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November 7, 2012

Driving a 360 Degree Digital Transformation

The billion-plus users of social media worldwide have transformed the purchase experience - for enterprises and consumers. Digital consumers are leveraging sophisticated social media tools to express opinions, share experiences, and network with others. They also use social media to connect with brands and purchase products and services. The rise of digital consumers who want to shop online, receive product recommendations, and interact with brands presents a tremendous opportunity for companies. With its ready platform to engage consumers, social media has helped increase sales, improve communication campaign effectiveness, and optimize product development costs.

While several companies are already creating a social presence for their brands, many fail to deliver expected business outcomes and value through their social initiatives. Several enterprises face challenges in creating strategic and targeted marketing messaging to sustain a dialog with consumers. Marketing departments struggle in understanding the drivers of consumer behavior, their preferences, how they form opinions, and how to convert these factors into higher sales.

Today's digital consumers want to engage with brands and demand comprehensive engagement strategies that link their transactions with social circle. Further, they form brand impressions based on its values and what the employees say about the brand. Employee engagement can deliver significant benefits where engaged employees can actually recommend their company's products to their friends. Enterprises that seek to become socially enabled need to foster holistic engagement strategies that extend to their employees in order to create a strong base of brand advocates.

Digital Marketing is one of the core strategies for enterprises hence it is important for them to consider all-round Digital initiatives to amplify business growth and tap the digital demand by engaging with digital users through their preferred channels. Enterprises need to consider 360 degree digital transformation covering Consumers, Enterprise, Ecosystem and Channels. Such a transformation will help enterprises to monetize digital demand, simplify digital marketing, drive multi-channel commerce and deepen employee engagement.

Infosys a Diamond Sponsor for E2 Innovate 2012 - Santa Clara

Infosys is a diamond sponsor for E2 Innovate 2012 - Santa Clara showcasing our digital offerings which help enterprise drive a 360 degree digital transformation. Our digital experts will showcase the Infosys Digital offerings at our booth # 201 and talk about how Infosys can help in the digital journey of the enterprises.

Listen to our executive Nitesh Banga - AVP & Global Sales Head, Business Platforms deliver a keynote on how enterprises can "Amplify Growth by providing their Business with a Digital Edge across Consumers, Enterprise, Ecosystem & Channels.

For more details on the event click here

Posted by Mythreya Kotha at 2:33 PM | | Comments (0)

October 11, 2012

Social Business Change Management...this won't hurt a bit!

doctors and pain perception.jpgI recently read a good post from Matt Ridings @techguerilla called Social Business: The Right Way, Or The Way That Works?  who was discussing the nuances of how Social Business transformations are impacted by and impact the prevailing culture of an organization.   His point that while Social Business Practioners audit technologies and the various resources\skills off the company in preparing for this transformation, it is critical to also audit the personality, attitudes, and overall culture of a company in preparing for the Social Business Change Management Program.

I totally agree.

Auditing the personality, attitudes, and overall culture of a company before you build such a wide sweeping Change Management Program can be the differentiator in the long-term success of how Social Business is accepted and provides benefits to the organization.

As people can be highly emotional, and have natural hesitation to changing behaviors, it is key to understand how people perceive these changes could affect them.  Social Business transformations touch on components such as Trust, Relationships, Notoriety, Skill Exposure, and Individual's Perceived Value, so you have to think differently about how your build the Social Business Change Management Program.

But before that, it is important to understand how we build the Change Management program based on what we define that Change Management program to be.  We often hear and use the word "Penetrate" when talking about Change Management effecting the Business Processes of an company, and we know this directly impacts the prevailing culture.

On the surface, the word "Penetrate" is fine, but look deeper into the nuance of the word, and you will find a link between how the Change Management Program is embraced by stakeholders versus how the program is built and executed.

I have heard company leaders speak how the Social Business Change Management program is to "Penetrate" the company to unleash new age of collaboration, innovation, etc....To me that is not the right word to use and provokes a dangerous mindset, although the end result is correctly desired.

"Penetrate" to me means using an aggressive change management style, seemingly meant to bulldoze through any preexisting cultural fabric. This is a mistake in my opinion, and it results in a "active" and worse, a "passive" type resistance to the change!

As every company's culture defines how to go about building and executing the Social Business Change Management program, we need to think along multiple dimensions if we are going to achieve the long-term benefits of becoming a Social Business.  This does require an initial "penetration" to kick-start the Social Business transformation, but then the Social Business Change Management Program must shift to looking at the level of short and long-term "Saturation" the organization can achieve as it becomes more of a Social Business.

Again, there is a degree of "Penetration", but that is needed to get started...But we as Social Business Strategist and Consultants need to think more of "Saturation" then overarching "Penetration" when building our Social Business Change Management Programs.

I liken the Social Business "Saturation/Penetration" POV to receiving an injection at the Doctors Office:

- As the "Doctor" (CEO) approaches you with the "needle" (Communicating the desire and need to change the company), you get nervous (resistant, unsure what to do, anxious).

- The "initial pain" of the penetration (involved in meetings, seeing lots of communication, having your current business process modified) of the needle going into your arm hurts.

- Then the "Nurses" (Change Mgmt Leaders, Advocates in the organization) massage your arm, and the pain subsides, but the spot still feels "sore" (unsure what to do next, how it effects me long-term)

- Then the "medicine" (Seeing actual benefits to individuals, teams, departments, etc) begins to saturate your body slowly over time, and

-you begin to see more "benefits & value" (able to work out loud, more engaged, improving your personal brand, etc)..

So in this somewhat silly but effective example, you can begin to understand how the Social Business Change Management Program needs to be crafted.  Each company's culture is different, but proportionally speaking, the anxiety in changing entrenched processes is common across almost all people, hence the difference is how the "Nurses" triage that "anxiety and pain".


Posted by Richard Rashty at 10:30 PM | | Comments (0)

October 4, 2012

Passenger to airline: It's not about the legroom!

If there is one industry that can use a technology overhaul, it's the airline industry.  As a frequent traveler, I've seen the best and worst that the airline industry has to offer and I'm constantly amazed at the different levels of service.  Perhaps bewildered is a better term.  And I can't think of an industry where data mining, personalized profiles, and customer preferences can make a huge difference in service offerings - which could lead to different tier pricing.  The end result could be better customer service and heftier profits.

 

Let's start with a familiar anecdote.  Members of my family were traveling recently from Mumbai to Bangalore.  The flight was supposed to depart at 7 p.m., but the time came and went, and they were never told why there was a delay - despite their asking several times at a help desk. 

 

They had to spend the night at the airport waiting for a flight that never departed.  Unfortunately, this is standard operating procedure for many airlines.  I'm sure many travelers can share similar accounts of a non-functional flight by a non-communicating carrier. 

 

Even if you're a low cost carrier the overall negative impact is often more than a few angry customers that missed a flight.  A lack of concern for customers can go viral very quickly.  Another example:  a colleague told me that when the same behavior by an airline occurred in a flight from Newark to Miami, the carrier's personnel brought out a coffee cart two hours after the scheduled flight was to leave - the pilot was stuck in traffic!  As if a free cup of coffee could appease angry customers.  One passenger immediately took out his laptop and began writing a poison pen letter to the company CEO that said he was never going to fly the airline again.  He then shared the "form" letter with other customers.  (The letter writer received $300 in vouchers for him and his family for future flights to apologize for the inconvenience.)

 

Everyone wants to know the status of their flight and if the airline had kept everyone informed passengers could have found alternate flights. The airline could have mitigated the damage to its image too.

 

Even for a low cost airline, better communication can be a differentiator.  Forget the extra legroom, fancy meals and wifi connection.  There's plenty of room to differentiate on the basics, like knowing if your flight is going to take off or not!

 

Every business needs to differentiate itself and the airline carriers are no different.  But even in an industry that competes heavily on price, effective practices (in any businesses) can be developed anywhere in the service delivery chain. 

 

What bothers me most about these stories is that there was no effort to communicate what the problem was.  Equipment failure?  Bad weather en route?  A sick pilot or crew member?  There are many ways to diffuse the situation.  Saying and doing nothing is the worst possible response.  In most businesses, repeat customers are a key to success.  

 

It all begins by knowing who your customers are and who provides the value.  This isn't as easy as it sounds.  Frequent flier miles, revenue spent, re-bookings at a higher rate are all good proxies.  The best choice will align with the airline's positioning.  A budget airline that wants seats filled may look at revenue spent.   

 

Another way to look at customer response to the problem:  Suppose your high-end traveler is paying top-dollar for his seat and needs to absolutely "get there on time."  He may react much differently from the low-fare payer who booked months in advance and whose travel plans aren't as time critical. 

 

Optimizing the experience for the target customer is where airlines are looking to gain the edge.  Airlines are mining Facebook, Twitter feeds and other social networks to uncover these insights.  They are well aware that everyone loves to share their horror stories with friends and family.  Customers name names, and when these reviews go online, they are carefully considered by viewers. 

 

The carriers that are able to leverage this information to create personalized service will have the edge in the long term.  And it doesn't have to add to the cost base.  If my preferences are known to the airline I would likely take advantage of higher profit ancillary services offered by the airline or its partners.  As a (wannabe better) golfer, I'd like to see highlights of the latest tournaments from my entertainment console or be given free access to a golf e-magazine on my tablet I wouldn't normally have time to read.  

 

The potential is enormous (not to mention that the extra leg room would be nice, too)!

 

 

Posted by Mani Mahesh at 10:22 AM | | Comments (3)

August 28, 2012

Social Customer Service: Creating Value for Consumers and the Business

Giving customers a top-notch experience is becoming increasingly more important in this world of word-of-mouth marketing.  In fact, according to the 2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, during the past year, over half (55 percent) of consumers had intended to make a purchase but later decided not to based on what they felt was a poor customer experience.

In addition, consumers today are very willing to proactively sharing their customer service experiences. They tell significantly more people about their service experiences, both good and bad, compared to last year. In fact, on average, they are telling 15 people about their good experiences (up from 9 in 2011), and 24 people about their bad experiences (up from 16 in 2011).

Because of this, it is more important than ever to ensure a brand's social media strategies are seamlessly integrated into their customer service efforts. Below are 3 social integrations that can not only improve customer satisfaction but can also drive value to the bottom line of business.

Respond to Consumer questions in their Social Channel of Choice - within 48 hours!
Giving consumers the ability to have their questions answered through social channels demonstrates a brand's willingness to be where their customers are. However, this statement only holds true if brands actually respond on the outlets where their consumers are participating. No robotic excuses for an answer, no deleting of comments; today's consumer expects an honest answer within a reasonable period of time.
Value to the business: Increasing the number of issues solved within social can lead to a decrease in the number of calls taken from expensive call centers or other customer service outlets.

Use Customer Feedback Loops to Gain Insight
Having a grasp on continuing customer service related issues allows brands to respond to customers questions in a shorter and possibly more effective response time. For example, if there are multiple inquiries about a topic that requires a detailed answer, consider writing and publicizing a blog post instead of responding to individual customers over and over again. In some cases, customers may spot the post before having to even ask the question. Speedy and detailed responses can help establish instant credibility.
Value to the business: Having an open line of communication on main customer service related topics can aid in efficiency for other customer service channels. Due to the real time nature of social, new issues and details can be detected earlier and can then be shared with other areas of the customer service team, leading to better preparation and less research on their side.

Create Peer-to-Peer Communities to Scale Social Efforts
Creating communities with the specific purpose of allowing customers to help other customers increases the scalability and quality of customer service efforts in social media. Creating peer-to-peer help communities allows customers to interact with other customers to share their own stories and learnings.
Value to the business: Successfully building a community that effectively solves customer service questions can cut costs and decrease calls coming into the call center. In fact, a recent study by Gartner stated that integrating communities into customer support can lead to "cost reductions of up to 50 percent."

Are there other ways to integrate customer service and social media efforts? Which brands do you think are doing a good job integrating customer service and social media?  

Posted by Erin Walsch at 8:09 PM | | Comments (0)

August 22, 2012

New commerce, old industries


When one thinks of New Commerce, the Digital Consumer, Pervasive Computing and Smarter Organizations the most ready examples that come to mind would be Apple, Google, Amazon and the many consumer serving industries that have a strong digital footprint from banks to retailers.
 
Now imagine an industry that's more than a century old and concerns itself with rocks and rigs in the most remote locations of the planet. It is hard to associate such an industry readily with any of the phenomenon that has come to mark innovation over the past few years. But that's exactly what has been happening in this industry for a little over 2 years now.  And that should put many consumer serving industries to shame.

Continue reading "New commerce, old industries" »

Posted by Shashi Shekhar Vempati at 6:50 AM | | Comments (0)

August 2, 2012

"Why-What-Who-How" - FAQs on building Great Online Communities

You cannot always do it alone.  Whether you are trying to learn some new concepts, improve your existing knowledge, or feed into your desire to teach others.  Communities can be one of, if not the most comprehensive tool a company has to transition to a Learning Organization, which is part of the transformation to becoming a Social Business.

Building useful, thriving Communities requires dedication and understanding from all areas of the organization.  As you go around your company and promote the concepts of Online Communities, you will find people will not totally understand what this is all about or how to get started.

So here are some FAQs you can share to help provide some clarity to why Online Communities can benefit your Organization:

1. Why Should I become a Community Member?

Answer:

  1. Build Strong Relationships. If you're a new or existing employee, joining various Communities are a good way to connect with people and to build strong professional and political relationships across organizational boundaries.
  2. Have a question or a problem specific to your company? You can ask the Community for information or suggestions, and work together to solve your problems.
  3. Got a great idea? Then why not share it with the Community who can help to get that idea recognized and even improve it.
  4. Think yourself an expert? Join a Community and share your knowledge, receive affirmation from peers, and improve your personal brand.
  5. Feel connected to the company.  In my experience, strong community program can help build & sustain an emotional connection to your organization.

2. What is the main purposes of the Community?

Answer

  1. Expand your knowledgeof the Organization's Business or Domain of Expertise.  This can help you in your career path by learning from multiple areas of the business.
  2. Develop new skills. As part of your career-learning process, Being a contributing Community Member can help in your Team-Work skills, while a Community Manager role can provide excellent leadership and problem solving skills
  3. Improve professional relationships.  Build your professional network within the Organization in order to help solve new problems or find new solutions to old problems.
  4. Speed up innovation.  Innovation within a limited pool of resources is limiting.  Build out your network to stimulate new ideas and Point-of-View, leveraging the Collective Intelligence of the Organization.
  5. Manage our business more effectively.  Ask advice on key decisions to positively influence Business Outcomes.

3. Am I really ready to start a Community?

Answer

  1. I know what this Community will be about and what topic[s] will be discussed.
  2. I can articulate how this Community and its output[s] are linked to the Organization's Business needs?
  3. I know what type of people will be in this Community, and can articulate to potential members how they can benefit from membership.
  4. I am ready for the long hours and hard work necessary to build, cultivate, and foster the Community.
  5. I am ready to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes.
  6. I will not QUIT, I will not WAIVER from building a valuable Community for the company.

4. How do I get Started?

Answer

  1. Get in touch with the Organization's Enterprise Community Manager[ECM} and discuss your desires to build a Community.
  2. The ECM should have a "Community Toolkit". This "toolkit" will have at a minimum:
    1. Defined Business objectives of ALL Communities within the organization.
    2. Rules of Engagement & Governance for ALL Communities
    3. Details on the technologies used for ALL Communities
    4. Community Leader's and Member's training documents on how to be more effective.
    5. Approved Community Folksonomies
    6. Community Leader's and Member's Roles & Responsibilities
    7. Resources on how to learn to be a better Community leader and Community Member.
  3. The overall benefit of the "Community Toolkit" is to assist you in the process of:
    1. Planning, Building, & Launching your Community
    2. Managing & Measuring your Community
    3. Promoting & Expanding your Community

5. How is a Community Built?

Answer

There are several steps in the process:

  1. Establish the Objectives, which can assist in building theIdentity of the Community
  2. Create the Roster.  Identify potential members, advocates, and recruit those top talent for membership.
  3. Set the ground rules and formalize expectations for the Community.  This is also known as the "Working-Mode"
  4. Obtain formal Sponsorship.  Gathering financial resources and political cover is key in ensuring your Community has the ability to execute on its mission.
  5. Formalize the "Launch Day" of your Community.
    1. Make sure as many members attend as possible
    2. Promote the Launch to leadership
    3. Have your Community Sponsor kick off the Launch by clearly communicating to members the Community will be an open forum, free from threats of retaliation, free from negative criticism, and members contributions are expected. 
    4. Make sure you have Content already seeded in the Community.

6. Who are the Crucial Players in the Community?

Answer

  1. Community Leaders (also referred to as Community Mentors or Managers).  This person[s] drives engagement, sets the tone for the Community, creates the agenda and schedules various Community events.  They are responsible for all actions that take place in the Community.  The primary goal is to build TRUST amongst the members.
  2. Community Members.  As with all Communities, members will have different roles.  Some members will post feverously, while others will simply consume the information, and still others will be somewhere in-between.   While there is value in all types of Community engagement, it is important to have a varied membership to ensure a good balance.
  3. Community Advocates. This role is key towards the success of the Community.  Advocates are people who drive much of the animation for your Community.  They are highly motivated, and typically enjoy knowing their participation and efforts are widely known in the organization.  There are several types of Advocates.  Some like to drive conversations, some like to challenge conventional thought, and other like to act like librarians within the Community;  sorting, organizing, and tagging information.  Identify the types of Advocates you need, and reward their contributions.
  4. Community Sponsors.  The Community Sponsor role is one that is important for the positioning of the Community within the organization's culture.  The Community Sponsor should be at a minimum, at the VP-Level so the Community's importance is highly visible to others in the organization and can be demonstratively linked to Business strategy.  The Community Sponsor's role is to provide political, cultural, and financial support.   Not all Communities need an executive sponsor, but for those Communities that have direct impact to Business and Organizational Strategy, I recommend sponsorship.

7. As a Community Member, how do I get the most of my membership?

Answer

  1. Be Brave.  It can be difficult for some to be open and ask questions for fear of ridicule and/or retaliation.
  2. Listen.  You have a chance to learn from others in the Community.
  3. Reuse & Share with pride. The whole idea of a Community is to propose, synthesis, share ideas, concepts, and information.
  4. Challenge with Respect.  If you are not getting the answers you need, push back and ask for more clarity.  Ask the Community Leaders about taking the questions outside to other Communities in order to obtain the answers you seek.  This can lead to increased utilization and value for the Community.
  5. Feedback would be nice.  Provide feedback to members and mentors.  My motto is "You cannot fix it you don't know what's broken"  Everyone needs to put forth their POV to improve the Community experience & value.
  6. Ask the Community Leaders how you can help build a better Community.

8. As a Community Leader, are there some important considerations to keep in mind?

Answer

  1. Building Trust. This is your primary goal.  Without trust you have a Community of Nothing.
  2. Mistakes are not bad.  Making mistakes are part of the learning process.  Encourage open participation, and remind members that there are no mistakes...only learning opportunities yet discovered.
  3. Slow down & Start small.  Do not overwhelm members with too much content and direction at once.  Start with 1 event, and a few posts, then encourage participation.  Let the Community grow, don't force-feed, but cultivate and encourage.
  4. Birds of a Feather.  Ask the Enterprise Community Manager about starting a community for Community Leaders.  This way you share best practices and help each other.
  5. I see you.  Publish the locations for all members in the community, and encourage face-to-face office meetings & perhaps after hour casual gatherings when possible. 
  6. People.  Remember Communities are not technology or tools, but are people.  Respect the attitudes, emotions, and behaviors of all members.
These FAQs need to be part of the construction of a formal Community Management Program for people to understand how Communities can be valuable not only to the Organization, but to the individual as they look to build their professional and personal brand.   Online Communities are one of, if not the MOST important element in companies becoming a Social Business.

Posted by Richard Rashty at 6:02 PM | | Comments (1)

July 27, 2012

A Social Business Platform can shine lights on Remote Workers

"I wish I could work from home..." 

How many of us have said those exact words from time to time when sitting in our offices or cubes? 

Working_from_home-wild.jpg

According to a Wall Street Journal article, corporate workers are working more from home than they did before. Vice President at market-research company IDC, Raymond Boggs told the WSJ that "the number of corporate employees who work from home at least one day a month has been growing by an average of 23% a year since 2007. Those working from home only one or two days a month are leading the trend: This pool grew by nearly 70% each year."

Thinking how great it would be to work from home, saving money on gas, not having to get dressed in business attire every morning, and being there when your kids get home from school. At my current and for a short time my previous company, I was able to work from home, and I readily took advantage of the opportunity.

But..., I have to say I am NOT a fan of working from home.  In fact I will admit that when I worked in the corporate office and heard of someone who works from home or has an "alternative work arrangement", my first thought was how much value could that person have if they are never in the office building working on building face-to-face relationships. "Out-of-sight, out-of-mind" is how I defined these Remote Workers.

It turns out, I might be right. A recent study by researchers at MIT-Sloan, called "Why Showing Your Face Matters", authored by Kimberly Elsbach and Daniel Cable, shows that the lack of "Passive Face Time" negatively impacts the performance evaluations of virtual or remote employees. The premise is that managers do not even realize that they are negatively rating remote workers, but these perceptions have real impact on promotions, pay raises, layoffs, etc.

The perception stems from two (2) types of "Passive Face Time". The first type is called "Expected Face Time". Employees physically being in the office during normal working hours; interacting with their peers and managers.

The second type is called "Extracurricular Face Time". This is when employees come in early, stay late, work weekends, and beyond normal business hours. According to the study, it turns out that your peers and managers DO notice that effort, and it impacts the overall perception of your work.

Make sure you attend all Company-Sponsored events, like cookouts and holiday parties so the employees can match your name with your face.  Also I highly recommend putting your profile picture on all of your presentations and documents so those reading them can link your face to your work.  This makes for a powerful connection in the organization.

Can a Social Business Platform can help alter these perceptions?

When I read this story, I had mixed emotions.  Since I work from home full time now, I realized I am susceptible to these perceptions from my manager(s) that I do not work the long hours commensurate with my profession.  Now, since I do Social Collaboration for a living, I already follow some basic tenets to ensure my peers and managers have positive "Passive Face Time" interactions with me.   

Those of you who are Remote Workers, new to Social Collaboration,  and your company has deployed a Social Business Platform, you have the opportunity to increase your "Passive Face Time" with others in the company. If your company does not have a Social Business Platform, you can still utilize some of the tips below, but it might be more difficult as the various tools and technologies won't be centralized and integrated.

So here are some of my tips to make sure you Remote Workers remain visible and on the mind of your peers, manager(s), and company leadership:

Intranet & Key Personal

  1. Find out who the Corporate Communications personal are that are responsible for internal communications. "FOLLOW" them on the Social Software Platform.
  2. If Corporate Communications are not using the Social Business Platform, ask how you can receive as many email alerts and notifications as possible pertaining to internal communications. This way you stay aware and can comment and talk about corporate news and events.
  3. Ask how your Blog posts can be prominently featured on the corporate Intranet.
  4. Suggest starting a featured Blog, Video Blog or Newsletter on the corporate Intranet so your thought-leadership can be seen by the masses.  

Corporate Profiles

  1. Make sure you put a current picture on your corporate profile.
  2. Fill out as much information on your profile; Projects, skills, interests, etc. and keep it up-to-date!
  3. Search out and "Follow" as many of the leadership in the company so in the event they post, you will be notified and can comment on their postings.

Groups, Communities, Spaces, etc.

  1. Learn how to be a valuable Community Manager & Community Member.
  2. Use non-working time to learn these skills from sources on the Internet, and ask the Enterprise Community Manager and other Community Managers for resources on learning this key organizational skill.
  3. Create Communities and Groups that focus on important topics. Invite others to join from beyond your immediate peer group.
  4. Make sure your manager is either part of the community or knows of your efforts.
  5. Join other communities, being able to participate and provide value. Post frequently the various stories, videos, and images that are important to the community or group members, soliciting discussions and conversations.
  6. Ask your manager how the role of Community Manager and organizational contributor can be part of your annual performance objectives.  Even if Community Manager is not an official job title, your manager can still give you performance "credit" for your work
  7. DOCUMENT all your efforts and provide Quarterly status reports to your manager.

Discussions, Posts, Walls, Videos, Q&A

  1. Post Questions on important topics; topics that impact the company, and solicit large numbers of peers to answer and comment. 
  2. Learn about and post content from external experts relative to your company's industry.  Share this with various leadership either on the Social Business Platform or via email.  
  3. Do NOT settle for 1 or 2 reply answers. Keep pushing for more participation, even if you have to ask for additional verification of answers to questions posted by your peers.
  4. Once the thread has some good content, share the thread and email your manager(s), inserting the link to the discussion. Ask for additional POV, advice and opinions on the topic and thread.
  5. Author and contribute in as many business-centric discussion threads as possible.
  6. Engage with other managers as well as your direct manager in order to build a reputation as someone who has knowledge on multiple topics.
  7. Post answers and comments often, making sure to share your POV with as many peers as possible.
  8. Be slightly provocative in your engagements. Be highly respectful and make sure your points are well sourced, but CHALLENGE conventional points of view, and admit when you're wrong.  This will build your thought leadership skills, and the perceptions from leadership is you are always looking to improve on conventional thought.
  9. When posting, answering, and commenting...use [@]Mention as much as possible and link back to previous posts from other managers and Sr. Leadership. Do not just mention them to mention them...make sure the mentions are in context to the conversation, otherwise you will be seen in a negative manner (aka, butt kisser)
  10. Ensure the TIMESTAMPS of your posts indicate your sharing, learning, collaborating is taking place throughout the day.
  11. Email those who are not using the Social Business Platform about the discussions, invoking their participation and feedback.
  12. Create and Post Videos about relevant company topics, making sure to use your face somewhere in the video. If possible have peers contribute their POV to the video too, perhaps even create team or departmental videos on projects and initiatives..
  13. Mark all of your valuable and important discussions as "favorites" in the Social Business Platform so you can find them quickly when it comes time to prepare for your Performance Reviews.

In Closing...

Now I know this seems like tons of extra work, and it is, but if you agree with the findings of the MIT-Sloan study, the rewards will be worth the time invested. One key finding from the MIT-Sloan study indicated:

"Managers were 9% more likely to unconsciously attribute the traits "dependable" and "responsible" to people who put in expected face time and 25% more likely to unconsciously attribute the traits "committed" and "dedicated" to people who put in extracurricular face time"

They key point is; if you work remotely and want to improve your value within the company, being digitally visible will make a difference.  I think if you're able to demonstrate your participation to the overall organizational knowledge pool, then you might find yourself tagged a "High Valued Employee", even if you are hardly in the office.

So good luck and remember it can pay to...  "WORK OUT LOUD"


Posted by Richard Rashty at 1:01 AM | | Comments (0)

July 25, 2012

What Is A Social Business?

Social Business has become a term that is being thrown around like watermelon at a summer picnic. So many companies, vendors, agencies, and consultants are talking about the implications of social business. Yesterday alone, there were over 1,000 mentions of Social Business on Twitter. 

But despite all of these conversations, there is really no clear-cut definition of what constitutes a Social Business. So far it's been thought of as a wide range of things: collaboration, being active in social media, transparency, and the backbone of a connected company, among others. 

We define a Social Business as:

"An organization that has put together the strategies, technologies, and processes that focus directly on the needs of people - their customers, employees, and partners - to increase co-creation, organizational efficiencies, maximize business potential, and drive real business value."

A social business encompasses a gestalt of strategies that leverage social tools to foster holistic engagement, community, and collaboration, both internally and externally. A social business should focus on creating products and services based on the direct needs of customers and employees to drive business value. The fabric of a social business contains several threads that represent dynamic relationships that connect:

• Employees with the brand and its values 
• Employees to other employees to drive collaboration 
• The brand with audiences, such as consumers and customers 
• Prospective consumers to customer advocates 
• Customers to customers through community 

At the core of a Social Business are people - not Facebook, a piece technology, or an intranet - because they make up the most valuable asset for any business. Both within the organization and outside it, it is people who - either as employees or customers - ensure that the business thrives. Businesses need to cultivate relationships with these people to enhance satisfaction and build loyalty.

Over the past two years, brands have been focusing their social efforts on driving consumer awareness and engagement. But what about their employees? Why are they being left out? Unfortunately, it seems as if brands are focusing on being popular on Facebook, instead of driving engagement with their own employees. 

In our latest viewpoint, we explore creating a holistic social business centered on people  - both employees and customers. 


Posted by Eric Rinebold at 4:53 PM | | Comments (1)

July 23, 2012

Social Business - The "Glass Floor" in Your Organization

Glass-Floors.jpg
With the tremendous excitement around Social Media and Social Business, there are pressures on organizations to embrace "all things social". Social Business tenets can transform a business...providing agility, empowerment, employee engagement, increased market reputation, improving customer relationships, and providing an overall competitive advantage.   Clearly the benefits are visible and even the most conservative organizations are now looking at incorporating a Social Business strategy and platform within their enterprise fabric.

But one area of study within the overall Enterprise Social Strategy, which there has been little analysis on is what I have seen to be a "Social Glass Floor".

While Social Business Evangelists preach to the masses in educating organizations about the business benefits of socializing business processes; creating an agile, sharing, and more open company culture, is there a "Social Glass Floor" where executives and top-level decision simply refuse to take part in this new paradigm shift?

  • So if this glass floor exists, is it bad? good? necessary?
  • Does their need to be an insulating social layer between employees, middle management, and top executive leadership?
  • Can a company strategy really be developed using crowd dynamics?
  • As the speed and complexity of business increases, can critical Strategic level business decisions be formulated without input from processes augmented or created leveraging Social Business tenets?

To answer these questions we need to look at some current management decision-making processes and models.

Common Decision Models

The model for decision-making has a very intuitive approach.  In effect however this model does not work well, as it fails to take into account some key constraints prevalent today. 

decisionmodel.jpg

The decreasing time in business cycle(s), lack of trusted sources of empirical data, and decisions can be rendered moot due to speed of changing conditions which impacts the data used in the decision-making process to begin with. 

As access to information accelerated with the expansion of the Internet, and people found they are able to share that information with the push of a button, it is critical for business leaders to have a more fluid decision-making model, one primed for the deluge of Information affecting business cycles.  This impacts the predictability of the decision-making. 

These forces would make one think that Social Business capabilities in the enterprise would provide a great lubrication towards agile and comprehensive Strategic decisions...We'll get back to that last statement in a bit...

The decision-making models needs to also have allowances for the types of decisions within the company.  Strategic, Tactical, and Operational decisions are frequently made across the organizational hierarchy at different levels:

Decsion_Levels.jpg

The Strategic-Decision level is where the executives in organizations concentrate their efforts.  While operational and tactical decisions seemingly impact the business on a daily or quarterly basis, strategic decisions were historically made by Senior Executives.

I think Operational Decision processes can be greatly improved by leveraging Social tenets.  For example, by using Social Listening and Social Conversations, a.k.a Social CRM (sCRM), Sales and Marketing teams can rapidly address individual customer issues to improve the satisfaction metrics and reduce attrition rates. Engineering Teams can use Social collaborative public-facing platforms to solve specific product problems or test new ideas. 

Using internal Social Business platforms, HR departments can monitor employee satisfaction (Net Promoter Score), employee sentiment, and engagement levels using polling, surveys and other social listening tools.  

Tactical Decision Processes can also be enhanced using Social tenets.  Using Crowd Dynamics,  HR could advertise some employee benefit options to the company, and collect, synthesis, and report on the feedback and then make the appropriate decisions. 

Global Supply Chain teams could leverage public-facing Social Platforms to engage with customers & partners to improve product and solutions offering by accelerating the company's ability to react to market conditions.  Engineering Teams can use Social collaborative public-facing platforms using Crowd Innovation processes to improve product innovation without incurring additional headcount.

Before I discuss Strategic Decision processes, let's look at how decisions are spread based on a survey done by SmartBlog on Leadership organization:

Org decision Hierarchy.png

Within a Social Business, an oft mentioned component is the flattening of the organization, in how information can flow across the company.  Greatly diminishing or outright eliminating of the "command & control" forces would logically lead to better decision due to the using Crowd Dynamics to make informed, educated decisions.  Again, Operational and Tactical decision processes do benefit from a more distributed Decision-making process.

So if most of the Strategic Decision-Making is done at the top of the organization, is there value in re-distributing that strategic decision-making power to the lower levels? 

In my experience with executives using Social Media\Social Collaboration, they are either terrified to use it as the openness at that level can often translate into political crowbars used exact negative pressures on each other. Executives will commonly promote Social Media or Social Collaboration for the organization, espouse its benefits, but you'll NEVER catch them posting anything of true value.  Why?  Too risky they can be exposed or called to task for their comments.  The only executive who I have seen post regularly is the CEO, probably due to some measure of insulation to the political forces at that level.

So lets say there is a "Social Glass Floor" within the company.  Is that a bad thing? Is it necessary? 

Lets go back to the Strategic Decision-making processes.  There are clearly reasons to avoid Socializing those processes.  Mergers & Acquisition strategies need to be done completely in private, downsizing or organizational transformations leading to RIFs (Reduction-in-Force), entering or leaving specific markets or industries, outsourcing and off-shoring decisions, various financial strategies on investing company short-term financial assets...these are just a few of the Strategic Decisions that probably could not be done in the openness of a Social Business. 

I could not imagine Strategic Decisions like those mentioned above being publicly discussed with the larger organization. Who would want to work in such an open culture?  There are strategies that are discussed, but never invoked. Using Crowd Dynamics to build Strategy could lead to anarchy within the company.  I think there needs to be an insulating layer between senior executives and they strategic decision making process in order to keep the company from disrupting into chaos.

I say there should be a clear line where the openness and free-flow of information poses greater risks to the organization.  Often there are discussions on the "Top-Down and "Bottom-Up" forces required when transforming the organization's culture towards a Social Business. The "Top-Down" executive support is needed to begin and support the transformation, but as for those executives actually posting content that has real value or using the Social capabilities to make Strategic Decisions will probably never happen in such an open construct.  Leadership is about making decisions, and while many decision-making processes can be augmented using Social Business tenets, I think Strategic Decision-making processes within the enterprise is not one of them. 

So I say it DOES NOT MATTER if there is a "Social Glass Floor", just as long as the executives can LOOK DOWN, empower and support the rest of us in how we transform being able to "Work Out Loud".

Posted by Richard Rashty at 3:17 PM | | Comments (0)

July 20, 2012

3 Reasons Businesses Should Focus on Mobility Internally

On the digital marketing front, the term "mobile" is more than just the latest trend. Some have even predicted 2012 the "year of mobile" and have good rationale behind this prediction. From optimizing websites and email campaigns for mobile viewing, to the plethora of devices and platforms to advertise on, to app and game creation, to mobile ads and even payments, there are more opportunities for marketers to focus their mobile strategies around to acquire new customers than ever before.

However within in this multi-dimensional, popular mobile universe that operates within the marketing department, there is one piece of evidence that is undeniable. This is that people are continuing to turn to mobile to manage their lives on a daily basis. In fact, at the end of 2011, there were 6 billion mobile subscriptions according to The Telecommunication Union. That's over 87% of the world's population.

Extending this behavior into the workplace, the trend of mobile is no different. It's become increasingly clear that "work" is no longer somewhere people go, but something people do, and this is due in large part to mobile.

Because of this, mobile strategies within the organization need to move out from operating in a vertical silo under the hood of marketing and extend across organizations horizontally. There should be a focus not only on new customer acquisition through mobile, but also on workforce mobility and approaching this opportunity to not only for the benefit employees, but to add real value to businesses by increasing workforce productivity, improving business processes, and cutting costs for the organization.

Working remotely via mobile capabilities' allows employees to interact and collaborate with each other without the burden of being tied to a desk. A recent Forrester report stated that at least 60% of employees work remotely at least occasionally, utilizing mobile capabilities. Being able to VPN into work gives employees more flexibility during their workday by cutting down on time spent traveling to and from the office. It also provides new ways of collaborating like instant messaging, portals, web conferencing and team workspaces. This combination of new collaboration methods, additional time during the day, plus allowing employees to access their work at any location betters employees work experience which can lead to greater productivity throughout the workday.

Increased mobile capabilities within an organization have less to do with the actual mobile technology, and more to do with people, work processes, and how the two interact with each other. Organizations deploying mobile strategies need to reassess current business processes in order to know which devices employees' need and the specific use cases for their mobile needs. Having this data on hand allows businesses to create specific mobile policies and edit existing processes to enable mobile usage.

This can cause existing processes to be altered to fit the needs of the new way of operating for business, which in some cases will be for the better. For example, embedding mobility into regular business processes won't limit employees to a specific device or business location. It also can allow existing business routines to become more efficient as employees will be able to perform their daily routines using the execution method or technology of their choice. 

One real world example of incorporating mobility into existing business process is through the new Google Maps Coordinate program. The program monitors workforce processes by connecting to existing internal systems with the help of a full read/write API that can be accessed by employees through a web-browser or on any Android device. 

Google Maps Coordinate is a workforce management tool that improves the efficiency of your mobile teams. 

Remote employees can perform existing business routines and processes, and these routines can potentially be made more efficient by embedding the Google technology into their existing processes. Additionally, employers have the ability to see real-time information on the location of workers, who have the app installed, as well as update and track the progress of tasks that can be assigned to those workers.

Lastly, focusing on workforce mobility can reduce costs within the organization. Whether it's cutting down on real estate and office supplies costs due to employees working remotely or cutting down on time due to increased work productivity, focusing on mobile can benefit an organization financially. While IT costs may be large in the beginning, the outcome and cost savings for businesses in the long run is certainly worth it.

In conclusion, instead of digital marketers focusing solely on the power of mobile from a customer perspective, organizations need to be looking inside their businesses and focusing on workforce mobility. Doing so not only enriches experiences of employees by letting them work how they want to work, when they want to work, but it can also provide real business value for their organizations.

 

Posted by Erin Walsch at 10:53 PM | | Comments (0)
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