Community Leadership Summit

Coincidences are funny. I always wonder if they are influenced on a subliminal level. For example, I had an idea a week ago to have a community management summit within our company, and yesterday I happened to see that there's a Community Leadership Summit scheduled for July 18-19, 2009 in San Jose.

It's new, and it's an unconference. So, there's no schedule of speakers (though some will be scheduled) and it's also free. That last bit helps when getting travel approval!

What's appealing and exciting about it is the opportunity to dialogue and network with peers and experts alike. So much of what we know about online community management is still evolving. I feel practitioners -- those directly involved with managing and leading online communities -- have as much, if not more, to share than those who have anointed themselves as social media experts. Give me practical experience and lessons learned, please!

And let me build a network of fellow community managers I can tap into with questions, ideas and problems I want help with -- that's ongoing value. A conference (excuse me, unconference) like this offers a rich pool of peers to draw upon.

And since it's an unconference, if I've got a topic that resonates with others it may end up on the program. That's a degree of customization and targeted scheduling that's hard to beat.

Yes, I'm going to be there. Anyone want to join me?

Speaking of Lists, Here's a Great Social Media List

I mentioned lists in relation to SEO in a recent post, and today I ran across a rich resource for learning about social media -- it's another list, naturally: Social Media Case Studies SUPERLIST- 22 Extensive Lists of Organizations Using Social Media (UPDATED)

I haven't checked out the places it links to (they are lists about specific social media topics), but I instantly realized the power of having such resources at hand. Take a look when you get a chance.

Customers Search for Answers, Not Your Community

After writing my last post, Which Comes First, SEO or an Active Community?, I found myself in the car for a few hours delivering a snapping turtle to my daughter in college (if you really want to know, ask me why). So I had plenty of time to think, and what kept coming to mind was the title of the next blog post I wanted to write: Customers Search for Answers, Not Your Communities.

So, I'm going to follow up on the SEO and communities topic a bit further.

Maybe the world is changing and the way people search will change -- I can't predict that. But I believe the way people search now is to find information, and they aren't idly searching: they have questions that they want answered.

Really, how many people do you think go to Google with the thought, "I want to find a community to join today!" or "I hope there's a community centered around this topic!" I don't think so. OK, the social media consultants and bloggers might do this, and really lonely people with too much time on their hands...

But most people use search engines to find answers, not to look for communities. So if you're trying to grow and develop your customer community, you need content that answers the key questions prospective members of your community are likely to have -- and you need to get that content to rank highly in search engine results so that people will find it.

There's an interesting, rather polemical debate about content vs. community on the Search Engine Guide website (see, Content is Dead. Community is King Now). But I think it's rather a case of splitting hairs and failing to define content reasonably. Content is not just what the community manager or website owner creates -- it's that plus what members of the community create. In my view, it's the quality of the content that counts more than who created it. Again, people are searching for answers, and good answers are valuable in and of themselves.

I'm more in tune with Jennifer Laycock's post, Can't Get the (Great) Content Without the Community. Take a look for a nice explanation about the the symbiotic relationship between content and community. In fact, I'll refer you to her post instead of explaining that in detail, for that's one of the key points I wanted to make.

You shouldn't choose between content and community. That's a false dichotomy. Rather, recognize that to build your community you need people to find it, and for you to be found you need valuable content that both answers key questions for people and has been optimized so search engines will display it prominently. High-quality, high ranking content is essential to growing a successful online community.

Which Comes First, SEO or an Active Community?

I'm posing this question -- Which Comes First, SEO or an Active Community? -- because I'm not sure the importance of SEO (search-engine optimization) is always considered when it comes to planning new online communities . It is sort of a "chicken or the egg" question, but I've come to the conclusion that when you think about building an active customer community, you need to think about search-engine optimization. 

Here's why: you need big numbers to have an active community and SEO is a key part of delivering them.

We've all seen the 90-9-1 statistic, and whether you accept it literally or not, it's obvious that only a fraction of your community members will be active creators of content. It's what we see in the real (not online) world, after all, where in any given group the vast majority will listen and observe while a motivated few take initiative and lead the way. 

So, if you want discussions in your community to be lively and timely, if you want content to be fresh and not grow stale, you need a lot of people who are willing to be active. To get a large number of them, you need a large community. 

There are lots of ways to populate your community, but for sustainable growth the search engines are your best friend. When content from your community shows up high in searches for terms and phrases that represent problems and solutions important to potential members of your community, you'll have created a set of signs leading new members in your door. And not just any members -- these are self-selected, interested and motivated members.

I call that organic growth -- it's all natural. If you have thought things through well, then your community exists to serve a specific population for a specific purpose. Make sure the content that's in your community has value and meaning for your members, and also consider how to optimize that content for search engines.

I'm no SEO expert, and this post isn't about *how* to optimize your community's content for search engines (there are plenty of SEO experts out there, but I'll point to one of my favorites, where I have learned a lot: Jill Whalen's High Rankings website). 

I'm simply telling you to make SEO for your community content part of your plan right from the start. I'm happy to share a few tips I've learned over the years, however.

• When you respond to a question or create content, think about the kinds of terms that someone would search on if they were interested in this. Sprinkle those terms in the content naturally a few times (don't overdo it!). Instead of using common speaking or writing references (e.g., "that," "this, "it") all the time, ignore your school teacher's advice and be a bit redundant. Notice how many times I have used "search engine optimization" instead of only SEO. 
• Recognize that search engines are literal, and there may be other ways to phrase or describe the main topics you are writing about. For example, "search engine optimization" and "SEO" refer to the same thing, so I am using both in this post. Think about the exact words people would likely enter in a search box.
• Make the title of content engaging to people and search engines, both. Obviously you want a key search term right in the title if you can do so. The search engines will compare the title with the content and look for it to match up. But there's also the human factor to consider. When your content does show up in the search engines, you want a compelling title to increase the chances that people will click through to it. So, think again like a potential member of your community who has a need, question or problem: what would get them to take a look at your content?
• Build your content in small, targeted chunks. I learned the power of this quite by accident. In managing a Q&A site, our content was naturally built around very specific topics. When we split out each topic as its own webpage (the way blogs do), our search results and traffic grew tremendously. Search engines want to provide specific answers to specific questions, so short and sweet works for them. The more targeted, the better.
• Use consistent terms and phrases throughout your community site. So, if your community is about social media, that term should appear in just about everything on your site (again, don't overdo it and don't force it, but look for opportunities). All that short targeted content will get aggregated by the search engines and they'll conclude that your site really is a rich resource for those terms.
• Use tags. These are freebies, folks. You get to set a list of the key terms people should use to find your content.
• Link to other content and sources when it makes sense to do so. First of all, look for opportunities to link to your own content. Those internal links not only help your readers navigate quickly and easily, but they show the search engines the connections between your content, too. But link outside your site, as well. The more connected your community is to other expert resources, the more helpful you are to your readers -- and, again, search engines look for these connections. Last point on links -- they can lead to links back to your site, which is even more valuable.
• Name drop and praise generously. It's a great way to get people to create links to your site. People and organizations like to link to places where good things have been said about them. And don't just drop the link into your content -- reach out to the person/place you've complimented and make sure they know about it. You can either email them or, much more Web 2.0, you can leave a comment on their site with another compliment and include the link to your site where you praise them. That creates an incoming link to your site -- a really good SEO thing -- and if you've chosen a well-trafficked site to praise (hint, hint), then that little link could really pay off over time.
• Make it easy for people to share your content. There are all kinds of tools now, including the ShareThis button you see at the bottom of this post. You want word of mouth, so make it really simple and painless for people to talk about you and recommend your site.
• Consider creating lists. I don't know why, but lists seem to be popular with both readers and search engines alike. Have you noticed that this is a list?
• Last tip: be honest and do right by your community and searchers alike. Don't bait and switch with a catchy headline for content that doesn't deliver on that topic. Don't pound search terms into people in your content and turn them away by making your material annoying to read. The best SEO advice I ever got was to do what's best for your readers -- the SEO results will generally follow if you keep that in mind.

What do you think? And do you have any SEO tips you recommend for customer communities?

Chris Brogan on Confidence

There's a great blog by Chris Brogan on community and social media that Matt pointed me to, and I just want to take a moment to recommend the post I read there today: Confidence and The Next Move

It's not strictly on social media, but your social media network is one of the key elements he talks about for building your confidence and preparing for the next move, so I thought it was worthy of a mention here. And while you're there, check out the rest of Chris' thoughts and ideas on social media -- or just add the feed to your RSS Reader, as I did.

List of Online Community Managers Inside the Enterprise

I just ran across a terrific resource related to online community management. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Jobs and Professionals It's in an invaluable, insightful blog, Web Strategy, by Jeremiah Owyang, who I would certainly cite as a thought-leader in social media. He also happens to work for Forrester Research, but this is his independent blog, not Forrester's.

Jeremiah started his list in 2008 and asked people to leave a comment if they wanted to be included in it. He also spelled out the specific requirements for being included in the list, thus adding value to it, since he vets all the submissions -- nice! I immediately wanted to sign up, since I'm a community manager.

But, sadly, I don't qualify :-(

Jeremiah's list is for external-facing community managers, and in his selection criteria he makes it clear that those of us serving internal communities won't be included. But, he made this offer:

If you do not meet the requirements to meet this list, you can create your own, and I’ll prominently link to it.

OK, Jeremiah, I accept your offer. I'm creating my own list, borrowing heavily from the excellent model you've created, and this list is for internal community managers only (since you've already got a great list for the external community managers).

So, to get included in this list, leave a comment on this post and make sure you follow and meet all of these requirements (lifted in part from Jeremiah's).

Requirements:

1. This is your current job even if you have a variation on the title –you are not a consultant. It's okay if you wear other hats, as well, but one of your official roles is responsibility for managing an online community within your organization.
2. Provide verifiable references: your title, organization, industry and a link to your blog/profile/linkedin that indicates your role and title, and/or perhaps a post that announced your title or intentions.

The Reason for this List
Community managers know better than most people the value of social networking. This list is intended to serve as a resource to help connect managers of internal online communities (i.e., staff/employees within an organization) with each other. It's also intended to become an exhibit of the large number and wide variety of organizations that are using social media software internally and recognizing the value of cultivating online communities within the enterprise.

Ongoing List of Online Enterprise Community Managers
Bill Chamberlin, HorizonWatch Community Manager, IBM
Ted Hopton, Wiki Community Manager, United Business Media

Now, don't leave me hanging here! Comment below to get added to the list, or send this along to someone you know who should be on it.

Debian, Ubuntu and wiki symbiosis

As any hardcore IT geek knows, the Debian community has been around for over a decade, and it produces a well-respected Linux distribution by the same name. This is a distinctly non-commercial enterprise for the Debian community.

Another enormously popular Linux distribution is Ubuntu (they have a new 9.04 release out today, as a matter of fact) -- I happily run it on all my home computers. Ubuntu's chief financial backer (and erstwhile space tourist), Mark Shuttleworth, was in fact a Debian developer for many years before he started Ubuntu earlier this decade.

What Ubuntu does is use large bits of Debian -- which they're free to do under the GPL -- and add some polish (plus a few bug fixes!) to produce a distribution better suited for the average computer user. Both distros have their place, and after a somewhat turbulent relationship between the two, they've been working much better together in recent years.

I'm starting to think that our internal wiki and our customer-facing communities are developing a positive Debian/Ubuntu-type of relationship. Our internal wiki is a place to experiment, try new things, get feedback, etc. Our customer-facing communities are opting for a slightly more conservative approach, for obvious business reasons!

Both internal and external wikis have their role to play, and I fully expect that they'll develop an extraordinarily symbiotic relationship over the coming months and years.

Have you had a similar experience with your company's wiki ecosystem?

Oprah and social media going mainstream

Last week there was quite an uproar from the Digerati about -- gasp -- Oprah using Twitter.

You could almost hear the anguished cries: "Wasn't it bad enough when Ashton Kutcher and those Hollywood types began using Twitter? And now Oprah Nation too? Man, this totally sucks."

This reminds me a little of the response when open source software (Linux, in particular) went all "corporate" a few years ago. But what's the result been? Linux on laptops and netbooks, more rapid enterprise adoption of open source software, more paid Linux developers, etc. Is that such a bad thing?

Twitter and other social media tools like Facebook are becoming more mainstream, and that's okay with me. It means that more time and treasure will be poured into making these services fulfill their promise as presence-enabling business tools. Why? Because the audience will be there. And so will their credit cards.

Sure, there will be some, um, missteps as businesses stumble and bumble their way onto these social platforms (picture "Woz" on Dancing with the Stars). But there will also be some exciting things.

I, for one, am cautiously optimistic that better, more exciting social media days are ahead. What do you think?

Wiki Attitude: Getting Things Done

A colleague remarked today that he really likes working in our social business software (aka, wiki) because "we get things done." I liked that. It sums up a lot about social media overall.

Everyone in the wiki can just do it, as Nike so aptly puts it (side note: Nike has a terrific social media site). You don't have to ask permission, fill out a form, navigate red tape or in any way delay getting something done. The tool is flexible and powerful, and most of all, so easy to use that it is empowering. You really can get things done quickly and easily in it.

But this isn't just about a contrast with bureaucratic work processes. It's about the energy and potential that's released when *everyone* has the power to just do things. There's no time like the present, is there? How many useful ideas have never been implemented because it simply would have taken too long or too much trouble to try them?

I saw a great phrase the other day about social business software: it allows us to fail faster. When you have everyone trying things, without all the usual constraints created to avoid failure, you certainly will get more failed efforts. We have countless user-created groups in our online community, for example, that are languishing. They seemed like a good idea at the time, but for one reason or another, there's little or nothing happening in them now.

But that's okay. Social media is messy, not tidy. We also have terrific, active, innovative groups that have developed into true communities. Maybe we could have selected the winner groups in advance and shot down the loser groups before they started, but I truly doubt it. And I hate to imagine the evaluation process we would have to go through, or how long it would take and how much valuable energy it would consume (think opportunity cost).

So we have some quick failures in the mix -- maybe lots of them -- and we learn from that. We have some home runs, too, and we learn from them. Failing faster means eliminating things that don't work with less investment in them, and that frees us up to keep seeking things that do work. Since crystal balls have never worked very well, trying ideas out quickly is a pretty good strategy.

It all boils down to getting things done, and that's one of the most exciting things we're doing with our social media solution. It's the wiki attitude!

Social Media and Technology Dependence

I'm a telecommuter. Maybe that's one reason I got so interested in social media. And I depend on technology for 95% of my interaction with my colleagues in the workplace.

That also means that when my connective technology fails, I am suddenly isolated and unproductive. I'm not hooked up to any medical monitoring devices, but I suspect my blood pressure rises and primitive areas of my brain start firing. In other words, I get angry and frustrated.

 

So as I sat here for 90 minutes this afternoon, waiting for technology to work properly again, I found myself thinking about how dependent I am on so much technology, and how so many of us, particularly through social media, are becoming more and more so. Yet we know technology can, and at least occasionally will, fail. 

But I don't see myself turning back. We're on this road. But this afternoon I kept thinking how nice it would be to be working in my garden, instead, doing something simple and literally down-to-earth. It has a real nostalgic appeal...

Welcome, Rob!

We've persuaded another one of our capable and insightful community managers to join us in telling tales of our adventures in social media. Hailing from South Africa but living and working in the UK, Rob Enslin brings a new global perspective to this blog.

Looking forward to your posts, Rob!

Calling for Champions

Thought I'd share here a post I wrote for our internal community (note that we use the name "wiki" for our Jive Clearspace installation, which is really a full-featured social media application that includes a wiki):

Calling for Champions

No matter what your title or role is, you could be a champion. All it takes is passion and determination! So, if there's something you're passionate about, put the wiki to work and channel your passion into it.

What Does a Champion Do?

Champions step forward and take the lead in addressing an issue or acting on an opportunity with the objective of enacting change or implementing improvements. Champions get people to think about and address issues. Champions facilitate discussions -- online and/or in real-time. Champions organize all of the ideas about their issues and seek consensus. Most of all, champions are results-oriented and push for action, rather than settle for endless or circular discussions.

How Do I Become a Champion?

Anyone can become a champion simply by taking action. You can start a discussion in the wiki, post a document, write a blog post or form a group. Or you can approach your local wiki community manager or me, to express your interest and learn more about how to champion it.

Do I Need Management Approval?

No official management approval is required to become a champion in the wiki for something you are passionate about, but keeping your manager apprised is a good idea. For one thing, becoming a champion means taking initiative, and that's a desirable quality you want your boss to know about you. But, there's no pay or official job title for champions -- just opportunities for fame and glory -- so, you must make sure your activities as a champion don't in any way interfere with your "real job" here.

The Wiki Needs Champions

I'm currently seeking champions for a number of issues related to the wiki itself:

• Tagging and tag groups
• Organization in the wiki of spaces for shared services teams not aligned with one UBM division
• Blogging best practices
• Organizing content in the wiki so it's easy to find
• Prioritizing our ideas for improvements to the wiki's software

And I am sure I will think of many more, but that's enough to get started.

So, who wants to be a champion? Let me know -- or just start championing your idea here in the wiki... no permission needed! And if you're interested in advancing the wiki itself, join the group for Wiki Leaders to stay in touch with what is happening and the issues that need work.

Critical Success Factor 5: Ownership

I like writing occasional blog posts about the critical success factors in our social media implementation rather than sitting down and trying to come up with a definitive list all at once. The fact is, our online community is still evolving -- and I hope it always will be -- so our critical success factors will continue to evolve, as well. Right now, of course, we're largely in the discovery phase. The critical success factors are emerging and we just have to be observant so we notice them.

Critical success factor number 5 (simply in the order I'm uncovering them, not in importance) is ownership. I almost called it local ownership, but decided it's broader than that.

Ownership means taking responsibility. Our most successful communities have one or more owners who take responsibility for the appearance, organization, quality of content and level of interaction in their communities. In a small community, that's not a lot of work at all, but it makes all the difference. You see it immediately when you come to the community's overview page and find a welcoming message along with helpful directions and links. There are index and directory pages to help people navigate. And in discussions, the owner is helpful and encouraging.

My role is to oversee the entire community, but it's the individuals taking ownership in each little corner of our online world who are making it vibrant and sparkling with energy.

The other aspect of ownership that's been critical to our success is structural. We've assigned a space in our community to each division and given them control over it. I don't know about your company, but ours is full of competitive people, and they're proud of their divisions and so want their space to be and look the best. I use this strategically, of course!

And it's working. I highly doubt that we'd have the level of engagement that we do if I'd designed every division's spaces for them. Instead they were given, literally, a blank slate filled only with potential. I spent my energy in getting them excited and educated about that potential, guided them as they learned and experimented, but always stood behind them and let them pick their own paths.

And that trickles down, it turns out. As the individuals in charge of each divisions' space create sub-spaces or communities, they hand off responsibility and expectations to local owners. And when those people create new communities, they do the same thing, and so on and so on. It's a classic example of a virtuous cycle of behavior.

So, we've definitely found ownership to be a critical success factor in our online community. I recommend developing ways to encourage and enable ownership within any social media community -- it's the way to make it grow into something great.

The cash value of social media

The great American philosopher William James coined the term cash value to describe the worth of an idea to an individual. Now BusinessWeek is reporting on research from MIT Sloan and IBM about what social connections are worth. This work is trying to assess the cash value of an idea -- social media -- to organizations and to individuals. (Their working paper is here.)

Some tidbits:

Among the group studied, several thousand consultants at IBM, those with strong links to a manager produced an average of $588 of revenue per month over the norm.

...leading tech companies, including IBM, Microsoft (MSFT), and Yahoo! (YHOO), are hiring economists, anthropologists, and other social scientists to map and classify new types of friendships—and put a value on them.

Researchers at IBM Research and MIT's Sloan School of Management found that the average e-mail contact was worth $948 in revenue. To unearth that and other data, they used mathematical formulas to analyze the e-mail traffic, address books, and buddy lists of 2,600 IBM consultants over the course of a year. (Their identities were shielded from researchers, who viewed them only as encrypted numbers, known as hash codes.) They compared the communication patterns with performance, as measured by billable hours.

There's so much more in this report. I encourage you to read it. If IBM and MIT are teaming up on a research project like this, my bet is that they're on to something.

How could your company profit -- really profit -- from these insights?

If a tree falls in the forest ...

The philosophical question, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" came to mind this morning. Not because I am in a philosophical mood -- far from it -- but because of the "silence" we've been experiencing since last week.

Here's a warning, boys and girls: make sure your email server team whitelists your wiki or social media software's sending address. Sometime late last week, our company's email servers concluded that the volume of emails being sent per minute from our wiki to our company email domain constituted a spam attack. So it blocked all further messages.

That's right -- usage on our system has become so fast and furious that it looks like a spammer! I'm actually delighted by that news, now that I have calmed down (I was not a happy camper when I realized thousands of emails had been refused delivery).

Now there's an odd sensation this morning as messages pop in one after another while the backlogged email queue clears. There are little comments here, questions there, and all of them actually were posted days ago. But no one heard them then. Like the tree falling in the forest, they made not a sound, since no one was there to hear them.

Now we're there in the forest again and the trees are falling right and left -- it's very noisy, and I like it!

Letting your wiki wander

(First, kudos to Ted for keeping this blog alive. Unfortunately, I've been pulled away on a number of projects and haven't been able to give this blog the attention it deserves. I'll try to do better, but keep me honest.)

Wikis are like a box of Legos -- you can build a lot of different things with the same basic components.

I love the serendipitous nature of the wiki. It's like a giant vat of clay, ready to be molded into all sorts of interesting things. And you never know what's going to be made. Wikis are great for the right half of the brain.

The problem is that a wiki is just software. It exists within a human (business) context, and sometimes management can squelch new uses of a wiki. It's vital that the wiki be allowed to evolve, and it takes a lot of guts sometimes to let employees experiment. (Ted has been a master of strategic restraint on this score!)

Ah, there's that word: Experiment. For some it's a dirty word -- after all, they know what the wiki is for, and how dare anyone mess with their perfect vision? But the truth is that wikis have an exciting, unpredictable quality that's unavoidable -- indeed we should welcome it because it attracts creative thinkers.

I know this to be true because that's what's happening with our wiki. Not to embarrass him, but if Ted had managed our corporate wiki by imposing a set of predetermined ideas about how it should be used, the adoption rate across our company would be just a fraction of what it is.

As you plot out your company's wiki strategy, be sure to leave room for the unexpected. Let the creative create. Try this next time: Instead of reacting to new ideas with a clenched fist, first ask the person what he or she had in mind -- you might be pleasantly surprised. Heck, you might even develop a whole new revenue stream.

For some inspiration on taking your wiki in exciting new directions, check out blogs like Future Changes -- and this one, of course.

The State of Our Social Media Cultural Evolution: 7-Months In

We deployed Jive Clearspace 2.5 in September 2008, so it's been seven months now and I want to look at what the results have been. I've written several other posts today that address this, too, but I'll try to share some statistical results here. I know all too well how hard it is to find useful statistics about social media, so bear with me as we are still very new at this part.

We've gone from a few dozen testers in the summer of 2008 to more than 4500 user accounts. We estimate close to 30% access the wiki (that's our name for it, and I know it drives Jive crazy, since it's far more than a wiki, but wiki really is faster to say and type!) every day. About 3% are creating content daily (and not the same 3% all the time).

We have over a thousand communities already. There are a couple of thousand discussions containing about 10,000 messages. We have nearly 10,000 documents that have been created or uploaded. Although the number of blog posts seems puny by comparison -- a couple of hundred -- we have a couple of thousand comments on them, meaning we're averaging more than four comments per blog post, which seems to me a very healthy level of interaction and engagement.

Our monthly page views have climbed above 300,000 and for the first six months were growing 50% every month. We'll have to see whether this trend is slowing or will resume.

In summary, we've reached and surpassed critical mass. The wiki is here. It is not going away. The exciting questions now are along the lines of, "just how far can we go in realizing new value from this?" New answers -- and more questions -- are popping up every day. We are, indeed, undergoing a social media cultural evolution.

What Do We Use Our Social Media Software For, Anyway?

So, we have social media software and that makes us cool and progressive :-) But what are we actually using it for?

That's a big question that I am trying to answer, myself. You see, when you have more than 4500 people using a system, it's hard to know what they all are doing. So, I'm trying to get them to tell me (see my post on Wiki Win of the Week) -- and most important, tell each other.

Here's a brief, somewhat random list of some of the ways we're using our social business software:

• Replacing endless email threads with discussions online that are available to all, not just those on the "cc" list. No need to file an entire long email thread and hope you can find it later, since it's online. Nice that the discussion flows down, too, instead of forcing you to scroll up and down as an email thread does, to catch up or review it.
• Thought-provoking discussions started in one division that spread to include input and ideas -- and more questions -- from people in other divisions, areas, functions and countries.
  
• Blogging by executives to communicate important ideas or toss out thoughts on their minds. These blog posts inspire comments that form discussions among people at all levels, including people who would never be bold enough to email the exec directly.
• Blogging by individuals on topics they care about. Some fascinating ideas are emerging from people who never would have had a voice, so to speak, otherwise.
  
• Cutting down on emailing large files back and forth. We upload them, instead, and it's easy for people to find them and makes sure they always grab the latest, current version.
• Posting policies, procedures, etc. online. It's like a self-administered intranet, with no need for a webmaster or knowledge of HTML.
  
• Project management among teams producing conferences, building websites and doing any other kind of work where collaboration, task tracking and a shared calendar is helpful.
• Building bonds among employees through social groups of shared interest. We encourage this non-work usage (preferably out of work or on breaks) and have groups on everything from gardening to video gaming.
• Coordination and collaboration among management teams in private groups where they can share ideas and keep each other informed even if they are located in different offices or traveling.
• Skunkworks projects where people can explore and collaborate on potentially valuable ideas that are not yet ready for prime time.
• Connecting with experts and resources in different locations and divisions. For example, finding a vendor in another country (and saving tens of thousands of dollars as a result). Also, we have groups formed by individuals on topics such as SEO, for example, that now have hundreds of staff (most of whom have never met and would not have known of each other otherwise) exchanging best practices, comparing vendors, asking and answering questions and even offering training sessions for each other -- all without any management involvement. Pure initiative!
• Increase awareness throughout the enterprise of all the different offerings our businesses have, including products and services that can add value or save money if used internally or in partnership for clients.
  
• Coordinating talent and expertise from different divisions to bid on new business. The software facilitates and enables this very effectively across time zones and geography.

I could go on. But that should give a pretty good impression of how we're using social media internally. And we're only seven months in! I'm excited about the many possibilities that we haven't even discovered, yet.

How Does Our Social Media Software Work?

Another question I was asked is "how does it work?" I don't think this means to rate it, but if so then the answer is "very well." We're running Jive Clearspace 2.5.x and we're very happy with it. Of course, there are things we don't like and the inevitable bugs that come with complex software, but no system is perfect, is it?

But if the question is, "how" does it work, then that's a little harder to explain. It's easier to show than to tell, but I'll take a shot at it.

Jive Clearspace is an integrated set of tools and capabilities, all delivered through the Internet in a browser. It includes:

• Discussion threads / forums
• Blogs for individuals and communities
  
• A full-featured wiki with a rich-text editor
• Profiles for users, viewable in a directory format as well as an organization chart view
• Project management features (somewhat limited, but fine for many, many projects)
• User-created groups that allow and empower anyone to form a community easily
• RSS feeds and email notifications to keep people informed
• Widgets that let you customize many pages with slick sets of features
• Powerful and handy search capabilities
• Tagging and tag clouds, for developing a folksonomy and visually drilling down on topics
  

Anyone can learn more by going to the Jive website, but that's what I would highlight. The key is that all of this is in one system that is really very easy to use. You can find all of these features in separate tools and piece this functionality together. But the benefits of an integrated, simple system are immense.

Why Did We Deploy Social Media Software in our Enterprise?

I was asked this question recently ("why did you deploy social media software in your enterprise?") and thought I would respond in this blog. It's a question many people are facing as they consider whether to implement social business software.

I can't say I was present at creation, so to speak, but I think I can piece together what led us to where we are today (about seven months into our deployment of Jive Clearspace). In one word, we saw potential.

This is not proven technology. The benefits of deploying social business software are not widely acknowledged and accepted (although this is changing rapidly, I believe). We had individuals in our organization who saw potential, took initiative, and made a case for trying this.

But what did we expect would happen? I think that's really what the question is.

We expected at least the following (and we hoped for much more):

• Communication among and within our many divisions would improve. Email would in some ways be replaced with more effective means of communicating (e.g., discussion threads, blogs, posting files in a centrally accessible location).
• Collaboration would be enabled in new and exciting ways, again, both among and within our many divisions.
• Significant financial benefits would result from sharing what our smart and experienced people are doing in silos all over the world with the rest of the enterprise, so we can leverage what works and learn from what doesn't.
• Most ambitiously, I think we expected to develop a more cohesive company culture. We've grown so much through acquisitions that we have a global patchwork of cultures more than one enterprise-wide culture. Without diminishing those independent cultures, we wanted to develop a sense of community that's enterprise-wide.

But I have to come back to the word "potential," again. The most compelling case for deploying social media software was the allure of unknown benefits, and the sense that there were opportunities that we just don't want to miss. And so we leaped, and so far we're soaring along nicely!

Critical Success Factor 4: Training

The importance of critical success factor number four, training, hit me right between the eyes this morning. Sometimes it's hard to see what's right in front of your face until it smacks you!

We were having our monthly enterprise-wide wiki advisory board meeting, and as each division presented their updates on their progress and challenges, I kept hearing about training that had been done and was being planned.

We're well beyond basic demos of how to use the software in most of our divisions. What's underway all over the company is advanced training, and that's very exciting. It also reinforces the importance that training has had and continues to have upon our success.

The social media software we use, Jive Clearspace (now renamed Jive SBS or Social Business Software), is easy to use. But training is still important. Training saves newbies time by teaching them tricks and tips as well as how why to use the tool. And the "why" is the most important. Without it, "how" has no purpose.

The advanced training we're doing covers some software features, but it's even more conceptually based. We're moving from how and why to proficiency and expertise and standardized practices. For example, staff in a division are taught where to look for the information they most need, as well as the finer points of creating content for others (effective titles for documents, descriptive and consistent tags, even SEO tips so it will be easy to find in the search results). Different teams are evolving their own strategies for using the wiki, and training is an essential part of their success.

It's true we rely to a very large degree on individuals to take initiative -- and they do -- but you can go a long way toward empowering those individuals through effective, strategic and creative training. It's certainly a critical success factor in our social media cultural evolution.

NEW! Wiki-Mind Interface Breakthrough

We've just upgraded to an exciting new feature today, April 1, 2009, and it changed everything. This Mind Interface plugin enables us to post content directly to our wiki without using a computer, keyboard or even a mobile device. There are a few bugs, but the tremendous benefits outweigh the risks.

Here's how it works, and you can try it right now!

1. Concentrate on the place in the wiki where you wish to create new content. Sit in a quiet place and visualize the location for 10 seconds. (Warning: if your focus wanders, the entire process will fail!)
2. Next, visualize the kind of content you are creating. You must focus your mind on one of the following: blog, new discussion, document, comment or discussion response. (Sorry, poll creation and responses are not enabled, yet.)
   
3. Next, think of the title of your new content, preceded in your mind by the keyword, "title." Picture any punctuation marks, if needed, as well.
4. Now, speaking clearly and slowly, say out loud the words that will make up the content of your new item in the wiki. Since this is only an early version of the Mind Interface plugin, you do have to say the words aloud, but engineers are working on a silent-enabled version.
5. Finally, click your heels together three times and say "Publish, publish, publish" loudly and clearly!

That's it! You've just published your content directly in the wiki via the new Mind Interface. Be sure to tell your colleagues about this tremendous breakthrough, too -- this changes everything!