacles

CEOs and other high-ranking executives harbor various fears

about enterprise social networks, but industry experts, like

Andrew McAfee, have found little evidence to corroborate

these worries.40

Change is hard. When you make a big change in an organisation, there are

bound to be challengesand challengers. Deployment of new technology

is certainly a good example. In addition to the technical difficulties that

can accompany a transition, theres also the human factor. Youll likely

meet resistance from many colleagues before the software is even tested

in a pilot project. Change is hard, and people are hard on new things,

especially applications theyll need to start using in their daily workflow.

The five myths of Enterprise 2.0. There are several reasons why CEOs are

afraid to pull the trigger on evolving to a social business. McAfee calls

these The Five Myths of Enterprise 2.0.41

Myth #1: The risks of enterprise social networks outweigh therewards. Some CEOs worry that the company will leak sensitive

information or will be subject to noncompliance if employees broadcast

illegal activities. Yet real-world results show that sensitive information

can still be safeguarded and company employees effectively self-police

enterprise social networks. As a result, problems are found earlyand

dont grow over private emails.42

Others worry about the brand, thinking customers might post incorrect

or negative comments. Since content is self-corrected by the community,

its usually highly accurate. Any negative posts can be turned into good

public relations as the company remedies them on large scale with a

large audience.43

Regarding productivity, management worries that employees will waste

the companys valuable time. In reality, people use enterprise socialnetworks responsibly to grow professional contacts and knowledge

bases.44 Finally, CEOs fret that a leaderless project wont be executed

correctly. However, research shows that group efforts are more powerful

and generate more ideas.

McAfee notes, attribution is the norm for enterprises, meaning that

people like to get credit for their work, so enterprise social networks dont

have the anonymity associated with the Internet. Bottom line? The rules

of business etiquette also rule enterprise social networks. The rewards of

enterprise social networks absolutely outweigh the risks.



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Overcomingobstacles more

Myth #2: Enterprise social networks need a business case with a highROI figure. Since enterprise social networks are frequently an IT expense,

many CEOs pin their justification to an ROI. However, there are also many

subjective and intangible benefits that are inextricably linked to the

outcome yet difficult to quantify. Instead, CEOs should judge success

by other metrics too, including anticipated cost and timeline, potential

benefits, and productivity gains.45 Well discuss ROI further in Chapter 5.

Myth #3: If we build it, they will come. The reality? People are busyand find it hard to incorporate new technology into their workflow.

Additionally, they dont want to be seen as shirking responsibilities for a

social endeavor so they may add some content but nothing meaningful.

Remember, your enterprise soc ial network wont grow on its own without

proper nurturing. To be successful, employees need to be educated on

the mission, provided with constant support, given incentives, and shown

that the upper level management is participating. Since the personal

social network revolution grew quickly and exponentially, CEOs expect its

enterprise counterpart to do the same. Yet as we learned earlier, adoption

is a long process, and CEOs must adjust their expectations accordingly.46

Myth #4: Enterprise social networks help close colleagues worktogether better. Remember the tie discussion from Chapter 2. Weve seen

that these networks work with all levels of connection strong ties, weak

ties, potential ties, and even no ties at all.47

Myth #5: Enterprise social networks can only be judged by theinformation they create. Much of your enterprise social network will be

evolving in real time, so it may appear rough and unfinished. But evenwith unpolished information, these networks provide valuable content

that can be traced back to the people that generated itand this is

where the real secret of powerful collaboration resides. Once expertise is

located, the potential for innovation is limitless.48

Dont let obstacles defeat you. These five myths stop some CEOs in their

tracks. There are many reasons, whether real or imagined, to shelve your

social business plans. But dont even think about it.

Your competitors are running theirs right now and thriving. And it wont

take long to put you ahead of the curve now. Dont you want a piece of the

success story?



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31Building an ESN business case

Building an ESNbusiness case

Your business case for an enterprise social network. Making an

enterprise social network part of your companys game plan requires one

major play: Making sure that all stakeholders are on board. They must

believe in its importance and its power to transform the collaboration at

your company. Here are a few facts and ideas to build on when making

your business case.

Calculating the ROI. As you compile a clear picture of the projects scope,youll likely get the question of what is the expected ROI? While it is

important to consider ROI when youre adding infrastructure, personnel,

technology, or other new components to your business, the ROI of

enterprise social network software, as weve shown, is not easy to pin

down. The benefits can be subjective and it can be difficult to map out

exact costs and even timing, especially when deploying large and complex

projects with thousands of users.49

McAfee does note that for most of the companies he has studied, an

enterprise social network pays for itself. This assertion isnt based on a

traditional ROI formula; rather its based on his years of research in the

field of business technology.50

What to consider when you calculate ROI. When you calculate an ROI,

there are two important measurements to considerReturn on value and

return on productivity.

Chapter 5This chapter provides a solid business case for an enterprise

social network. We show you how to define costs and timelines

and perform a value/benefits or time-saving analysis. Youll see

exactly how to present your business caseand win.

The blueKiwi ROI calculator. You can test your ownassumptions with the ROI calculator on our website.


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Return on valuecost vs. benefits

Anecdotal evidence surfaces first. From a financial perspective, return

on value is not a powerful justification for acquiring an enterprise social

network platform. Understandably, claims of business gains in top line

revenue, rate of innovation, or level of satisfaction are met with a healthy

dose of skepticism. After all, there is no proven equation that connects the

dots between social business and business performanceat least not yet.

Organisations already enjoying the benefits of enterprise social networks

extol concrete anecdotal evidence, but ultimately the benefits must bemeasured by the success of overall business performance, and this takes

time to materialise.

Innovations in product development result in a richer sales pipeline,

improved quality, and on-time project delivery. These benefits depend

upon a large number of variablesthe industry, the business function, the

extent of executive support, the strength and motivations of community

managers, the adoption rate of the platform within the organisation, the

familiarity of users with the platform, and many more. With nearly five

years of data regarding enterprise social networks, there is sufficientinformation to develop a planned approach that will result in success.

A complex measurement. Return on value can be difficult to measure

quantifiably and is often tracked in terms of fundamental changes in

collaborative behavior and interaction. Increasingly, CEOs are noting

that enterprise social networks bring tremendous value to organisations

by aggregating the right expertise and information and fostering

collaboration.

However, return on value is still hard to predict when the enterprisesocial network is just in the planning stages. Even with full support

from management and a strategic plan in place, projecting a measurable

outcome is difficult because the specifics of how and what the enterprise

social network will target have not yet been determined. There may be

significant benefits, but what will they be?

Building an ESN business caseGains from an enterprise social network can be dramatic;

they include enhanced satisfaction scores, lower attrition,

and ultimately higher revenues.


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Social Network Analysis(SNA)

Measuring Success with Social Network Analysis (SNA).A recent

innovation in the field for assessing success is the Social Network

Analysis (SNA). This process measures the patterns of interaction

information sharing, problem solving, coaching, and mentoringthat

make up the less visible, often informal side of an organisation. Using

surveys and other tools, SNA can map the social networks that exist

outside of organisational charts or process diagrams.51

Over time, SNA can track patterns and changes.Armed with this

information, an organisation can see its communication structure and

can implement specific strategies to reorganise itself and improve

collaboration. In fact, a recent SNA conducted at Novartis helped reveal

a pattern of communicationand parallel innovation approachesthat

helped them combine teams before they reached a critical stall point in

developing a new vaccine.52

Building an ESN business case


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Using return on valueto map out benefits

This is key. When you identify the expected benefits youll gain with an

enterprise social network, you can accurately gauge your success. For

example, if youd like to save t ime and money, measure the savings in

travel time and costs gained by conducting global or otherwise travel-

intensive meetings online instead of in person. When you apply a return

on value (or similarly a cost versus benefits analysis), you can see where

subjective elements like shifting meetings can make a real impact.53

Dont focus on adoption rate. The one thing we dont recommend

studying is the adoption rate of the new software. It takes into account

how often people access the platform or how long they stick with it.54 This

metric has been often used as the typical yardstick of success, but it can

deter and depress many a CEO.

Further, there is no correlation between adoption and results, as many

users may not be using the software regularly, even if theyve adopted

it. Since youve seen how difficult adoption of new technology can be, it is

not the place to hang your hat on the success of the program. Instead, pick

a specific challenge to overcome and watch what it does.55


Many believe that if organisational barriers to the use of social technologies

diminish, they could form the core of entirely new business processes that mayradically improve performance.How social technologies are extending the organisation

McKinsey Quarterly, Nov 2011


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What CEOsneed to hear


Three powerful benefits. If you need to get your CEOs attention, share

these three competitive advantages that enterprise social network

technology can help you achieve:56

1. Imagine harnessing everything your employees know. Lew Platt, who

ran HP, a highly respected and very successful technology company

for decades, once quipped, If only HP knew what HP knows, wed be

three times more productive.

2. Connect weak ties and change the way you work. Connect

weakly tied employees to reap exponentially more collaboration,

innovation, and growth. Before enterprise social networks, we

lacked the technology to really take advantage of these professional

acquaintance ties. Now we can exploit them indefinitely. See Chapter

2 for a refresher on connecting ties.

3. Become a magnet for the Millenials. As Generation Y, the Millenials,

or the Facebook Generation play larger roles in the workforce, their

style of collaboration will be king. The social technologies they are

familiar with are infiltrating the business world as well.


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Benefit: improved salesand marketing

Some specific expected benefits for a return on value. Enterprise social

networks improve the performance of sales and marketing teams in

these ways:

Facilitate the conversation.Increasing communication andinformation sharing among teams increases the ability to continually

repeat successful sales strategies.

Find the best prospects. Help marketers zero in on their prospects

and target them with the resonant messages and offerings. Reduce the cost of a sale. Cut the length of a typical sales cycle by

making business information centrally accessible to every member

of the sales team. Theyll also be able to connect to each other via

activity streams and messaging, keeping dispersed team members inthe loop.

Connect everyone. Transform pyramids into circlescirculatinginformation among a larger group of people, rather than just the

few partners at the top of the pyramid. Since great ideas cancome from anywhere, flattening the pyramid to a circle yields more

comprehensive, powerful conversations and better, stronger ideas.


Top 3 measurable benefits

with customers

1. Increasing market effectiveness

2. Increasing customer satisfaction

3. Reducing market costs

Results from their 5th annual social tools and technologies survey

Source: McKinsey Global Institute, 2011


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Benefit: fosterinnovation

Incite innovation. Innovation is increasingly viewed as the primary

growth driver for companies as they battle stronger competition and

pricing pressures. And innovation is not just limited to new products and

servicesideally it can occur throughout the organisation. Through a

forum that encourages open collaboration, innovation can thrive.

Generate ideas. Since it is people, not processes, who create ideas, you

need a two-fold approach to generating new ideas. Use an ESN to find

and tap the unknown expertise already in your organisation. Second,connect people inside and outside of your organisation so that they can

cross-pollinate ideas and eventually focus their collective knowledge on

selecting the ideas that should be implemented.

Funnel ideas to create real value. Innovation happens in three distinct

phases: the emergence, incubation, and industrialisation of ideas. In

addition to the number of ideas created in the first phase, a critical

success metric is the reduction of cycle time to move ideas through the

latter two phases. By pushing collective ideas through the network in real

time, enterprise social networks greatly accelerate the process.

Reward creativity. Identify and reward those who create this exciting

environment, thus propagating the cycle of creativity. Regardless of where

they work in an organisation, all participants can shine through enterprise

social networks.



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Benefit: optimisecompany talent

Improve Human Resources with engaged employees and clearly

identified talent. The HR department is critical to the recruitment and

onboarding of new employees and the nurturing of the existing talent

pool. Make sure they are a key component of your enterprise social

network launch.

Reward your Champions. Although designed for group collaboration,

an enterprise social network makes it easy to see when an individualscontributions stand out. Human resources can efficiently track and

reward employees that make a difference.

Attract and keep Facebook Generation talent. Since this group is

extremely adept at using social media, the enterprise versions of the

software become an easy way to recruit and use their talents.

Maintain the new norm of open sharing and transparency.Enterprise

social networks are all about transparency and collaboration, something

the business world is now recognising as essential to its success.

Train and integrate new employees. With an enterprise social network,

the collective knowledge and opportunities to meet dispersed colleagues

are there at the ready, so new people can jump right into the conversation.

Building an ESN business caseWith an investment in social software tools, OSIsoft saw a

22% reduction in its customer support teams average time to

issue resolution.57


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Benefit: manageexception handling

Enterprise social networks manage exception handling. As we

established earlier in Chapter 1, companies are dealing more and more

with events and issues which are not easily handled by the standard

process and have no immediate answer-- theexceptions.

They can be a huge time drain as people struggle to resolve an issue

that has not been seen before, either attempting to fix it with a guess or

starting over to reinvent the wheel.

One great thing about enterprise social network software? They are

great at handling exceptions, for the same reasons that theyre great

at coordinating collaborationthey help people cross organisational

borders, find expertise, consolidate institutional knowledge, incubate

innovation, and move it all forward in real (fast) time.58



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Return onproductivity

After benefits its important to consider return on productivity.With

this measurement, you see less dramatic results than with a return on

value; however this type of productivity assessment is also much more

measurable than a return on value since it has direct links to an existing

communication or collaboration process.

Saving time and resources.Enterprise social networks drive efficiencies

when they replace routine communication and collaboration processeslike email, resulting in productivity gains that save time and resources.

The newer technologies reduce meeting t ime, information search

time, and perform other time- saving activities. With open information

distribution models displacing closed information loops like email and

in-person meetings, all pertinent people are included and know that the

information exists.

Most importantly, it is easier to track the time saved in reviewing

messages, sending replies, or searching for information and other routine

work activities through a time study evaluation. And these gains accruemore homogeneously to organisations across industries and business

functions.

More network activity drives business value. Both return on value

and return on productivity depend greatly on the level of adoption and

enterprise social network user engagement. Greater adoption of course

drives higher network effects and can substantially grow the business

value.

As companies gain traction with their enterprise social networks, the

benefits continue to build. More voices and the greater exchange ofknowledge exponentially create greater innovation and collaboration.

Building an ESN business caseAlcoa Fastening Systems regained 61% of its time when it cut

that much on compliance activities using [enterprise social

network] software.59


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41

France Postcase study

Profile France Post. La Poste is the most diverse of European postal

operators and the leading provider, distributer, and integrator of consumer

retail services. Headquartered in Paris, the company employs over

268,000 people throughout France. Their total revenue for 2011 was over

21.3 billion euros.

Their collaboration problem. The Department of Innovation and Services

(DIDES) at La Poste was created to address technological change andincreased competition by driving business and process innovation. DIDES

is organized horizontally across four operating divisions and needed to

accomplish three objectives: Provide an environment that encourages

open exchange and social collaboration to inspire innovation, connect

geographically dispersed team members to gather ideas and build

stronger relationships, and reduce dependency on costly in-person

meetings.

The solution. With blueKiwis help, DIDES created an internal network

called BlueNove. Employing real-time posts and notifications, theycreated an archived and easily accessible, searchable community for

critical collective knowledge, increased engagement and interaction

between geographically dispersed employees, and reduced labor and

travel costs when members connected online instead of in meetings.

Due to this success, La Poste has expanded the original project scope

beyond DIDES to encompass three new communities within La Poste.

Additionally, BlueNove will go beyond incubating ideas to helping

employees transform them into concrete projects.

Solution highlights and benefits. With 400 members, DIDES BlueNove

generated 16 000 visits, 2000 usable notes, and 1000 comments within

the first few years of deployment.

How has it made them be more productive?

Optimized group collaboration and innovation through the exchangeof information and capture of collective knowledge

Strengthened internal relationships

Increased productivity by creating a repository for important

information

Built collaboration among departmental teams and across

geographically dispersed project teams Drove significant labor savings when meetings were moved online

Chapter 6: Case studies

Case studies

In this Chapter, youll see how blueKiwi has helped companies with their

collaboration and innovation goals. Whether connecting employees

across the globe, streamlining processes and optimising ideas, reducing

costly travel and meeting costs, or otherwise creating stronger working

ties, blueKiwi makes it easy for companies to grow their business.


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Allianzcase study

Customer profile. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, The Allianz Group

is one of the leading integrated financial services providers in the world.

Allianz offers a comprehensive range of insurance and asset management

products and services to approximately 78 million customers in over 70

countries. Their total revenue for 2011 was more than 103 billion euros.

Background. In the Paris area, the company had 21 different lab agencies

that tested new products and selling methods. Around 60 collaborators

and agency managers staffed these various labs and needed an effective

way to collaborate.

The solution. Allianz used blueKiwi to create an enterprise social network

to facilitate weekly corporate communications from the division director

in Paris, circulate surveys soliciting feedback about new products and

selling methods, and share file templates, questions, and best practices

among its collaborators.

Due to the success of this i

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bK Playbook Final