... media networks. Gartner predicts that by 2016 half of all large organizations will ... especially in Enterprise Soci
How to Get Started with Enterprise Social Networks: Justify, Evaluate, Deploy,
Adopt and Grow
Chapter 1:
Introduction: The value of social business in the enterprise Social business tools are not entirely new. Enterprises have
or in some cases many-to-many, communication channel.
been using virtual tools such as chat and message board tools
This creates an opportunity for both richer and more efficient
for years. However it's only very recently that we are seeing rapid
communication experiences that also help drive productivity
adoption of social business elements like social media networks.
and collaboration. In terms of engagement, the less threatening
Gartner predicts that by 2016 half of all large organizations will
virtual environment of an ESN encourages participation by
have internal Facebook-like social networks, and that 30 percent
employees who might be more reserved in person (Nicholls,
of those will be considered as essential as email and phone .
n.d.). In addition, the public nature of such platforms allows
Why are we seeing such a rapidly accelerating interest and
the opportunity to recognize employees for their contributions,
business investment in social business implementations,
and also provides employees with a forum to congratulate
especially in Enterprise Social Networks (ESN)? What can a
and encourage each other.
social business implementation do for your company?
Another advantage of ESNs is their ability to enable
Social business tools have the potential to improve an
communication in real-time across a multitude of devices
organization’s communication, collaboration, productivity, and
to anyone, anywhere. According to E-learning guru Jay Cross
overall employee engagement. According to Gartner, advantages
(2011), the nature of work is evolving into the conceptual age,
of an ESN over email and more repository-based collaboration
where work and learning converge and physical limitations
include information capture and reuse, group organization, and
disappear. Indeed, the idea of segmenting one’s daily life into
social filtering (2013). A social collaboration platform for the
exclusive “time segments” of work vs. social is becoming less
enterprise streamlines communication by allowing users to take
and less practical. For example, a friend’s Facebook post on
a piece of information that originates in one place, such as a
a topic relevant to my business can instantly become part of my
1:1 conversation in an email or a piece of data in a web
“learning” or “work” arsenal, regardless of when or where I read
application, and inject that directly into a one-to-many,
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it. The result, says Cross, is that employees will be able to create value that is 200 times greater than the average (2011). It is clear that companies have spoken with their investment dollars and said that social business tools are important to their future success. However, as with any exciting new initiative, it’s helpful to have a roadmap if you’re just starting out or exploring. We’ve created this guide to help you understand and get started with a social business implementation, whether you’re instituting a true ESN with all the bells and whistles, or you’re just adding a few more social tools to address specific needs. You’ll learn what you need to know to achieve a successful implementation that meets your needs and delivers the ROI you’re expecting.
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Chapter 2:
Evaluating Vendors As you survey the landscape of increasing numbers of start-ups
Second: Understand your business needs fully, and then find
and established companies alike racing to gain a foothold in the
a solution to fit those needs. You will find better success than
exciting market for social business tools, it is easy to become
if you were to try to adapt your business need to fit your chosen
overwhelmed. You need to be able to identify what features are
solution. You may have multiple needs you are trying to solve,
most important and relevant to your goals (and investment), and
but make sure you clearly identify what problems you specifically
separate those from elements that might seem really cool, but
expect your social business tools to solve, and prioritize them
aren’t really necessary. In addition, you may already have some
in order of importance. According to Gartner, every organization
social business tools in place and be looking to add something
has specific needs that require certain features (2012). There are,
new, or you may be starting from scratch. Either way, the
according to Gartner, six core features that are critical to social
following guidelines will be relevant to helping you evaluate
collaboration success. These are the ability to:
whether you are ready to implement a full ESN or just adding
• Create a single instance of rich content with zero-effort
to share and consume;
some more punch to your social business toolkit. First: Adopt effective knowledge-sharing technology. Keep the technology you choose to capture knowledge simple and
• Support and preserve contextually relevant conversations
at the point of discussion;
easy to use. There are even technologies available that you can
• Attach a range of artifacts, not just text;
use out of the box without any IT help. If they’re that easy to set
• Invite others into the document instead of sending it to them;
up, it is likely your users will find them to be intuitive and
• Work in real time (or not);
therefore be more likely to use them.
• Ensure visibility and a persistent record of changes.
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Third: Pay close attention to design and user experience
prioritized that in their products and services that you can
when evaluating vendors. In terms of a model for design, you
look to for inspiration.
need look no further than your favorite mobile or web application We feel, the “Consumerization of IT” trend is a response to the unattractive and confusing digital tools that companies have historically deployed in an attempt to make employees’ work easier. As these installations suffered from low adoption and frustration among workers who found the time required to learn
Fourth: Look for gamification, social and mobile features. Gartner identified three main feature sets that will continue
to emerge and dominate user-facing applications by 2013: gamification, social, and mobile. These features, Gartner says, create applications that are more attractive, usable, and effective.
these tools not worth the investment, these same workers have
“Users should include gamified-social-mobile fusion as a
happily (and rapidly) turned to a plethora of fun and friendly web
desired set of characteristics when evaluating new application
and mobile apps to help solve everyday problems of productivity,
investments,” said Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner Fellow.
file sharing, and data storage at work.
“Applications and app-providers that fail to exploit the benefits of
The IDG Enterprise Consumerization of IT in the Enterprise (CITE) study defines the consumerization of IT as the propensity for users’ experiences with technology as consumers to impact their expectations regarding their technology experiences at work. And while there are some great consumer productivity apps
(like Evernote, Wunderlist, and Google Docs), don’t be afraid to be inspired by good old shopping, browsing, and other non-work task related apps. The point is that your social business tools need to look good, feel good, and make people want to
use them, and there are a number of companies that have
gamification-social-mobile fusion should expect underwhelming adoption compared with competitors that do exploit this
feature-set.” said Austin. It would be challenging to argue against Gartner’s prediction
that this trifecta will make applications easier and more enjoyable to use. Therefore, when evaluating vendors to help you build or enhance your social business implementation, you should be wary of solutions that omit or under-develop gamification, social, or mobile features or you may find yourself with an outdated investment much sooner than anticipated. 5
Chapter 3:
Deploying an Enterprise Social Network Once you’ve identified your business needs, evaluated a few
Another great idea is to prep posts or questions that can be fed
vendors and chosen an attractive, easy-to use, user-friendly
into the platform to create engagement. The idea here is that it
solution, you may be wondering how you should roll this out
will take some time to generate organic engagement with the tool
to your team, along with the larger organization. What are some
among employees, but you don’t want your tool to look like a
potential pitfalls to avoid, and best practices to keep in mind?
ghost town. Prepping some posts or questions in advance will
Here are six steps to a successful ESN rollout.
give you the ammunition with which to speed things up when
First, prepare your content. Pre-populate your community with
it’s getting too quiet.
“starter” information and conversations to give people something
Second, rollout a soft launch to a select group of supporters
to immediately interact with when they first engage with the tool.
prior to rolling it out to the entire organization. First, identify
Don’t be discouraged if this sounds like a daunting task; a lot of
your “community experts;” this group should consist of the
the work has likely already been done. There is probably plenty
closest supporters and greatest enthusiasts for your new social
of good fodder hidden in individual inboxes waiting to be pulled
business initiative. Doing a soft launch to this group will have the
out and shared. This is the time to seek out those individuals
dual effect of generating content and avoiding an empty platform
who never delete any emails. They likely have a treasure trove
at launch. It will also create an opportunity for instant feedback
of just the kind of content you’re looking for in their email
within the platform itself. Shortly after the soft launch (ideally
threads. Ask your team to mine their email and chat archives
within a week or two), solicit feedback directly from participants
and, at their discretion and deleting names or identifying
and make changes as needed. Then, have the community
information where necessary, use them to create either
experts create task-oriented groups and seed collaboration
real or fictitious posts.
by asking for creative solutions to ordinary problems.
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Third, treat the launch of your social business
everyone understandsand can rally around. Here are four pain
implementation like a new product launch. Prepare
points that are common to many organizations:
your marketing communications arsenal with language that
is consistent in all placements for use on the website, internal newsletters, emails, and any other internal communication channels you may have. If you have the technology or resources
available, schedule a webinar or even a live event as part of the launch. Incent people to attend with a prize or contest. Your
intent should be to make a big splash to get everyone in the organization excited about the new tools, and at minimum make sure they are aware of it so they can go check it out later. Just as
1. The need to share questions, answers, and best practices within your sales team to increase deals closed. 2. The need to build a content portal for your distribution
partners to ensure they have the materials needed to
be your advocates. 3. The need to onboard and train your new employees,
especially if they are remote. 4. The need to build a public-facing customer community
to improve customer service and engagement.
with most product launches, an important success metric will be the number of people who hit your landing page. However, you’ll
The fifth step to rolling out your social business
also want to make sure that everyone got the message and
implementation is to monitor engagement during the first
understands what the tool is all about. One way to assess your
few weeks post-launch. Ideally, you’ll create a type of S.W.A.T.
impact is by sending out a post-launch survey. Make it a max of
team tasked with the responsibility of monitoring engagement
five questions and encourage people to take it by offering
with the tool and responding to posts at shockingly fast rates.
a chance to win a high-value consumer prize like an iPad.
This might require lightening the workload of these key members
Fourth solve a major pain point for the organization. One reason ESNs fail to gain traction among employees is because the company-wide rollout does not address a pain point that
of your team during this time period, but it will be worth it when you see your success. While outsourcing such a monitor and response team may be feasible for some companies, it would
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be a less desirable approach because it lacks the added value
of “tribal knowledge” that only employees can bring. In fact, it will likely be the internal nuances that emerge in comments and posts in your ESN application that will create a sense of trust and therefore drive buy-in and engagement throughout the organization. However you choose to manage the post-launch monitoring, make sure to dedicate some resources to this critical element. This will allow you to see what’s working and to implement a feedback loop for ongoing optimization. The sixth step to success is basic, but easily overlooked:
use templates. You want to ensure that your social business implementation is equipped to reinforce your brand, not detract from it. To do that you need to make sure that everyone in the organization has easy access to brand-approved templates for use within the social business tools that serve their intended purpose. That said, take the time to narrow down the number
of templates pre-launch so you make it as easy as possible for employees to quickly find what they need.
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Chapter 4:
How do I get people to use this thing? What’s in it for me?
chat session, or email thread. Social business tools have
a democratizing effect on communication in that anyone’s
Change is difficult. Getting one person to change anything is
comment can be immediately seen, commented on, and
challenging enough. Multiply that challenge by the number of
re-posted in real-time. Such tools thereby create a platform
people in your organization and you have quite a task ahead
where the ideas of an entry-level employee are given the same
of you. The most important thing to remember when crafting
opportunity to be heard and shared as those of the CEO.
the strategy for adoption of your social business initiative is to
This has the positive effect of encouraging people to share
articulate why anyone should be motivated to adopt this new
ideas, but also creates a platform where ideas can rapidly
set of tools and thereby change their behavior. You need to
evolve and be validated as comment builds on comment in
clearly answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”
a forum for everyone to see and share.
Here are a couple of answers to that question:
Knowledge sharing tools also provide everyone in the
First, a major benefit of social business tools is improved collaboration and communication. According to a recent Fierce, Inc. study, 86% of workers believe workplace failures
are the result of ineffective collaboration or the lack of communication (Salesforce). Knowledge sharing tools offer
a simple way for all team members to collaborate by breaking down communication barriers. Email, chat, and phone calls are all essentially private communication tools that limit the reach
of the message to the person or group included on the call,
organization with seamless access to organizational knowledge by offering the ability to search for anything in one central repository. The “tangibles” such as images, files, and templates can reside and be accessed in the same environment as the “intangibles” such as knowledge of how to do something,
the historical experience a colleague had working on a similar project, vendor recommendations, or other pieces of knowledge that may or may not have ever been documented or saved.
In addition, having everything in one place not only makes it
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easier to locate what one is looking for, but also streamlines the
can see how recent, and therefore how relevant, the latest
sharing of content. If everyone has access to the same system,
comment or post is.
a simple link will usually suffice to direct someone to a large or poorly categorized file, eliminating challenges associated with files that are too large to share via email or that take too much
The second answer to the “What’s in it for me?” question
is increased productivity. According to the McKinsey Global
time to download.
Institute, using social technologies will increase productivity by
Knowledge-sharing tools also offer a unique opportunity for
and across teams (2012). Social business tools provide an easy
Q&A. If you’re not able to find what you need, you can just post
way to disseminate information or knowledge throughout an
a question and anyone within the group or organization will be
organization instantaneously. A single post can be set to appear
able to see it and suggest an answer. In addition, because such
in the news feed of everyone in the organization or select groups
commentary is public and often searchable within a social tool,
as needed. In addition, geographical barriers of globally
you can benefit from multiple opinions as more people read the
distributed teams working in different time zones are broken
thread and chime in while the question only had to be asked
down as everyone in the organization can access real-time
once. In terms of input vs. output, this is incredibly efficient.
information anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
Social business tools in this way allow a magnifying effect
20-25% by improving collaboration and communication among
yielding multiple solutions and perspectives to a single problem
The third benefit of social business tools is that they offer
while at the same time making those solutions searchable for
an easy, efficient solution for getting information. Today,
anyone in the future. In addition, ideas will stay current and
according to E-learning guru Jay Cross (2011), less than
relative to the context as anyone can make updates.
10 percent of the knowledge you need to do your job is in
The comments are also usually time stamped so you
your head. The other 90 percent is in other peoples’ heads.
Social business tools allow us to access the information that
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only resides in someone else’s brain or memory. In addition,
A fifth benefit of social business tools is that they facilitate
knowledge-sharing tools allow the ability to gather valuable
open communication and improve employee engagement
business intelligence in one place by combining the knowledge
(Nazarian, 2012). Cross-communication is most efficient when
of all participants. All of us is smarter than one of us. Social
information moves in multiple directions instead of top-down.
business tools, because of their one-to-many or many-to-many
Employee engagement is improved because people now
structures, allow us to tap into this collective intelligence in a way
have a platform where they can literally see their ideas and the
that was not previously possible with traditional one-to-one
ideas of others influencing decision-makers in the organization.
communication. ESNs especially have endless potential
In addition, questions can be answered in real-time with no
to germinate entirely new ideas owing to the tremendous
lag, and multiple individuals can provide input rather than
opportunity for cross-pollination of thoughts, opinions,
a single “expert.”
and information in one place. The fourth benefit that social business tools offer your
Driving Internal Adoption
employees is improved efficiency. Much time will be saved
In addition to articulating the benefits a social business
as a result of the adoption of knowledge sharing tools. Today,
implementation can provide, it is equally important that the
employees spend as much as 26 percent of their time managing
organizational leadership understand the company culture.
information overload (Bridge, 2012). An ESN addresses this
Gartner recently forecast that through 2015, 80 percent of social
incredible time suck by giving you access to all the information
business efforts will not achieve the intended benefits due to
you need in one place. Frustrating searches for files with
inadequate leadership and an overemphasis on technology
unintuitive names will be a thing of the past, and employees will
(2013). The technology that makes social communication,
no longer have to sift through unorganized inboxes searching for
learning, and content sharing possible, is not enough to
one-off conversations containing a nugget of needed information.
implement social business tools in the enterprise. It also
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requires 1. Awareness on the part of leadership of the
organization. It is crucial to note that no matter what your role
company culture and its effect on both formal and informal
in the organization, you can’t accomplish this task alone, but will
communications. 2. Leadership that supports and consistently
need input from colleagues both above and below in seniority.
uses social business tools. 3. Buy-in and active participation
A lone-wolf approach here would at minimum be frowned upon
of the majority of employees.
as inappropriate considering the goal is to achieve a “social”
As with any change initiative, achieving a successful social business implementation will require leadership to take a close look at the inner workings and attitudes within the organization
business implementation. Doing so might even handicap your effort before you can truly get started by branding it as another top-down initiative.
and craft a strategy specific to the organization’s needs.
Another key point that leaders must realize is that driving
Achieving behavioral change is a slow process by nature
internal adoption of any social business implementation will
and proper planning must take place in order to successfully
require a “pull” strategy, where employees voluntarily opt-in,
drive that change, and it is best to take baby steps.
as opposed to a “push” strategy that traditionally accompanied
Institutional change to a more collaborative work style often
large technology deployments.
needs to overcome decades of the opposite culture in most large
“Businesses need to realize that social initiatives are different
companies. One way to do that is to start small, show a positive
from previous technology deployments,” said Carol Rozwell,
result, gather some passionate advocates based on that success,
vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “Traditional
implement a little bigger project, keep the success rolling, round
technology rollouts, such as ERP or CRM, followed a push
up some more raving fans and keep going.
paradigm. Workers were trained on an app and were then
Indeed, the most difficult task may be taking a critical look
at the current attitudes and processes that permeate your
expected to use it. In contrast, social initiatives require a
pull approach, one that engages workers and offers them a 12
significantly better way to work. In most cases, they can’t be
Help motivate these players with rewards, recognition,
forced to use social apps, they must opt-in.” (Gartner, 2013)
or other incentives.
Steps to Driving Adoption
Next, seek to root social collaboration in the company culture. Empowering your employees, team members, or
There are several steps to successfully driving adoption of
audience to share their knowledge and opinions and providing
a social business implementation. First, in order to reap the
them a safe and respectful environment will nurture enthusiastic
full benefits social technologies have to offer it is necessary
participation (Nazarian, 2012). Breaking down strict hierarchical
to make them the primary vehicle for communication within
systems and chains of command for information flow will help
an organization. Getting executive sponsorship is crucial.
open the passageways to a true culture of knowledge sharing.
However, executives must also practice what they preach
To accomplish this, first make sure you include all levels of
and use the social technologies themselves as their primary
your organization from executive sponsorship to task workers.
communication tools. In addition, it is important to identify
Upon inception, everyone should feel ownership of the mission.
the “cheerleaders” and “champions” of the tools and organize
Without widespread support, you will be fighting an uphill battle.
and support their enthusiastic efforts to organically drive
Next, getting executives on board and highly involved with the
adoption. Most likely, these individuals were part of your
introduction of the ESN will drive employees to adopt it as
“community of experts” that you identified when planning for
a business process, easily integrating it into daily activities.
your launch, but that does not preclude the possibility of new
Suggest a challenge to employees to switch internal
champions and advocates appearing post launch. When they
communication channels from email and previous channels
do, you should take advantage of their energy. These individuals
to the ESN. It might be slow and painful, but when people
are great assets because you already have their buy-in and
figure out that they are missing important information they will
they likely have a gift for generating that excitement in others.
quickly adapt. Most importantly, people need to be willing to 13
adapt the way they work in order for the ESN to be successful,
and communicate. Participants will have no other choice than
so you should encourage them as much as possible to
to use it and will then realize the benefits.
make the change.
Finally, encouraging collaboration and creating
Third, make sure your social business implementation
appropriate groups within the implementation are critical.
is fully aligned with your company mission statement.
Groups are fundamental to the structure of an ESN. Creating
Refer to the mission statement with each new knowledge
relevant groups from the onset gives your ESN the sure
sharing decision. If your action doesn’t meet the mission
footing it needs to help people see the benefit the ESN gives
statement, you need to think about making a change in your
to their work. You can create task-oriented groups and seed
path. Otherwise, you will consistently suffer from a disconnect
collaboration by asking for creative solutions to ordinary
when the mechanism of your tool conflicts with the values
problems. Group project participants might be reluctant at
of your organization.
first, but once they start seeing the potential for innovation
Communicating relevance is key to driving internal adoption. Ensure the participants have insight into how the information you are giving them is relevant to them and will serve them. Without
they will get on board. Keeping the groups small is a best practice for healthy collaboration, since it gives everyone
in the group a realistic chance to actively participate.
this personal connection, people will be reluctant to change their habits. Then, seek to combine that personal relevance with current business activities. One way is to give employees multiple use cases that are aligned with business activities prior to the launch. Another way is to set up a community for a specific project team where everyone on that team goes to collaborate 14
Chapter 5:
Grow: How do I keep people excited and spread the word?
Once you’ve launched your social business implementation,
hand are those who contribute the most content, while
and have successfully gained adoption throughout the team,
Bookworms are very active in terms of viewing and enjoying
you may be concerned about maintaining that engagement and
content, and most likely heavily influence the rankings and
excitement. Fortunately, there are a number of tactics that can
ratings of the Aces. Whatever your strategy, people like to be
help keep the excitement going and the innovation happening.
rewarded for their work and doing so in a fun way will keep
Gamification One way to encourage engagement is by employing gamification strategies aimed at keeping employees motivated to continue interacting and contributing. Ideally, your knowledge-sharing tool will already have some built-in gamification features—Facebook “likes” and Twitter “re-tweets” are good examples. Another way to keep people excited is to have competitions
with prizes based on analytics. Bloomfire, an ESN that enables knowledge sharing in business, organizes this by identifying
and rewarding active participants in categories such as Aces, Producers, and Bookworms. Aces are recognized for contributing great content as evidenced by the social tool’s popularity and approval features. Examples include the number of “hi-fives”, “follows”, or views received. Producers on the other
everyone active and engaged. Finally, it never hurts to go back
to basics for inspiration. The familiar Employee of the Month is
a tried and true recognition program that can be revitalized and amplified using social tools.
Ongoing Participation There are a number of strategies for maintaining ongoing participation in a social business implementation. The key point to remember is that for any social business implementation to maintain active participation, employees will need to change their habits. One way to help drive this change is to have employees create personal goals to sustain their attention and help motivate them to make the behavioral changes required to make your implementation successful. Examples could be, “I will use our ESN for 100% of communications related to X project” or “I will
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find and re-share at least 1 piece of content I find useful every
most helpful contributions, and contributors themselves can see
day this week”.
who has hi-fived their contributions.
Learning the best ways to use social business tools will require
Finally, social recognition has long been considered a strong
some hands-on learning and will take time. Providing participants
motivator, often even more so than monetary awards. Make sure
with an online learning community, application opportunities,
to reward your employees for contributing valuable information
and ongoing projects provides the scaffolding needed to change
so they feel ownership of the content they contribute to the ESN,
habits and replace more traditional one-to-one communication
just as they would when they contribute to a meeting or project.
tools with the one-to-many or many-to-many social business
Recognition is the number one way to satisfy an employee,
tools like ESNs. However, the social nature of these new types
so give them a shout out in front of the entire company.
of tools also means that they have intrinsic reinforcement rooted
If you give your team members credit for their ideas, they will
in the familiar concepts of peer pressure. Just as research has
reward you by continuing to share them. In addition, this public
shown that one is more likely to smoke if one’s friends smoke,
acknowledgement round robin also has the effect of showing
the same power is inherent in social business tools because of
everyone that they too can be a knowledge-sharing rock star,
their social nature (Cross, 2011). A positive example is when a
amplifying the motivating effect by extending beyond just the
member gives kudos to another member for contributing a helpful
person who is being officially recognized.
post, answer, or comment. It’s amazing how motivating a little “thanks,” followed by the emoticon “☺” can be. Sometimes these kudos-giving features have a standard, built-in widget such as a like or hi-five. Typically, the hi-fives or likes can be tallied up so it’s easy to see which members in the community are providing the
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Chapter 6:
How do I prove success? It’s likely that during the course of your social business
Collaboration output is more difficult to measure but perhaps
implementation journey, you encountered some opposition
more relevant than frequency of logins and contributions. The
and skepticism. Therefore, just as with any project or initiative,
best way to approach this is to consider whether projects are
it’s important to be clear about how you’re going to measure
completed faster and more accurately when an ESN is used to
your success from the beginning. One familiar way of measuring
collaborate. Remember that the purpose of an ESN is to reduce
success is with analytics. It’s important to set goals for social
the time people spend doing a specific task and increase project
collaboration in similar ways to setting sales goals. The challenge
innovation and accuracy. Anecdotal feedback from project
lies in how to measure the effectiveness of the ESN you choose
participants will be especially helpful as they will be able to
and the output of your collaboration efforts.
add more color to the story by comparing their previous project
As far as the ESN, measuring the effectiveness of the tool
experiences with their enhanced collaboration experience.
itself is simple enough if the tool you choose has built-in
Social tools seem to provide a vast expanse of opportunity
analytics and reporting. For example, you can see who is
for experimentation. However, without some guidance and care,
sharing, who is viewing, what is being shared, what is being
this fertile ground of opportunities can quickly decay into the
viewed, how often and how much people are contributing.
all too real wasteland of abandoned initiatives. To mitigate this
Questions to ask when assessing such metrics include
scenario, manage the problems you seek to solve with your ESN
whether there is a low barrier to entry (ease of use) and
like you would any other complex pilot project. Assign a project
ongoing participation (usefulness to the end user)?
manager. Set achievable goals that can be realized in a short
Are some metrics disproportionately higher than others,
period. Prove them out and iterate. The key is to start small,
indicating a preference among employees for that feature?
prove your success, and then grow. After you’ve successfully proven that social collaboration efforts using an ESN can tie back
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to business benefits, there will be ample opportunity and resources given to broaden your efforts. A gradual approach like this also gives you the opportunity to learn and make modifications along the way. Finally, once you start proving success with your ESN
among your test group, you’ll likely be tasked with expanding
the footprint within the organization. There are several ways to
do this. One approach is to seek to increase the number of
users regardless of department who are focused on a specific
cross-functional project. This is called project-based expansion. An alternate way is to grow the footprint department by department—creating “groups” within a larger ESN that can
be added on an as-needed basis. It is important to remember
that expansion works best and is most successful when participation is opt-in rather than mandatory. As a result,
it is wise to proceed slowly, leverage your champions
and cheerleaders, and utilize awards and recognition
to encourage adoption wherever possible.
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About Bloomfire For collaboration to be impactful, it needs to be contextual, purposeful and compelling. For it to truly gain traction, it needs to be simple and in tune with the ways people interact, share and learn in real life. We get it. Bloomfire has taken a page from the consumer technology handbook to deliver a highly intuitive, personalized experience that’s optimized for mobile. Bloomfire enables teams to transfer knowledge, helping organizations derive best practices and discover new insights with easy-to-use content management and social collaboration features. We put collaboration in the flow of business by allowing users to engage from any device and integrating with everyday tools, which drives adoption. It’s a win-win.
To learn more, visit: http://www.bloomfire.com.
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References Bridge Consulting (2012). The business case for employee
Nazarian, Viki (2012, February 6). Utilizing and implementing an
engagement and communication. Retrieved from Bridge
internal social media system. Retrieved from Business 2
Consulting website: http://bridgecnslt.com/documents/
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