Sometimes, I forget to visit this blog and share with you just how well things are going with our little initiative.
Let me give you a preview: I'm delighted. Sure, one set of problems disappear only to reveal the next set of challenges, but I think that's a good problem to have, isn't it?
So let's catch up!
Getting Over The Fear Of Swimming
I wrote a while back that we saw one of our most formidable challenges would be around getting people to participate in this new environment. We found out people were holding back for a variety of reasons, nothing do with technology, more to do with human behavior.
Typical meeting with internal group:
"How many of you have checked out the EMC|ONE platform?" (most hands go up)
"How many of you actually commented, discussed, etc.?" (all hands go down)
Well, it's getting better. I can only speculate as to why this might be, though.
The facts are clear. New people are showing up on the platform -- dozens a day -- and are jumping right in. They're blogging, they're starting discussions -- bottom line, they're not shy.
Now, I'm sure there are still plenty of shy people out there. But, somehow, I guess the word went out that this stuff is OK, and they're piling on, many of them communicating in a confident tone.
So I'm not so worried about this anymore -- it seems to be happening by itself, with very little effort on our part.
Getting Better At Community Formation
I've mentioned before that this -- above all else -- will lead to social media proficiency as a business tool. And I also probably mentioned we're pretty abysmal at this today.
So I decided to do something about it. I got approval to create a new role (Community Coach), and found a wonderful, enthusiastic person who agreed to give it a go.
Now, she's got no real expertise at this (who does?) but she's got all the right ingredients, a ton of passion, and I know she'll figure it out.
Her job will be to work with people targeting the larger communities to help them get better at going through the process. As we get good at this, we'll document what we learn, and use that as a basis of a self-help community for -- you guess it -- community builders.
Support From Interesting Places
Early on, I knew I had to enlist our HR guys. If you believe that social media is all about skills, attitudes, behaviors, etc. -- then you'll probably end up doing what I did.
For the last few months, we've chipped away at problem, but not made any significant progress at getting them organized to help.
We've had a breakthrough recently, though. The group at EMC that does development, training, etc. has chosed social media proficiency as their Big Thing for 2008. Sure, lots of work to be done, but passing out paintbrushes to them and getting them to help on making 35,000 employees proficient -- that's a big deal.
It's going to take a while before we see the results, but I felt this was an important step.
I also got a call to come present to the Finance leadership team this week. OK, I'll admit my preconceived notions might not have been exactly optimistic on the outcome, but it turned into a wonderful session.
Sure, there were the usual questions and concerns about cost, risks, etc. -- the same stuff that everyone focused on when we're first discussing this.
But, about 20 minutes into it, one of the execs lit up and started talking about some of the real challenges in the finance group: developing leadership, helping them to understand the entire business, building a culture of continual improvement, etc. -- and basically got the SM bug bigtime. She's a natural leader, and I think others will surely follow her.
Not a bad thing to have the Finance team seeing your initiative as a Really Good Thing, especially when budget requests come around ;-)
Getting The Word Out
Our platform is being mentioned everywhere. There's no formal campaign, it's just the advanced stages of our viral program. I see us being referenced all over the place, pitched, described, etc.
The overall communications effectiveness is off-the-charts, in my book. And there's no way we could have achieved this with a traditional, organized approach. Viral marketing takes a bit longer, but it achieves results in a way that's truly amazing to behold.
Having Fun
I'm now in a position to steer this back to some core principles. I think that getting people comfortable with social media has to be fun. Sure, we can motivate people other ways, but "fun" is not a bad way.
So, we're trying to make sure we keep it "fun" for everyone involved, whether they're involved directly or indirectly. It's easy for people to get so stressed out over this stuff, because it's new, different, risky, etc. Let's just make it fun, shall we?
A team of people have come up with some recognition awards for bloggers, communities, participants, etc. And, to their credit, they're making it "fun". Of course, they're going to start a space to solicit nominations, gather commentary, etc. -- I'm sure it'll be a vibrant discussion in and of itself.
Business Value
We now have so many business value stories that we don't really need any more to make our case, even to the most stubborn ROI cynic. I have a nice email I forward around that tells the story, and includes the links to the specific places on the site where it's happening.
Viral marketing once again, since these tend to get forwarded around a bunch. I don't need to tell my story, I can enlist others to tell it for me.
Getting More Help
EMC usually hires summer interns, co-op students, etc. I don't know how they're paid for, but it really doesn't matter.
Now that we've got a few leaders and captains in place, I'll probably end up hiring 6 or so "helpers" for them to get after site cleanup, user education, etc.
I'm guessing that if you're a young person looking for some summer work that being involved in EMC's social media initiative in a hands-on way might seem pretty attractive to you.
The Bottom Line
I'm delighted with the progress we're making on our behind-the-firewall initiative.
I had two big goals: deliver business value for the project, and create social media skills for use outside the firewall.
EMC is getting both bigtime. I've got big hunks of business value to go point to (and more coming every day), but -- more importantly -- more people are getting comfortable and proficient with this whole thing.
I can see the progress -- it's tangible and visceral.
And that's cool ...
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