Social Media Musings

On the topic of Crock-i-ness

Well, there’s been a lot of buzz both before and since Enterprise 2.0 San Francisco in San Francisco on the question of whether or not Enterprise 2.0 is a crock. Put another way, can Enterprise 2.0 tools and technologies deliver tangible business benefits with tangible use cases in support of the tools?

Anyone that knows me knows by now that I believe the answer to this is Yes – Enterprise 2.0 can provide tangible business benefits supported with tangible use cases and I’m going to share a few with you here that we’ve realized since the creation of our enterprise community two years ago, which supports blogs, wikis, discussions and user profiles, to name a few things.

I will say right up front that we never identified success for our initiative as 100% user adoption. Not only do I feel that 100% adoption is unrealistic, but I also don’t believe that Enterprise 2.0 is for everyone. I think that a lot of people can realize benefits from using the tools available to them, but I do not believe that there’s any “one size fits all” tool for any organization. If that were the case, we wouldn’t still have people using interoffice mail, leaving post-its on our desks, leaving voicemails, sending emails, etc. We’d have everyone using only one way to communicate, and I don’t think I need to say that this view of the world is completely unrealistic.

I’ll say again what I said on the panel I participated on at Enterprise 2.0 – Enterprise 2.0 is not a cure-all or fix-all. It’s an enabler. Here are some examples of what it’s enabled at EMC in just two short years:

Increased Collaboration

One of the many challenges that large, geographically dispersed organizations face is bringing employees together to collaborate. It’s not that employees don’t want to collaborate; it’s that they have no way of knowing who is working on similar projects or facing similar problems around the company or around the world unless we enable and encourage them to share them somewhere.

That’s exactly what we’ve done on EMC|ONE – provided a platform that enables global, searchable access to conversations and content so that employees can connect with others facing the same challenges and share what has worked, what hasn’t and brainstorm on what to try next. A memorable story that has been shared with me, and that I like to retell is the salesperson in Australia who connected with the salesperson in North America about a deal on a specific product, against a specific competitor and they shared how they went into the sales call, collaborated on things that worked or didn’t, and ultimately won the deal. So, if I knew the dollar amount of that deal, I could conceivable call those dollars ROI.

 

Corporate Memory & Reduction in Redundant Requests

Content and conversations that occur via email or presentations stored on people’s hard drives is arguably essentially lost when that employee leaves or their computer get fried or stolen unless they’ve happened to share that content with others and/or done regular backups of their content – neither of which always happens in a predictable fashion.

EMC|ONE provides employees a venue to share their content and have their conversations and ultimately helps to preserve that conversation and the though process behind it, along with any content that was shared in the context of the conversation. It also makes it accessible to other employees in a searchable community of information for reference, collaboration and updates, as needed. EMC|ONE has also helped many employees reduce redundant requests for information as these employees share and document their information and FAQs in the community, they have a central location to point people to for consistently requested information, and reduce their own personal email and phone traffic and free up their time to work on other things.

 

Quicker Response Times

One of the biggest frustrations I hear from employees is that they have to wait on or even track down information they’re looking for, which wastes time, money and effort on a consistent basis. I’ve heard, (I think it was in Dion Hinchcliffe’s workshop at Enterprise 2.0) that the average employee spends an hour a day looking for information, searching through old files, emails, etc. and boy do I believe it.

A story that I consistently hear from our sales folks is how wonderful it is for them be able to search our competitive community on EMC|ONE and find real-time information and updates about competitors. They also love the ability to ask a question and have anyone in the company be able to answer it instead of just whoever is on a distribution list they send an email out to.

Following up on the example above, folks also are very happy to have access to a location that has FAQs to various questions they need answers to without having to wait to hear back via phone or email when time is of the essence. Depending on the person and amount of time they spend searching for information, this savings could be minimal to a fairly substantial amount.

 

Increased Innovation

For the past three years, EMC had held an annual innovation conference, and it has been planned during the past 2 years on EMC|ONE and then the summary, wrap up, photos, etc. are also shared on EMC|ONE. That in and of itself (using EMC|ONE as the coordination point) has not increased innovation, but what it has done is helped to increase worldwide awareness of the importance that EMC places on innovation and it has increased access to the information, ideas, and proposals that were submitted for the innovation conference by EMC employees.

In addition to the annual Innovation Conference, employees innovate on EMC|ONE every single day by coming up with creative new ways to address problems, challenges, and concerns on a wide variety of topics (products, customer support, solutions, internal issues, software challenges, you name it) they are facing. Not only that, they work with other employees that they would not have otherwise had an opportunity to work with had it not been for EMC|ONE.

 

Customer Support

At EMC, customer service is of the utmost importance. Our internal employee support forums for solving customer issues are, as of this weekend, now hosted on EMC|ONE. But long before the official migration happened, there have been all sorts of examples of employees collaborating together to make customer service as good as it can be. They work together, similar to the example above with innovation, on a wide variety of topics that concern EMC customers and creatively come up with new ideas and solutions to a wide variety of issues. Have some of those efforts kept customers and/or gotten us new customers? Yes, they have, and that in and of itself is an immensely powerful ROI.

 

Increased Employee Satisfaction

I’ve read varying articles on how much it costs to replace an employee that leaves the organization and it seems relatively consistent that it’s around 150% of the employee’s annual salary to resource, interview, hire, and train a replacement employee for someone who quits.

I can tell you without a doubt, that many, many of our employees have shared stories with us (that were not solicited) about how much more connected they feel to the company since EMC|ONE began two years ago. A few examples:

I cannot think of a time during my 20 years at EMC when I felt more informed, involved, and confident in myself and the business before EMC|ONE. ~EMC|ONE User

No other corporate resource gives me more value than EMC|ONE. I feel connected with what is going on, I understand our direction, and I get great satisfaction from contributing to people and initiatives across the organization that before I didn’t even know existed. ~EMC|ONE User

There has been no single resource which has added as much value to me, my customer messaging, and my understanding of EMC as EMC|ONE. I am part of the silent majority, who rarely makes the time to post, but gains tremendous value from this fantastic glimpse into the breadth of EMC. ~EMC|ONE User 

What I don’t want folks to think is that I think is that Enterprise 2.0 is a piece of cake, that it’s easy or that it will fix all of your problems. It’s not a piece of cake, it’s not easy, and it won’t fix all of your problems. What it will do is begin to connect employees to one another that have never had an opportunity to connect before and possibly never would have if it hadn’t been for our efforts. It takes a lot of hard work and effort to even begin an Enterprise 2.0 initiative, let alone sustain it and grow it and assist in continuing along the path to reach its full potential. We certainly didn’t do everything perfectly. Tell me who has and I’m happy to listen. I am proud that we are trying, and continue to try to enable employees to get more done with less, be more connected with one another and work, and find increased job satisfaction.

Do I think Enterprise 2.0 is a crock? Nope. But what do think is that companies that don’t take it seriously and start investing in researching what it can do for them might just find themselves at a significant competitive disadvantage in the very real and near future.

To companies and individuals that ignore the potential that Enterprise 2.0 has to offer or call it a crock, I’d say – Be careful, that crock’s teeth are very sharp and it's liable to bite you when you least expect it.

---- 

 Jamie 

 Blog: http://www.jamiepappas.com

 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiepappas

Enterprise 2.0 is still alive and well, thank you very much

I am just back from a week in San Francisco attending the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Fran as a featured speaker along with a whole host of other industry experts. Those of us that were on the keynote stage got “backstage passes” and felt a bit like rock stars walking around. Thanks to everyone who made it possible for me to attend a great conference!

For my part, I participated in a panel with five other members from the 2.0 Adoption Council entitled “Is Enterprise 2.0 a Crock?”  I’ll share more on the panel and the whole idea of E 2.0 “crock-i-ness” in general in another post, as I’d like to get my overall conference thoughts down here first as well as share some advice based on ongoing discussions I had with folks at the conference that I hope to be helpful to them, as well as anyone else trying to do this. 

Photo courtesy of @adunne's Flickr Photostream. Panel left to right: Greg Lowe, Megan Murray, Bryce Williams, me, Bruce Galinksy, and Claire Flanagan. (I took a few photos, too, at the conference, though not nearly as good as Alex's.)

I have to say that I enjoyed the conference and the city of San Francisco. The weather was exceptionally nice and the city is amazing, even though I only saw a very small portion of its loveliness due to being inside most of the time.  But nothing compared to the opportunity to meet not only my friends from the 2.0 Adoption Council - Susan Scrupski our Founder, Andy McAfee, Greg Lowe, Megan Murray, Bryce Williams, Bruce Galinksy, Claire Flanagan, Timo Elliott, Hamilton Pridgen, Bert Sandie, and Donna Lucas - in person, but also so many other folks so passionate about the topic of Enterprise 2.0. I am proud to be a member of the 2.0 Adoption Council, and a part of the Enterprise 2.0 conference, as both have done great things for me on many levels.

One thing that’s still very clear to me from the conference, and the folks that I talked to there, is that Enterprise 2.0 is alive and well in terms of both interest in “cracking the code” of rollout and implementation as well as interest in and a hunger for examples of companies that are doing it and doing it well. It’s refreshing to work for a company (EMC) that’s considered to be ahead of the curve in terms of strategy, deployment, and adoption of Enterprise 2.0 tools and behaviors behind the firewall. I know that we still have a lot of learning and work ahead of us, but it’s neat to hear what folks think of what we’ve done so far, and of course to know that I’ve been in the thick of it.

So, how does one go about thinking about and preparing to launch an Enterprise 2.0 initiative? Here’s my advice on questions you need to ask yourself and be able to answer before moving forward. I’ll be elaborating on these questions in future posts:

How do you pitch the idea and to whom?

Understanding the key stakeholders and influences that need to be involved in the initiative and decision-making will go a long way towards a successful rollout. My recommendation is to define your goals and try to include key stakeholders from as many cross-functional teams as makes sense for your organization. This will hopefully reduce the number of times you may have to go back and re-pitch and refine the plan.

How do you determine what tools to use?

Understanding your goals will lead you towards tools. My recommendation would be to start smaller and more concise to meet specific goals you’ve identified and add new functionality as your users request it - providing too many bells and whistles up front will likely turn users off.

How do you secure executive sponsorship and program funding?

Getting an executive sponsor for your initiative who “gets it” and can articulate the value of the tools you’re proposing, as well as actually use them, is going to be key to your initiative.  You’ll also want to be honest with your budgetary needs – nothing is free, not even if the software’s free – it’s still going to take someone’s time (and time is money, after all), to roll out the initiative. My recommendation is to start with a pilot or beta program to get folks interested in the offering and then scale up as needed as new users join.

How do you educate on the tools?

Educating on the tool(s) that you choose is going to be key for a successful initiative. Too often, we make assumptions about people’s level of knowledge on any particular tool or subject. My advice is that you’re going to need to prepare beginner, intermediate, and advanced training materials in multiple formats to have a truly successful educational program.

How do you roll it out to the company?

When it’s time for go-live, you’re going to need to determine how you’re going to roll it out and to whom – will it be the whole company or a sample group of folks? You’ll also want to consider any marketing and communications channels you’ll be able to take advantage of to increase awareness. My recommendation is to also have a plan in place with consistent messaging for your advocates and evangelists to take advantage of when they share the tools with others. This will help to keep the messaging consistent and avoid confusion as to what the tools are for.

How do you handle the naysayers, those that don't see the value or support the idea?

See my previous blog post on this one.

How do you measure the impact and success?

You will inevitably want to consider the measurements you will take into account to consider your initiative a success. There are lots of different measures that can be captured, and each organization is different. My recommendation is to gain insights from your key stakeholders as to what they might consider a measure of success and then propose a phase 1 list to folks for consideration. As the tools and their use evolves, so too can your measures of success.

In summary, the key ingredients for any Enterprise 2.0 initiative are:

• Executive sponsorship
• Funding
• Defined goals/purpose
• Defined “rules of engagement”
• Partnerships are key (IT, HR, Legal, PR, Business Units, etc.)
• Group of passionate folks
• Patience
• Perhaps a leap of faith

---- 

 Jamie 

 Blog: http://www.jamiepappas.com

 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiepappas

Dealing with the Enterprise 2.0 and social media critics and naysayers

This past August, I had the pleasure of facilitating a discussion at PodCamp Boston 4 – “How do you get your company to see the value of social media?” This session could have very well been entitled “How do you get your company to see the value of Enterprise 2.0?” and my advice would have been the same.

Recently, a similar discussion came up among members of the 2.0 Adoption Council, and I shared my response with folks in the discussion, and decided to blog on it finally, as I’ve been meaning to for a really long time! 

When we started our community endeavor over two years ago, our success measure was never to have 100% adoption, but rather to build a community of value for employees passionate about collaboration. Once we had several hundred passionate folks engaged and getting value, we continued to work and evolve the community so that it not only continued to provide value to the existing community members, but the hope was also that as the value grows, it would also persuade others to check out the community, join, and contribute. We also actively seek to gather and share success stories, use cases, etc. and post those within the community, as well as include them in our presentations and informational sessions on the community. 

In my opinion, the most important thing that we've really tried to do, which has made a world of difference, is that we've tailored our message to each individual group in terms of use cases and how they can get value from the community. We go into every single meeting with the WIFA (What's in it for the audience?) question at the forefront of our presentation for the stakeholders of that meeting. We learned very quickly that if you tailor the message to their very specific needs, and pinpoint their worst pain points and address how the community can help with some of those issues, it goes a long way towards persuading them to at least give it a try. 

The second most important thing we've done is be honest about the level of commitment required to get a community up and running, as well as sustain it long-term. It's not easy. It doesn't happen overnight. And just because you build it, doesn't mean they'll come! Being honest with each group about the level of commitment required to build and sustain a community and emphasizing the fact that it's a long-term effort to build a successful community has worked wonders for setting expectations. 

Some additional advice I shared at my PodCamp session has helped me a lot in meetings and conversations with folks who are skeptical about the value of an Enterprise 2.0 initiative: 

• Anticipate possible objections: It helps to try to anticipate some possible objections ahead of time and think of how you'll respond to them. If you can prepare for the objections and think of a response, it will help keep the conversation on point and help you to illustrate/reinforce the benefits for that group. 
• Acknowledge concerns: You always want to acknowledge concerns - never tell people they're being stupid or unreasonable (even if you think they are!) Concerns are legitimate to the people raising them. You will not convince anyone to join the initiative by ignoring or dismissing their concerns. You also need to acknowledge that not everyone sees Enterprise 2.0 or social media as you do - some folks will need more time to see the value.
• Engage in friendly dialogue: Engage in friendly and inviting dialogue with the person(s) who are objecting or arguing against the value of the Enterprise 2.0 initiative. Whatever you do, don't get into a heated debate with someone who does not see the value of the initiative. It doesn't do anyone any good and it puts a bad vibe in the way of future conversations. 
• Respect critical feedback: Everyone's entitled to their own opinions. You don't have to agree with them, but don't dismiss them either. See if the feedback presents opportunities for improvements, further exploration, or even education on misinformation or lack of knowledge or understanding. 
• Educate where ever possible: Sometimes the critics feel the way they do simply because they don't have the full picture of the features/functions, use cases, etc. Sometimes they just don't know where to start and so they are critical for that reason. Use the conversation or information from the critic as an opportunity for education and see if you can illustrate your value proposition with meaningful examples and case studies. 
• Accept that social media is not for everyone: Enterprise 2.0 and/or social media is not for everyone and that's ok. If you go into it thinking that success = 100% adoption, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Your job is to provide value, illustrate use cases, benefits, etc. and accept that not everyone will want to use the tool or community. And you know what - that's perfectly fine.

Captivated by the force that is Gravity Summit, Boston 2009

This past Monday, I had the absolute pleasure of attending Gravity Summit at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts put on by social media wizards Beverly Macy (also teaches social media marketing at UCLA) and Rodney Rumford (also co-founder of TweetPhoto which I’m looking forward to checking out!) 

The line-up for the day included big name brands sharing their social media experiences, strategy and advice for using social media successfully.  And the folks in attendance literally came from all over the country to witness the event, which speaks of the level of information one can achieve when attending.

Me, Hammer and Carina Cristiano Leoni @ Gravity Summit, Harvard

MC Hammer – Life-long entrepreneur, blogger, tweeter, rapper, and all around nice guy - need I say more?

Gary Vaynerchuk – Also a life-long entrepreneur, creator and host of the famous Wine Library TV, and newly published book author

Troy Kelley – EVP & Chief Digital Officer @ Arnold Worldwide

Andy Mitchell – VP of Digital & Development Marketing @ CNN

Todd Defren – Principal @ Shift Communications

Josh Levine – Rebel Industries

Scott Gulbransen – PR & Social Media @ Intuit

Wendy Harman – Social Media Manager @ American Red Cross

Christi Day – Social Media Maven @ Southwest Airlines

Mike Spataro – VP @ Visible Technologies

David Puner (aka Dunkin Dave) – Social Media Manager @ Dunkin Donuts

Ramon deLeon (aka The Pizza Guy to Know in Chicago) – COO @ Domino’s Pizza Chicago

Polly Pearson – VP of Employment Brand & Strategy @ EMC Corp

If you missed the live streaming of the event on CNN.com/live on Monday, you can view videos of some of the folks on my YouTube Channel (some also embedded below). Hard to pick a favorite…Of course, I know EMC’s story very well, since I live it every day and am proud to be a part of the force and strategy.

Rather than do a play-by-play of the day, I thought I’d summarize the key points by picking a few keywords to describe the ongoing message of the entire day at Gravity Summit. I’d have to say they are listen, learn, engage, and empower.

Listen

Listen to what people are saying about your brand, whether it’s your personal brand or your company brand. Listen. Listen to what is being said, take it in, and use it as an opportunity to learn. In the opening remarks with Beverly Macy and Rodney Rumford, it was said “even if you’re never going to use social media in your business, you need to know how to listen to what your customers are saying.” I couldn’t agree more.

Learn

Learn from what is being said by others. There is an unprecedented ability to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand like never before through all social media channels. It’s like having the ability to finally be the fly on the wall we’ve all wanted to be at some point. As Rodney Rumford said “use social media to solicit feedback and be ready for what you’re going to hear – the good, the bad, and the ugly.” Take it as an opportunity to learn how to be a better brand and educate. Negative comments are such a huge opportunity to learn and keep people engaged. And, as Polly Pearson said, if people are complaining, it’s a sign they still care.

Engage

Engage with people via social media. I’ve always said that people want to connect with people, not nameless, faceless brands. Troy Kelley shared “markets are reporting getting more engagement out of social media than any other traditional marketing tools,” so now is your chance to get out there, engage, and be the central voice for your brand. As Hammer said, “perception has trumped reality, and if you’re allowing somebody else to control the perception of your brand, you’re in trouble […] being at the center of the flow of information about you and your brand is the key to managing your brand.”

Empower

Empower others to not only find out about your brand via social media, but also empower your employees to use social media in a transparent way. I agree with Gary Vaynerchuk that “social media’s power and potential are massively underrated.” I love Todd Defren’s take on social media: “social media is not about public relations, it's about public relationships […] social media is not about creating something new every day, but leveraging what you already have in creative ways.” It’s all about empowering people to take advantage of the opportunities social media presents to them and using social media to enhance information and relationships as we know them.

The only constructive feedback I have is that it seems like people were jumping out of their seats to engage with the presenters a bit more, and at times things felt a bit rushed. So, perhaps having one or two fewer presenters with a touch more time for Q&A would be a good thing? Hard to say for sure, but I’d love to see a bit more interactivity in the summit. After all, social media is about having conversations and building relationships.

All in all, a fantastic summit! My first of many, I hope! Kudos to Beverly and Rodney for a fantastic showing and event!

A few vids I shot from the event. See more on my YouTube Channel. 

MC Hammer Keynote, Part 1

 

Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote, Part 1 

 

Polly Pearson, EMC Case Study, Part 1

   

Todd Defren, Shift Communications, Part 1 

---- 

 Jamie 

 Blog: http://jamiepappas.typepad.com/ 

 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiepappas

 

Reflections on Enterprise 2.0 2009 in Boston

I’ve been looking forward to the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this past week in Boston for some time. I had the pleasure of being on the panel organized by Peter Kim (@PeterKim) - “Lessons Learned from Internal Communities” – with the likes of extraordinary women like Joan DiMicco (@JoanDiMicco) at IBM and Patricia Romeo (@PatricaRomeo) at Deloitte.

 

Photo courtesy of Alex Dunne.

Lessons Learned From Internal Communities

View more presentations from Peter Kim.

 

In addition to the panel session, which went very well, I enjoyed quite a few other sessions. Rather than recapping each session, I’d like to call out my overall observations from the conference.

 

Many companies, both big and small, are interested in social media as a business tool. The general feeling I got though, and still do, is that they’re not sure where to start. People are hungry for the knowledge of those that have gone before them on where to get started for both an internal and external social media presence – be it communities, how to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc – it’s all on their minds. I imagine that’s one of the many reasons our panel was jam packed.  Types of questions that were consistently circulating around (of which these will make an excellent future post):

• What are some steps to get started?
• How do I convince executives that we need to do this?
• Who funds the initiative?
• Who manages/staffs the initiative?
• Who monitors/moderates?
• Where do HR and Legal come into the picture?
• How do we treat international participants? Is there translation?
• How do we deal with international laws, regulations, etc.?

 

Analytics are a hot topic.

Everyone’s trying to figure out how to measure success of these initiatives. Nearly all of the vendors offering community solutions, also offer some sort of analytics package to go along with it, and some (although few and far between) even offer independent analytics packages.

 

One huge miss I was feeling is that the push was on the numbers themselves, but there were no actionable recommendations coupled with the tools to suggest what could be done with the analytics. Numbers are only numbers without a keen understanding of what you want to gather, why you want to gather it, and what you want to do with the numbers to improve.  You need not only to know what you’re trying to measure, but what your goals are and why they are important, and then you need to take action and be willing to modify your plan if you’re not getting where you want to be. Key questions that need to be answered include:

• What are your goals?
• What are you trying to measure?
• Why is the measurement important?
• What will the measurement tell you?
• What actions can you take as a result of the measurement?
• What changes will you make if you’re not meeting your goals?

 

There was a keen interest in understanding the complete social media/social strategy package.

Many folks seemed to be interested not only in what the tools are that are available for use, but how they are being used currently. There definitely seems to be a tendency to want to be “everywhere” (have a presence on all of the tools) NOW vs. slowly moving into using each of the tools as one is mastered. I’d personally recommend the second option – get involved in a few and see how that goes rather than joining all that are out there and attempting to master them all simultaneously.  Key questions on a social strategy include:

• What are your goals for using social media?
• What are the tools available to you and what can they be used for?
• Who is your key audience? Or who are you trying to communicate/converse with?
• Where are they already conversing?
• Is there anyone that has experience/expertise in these tools at your company already? Find them – you’re going to need them!

 

Twitter is still huge, but…

There was hardly a person in each of the sessions, myself included, that was not busy on their laptop or cell phone tweeting their way through the sessions.

 

…How do we use Twitter as an enterprise tool?

Clearly at the forefront of everyone’s mind was how can people use Twitter to achieve business goals. The first step to that is, of course, defining your business goals. My strong recommendation is that you do not need a Twitter account just because “everyone else is doing it.” You need to instead, answer the following questions about Twitter and then create an account:

• What are your goals for using Twitter? How do you want to use it?
• Who is your target audience? Are they on Twitter already?
• Are others (companies) doing it and can we learn from their example?
• Who will be responsible for monitoring and engaging?

 

It's about the people and the technology!

It’s not practical or even possible to just focus on only the people or only the technology. For the longest time, many have said it's about just the people, and the technology doesn't matter...but a consistent theme at the conference this year was that if you're not also paying attention to the technology, you're missing out.

 

My favorite quote on this topic was by Peter Kim "If its just relationships and technology doesn't matter, we should all go home."

 

A good social media strategy will take into account both the people and the technology. The people you expect to use the tools on behalf of the company, the people you expect to communicate with, the people that will be impacted by your strategy. The technology you wish to use to support your strategy, the technology people are already using, or will need to learn to meet the organization’s goals. It must be about both the people and the technology.

 

Enterprise 2.0 tools are an extension of other tools, not a replacement for them.

There has been buzz off and on that these tools will replace other tools we use to work and live, such as email, phone calls, traditional media, etc. However, the consistent theme at the conference – which I wholeheartedly agree with – is that these tools will not be replacements, but that they will and should work in harmony with other, existing tools as supplements to them. Amen.

 

Social interaction in-person is just as important as online interaction.

Might seem like a no-brainer for those of us that use these tools and talk to people, but we’re all aware of the perception that is out there than people would rather interact online using social tools instead of chatting with folks face-to-face. The response to that theory - and also self-evident by the participation at the Tweetups during the event – is an overwhelming I don’t think so.

 

This is particularly important to make note of companies who may be relying heavily on community or Enterprise 2.0 tools in and of themselves to help with employee satisfaction and employee retention. Keep in mind that they are only a part of the bigger picture. Sure, they’ll help, but they’re not a replacement for face-to-face interactions and discussions.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and conference in general. Although the sessions were great, my favorite part of the entire conference was finally meeting, in-person, folks that I've chatted with for weeks, months, even years online or via phone, but never had the opportunity to meet until this wonderful event!

 

Ten things I love about Twitter

When I first heard about Twitter, I could not really understand why I’d even want to use it. I really didn’t see the point in reading or “listening” to everyone’s thoughts on any topic that crossed their mind. And to be perfectly honest, when I looked at the feed of tweets, I really didn’t see anything all that interesting to me, either. So, I sat back and I watched for a while…quite a while, in fact – about 6 months if I remember correctly.

I watched, I listened, and I learned from people I knew already using Twitter. I saw the good, the bad and the downright unmentionable. Then I finally took the plunge and joined. Even still at that point and time, I really didn’t “get it.” So, I continued to watch, shared a few tweets of my own, and weighed what Twitter might end up being for me. Then I decided to explore searching on Twitter, and that’s when I really started getting value because I was finding others who had similar interests, and that was cool!

Now that I’ve been using Twitter for a little over a year now, I’ve been thinking about what I love, what I hate, how I decide to follow or unfollow people, and some things that I wish I could do on Twitter. This is the first in a series of posts along these lines…

1. I can connect with people I wouldn’t have otherwise had an opportunity to meet if it had not been for Twitter. With few exceptions, I’ve met these folks (to name a few) on Twitter first, and in person second or not at all – yet! - @ChrisBrogan, @PeterKim, @JOwyang, @DavidAlston, @BryanPerson, @CFlanagan, @GiaLyons, @JimStorer, @RHappe, @JoanDiMicco, @PatriciaRomeo, @UnMarketing, @CBensen, @RobertCollins, @VicenteM
2. I can learn new things about people I already know - @PappasNick, @Stu, @LenDevanna, @Storagezilla, @ChrisFernandi, @NuzhatMKarim, @DanSchawbel, @SuzySpaatz, @MichelleLavoie, @KCornwall, @Beeks06, @DaveGraham, @JDowson, @Zirnhelt, @TheGoose2 
3. I can very easily learn about new interests and topics as well as who’s tweeting about them by searching hashtags or key words. I love that the tweets are all searchable.
4. Twitter is respectful of my time if I manage it correctly - 140 characters is a nice length to receive updates in an easily digestible format. It requires (for proficient users) that people be concise with their messages. It’s easy for me to keep up with people, new interests and topics in real-time in this format.
5. I like that people put their own categories and definitions on their posts. It helps me to understand more context about what they’re sharing and where they’re coming from.
6. I can use Twitter from anywhere I have access – internet, phone, or 3^rd party apps such as TweetDeck or TwitterBerry.
7. Twitter users are enthusiastic, to say the least. People who are on Twitter are on there because they want to be there, so they’re generally very happy to engage in conversation.
8. I can integrate my tweets into my other accounts like Facebook, FriendFeed, my blog, and LinkedIn, for example
9. I can leverage the collective wisdom of my network by joining in any conversation or asking questions, and I always get a quick response.
10. There’s no overhead to using Twitter, no crazy downloads, no crazy software updates, it’s just a plain and simple web interface. Put simply, Twitter’s easy to use.

So, what about you? Why do you love Twitter?

----

Jamie
Blog: http://jamiepappas.typepad.com/ 
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiepappas

A little fun with Wordle

Have you ever tried using Wordle? If not, I highly recommend it!

The backstory

I had stumbled upon it several months ago, but was reminded of it when prepping for my upcoming participation in Peter Kim's panel at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston in just a few weeks with Patricia Romeo and Joan DiMicco! The cool part - Joan knows the guy who made it ;-)

We were chatting about the topics that many people have expressed an interest in with regards to lessons learned when managing an internal enterprise community, and discovered we have many, many things in common.

Joan suggested putting our bullets in Wordle to create a visual representation of the commonalities instead of just putting words up on a slide - AWESOME! You'll need to attend the conference to see this coolness, or, I might just share it here afterwards ;-)

What is this Wordle thing?

For those familiar with communities and the notion of tagging, you've probably come across a "tag cloud" in your day -- essentially a cloud of the tags most commonly used in a community, blog, "pick your area" - it lets you see at a quck glance what the prevalent topics are in that given area.

Wordle does the same thing for you - only you can either specify a website or you can paste in your own text, perhaps from a sample of writing.

So, why would you use Wordle, anyway? Ok, I'll tell you what I like to use it for:

It's a great way to see at-a-glance what your blog, twitter account, or any other website is "talking about" most frequently - Are you getting across the message you want to? Do you need to adjust?  

My blog:

My Twitter:

What's the main point of what you're about to read? Take Google's top news story today, for example:

Or, check out what our Enterprise 2.0 panel will be about, based on the one paragraph description online:

Or here's another version:

One of the reasons I think Wordle is great - it gives you the visually appealing version that can sometimes be lacking in text heavy sites, descriptions, etc. It lets you see things in a whole new light. It boils down the prevalent topics/themes, and lets you decide for yourself if it's worth investing your time. You can also pick fonts, layouts, and color schemes to make it jive well with just about any format or presentation you're looking to include it in.

Not to mention, it's also wicked cool! ;-)

----

Jamie
Blog: http://jamiepappas.typepad.com/ 
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiepappas

Social Networking Rocks EMC World

EMC World is just around the corner, and we’ve got tons of exciting things going on in the realm of social networking opportunities for attendees and non-attendees (although we hope you’re going to be there!) Also exciting are the conversations on EMC|ONE around all these good things going on at EMC World. This is collaboration in action if I’ve ever seen it!

First off is the Bloggers Lounge, hosted by Len Devanna – a venue to show some love to our blogger and microblogger friends. 

What is the Bloggers Lounge, you ask?

Think big. Think members only. Think a place to chill, charge, and network with like-minded folks who share your same passion for blogging. Think exclusive access to EMC leadership. Think “I’ve totally gotta check this out!” Just sign up over at Len’s blog, and you’re in. So, what are you waiting for? Update: It's open to anyone attending EMC World with a blog or Twitter account - customers, partners, employees, you name it - so come on, already - no excuses!

Oh yeah, and think Flip. As in, we’ll be giving away some of these babies to folks who stop by. Of course, with this cool new gear in hand, we’ll be expecting some wicked videos of World.

Showing our Support Forums Folks Some Love, too!

We’re also hosting an exclusive meet up for Powerlink Support Forums users to show them some love. So, if you use Powerlink Support Forums, you’ll definitely want to check this out! Think of all the stories you can share with folks who experience it every day, just like you. If you're not checking this one out...well, need I say more?

ECN is bringing their game, too!

And last but certainly not least, our EMC Community Network (ECN) is featuring a Viva! ECN video contest – So, if you’re feeling creative and wanting to express what ECN has helped you to do in the past year, then jump on in and get creative! And don’t forget to stop by the ECN Lounge at EMC World, as well!

Hey - maybe you can use that Flip you won to shoot your video for Viva! ECN...I'm just sayin'...

Network with EMC World Online

Here’s the quick rundown of all the tools online to check out EMC World:
EMC World on Facebook
EMC World on Twitter
EMC World on YouTube
EMC World on Flickr
EMC World on LinkedIn

Barriers to embracing the “social” in social media

For me, the term social media automatically makes me thing of being social with other folks, by way of a various tools, technologies, and even in person – talking openly, but politely, about what’s on your mind – what you like, what you’re not so fond of, and just generally sharing information, tips, tricks, best practices and helpful tools with friends and all those wonderful folks you’ve built into the great network you now have across all those tools…it means joining in the conversation!

Social media, for me, has been an amazing way for me to connect with people I wouldn’t have otherwise necessarily had an opportunity to meet. I’ve met amazing Distinguished Engineers, like Steve Todd, insightful TC’s like Dave Graham, Windows guru (and Rush fan!) Brian Henderson, and one of the many folks at EMC who are passionate about SM, Stu Miniman. I even met wonderful people across the pond – Storagezilla makes us proud! Not to mention, another web junkie like myself, Len Devanna.

And in case you were thinking this is just an EMC love fest, well, it’s not. I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting Chris Brogan (you’ve been under a rock if you haven’t heard of Chris!) and Sean O’Driscoll, chatting with Jeremiah Owyang virtually, and rubbing elbows with the likes of Dave Alston, Peter Kim (please check out the panel Peter’s hosting at E2.0 in Boston and say hi!) and Robert Collins.

It’s been a wonderful, amazing and truly interesting experience! And, it all comes together in the realm of social media. Yes, social media. Without social media and the power that all these tools possess, I wouldn’t have met all these wonderful folks, let alone had the opportunity to stay connected with them in real-time fashion.

One of the things you may have experienced in your adventures is that while this open, transparent, and sometimes seemingly TMI flow of social interaction that occurs on any one of the many tools out there is natural for some of us, for many folks out there, it’s not.

We’ve always debated the topic of open vs. closed communities on EMC|ONE, and many of us have talked about our approach – where ever it’s possible, we try to keep communities open, as we truly believe that it facilitates greater collaboration – think of the old adage “Two heads are better than one.”  Or, to be less geeky – how about – great things happen when folks come together and share ideas. After all, that’s what community’s all about, right?

We’ve always been open to the idea that if there’s truly a business need for private collaboration, then let’s talk about it…let’s make sure that 1 – you’re in the right place, using the right tool, and 2 – we can help each other learn what types of scenarios call for private collaboration.

The reality is that in the great majority of cases, there has not been a pressing need for a private collaboration community on EMC|ONE. Rather, we’re seeing the same tendencies re-emerge in cycles as new users join the community. So what are some of the reasons folks are opting in to "private" collaboration?

1. Fear of making a mistake publicly – What if I say something stupid?
2. My (insert role or title here) does not think social media is “work” – If I participate, I’ll be viewed as “playing” so I won’t participate.
3. Not realizing the full business capabilities of social media tools - How do I collaborate in a business fashion?
4. Not understanding all the tools available - I don’t know how to use this stuff!
5. Being overwhelmed by all the conversation and collaboration on the site – There’s way too much going on – where do I even begin?

The good news is that since there are patterns emerging, there is a way for us to identify and address these barriers by encouraging, educating and evangelizing the value of social media and enterprise community/collaboration. And now, the work begins!

What have you experienced as barriers to adoption of open collaboration in your communities? How have you addressed those barriers? 

The Social Media Club

We’re trying something new here to get folks more interested in social media and all that it has to offer – we’ve started a “Social Media Club” here at EMC. To give credit where it’s due, this (hopefully) monthly event was the brainchild of Stuart Miniman a.k.a @stu here at EMC. Stu had the vision and I help with the logistics and execution of this fantastic idea!

It’s pretty straightforward – it’s a public “club” with a group on EMC|ONE for anyone interested in learning more about and/or currently using various social media tools to connect, share experiences, ask questions, make recommendations, and just generally be social!

We approached the first session not really sure of the level of interest this might be, but we were pleasantly surprised at the turnout! We had well over 100 folks worldwide dialed into the event, watching via webcam and sitting in the room with us.

As it turns out, there are lots and lots of folks here at EMC who are interested in social media, not sure where to start, and find it helpful to converse with folks who are already “in the game” so-to-speak.

The focus of the first get together was how interest in social media started at EMC, with Chuck giving a chat on where it all began many moons ago. Folks were very interested to learn more about how this all came about, the challenges that we’ve faced thus far and how well it’s working now, understanding that we still have room to grow.

The feedback was positive on the session and we have lots of great ideas for future sessions, the next of which we’ll be having in a month with a focus on “other” social media tools available to use besides blogs, namely twitter and facebook in this session.

One thing that's clear to us is that people have an interest in learning what’s out there, but are often times not comfortable or interested in starting their own blog right out of the gate - they prefer to ease into things a bit, know their options, and how to use each, and make the decision on what's right for them - a stellar approach if you ask me. So, one of our primary goals is to educate folks on what else is available to them to participate in and take advantage of - who else is using it, how they're using it, what they can expect, etc. All good stuff.

I am definitely looking forward to these chats, and will share more as we have future sessions.

In the meantime, however, I’d love to know - are you doing something like this at your company? Any lessons learned and best practices to share?