I’m a skeptic. I’m old school. Work has typically been the place during the day to put the nose to the grindstone and, well, work. It isn’t for playing, chatting, messaging, updating facebook, booking flights via TripIT or anything like that. Work has been about making deliverables, staying on budget and making money, not socializing.
But the world changes. Existing in the digital realm, we must not only adapt to new scenarios but correctly anticipate changes to deliver timely solutions in this ever-changing landscape. This is the conundrum for all IT members: how to gaze into the crystal ball and forecast proper solutions in a world where nobody knows what’s coming up even 6 months from now.
Social Business Software is one of these rapidly evolving solutions that didn’t exist 2 years ago but may be one of the greatest pivotal tool impacts in recent years. Where does it sit in the corporate culture and how does it accelerate growth or value for the organization? What’s the value in employees being social with one another? Being responsible for implementing our SBS system I’ve come to appreciate SBS and can shed some light on social. The water-cooler for the 21st century.
But what IS SBS? In general terms it’s an amalgam of wikis, blogs, discussions, areas, spaces, groups, and the better ones include profiling, twittering, built-in IM and project collaboration areas. All of these functionalities are wrapped up under a single interface and can be shared out as widgets in various stages, or permissions, across the organization. If you already have a wiki, blog, forum, some project collaboration, then you’re already social to a degree, but a SBS system integrates it all together to harness that data in a meaningful delivery mechanism.
Foremost in embracing SBS is to accept that social provides value to the company. Primarily, there is tangible ROI in absorbing legacy systems and indexing their content. If you’re an organization that leverages search, you’ll see how truly important this shift can be. Everything that has been mentioned, and you can begin to think about all those water-cooler discussions, is fully searchable and can be retained and mined by others. Secondly, social provides each employee with the ability and tools to contribute. This is advantageous on an efficiency level, might free up much-needed resources, and also streamline delivery of information both internally as well as with business partners. The big value that SBS provides within an organization is how it can relieve communication pressure and resolve questions.
Another feature of SBS to accept is that social is about business. Today’s collaborative environments and project-centric workgroups have a predominant place inside SBS. Tweets, chat’s, IM’s and following colleagues in the organization are all tools to further communicate and embrace employees. Does SBS get your work done for you? No, but it does allow you a centralized integrated environment for you to accelerate your work.
SwissRe recently introduced their Jive SBS system across their operation in more than 20 countries. Swiss Re took a community-centric approach to collaboration and provided a Jive Social Business Software platform for virtual client-facing teams, expert networks, projects, learning groups, and other special interest groups, called Ourspace. Seven weeks into a viral launch more than 61% of potential users were on board, over 375 groups had been formed, 600 people had created content, 1,000 people replied and commented on discussions, and 2,200 people had changed their profiles or joined a group. Very soon, use cases with clear positive business impact emerged. In addition, they have realized cost savings from decommissioning legacy systems and technologies as well as modest savings in travel budgets. After seven months approximately 12,000 users, 80% of all employees, engaged in a social system with over 300,000 clicks per month and 100% of it is business-related content.
But what about the risks? Sure you could be opening up a can of worms by allowing every employee to contribute. Some cultures might not be as able to embrace a solution like SBS as easily as others. Some companies might be far younger in their approach and communication missteps could be disastrous. SBS might launch with lackluster engagement and low usage. Thankfully SBS provides mechanisms to mitigate those risks, moderate content, and provide for an extraordinary viral experience. Largely these are design issues and modern social business software is extremely flexible. Some key design issues when introducing SBS within your organization: Executive sponsorship who actively participate, moderators and content creators who are seen internally as thought leaders, community managers to maximize new opportunities and processes of monitoring to ensure open issues get answered or escalated if necessary. An excellent interface doesn’t hurt either.
The end result of SBS will allow everyone the ability to contribute to the collective information for our organization. This information can then be leveraged by the company to further align to strategy. Once your information practices and corporate strategy are aligned, then you’ll be in an evolved position where SBS seems less like a tool and more of a pervasive method of communicating. Yes, you’ll chat, tweet, IM, update profiles and update discussions but it’s a extraordinarily small price to pay while you get far more information back by being social. That advantage can help accelerate your company.
Doug Mackay is the Director of Information Systems out of our Calgary office.
