Social Intranet & Enterprise Social Media (#SWChat)

Thanks to everyone who took part in this weeks Social Workplace Twitter Chat event (#SWChat).

Social Intranet & Enterprise Social Media

Andy Jankowski of EnterpriseStrategies.com was today's Guest Host.

Andy is an Enterprise Social Media researcher, advisor and public speaker. During the last 16 years he has served as a trusted advisor for several industry leading organizations including Andersen, Ernst & Young, JP Morgan Chase and Oracle. He is a career long student of enterprise communication and collaboration and loves sharing what he has learned. Andy is a frequent conference speaker and an avid road cyclist. He enjoys connecting people and dots.

What is The Social Intranet ?

"I define intranet as, 'an internal website that helps employees get things done'. What makes an intranet social is the addition of two very important elements; Authorship (the ability for everyone to create content) and Connections (the ability to see the people behind the content and connect with them in some meaningful way). These definitions were originally developed by ThoughtFarmer and I think they are spot on. " - Andy Jankowski

What is Enterprise Social Media ?

"Enterprise Social Media I define as social media being used holistically by employees, both for internal and external communications and collaboration, to engage with both other employees and with customers. A social intranet is by definition limited to employee to employee communication behind the firewall. Enterprise Social Media spans both internal and external and breaks down the barrier between employee and customer --- enabling social business" - Andy Jankowski

Event Statistics

• No. of Tweets = 667
• No. of Contributors = 84
• Reach = 217,000
• No. of impressions = 2,000,000

Summary

Full Transcript Report via @hashtracking

Questions Asked

Q1) How does The Social Intranet differ from a traditional styled Intranet ?
Q2) What are the business benefits and challenges of implementing a Social Intranet ?
Q3) With the recent explosion of social technologies, can the Intranet (Social or otherwise) survive ?
Q4) What is it that is now making companies embrace the idea of Enterprise Social Media ?
Q5) How do you sell Enterprise Social Media to those leaders whom still show scepticism ?
Q6) How is Enterprise Social Media improving employee engagement ?
Q7) How do you see Enterprise Social Media impacting the general use of email ?
Q8) In 140 words or less, why is Enterprise Social Media the future of business ?

Shared Reference Material

• Science linking Intranets to Happiness via @AndyJankowski
• Message Wikis Send via @AndyJankowski
• Player Please: Gamification & Social Engagement via @weknownext
• Just The Facts About Workplace Social Media via @weknownext
• Social Media in the Workplace - Survey Findings via SHRM
• Yammer: Professional Learning Community via @TimGanoSmith
• Email is not Dead! [infographic] via @TimGanoSmith
• Atos CEO Bans Email via Forbes

Useful #SWChat Links

Next Event | Schedule | Reminders | Archive | Advisors | Q&A | About | 

Is reducing costs the key driver for social media?

Having a social platform to allow employees to connect and collaborate better will improve the knowledge flows of an organisation. It will allow companies to utilise the collective intelligence of its own employees to crowdsource and solve key business issues.

But in the current economic climate, companies are starting to think more about how to reduce costs. Is social media the answer? Kathi Browne of Wingspouse Publishing raises a good point on the subject:

"Interestingly, it is usually cost that is holding companies back. They see a potential cost to the man hours needed to learn / participate in social media and don't have a clear way to measure the return."

And maybe this is the problem. Companies are too focused on how to measure the ROI of social media and forget that actually this is just a natural form of business evolution. With over 500 million users of Facebook and 100 million users on LinkedIn, it's a fair bet to say that many of your employees are already using social media as part of their everyday lives. So surely it stands to reason that this will become embedded as part of how we communicate and collaborate in business? Kees Vogelsang agrees:

"Given the fact that more and more people are using many tools already for personal usage it is becoming easier to implement social media. And ... there is no way back. Ultimately these tools will be embraced everywhere, just like mobile phones."

So for those companies that are making the transition and investing in social media, if costs are not the key driver then what is it that is encouraging this cultural change? Andy Jankowski of Enterprise Strategies puts it simply and succinctly:

I am seeing a few companies embrace enterprise social media to reduce costs, but not as many as I would have originally thought. It seems the main driver of companies making the Enterprise Social Media investment is simply changing the way their company works (e.g., more collaborative, less siloed, etc.). These types of improvements, while valued by the c-suite, are often hard to justify with numbers. I am seeing many more contextual examples being put forth than detailed ROI studies.

And this is where companies will have the greatest success with social media. The focus shouldn't be on reducing costs per se but more on the business benefits of better collaboration. We also mustn't forget that employees are working more and more remotely these days and social media can play a vital role in keeping employees connected.

Companies do need to start looking at evolving from a knowledge management organisation to a knowledge sharing one, using social technologies as the enabler to build that social business infrastructure. However, the cultural change in this transition should not be under-estimated or ignored and needs to be incorporated as part of the transitional strategy.

So is social media in the workplace a key driver for reducing costs? It will certainly influence the reduction of costs, but it should never be the main focus for creating The Social Workplace. The main focus should be the evolution of a company to provide more and better collaboration opportunities and increase knowledge sharing.